Archer: Ladyfingers

April 27, 2017 7:38 AM - Season 8, Episode 4

Mother presents her demands to the Vandertunts and Figgis comes up a new plan. We also learn the story of Aaron Leibowitz.
posted by lmfsilva (12 comments total)

I'm don't know where that running gag came from, but it sure was funny.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:42 AM on April 27, 2017

Was not expecting the Krieger twist at all! Also love the callback to the known fact that Cyril is really hung. They forgot about that one for a while, nice that much like Len Trexler, some of the better parts of the first two seasons are being used again.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:55 PM on April 27, 2017

Wow, that was really brave of them to use subtitles so extensively. But I thought it worked. Classed the joint up a little.

Remember, this is all confabulation within Archer's ischemia damaged brain - but I loved the Krieger twist. Always thought that Archer respected (and actually liked) Krieger.
posted by porpoise at 7:16 PM on April 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

Wow, that was really brave of them to use subtitles so extensively.

There was an extremely sharp contrast between Krieger's German pronunciation and the other German characters, but I can't fault Lucky Yates for it, given this tweet:

While watching tonight's episode of @archerfxx, just remember that before this season, I never spoke a lick of German. I tried my best.

His pronunciation definitely had that "non-German-speaking American plowing through it" quality, but props to him and the creative team for their commitment to the bit.

The other German characters were voiced by people with quite good pronunciation, and (as far as I could tell as a non-native speaker) the German lines were well-written.
posted by jedicus at 8:19 AM on April 28, 2017 [5 favorites]

Also love the callback to the known fact that Cyril is really hung. They forgot about that one for a while, nice that much like Len Trexler, some of the better parts of the first two seasons are being used again.

Are we not doing "Phrasing"?

In case you missed it: "I bet that creepy old joint’s as haunted as Mrs. Muir’s twat" is a reference to the movie or TV show of The Ghost & Mrs. Muir.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:03 PM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]

It was a book, too.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:34 PM on April 28, 2017

I enjoyed the visual reference to the opening scenes of The Big Sleep
posted by Aznable at 4:20 PM on April 28, 2017 [4 favorites]

So that was actual German? I thought I heard them say Superman instead of Ubermensch, but I don't know German and was reading more than listening. I must have just misheard, but it did make me wonder if they were doing that old-timey comic bit where they make it sound like a foreign language without actually using the real words. That would have made sense if Archer didn't actually know german.
posted by willnot at 4:31 PM on April 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

Nope, was definitely German. Yates did make a pretty valiant attempt for a non-speaker.
posted by tracicle at 12:08 AM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Holy shit, yeah, that whole Kreiger bit might be one of my favorite Archer moments ever. That was perfect.
posted by Itaxpica at 8:55 PM on April 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yates did make a pretty valiant attempt for a non-speaker.

Would he have been reading from a script written-out phonetically, rather than actual German?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:35 AM on April 30, 2017

I would have guessed at the time that he was repeating by rote, i.e. someone said it first and he copied, until it came out mostly smoothly. I watched it a few days ago though.

I'm only going by my own experience as a non-native speaker living in a German-speaking country. Maybe a native speaker will have a more educated guess?
posted by tracicle at 10:01 AM on April 30, 2017