Archer: Sleepers Wake

May 4, 2017 4:07 AM - Season 8, Episode 5

Archers sets the ransom exchange, as Lana wants in and Figgis and Poovey try to intercept the money to pay their debt. Barry wakes up to his new reality.
posted by lmfsilva (9 comments total)

I really hope they can use Lana better from now on. This was a good start for her character- now they have to stick it. Idle theory: maybe she is some sort of in dream universe spy for someone and that's why she's at dreamland as a singer?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 5:04 PM on May 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Well, she certainly isn't on Dreamland as a comedian.


Diminishing returns, Cliff!
posted by lmfsilva at 4:26 AM on May 5, 2017 [4 favorites]

I think she's just a standard noir character who is looking for an angle for herself. I wish they had shown her a little more competent; this is a little damning of Archer's opinion of her. Cyril is shown as being about as incompetent as he is in real life, he's just been 'recast' into a dirty cop character. Pam's basically still Pam, in temperament and competency, as is Cheryl. Mother's largely unchanged and Krieger has, if anything, gotten a more sympathetic backstory than we ever had evidence to support in the real world. So having Lana be scheming but maybe not that great about it leaves her, in my read, as the one person in this dream who is less than her real life variant.

Maybe that's in line with Archer's inability to see her good qualities but it's kinda ick.
posted by phearlez at 10:37 AM on May 5, 2017 [4 favorites]

I like the ambiguity with Pam's gender/sexual identity. I guess it stems from how Archer views her, although they have definitely had sex, I seem to recall. Since she has a fairly masculinised backstory with the farming background and basement brawling, and sometimes seems pansexual and talks openly about sex and what makes her "sploosh", Archer views her as a dude. Ish.

Kind of funny to think about that and then her twinset and pearls outfits in the office.
posted by tracicle at 11:43 AM on May 5, 2017

I like the ambiguity with Pam's gender/sexual identity.

I think they more-or-less made a more in the "identifies male" direction with Poovey's reprimand of the Chinese prostitutes living in the apartment..."Someone keeps leaving the seat down." No woman I know of would complain about that.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:50 PM on May 5, 2017 [1 favorite]

Good point, Thorzdad.

I just saw the episode title, Sleepers Wake. How many sleepers (including sleeping agents, *ahem* Lana?) woke in this episode? And does it have any relationship to Archer's coma?
posted by tracicle at 3:37 AM on May 6, 2017

Cecil is just hitting them out of the park this season. I hope we see more of him.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:42 PM on May 7, 2017

We watched the last three episodes in one sitting. Haven't had that many prolonged laughs in a very long time. My gawd, Krieger's fucking cat. I just picture it licking itself and I start smiling.

Lana does seem a bit wasted in this run and I too have issues with her level of competence. But that made me think of Archer asking if she had any Woolite and now I'm laughing to myself again.
posted by Ber at 2:29 PM on May 8, 2017

What does one do with a twenty-dollar bill? Buy a single orange?

Cecil is more out of touch than Lucille Bluth!
posted by Monochrome at 8:21 PM on July 15, 2017