TV Review: Archer: "Palace of Intrigue Part I" 5x10

Archer: Vice is on the upswing and it couldn't come at a better time.

With The Rules of Extraction and On The Carpet providing the show with an actual story arc, Archer is at its best when the gang actually has something to do.

When setting out to become a cartel and sell cocaine, Archer became a bit sidetracked in an attempt to really make the story work when it wasn't most of the time.

But there finally seems to be a direction and the show is better off for it.

With On The Carpet setting up ISIS to get involved with the civil war in San Marcos, Palace of Intrigue opens up with Ray flying a plane with Lana, Malory, Sterling, Cyril, and Krieger heading to San Marcos to give the weapons they obtained to Gustavo Calderon. This somehow leads into Sterling bringing up The Breakfast Club and how they are each their own character from the movie: Sterling is Emilio Estevez (obviously), Cyril is Anthony Michael "Nerd", Mallory is Paul Gleason, Krieger's Judd Nelson, and Lana...well...that's up for debate.

She believes she's Molly Ringwald, the rest of them believe she's Ally Sheedy while Charlene is Molly Ringwald.

As usual though, Charlene and Pam tag along for the ride in one of the crates that's supposed to be holding weapons and join in on the conversation. It's all wonderfully pointless.

Lana wonders what exactly they plan on telling Calderon as they made a swap, giving away $6 million worth of cocaine and received $1 million in weapons but, of course, Malory doesn't care. All she wants is to make sure Calderon pays the $1 million for the weapons so they can buy more weapons and ship them to Calderon and repeat the whole process.

Ray lands the plane in San Marcos only for ISIS to be greeted by the police pointing guns at them.

Gustavo Calderon (Fred Armisen) comes from the back and immediately shows interest in Kreiger (which comes up later), and then his men discover Charlene and Pam in a crate.

Lucky for ISIS that Calderon just happens to be Charlene's number one fan.

At Calderon's massive palace, Calderon makes sure that Charlene is comfortable while Malory intervenes to talk money and guns with Calderon. Lana and Pam are stuck sharing a room together as are Ray and Cyril while Archer is in his underwear rapping and making himself a drink in his room. Just then, Archer is greeted by a beautiful maid at his door. Who then rips off her top and he follows as well.

In another part of the palace, Krieger is hunting for towels, Pam is hunting for an ice machine, and Cyril is just along for the journey. Krieger's only covering himself with a tiny towel and in believing he found the towel room (in a restricted area), he opens the door to find something...astonishing.

Three Krieger clones working in a lab.

Sterling walks into a session with Malory and Calderon as they begin to discuss terms involving the the shipment of four American tanks as long as Calderon is willing to pay. Unfortunately, Malory is unaware that the reason why Calderon is shipping his cocaine is so he can pay for the weapons and tanks, meaning there's no money for ISIS. Malory, on the spot, comes up with a reason as to why he has to pay for the weapons -- since the White House has "lost trust he can win the war." While they're talking, Calderon's wife walks into the room and she happens to resemble the woman Archer slept with just moments ago. Her name is Juliana Calderon (voiced by Lauren Cohan who you may know as Maggie from The Walking Dead). Hooray!

Krieger, Pam, and Cyril run away from the room with the clones and wind up running into Archer who is escaping his awkward situation. Pam, Cyril, and Archer end up running in a different direction as Krieger is standing alone in a little towel when he's grabbed and taken into another room by his clones. And that's the last we see of him. Archer runs into Lana who wants to discuss the fact that he mentioned he'll try to change up his act.

He starts to talk about what to do now since he's had sex with Calderon's wife which when Lana just punches him and leaves him on the ground. The whole ISIS group is together again at a dinner with Calderon and his wife (where phrasing comes back finally) as Calderon toasts Charlene for her album selling one million copies...which he bought all of.

Just then, the rebels have broken through Calderon's lines and the group is now being fired at by mortars.

Seeing ISIS back at work is wonderful but what's even better is a group of Krieger's running loose in the palace. Krieger's reaction to the clones is priceless while their reactions to him are even better.

Personally, Krieger is my favorite character so I'm extremely excited to see where that ends up going.

Heading into the next episode I'm interested to see just what happens when Calderon finds out about Archer having sex with his wife (we all know it's going to happen) as well as how ISIS gets out of San Marcos in one piece.

Until next time!