I'm in the middle of rewatching s5 again and I truly find it to be my favorite season of the show. Idk if it's because of the dramatic switch in the plot, the amount of new jokes, the different character arcs, or whatever idk--but this season has the least amount of skips for me. I'm still surprised when hearing s5 wasn't well-liked during it's initial run lol. When I get bored of the general plot of the show, I find myself going back to s5 bc it genuinely feels like a breath of fresh air to me.
• We got to see malory slowly reach her breaking point due to her own greed (ron leaving her was the start I believe). I LOVED her bleak, pessimistic rants during the 3-part cyrayarcher storyline. It felt very theatrical and showed us she's not as cold and all-knowing as she portrayed herself in earlier seasons.
• Archer consistently trying to prove himself as the "world's best agent" while simultaneously failing in a makeshift cartel because he's desperate for action and fantasy + juggling the fact he still has deeply rooted feelings for lana and her safety as she's now with child
• Lana literally being pregnant and putting up with the group's shit despite worrying for future AJ's safety + "I can't leave YOU stupid" (🥺❤️💔)
• Krieger being an actual clone and coming to terms with the fact his clones are evil. And then having to fight against them and his "natural dna" (ig) in order to save the core group (despite them pretty much showing 0 care for his wellbeing before fleeing San Marcos). Hell, even I thought that was pretty low of everyone. When you think about it, no one in the show seems to actually like krieger. Wow. Not until the post-coma seasons it seems.
• Get ready for this one lol. I actually found Cyril's personality here to be quite hilarious as he went from being a complete whimp to now being a bitchy whimp. He was so hurt over Lana's pregnancy and I think him sliding in as the group's defense attorney in this season gave him a false sense of confidence. Then he became a dictator for San Marcos for like a week and tried to force juliana (the messy redhead that was with the president inititally) to marry him. I think the theme here is that Cyril is DEEPLY insecure like duh what's new. With that being said I was impressed with him showing us that he's capable of genuinely being a prick (the snarky comments about Lana's pregnancy + the babyshower "gift" holy shit LOL). I liked it in the sense that it was different.
• We enter a higher level of cheryl's (cherlene now) insanity as she's suddenly an aspiring country singer. Honestly there wasn't anything new for us to explore with her character other than her delusion and the fact she has a very dark family ancestry lol. Her side story just propelled the plot further when it needed to. Her dialouge was still extremely off-the-wall and she still had her funny moments as usual ("I don't understand what you're saying" while lana repeatedly explains malory's breakdown and calling a literal war "cherlenemania" 😭 it's simple moments like this that make her so goddamn funny because it shows there's really nothing up there in her head at all + top tier voice acting from mrs greer + #outlawcountry)
• There was a shift in Ray's behavior and I'm not just talking about him being depressed and housebound with paralysis for the first 4 eps. In "Rules of Extraction" he openly resents archer for his immature behavior that puts everyone in danger, and once archer admits it he gets up and reveals he was faking his last appearance as a paraplegic just to mess with him. Then in the plane archer says that he's--phrasing aside--"rubbing off on him". Maybe the silence was used for the joke but I think there was some truth to it because this season, in general, has everyone acting extremely reckless than usual all because of archer and mallory. And plus I'm sure Ray went through his own period of insanity while being wheelchair bound for like 4 months. I think Ray more than likely realized that everything has gone to shit, so why should he care? And his smoking habit kinda symbolized that.
• Oh Pamela. Her cocaine frenzy was actually the cherry on top to this entire season's chaos lol. I don't have much to say on her characterization here because it's literally the most in-your-face change. I believe s5 really wanted to show us how far Pam's unhinged behavior could go. Like we know she's not batshit crazy like cheryl, BUT without having a structured environment like the ISIS office, she's clearly easily self-destructive. And then the weight loss being a MAJOR side effect of the ❄️ and it taking a toll on her--already somewhat low tbh--self esteem 💔 In earlier seasons she's a tough cookie who's aware of her reputation at work and doesn't care about her self image; but really I don't think anyone can withstand all of those insults everyday (in addition to already having a rough-ish childhood due to bullying) and not sustain some sort of damaged and warped view of yourself. She was definitely annoying this season (for the sake of the show ofc) but I still felt bad for her ESPECIALLY when she believed that her new body made people "like" her more (and then archer immediately shoots down that statement and gives her a well-meaning reality check of a speech aww). I find it interesting that in the first episode of s6 the show pretty much confirms Pam now started attending therapy. Like awe how "human" is that (though I'm sure it was just a random statement for humor in the context of the scene). It makes sm sense for her. Now if only the rest of the crew followed through lmao (yes ik archer starts therapy eventually but that's yearsss later).
This probably isn't as deep as I'm writing it out to be BUT it also is, u just gotta believe me (i've been stuck in archer psychosis for nearly 9 months 😁). Anyways I inititally wrote this starting yesterday evening but halfway through I lost the spark. So if it loses "sense" (for lack of a better word idk) towards the end, there's your reason. Season 5 is underrated.
titsay
gummygunk
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
pixelskylines
areudirty
