Plot[]
Synopsis[]
An unplanned vacation forces Lana to accompany Archer, Pam, and Cyril on a mission that quickly goes off the rails.
Summary[]
The episode starts out with a video call between the agency and the leader of Ibiza, Nina. Nina tasks the agency with removing a new super drug from her island in order to revamp the slowly dying economy of the island, which consists of partying and drugs. Lana says that they will make Ibiza "100% cocaine-free", Nina doesn't want this. Zara informs the crew that she will not be able to help out on this mission as she has a vacation that day.
We cut to Archer and Lana walking through the Ibizan jungle, while talking about their thoughts on the idea of "self-care". Eventually they make it to a factory, and whilst talking of self-care they place explosives all over it, but Archer has lost the detonator. Before they can begin looking for it, they are spotted by some guards and call for an evac from Cyril who is flying a helicopter with Pam. As they get on and the Heli flies away, the weird wind patterns of the Mediterranean force Cyril to crash land the Heli in the jungle, and before Lana can finish explaining the teams next steps, the Heli explodes.
Lana attempts to call back to the office where Cheryl and Krieger were left in charge but Cheryl just picks up, and then immediately re-hangs-up the phone. Cheryl is bored out of her mind while Krieger is listing off some of his plans for what they could do while they are in charge, one of said plans includes feeding the office drones human flesh. After Cheryl rejects this idea, she sticks her head out of the main office and gives an encouraging message to the drones, this positive reinforcement might have come close to killing her. The drones do not like how Cheryl and Krieger are acting, and so one suggests that they should strike before Cheryl and Krieger figure out their plan.
We cut back to the group and Lana who is upset her phone calls to the office haven't been answered, Lana, Archer, Cyril, and Pam are all walking through the jungle bickering about the detonator when Archer sees the city through the trees and all of them, except for Lana, come to an unspoken agreement that they will go to said town and take a vacation there.
We cut to the following morning where the group meets up on the beach near the docks. Lana thinks they need to immediately think up a cover story, finish up the mission, and get back to the office. Archer has other plans and puts on his fake moustache and goes to other fishermen and tells them he's a Marlin fisherman whose favorite part of the Marlin is the face. After Archer comes back, having proven his point that they could fit in there, Lana concedes that maybe they could spend some time on the island instead of immediately going back to work, and the crew slowly separates.
We cut to Archer getting ready to go out on a boat fishing, and then jump in time what appears (due to the length of Archers stubble) to be about a week, to see Archer carrying back a net full of fish. Archer brings one of the prize fish from his haul to a bar Pam is working at and sits down with her and begins to discuss finding inner peace at sea, and their thoughts of maybe permanently moving there. Cyril comes in and joins them and appears to be in the same boat as them both. Following this, Lana walks in pissed off that the rest of the crew is making no progress on the mission. She says that if they want to sit there and be useless, she would complete the mission herself.
As Lana walks out she mentions not getting any news back from the office, this leads us to a cut back to the office where we see Krieger in front of Cheryl with a chart which plots the office's productivity. On this chart we see that the productivity in the office has plummeted to a halt, and Kreiger and Cheryl decide to "turn up the heat"[1] on their underlings in the office in order to not be put on a short leash the next time they are put in charge.
We again cut back to Lana mid-mission. Her idea this time is to pose as a local club owner who is there to buy some product for her club. The owner of the factory, Rodrigo, takes Lana with him into his factory which is entirely staffed by naked old men and he shows Lana 2 briefcases, each with its own strand of cocaine, for her to test out. Lana realizes she's in big trouble.
Again we cut back to the bar Pam is employed at and we see Archer with a few other fishermen trying to trade in their catches for a few drinks. Pam informs them that they can't keep paying for everything with this "fish barter system"[1] as the bar doesn't have enough money to pay the electric bill. Pam even says that to keep the lights on thus far she has had to start up a for-profit prison inside the bar. Cyril is in this prison now as he was caught peeping at the mayors daughter. After cutting away from Cyril, back to Archer and Pam, the two begin to ponder whether they really do want to stay and work on Ibiza for the rest of their lives, as the honeymoon phase is beginning to wear off.
While this is going on Lana is in the cocaine factory trying out different strands with Rodrigo. Lana seems to be the only one taking any of the coke and ergo is high as a kite while everyone else there is completely sober. After Lana stops being a "fun-high" Rodrigo reveals that he knew she was a spymaster due to her mispronunciation of Ibiza. Rodrigo orders his guards to "take care" of Lana, Lana thinks quick and throws a bag of cocaine at them, blinding them, as well as making Lana higher and giving her more courage. Lana manages to run out of the room, jump onto the factory's catwalks, take out 4 more guards, and jump out of the building onto a mophead.
Back in the office the underlings are in the breakroom, trying to figure out what Krieger and Cheryl's plan is. While doing this Brenda gets a mysterious call threatening her unless she does some arbitrary work. While on the phone, Brenda and the other co-workers with her slowly make their way to the main office where they see Kurt with Krieger and Cheryl as they are on the phone pretending to threaten Brenda and her cronies. This realization, that Krieger and Cheryl aren't trying to trick anyone, makes the rest of the office underlings go back to normal work and Krieger and Cheryl realize that they might actually get a normal amount of work done that week.
We cut back to the bar where Pam is giving a drink that consists of "mostly diet Shasta"[1] to a customer. The customer immediately gets extremely irate and swipes the drink onto the ground. He then throws a grenade behind the bar and Pam stumbles out as the bar explodes, wondering why he would do that. The next thing we know Pam and Cyril are hiding behind some rubble while the entire town shoots at them. Lana rounds the corner on her mophead and steals an AK-47 or 2 and jumps behind cover with Cyril and Pam. As they are shooting at the townspeople they begin to wonder why the townspeople turned on them so quick, they finally realize that the whole town works for Rodrigo. Rodrigo them comes out from the shadows and confronts the group. At about this time we see Archer with a net on a boat, about to catch a Marlin, when the fish is scared away by the explosion from a grenade thrown by Pam. Archer looks over and sees what's going on but queries with himself on whether he should go and help or not, as he realizes that if he goes Domingo will be dead forever. As he is mulling this over in his head a bullet hits his boat and this causes Archer to immediately start paddling for shore in order to "beat the ass of whoever"[1] shot at his boat.
We cut back to Lana, Cyril, and Pam who have come out with their hands up as they have been surrounded, and decided not to destroy anymore of the old town's architecture. As Rodrigo and his 2 goons walk towards them, Archer comes out from the sea and hits Rodrigo over the head with a paddle, then shoots his 2 goons. After Rodrigo stands back up Lana rushes at him and finishes him off. As the crew is standing there getting mentally ready to go back to the office, Archer reveals to Lana that he has had the detonator the whole time. Lana is pissed off and takes the remote from Archer and blows the factory. They then all get on a boat and head back to the office as Lana realizes that she might need cocaine as her version of "self-help".
Cast[]
- H. Jon Benjamin as Sterling Archer
- Judy Greer as Cheryl Tunt
- Amber Nash as Pam Poovey
- Chris Parnell as Cyril Figgis
- Aisha Tyler as Lana Kane
- Natalie Dew as Zara Khan
- Ricardo Mamood-Vega as Rodrigo
- Tiffany Morgan as Brenda
Cultural References[]
Ibiza is an actual island located off the eastern coast of Spain. The correct pronunciation is actually "Ibitha" as in Spanish the "z" is pronounced "th". Lana is pronouncing Ibiza as the Latin American pronunciation of Ibiza would be; "Ibisa", as Latin American Spanish pronounces "z" as if saying "c".
After Lana incorrectly retorts "Because, dumbass, it's spelt with a Z." Archer retorts with "Ha! Tell that to Peter of Castile, lisping king of Spain, originator of the fricative shift"[1]. Peter of Castile was the king of Spain from 1350 to 1369 and there is an urban legend that the reason Spanish people pronounce "s" as "c" is because he had a lisp, and others copied this lisp in order to sound similar to him. This legend has since been proven false.
After Archer delivers the aforementioned line to Lana, Zara replies with "That's a myth", which is true, and Pam replies to Zara's correction with "I think you mean 'myz'." This is in reference to the British pronunciation of Ibiza as Ibitha.
Towards the end of the episode, when Lana is rushing towards Rodrigo, who has a gun pointed at her, Lana sees the bullets from his gun be fired and thus leans back enough so they go over her head, and she can see the heat trails of the bullets above her. This is a reference to Keanu Reeves' bullet dodging scene from The Matrix.
Zara brings up a loofah when insulting her co-workers' aging skin. A loofah is a bath sponge.
Lana refers to herself as Coltrane and Rodrigo as Miles. Miles and Coltrane is a jazz album by Miles Davis.
Cyril's winds:
- The Sirocco is a hot wind from Northern Africa, across the Mediterranean, and into Southern Europe.
- The Solano is an easterly to south-easterly wind from Northern Africa to Southern Spain, it is an extension of the Sirocco.
- The Leveche is a wind that is consistently near the island of Corsica.
- The Poniente (directly translates to "west" from Spanish) is a northwestern wind that blows along the straits of Gibraltar and along the north-western Mediterranean.
- The Terral wind is a wind that blows from a northwestern direction to Malaga, and is very hot.
Running Gags / Callbacks[]
Archer takes the name "Domingo" instead of "Randy Randerson" while trying to fit in with the fishermen of Ibiza.
Running Gag: After Zara asks "Do you guys not practice self care?", Archer replies with "That would be Cyril's specialty." referring to Cyril's masturbation "addiction".
Continuity: Cyril brings up that he has found the ability, while living in Ibiza as a window washer, to forgive his father.
Continuity[]
While in the shootout at the end of the episode, Cyril asks how Pam is doing around all the cocaine, Pam says she was not proud of that moment in her life, referring to her cocaine addiction in Archer Vice.
Locations[]
- Ibiza
- New York HQ