Part 1: Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Archer Is a Lie

PART 1
Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Archer Is a Lie


The premise of the last two seasons of Archer is that Sterling Archer is in a coma, having been shot and left in a swimming pool to die at the end of season 7. Seasons 8 and 9 have therefore been “dream” seasons, where Archer takes place in impossible worlds made up by Sterling’s comatose mind. The premise is a good one; it allowed Archer to try new things that would otherwise be impossible—having Sterling be a 1940s private eye avenging his partner’s death in Archer: Dreamland and having Sterling be a 1930s for-hire pilot in Archer: Danger Island.

But there’s actually a lot of evidence that he didn’t go into a coma at the end of Season 7 after all, but has in fact been in a coma since the end of season 4.

As you may (or may not) recall, season 4 ends with the I.S.I.S. crew (as they were then known) underwater in a sea lab with Captain Murphy, who has just been crushed by a soda machine. They need to swim to safety, but there are only 3 dive suits and 4 people. When Sterling learns Lana is pregnant, he gives her his suit so that she will survive, and he drowns. The team, of course, resuscitate him when they get to safety, and everything is back to normal.

Or is it?

After Sterling is resuscitated, there are huge, improbable changes to the show every season, starting with Season 5, the first season with an alternate title—Archer: Vice. Changes which, frankly, make far more sense if they are only occurring in Sterling’s comatose mind: I.S.I.S. headquarters are blown up and the team forms a drug cartel (season 5), they become a spy agency again in their offices that look exactly the same as they did pre-explosion (season 6), they disband again this time forming a detective agency in California (season 7), Sterling solves a murder mystery as a private investigator in the 1940s (season 8), and Sterling and Pam have an airplane charter business in the 1930s.

The events in seasons 5-9 also borrow heavily from the first four seasons, which suggests that Sterling’s mind is simply repurposing scenarios he is familiar with. In fact, many of the scenarios from seasons 1-4 confessed by the I.S.I.S. agents during their F.B.I. interrogation in the opening episode of season 5 are repeated in the next five seasons: run-ins with a murderous cyborg (S6:E4, & S8:E8), an encounter with the Yakuza (S5:E3), white slavery (S8:E1), defiling a corpse (S8:E2), Cheryl faking her own kidnapping (S8:E2), and Kreiger murdering his own clones (S5:E12).

In addition to these, the later seasons make callbacks to the brain chip used on Len Trexler in S2:E2 (used in S5:E4 on Cheryl), Trinette telling Sterling he is the father of her baby in S2:E3 (like Lana does in S4:E13), actress Rona Thorne who uses Sterling to get away with murder in S2:E7 (like Veronica Deane does in S7:E10), the “geezer” murder mystery involving Woodhouse S2:E5 (which is the plot of season 8), Cyril kidnapping Cheryl for money he owes the I.R.S. in S2:E10 (the same as he does in S8:E2 when he owes Len Trexler money), Cheryl changing her name in S1:E2 (as she does in S5:E4), plus characters such as Conway Sterns, Cecil Tunt, Len Trexler, Trinette McGoon, Charles and Rudi, and Noah. It’s almost as if Sterling’s life is flashing before his eyes.

The biggest clue, however, is how even Sterling doubts he survived the drowning. After he is resuscitated, Lana tells Archer her baby is his and he asks her “Lana, am I just now coming out of a coma from when I drowned saving your life eight months ago?”

From this moment, he seems to understand, to some degree, that everything that is happening isn’t real and holds no real consequences for him. His actions become more and more brazen, and he begins to doubt that he can die. In season 6 Lana asks Sterling “Can you seriously not even grasp the concept of your own mortality?” (S6:E12). In the next episode, Sterling says “I don’t have a death wish, I just don’t believe that I even can die,” (S6:E13), while in season 7 he says “I can’t imagine what it’d be like knowing how you’re going to die. Or even if,” (S7:E3). By season 9, Sterling says “I know it’s kinda hard to grasp, but I might be immortal,” (S9:E1).

And Sterling is right. The most logical explanation for his ability to survive drownings, avalanches, explosions, grenades, multiple gunshot wounds, head trauma, plane crashes, dog attacks, falls down ravines, car crashes, falling trees, and killer cyborgs is that he is immortal. And the most logical explanation for why he is immortal is that everything he has done since the end of season 4 is only taking place in his comatose mind.

Then what, you might be asking yourself, exactly has been going on for the past five seasons? An what will happen next?

To determine what will happen in the upcoming season 10 of Archer, first you have to look at the coma seasons and realize that Sterling has been going through the five stages of grief.