In this week’s episode, Sterling Archer is presented with one of his worst fears. Biting him in the ass for refusing to consider a vasectomy halfway through Season 1, Sterling now faces an enemy that no amount of “totally ninja” moves or black turtlenecks can defeat—a baby.
Apparently, Trinette has gotten pregnant. You may remember her as the “escort” first met during Sterling’s ill-fated attempt at field training Cyril. On the other hand, she claims her baby is Sterling’s and Sterling’s alone. He’s fairly convinced as well, based upon a candybar-wrapper-condom switcheroo. Naturally, having a child would complicate the life of an elite field agent, especially one as toxic and volatile as Sterling, but Malory seems to be the one far more concerned. By her mind, she isn’t ready to have a bastard grandchild welcomed into her family. She has a point though, with that kind of family, they’ll never let her on the board of the MET.
And so, a plan develops. Break into the highly secure vault guarded by ODIN, because, well, ODIN just wants to mess with ISIS at every possible juncture (Barry is still a bit pissed about the broken femur.), and switch out Sterling’s blood sample with that of a third party. Of course, this task must be carried out while fairly woozy and highly intoxicated. Why, you ask? Because ODIN took a liter of Sterling’s blood for the paternity test, at which point he proceeded to have eight or nine melon balls (2 oz melon liqour, 1 oz vodka, 4 oz pineapple juice), according to one of the show’s animators). He had good reason though, it was a party after all. And by a party, I mean a baby shower.
This week’s Archer brought us more of the ISIS team’s drunken shenanigans. Sterling must complete a half-assed covert mission while vastly incapable, Krieger kills an intern, Cyril gets beaten and doped with heroin—before being drained of his blood, and Lana nearly chokes Sheryl to death (though she didn’t seem to mind). All the while, the baby with the father in question remains, and in a drunken change of heart, Malory pressures Sterling to do the right thing, that is, to not switch out his blood sample with Cyril’s. “Maybe I would be a good father….” he considers for a surprisingly long time, “…you know, at some point in the future.”
All in all, it’s another solid episode from the ISIS crew. Where else would I see a team break into a field agent’s apartment to throw his illegitimate child’s baby mama a baby shower? And on top of that, to think it was a good idea. However, the episode makes it painfully obvious from early on that no matter what happened, this baby would belong to Archer. As it turns out, Cyril had a similar candybar-related bedroom mishap, earning him his very first illegitimate escort baby. He switched the blood though, so child support falls to Archer; if only he’d gotten that vasectomy.