History YMMV / Archer

* ArcFatigue: This is ultimately what spelled the doom of the MythArc of the identity of Archer's father. Way back in Episode 6 of Season 1, Nikolai Jakov (head of the KGB) is established as Archer's father, but then the finale backtracks on this and has him as only one possible candidate of three. Then in part one of Season 2's two-part finale, Archer flies to Russia to get a DNA test with Jakov, but Boris ruins the test, so we still don't know if it's Jakov. Then in Season 3, Malory brings up a completely different guy to any of the other candidates that she believes might be the father. And then (still in the same season) Jakov gets killed off by Barry in a way that leaves no DNA behind, so if Jakov was the father, Archer and the audience would never know. Then in Season 4, when Archer is bitten by a cobra, he flashes back to a memory of meeting his real father when he was a kid, only to forget who it was immediately, and since we never saw his face, we don't who it was either (the only clue is that it doesn't seem to be '''any''' of the pervious candidates, and that is if the memory was even real). After three and a half seasons and five candidates, you will probably be more annoyed than you ever were intrigued. This is what lead series creator Adam Reed to abandon the arc as he felt that the fans no longer cared to find out the answer. After the Season 4 episode, the question is never brought up again.

* ArcFatigue: This is ultimately what spelled the doom of the MythArc of the identity of Archer's father. Way back in episode 6 of season 1, Nikolai Jakov (head of the KGB) is established as Archer's father, but then the finale backtracks on this and has him as only one possible candidate of three. Then in part one of season 2's two-part finale, Archer flies to Russia to get a DNA test with Jakov, but Boris ruins the test, so we still don't know if it's Jakov. Then in season 3, Malory brings up a completely different guy to any of the other candidates that she believes might be the father. And then (still in the same season) Jakov gets killed off by Barry in a way that leaves no DNA behind, so if Jakov was the father, Archer and the audience would never know. Then in season 4, when Archer is bitten by a cobra, he flashes back to a memory of meeting his real father when he was a kid, only to forget who it was immediately, and since we never saw his face, we don't who it was either (the only clue is that it doesn't seem to be '''any''' of the pervious candidates, and that is if the memory was even real). After three and a half seasons and five candidates, you will probably be more annoyed than you ever were intrigued. This is what lead series creator Adam Reed to abandon the arc as he felt that the fans no longer cared to find out the answer. After the season 4 episode, the question is never brought up again.

** Archer's MadeOfIron tendency strikes again in the season 7 finale. Considering Archer was [[spoiler:shot and left bleeding out facedown in a pool for what was probably hours]], it's amazing Archer even survived to slip into a coma.

* AudienceAlienatingEra : Seasons five to ten feature a premise change every season, forgoing the original office comedy and spy agency setting for gimmicky storylines. It gets worse for the [[AllJustADream dream seasons]], since they only have eight episodes, need to spend about three episodes introducing the new plot, settings and characters, and are ultimately done away with entirely by the next season, making it hard for fans to get attached to the new changes. Season eleven goes back to the original setting.

* BadassDecay: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] with Cyril in season 11. In the three years Archer was in a coma, Cyril improved as a field agent so much that he is considered the world's greatest spy, [[spoiler:or at least enough to be targeted for assassination]]. By the end of the season, however, Cyril has regressed to the point that he can barely look at a dead body and he's back to firing his gun with his eyes closed.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The season 5 finale has two fighter pilots talking about tapas and a man who [[NoodleIncident apparently wasn't the father of one of them]].
* BrokenBase: Most fans agree that Barry became a KnightOfCerebus in the season 2 finale. Whether this was the right idea is debatable-either he became a great LoveToHate character and recurring villain, or he just made the show uncomfortably dark and serious.

** All pretenses of investigating who Archer's father is were seemingly dropped back in season three, with the last mention to it being a repressed memory flashback in "Once Bitten" of Archer being visited by his father in his fifth birthday, which doesn't reveal his identity neither to Archer nor the audience (and which may or may not even be a real memory). After that, Malory is uninterested in telling the father nor is Archer interested in finding out or both have seemingly forgotten this was an issue.

* CreatorsPet: A non character example: the season past season 4. The creator actually likes changing the premise every season and doesn't seem to wish for them to end, despite some fans considering that, since then, the show has entered its AudienceAlienatingEra.

** Dr Sklodowska (pronounced skwo-DOV-ska) from season 6's "Drastic Voyage" is actually named after Marie Curie, whose maiden name was Skłodowska (pronounced the same way).

** In the season 2 episode "Movie Star", Rona Thorne loses control of an automatic weapon at the firing range and accidentally shoots Brett. A few years later, an [[http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada/shooting-instructor-dies-after-being-accidentally-shot-girl instructor at a Nevada gun range was shot to death]] under similar circumstances.
** This line by Archer in season six, after [[spoiler:it's revealed in season eight Woodhouse died offscreen]]: "Unless you came home you little scamp. Woodhouse?! Woodhouse! Seriously I hope he didn't die." Also when Mallory tells Archer he won't have [[spoiler:Woodhouse]] to kick around forever.

** During the season one finale, Archer has a microchip implanted into his brain that causes Archer to dive into homicidal rages when in the proximity of ringing cellphones. Four years later, enter ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'', a spy film where the BigBad plots to send a large portion of humanity into homicidal rages using certain frequencies sent out by cell phone microchips. Three years later, the sequel has a trailer where Archer crosses paths with the protagonist, Eggsy.
** In "Double Trouble", the season two finale, Ray reveals he is a defrocked priest but can still legally administer weddings, but ironically can't get married himself. A few months after it aired, New York legalized same-sex marriage.

** The characters spinning around in their chairs in the second episode of season 6, which are also used quite often as reaction images.

** Seasons 8 and 9, being set entirely within Archers coma dreams, effectively boot his relationship with Lana right back to the beginning at the start of each season. [[spoiler:Archer is nevertheless besotted with Dream!Lana on sight, but they simply do not interact very much during the seasons. During season 9 Dream!Lana even spends more time having sex with Dream!Cyril than she does talking to Archer - not that this stops Archer from claiming he was "...This close!" to banging her.]]

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Pam seems to be back to her old self as of season 6, earning back her old fans.
* RomanticPlotTumor: Archer and Lana's relationship is the main focus of season 6, and glossing over several other plots of the episodes. Unfortunately, it takes up so much time that the other characters are often relegated to a few scenes in a B-Plot.

** Seasons 7 and 8, much like season 5, had overarching plotlines tying their episodes together. [[spoiler:Both times these plotlines ultimately get resolved anti-climatically with several questions left unanswered; Longwater was just an insurance scam, Woodhouse was killed by Dutch on a whim. Elements of the fandom have not received this apparent trend into AntiClimax and TheChrisCarterEffect well.]]

* StrangledByTheRedString: [[spoiler:Barry and Katya]] get together because they're [[spoiler:both cyborgs]] despite the fact Barry tried to murder Katya before. {{Deconstruction}} as later episodes show that their relationship is dysfunctional and [[spoiler:Katya]] still holds Archer in higher regards than [[spoiler:Barry]], while season six reveals [[spoiler:Katya left Barry for good]].

** The season four premiere and finale are too short and take too long to set up the plot, so they don't have enough time to properly develop the plot or the new characters. The Belchers -- of whom only Linda has any lines, despite Creator/KristenSchaal and Creator/EugeneMirman appearing in the finale -- are barely seen in the cold open and are almost completely forgotten afterwards, while Captain Murphy has only a few minutes of screentime before [[spoiler:being crushed by the pop machine]]. Both feel like they're each missing a part, as if the premiere was meant to be a two-parter and the finale a three-parter.

*** What worse is with his disappearance, ODIN is also dropped entirely. Despite them being the perfect {{foil}}s to the agency, they show up one more time with Barry, and another time in season four, then never again. This is made even more jarring in season 11 when a brand new rival agency called JUNO appears, with no mention of ODIN. It isn't until season 12 where it's finally explained what happened to them (they were absorbed into another spy agency called the ''International Intelligence Agency'', or IIA)
** Katya. Before her death in season 2 finale, we don't know anything about her background other than working for the KGB and her motivation for defecting (it would have been much more interesting if she defected for other reasons rather than falling in love with Archer) as well as the fact that she didn't have any meaningful interaction with ISIS employees and KGB agents other than Malory, Archer and Krieger. Instead, what we got is a SatelliteLoveInterest overly romantic plot that wasn't even executed well (she literally plans to marry Archer in her second appearance) and ended quickly with her death at the end of the episode. Her death would have been more impactful if we could see how her relationship with Archer develops and how the other ISIS employees react. One got a feeling that she was supposed to be a recurring character in either season two or three to develop her character and plot but was later dropped for some reason.

* UnintentionalUncannyValley: The jerky animation and semi-photorealistic designs can invoke this trope for some. Especially the ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' characters [[CrossOver Archer-fied]], it's not that bad if you watch both and are used to the Archer animation (Even less if you've never seen Bob's Burgers) but watch an entire season (or more) of Bob's Burgers, then watch that Season Premier intro again, it's extremely jarring.

*** While Archer has slept with at least one married woman[[note]]and even then, he did that while he was still mourning his own fiancée who was murdered in front of his eyes at his wedding only three months prior[[/note]], Katya getting together with Barry is played as LaserGuidedKarma to Archer for sleeping with Barry's fiancée back in season 1 specifically. The thing is, the show forgot two very important details. First, Barry wasn't actually engaged to that woman, only "engaged to be engaged". And second, Archer did not know that she was with Barry when he slept with her. In fact, if anything Archer was coaxed into sleeping with her by Len Trexler, who didn't know she was with Barry either. If anyone is to blame, it's her for choosing to sleep with Archer. It's hardly fair to blame Archer for what happened.

*** While Archer is meant to be sympathetic in the season 11 premiere, it comes off as even more than they meant it. [[spoiler:Specifically, while granted Archer was being a dick about Lana's new husband's age, considering that he has been awake for three months and only found out about Robert while meeting him on his first mission back, it is hardly surprising that he doesn't take it very well]].

*** [[spoiler:Lana's baby plot showcases her at her worse. Lana, on the suggestion of Malory, impregnates herself with Archer's sperm without his consent and without breaking up with Cyril first, as the latter is told he's not the father weeks after she became pregnant and the former only learns he is the father after the baby is born. It only gets worse as Archer offers to help her at every turn and she's often been rude to him, even stating she would rather lose the baby than marry him. She attempts to shoot him in the face during birth, but is only stopped because her rifle was empty. While Archer is a goofball, she's been even very nasty to him after AJ's birth: she hired an actor to kidnap AJ and prove his worth as a parent, which got Archer shot. And she expresses no remorse over anything she does]]. What's worse is that a small line from season 4 suggests that Lana purposely [[spoiler:[[TheBabyTrap impregnated herself]] to get Archer's attention.]]
*** In general, Lana constantly berates Archer for not being involved enough in AJ's life, whilst being incredibly disdainful of him whenever he ''does'' attempt to be involved. It's made even worse in season 11, where it is revealed that Lana has sent ''five year old'' AJ away to boarding school ''in Switzerland!'' Despite years of complaining about Archer's dysfunctional personality, at least some of which can be traced to parental neglect and being sent away to school at the same age by Malory, Lana seems hell bent on repeating the same mistakes. Even though Lana is now married to a billionaire who could most definitely afford the best tutors and schools closer to home.
*** HistoryRepeats as, just like in season 1 with Cyril, Lana's [[spoiler:marriage to her husband Robert ends with her walking in on him sleeping with another woman. As before, it was wrong of him to cheat on her and her reaction is actually quite heartbreaking, but when one takes the bigger picture into account, Lana has only herself to blame for her marriage falling apart. Throughout season 12, Lana acts distant and rude towards Robert (to the point that Archer was nicer to him than she was in the episode ''Lowjacked''), and heavily flirted with other men. She went as far as to sort-of cheat on him during a mission in Japan and likely would have cheated on him earlier with Prince Fawd had he not passed out. While Robert shouldn't have cheated on her, Lana was very clearly a nightmare of a wife]].
** Just about the entire team (Pam being the major exception) falls into this in the season 11 premiere when they [[spoiler:get annoyed at Archer for making them unfocused and disorganized while on mission and more or less wish he stayed in his coma. The thing is, Ray and Cyril are the ones who chose to fight about space in the break room fridge while on mission. All Archer did was correctly point out that Cyril has been using literally all the space in the fridge for his protein shakes long before the mission started. And as for Lana, since Archer can hardly be blamed for not taking the news of her marriage very well (see UnintentionallySympathetic), she or one of the others really should have broken the news to him in an easier way instead of on mission]].

* FranchiseOriginalSin: Archer and Lana's status as UnintentionallySympathetic and UnintentionallyUnsympathetic respectively. A lot of the humor in the early seasons relied heavily on Archer's being the [[UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist the king]] of a WorldOfJerkass, making it easier to laugh at his antics and when he suffers for them (especially Lana's revenge on him for being a terrible boyfriend and work colleague). Unfortunately, the writers kept introducing various [[FreudianExcuse Freudian Excuses]] for him, ostensibly to explain why he acted as he did, but they worked too well and gave him plenty of opportunities to demonstrate CharacterDevelopment. The climax of which involved performing an extremely noble HeroicSacrifice for Lana with no ulterior motive. So by the time the show entered its ''Archer Vice'' age, the audience was more-or-less firmly on his side, and all of the suffering he went through stopped being funny, and Lana's flaws became too big to ignore. There was just nowhere left for either character to go, leaving the writers no choice but to contrive reasons for Archer and Lana to backslide into the old status quo, though thoroughly ''less'' entertaining now.

* TheScrappy: [[InsistentTerminology TV's]] Michael Gray, where he is portrayed as a flamboyant, irritating ManChild.

** Lana [[WaterTorture waterboarding]] Archer. While it was supposed to come across as LaserGuidedKarma for backing out on it in training but it is quickly revealed that she actually did it to see if he had feelings for Veronica Deane and refused to stop until he affirmed her suspicions.

* ArcFatigue: This is ultimately what spelled the doom of the MythArc of the identity of Archer's father. Way back in episode 6 of season 1, Nikolai Jakov (head of the KGB) is established as Archer's father, but then the finale backtracks on this and has him as only one possible candidate of three. Then in part one of season 2's two-part finale, Archer flies to Russia to get a DNA test with Jakov, but Boris ruins the test, so we still don't know if it's Jakov. Then in season 3, after Malory starts dating Creator/BurtReynolds, the show drops a few hints that he might be the father (he wasn't one of the other two original candidates). Then in a later episode in that season, Malory brings up a completely different guy to any of the other candidates that she believes might be the father. And then (still in the same season) Jakov gets killed off by Barry in a way that leaves no DNA behind, so if Jakov was the father, Archer and the audience would never know. Then in season 4, when Archer is bitten by a cobra, he flashes back to a memory of meeting his real father when he was a kid, only to forget who it was immediately, and since we never saw his face, we don't who it was either (the only clue is that it doesn't seem to be '''any''' of the pervious candidates, and that is if the memory was even real). After three and a half seasons and 6 candidates, you will probably be more annoyed than you ever were intrigued. This is what lead series creator Adam Reed to abandon the arc as he felt that the fans no longer cared to find out the answer. After the season 4 episode, the question is never brought up again.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** Archer is clinically insane. The countless traumas heaped on him by his mother as he grew up, coupled with the stress of his work as a spy, and compounded by multiple brain injuries (including two cases of meatball surgery, a mind-control chip, and Woodhouse admitting to knocking him out-cold "three or four times a year") has gradually pushed him to further and further extremes of disassociation with reality, up to the point where he has a two-month-long retrograde amnesia episode at the start of the fourth season, where he thinks he's [[WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers Bob]].
** In a flashback we see a young Archer being shuffled out of a child psychiatrist's office by an outraged Malory, calling the doctor a quack, possibly implying that she or Woodhouse noticed something was off about him, but when the doctor said it might be autism, she angrily refused the idea outright. (He also can't figure out a simple shape-sorter game at what we assume is at least 5 years old, going by the details of his birth revealed in ''The Double Deuce").
** Archer's conversation with Ray in "Archer Vice: The Rules of Extraction" may or may not point to him being suicidally depressed.
--->'''Ray:''' How long will it take you, Archer, to admit that you dick around every time we're in danger, just to screw with everybody, because of your complete - no, your utter contempt for your own mortality?!\\
'''Archer:''' I mean, yeah. Duh.
** In "Training Day" Archer hints at being depressed.
--->'''Archer:''' Happy, Cyril?\\
'''Cyril:''' No! No, I'm not happy!\\
'''Archer:''' Well, guess what? Me neither! I mean, big picture, I wouldn't say I'm a happy person.
** Is Archer just a gigantic entitled douchebag who picks on Cyril just because Cyril's meek? Or does Archer's bullying of, and general bad attitude towards, Cyril, stem from Archer's own self-loathing? Archer, like many people in similar situations, ultimately blames himself for his own awful adolescence - his apparent friendlessness due to having been moved to several boarding schools over the years, his mother's constant drinking & overpowering control-freak tendencies in Archer's life and decisions despite a general neglect for her son's ''actual'' mental & emotional well-being, the extremely violent bullying he endured, and especially the father he never knew who (in Archer's mind) must not have loved him & stayed away because of Archer. Cyril is a reflection of how Archer used to be as a child - timid, naïve, and otherwise happy - and as a result, all the anger Archer feels towards himself & his own childhood is projected onto Cyril. Or Archer's just a giant dickhole. Y'know, whichever.
*** Or, is Archer actually trying to connect with Cyril as a friend on a real emotional level, but his extremely dysfunctional upbringing combined with his potential AmbiguousDisorder means that the only way he can try and emotionally bond with him is through what Cyril (fairly correctly) characterizes as bullying?
*** Did Archer know Cyril was a JerkAss all along, or did the constant bullying drive Cyril to that?
** Did Archer ever cheat on Lana or was it just a combination her insecurities about her looks and NeverMyFault tendencies projected on to him. In season 7 while Archer was attracted to Veronica Deane (as was everyone else) that was it. He only kissed her after seeing Lana tried an OperationJealousy after seeing the two having a business conversation. Then later after torturing Archer to find out if he had feelings for her and refused to accept no for an answer. This caused her to break up with Archer (take a break) only to perform OperationJealousy again. Archer’s responded by sleeping with Veronica.
** Cheryl/Carol is actually a sensitive {{woobie}} who's afraid of alienating other people with [[spoiler:her wealth]], and she keeps working at ISIS because her coworkers are her only close friends. The woman's [[spoiler:worth millions, so she obviously doesn't need the paycheck]]. And before she revealed her wealth to them she had probably been at ISIS for at least a few years, but the others didn't find out about [[spoiler:her family]] until late in Season 2. Considering how open she usually is about personal stuff (like her weird fetishes) it seems a little odd that she kept that little detail to herself for so long. Maybe she was afraid of losing her only real friendships.
*** She kept secrets from her coworkers and had an alias (she went by Cheryl Gimple) as a way of preventing people from finding out she was a 'Tunt' heiress, (she is in fact [[spoiler:worth half a billion]]) so she could live a 'normal' life. Once she revealed her identity, this was no longer possible, and she unravelled over the following seasons. This is all part of her arc: mysterious and a little weird, to out-and-out headcase eg. "You're not my supervisor!"
** Alternatively, given Cheryl/Carol's statements about thriving on hatred for those around her (saying it's the only reason she gets out of bed in the morning in the season four premier) and her admission to Sterling that she's aroused not only by physical but also emotional abuse, hanging out with the violent, dysfunctional ISIS crew might be a pleasurable experience for her. When she revealed [[spoiler:that she was loaded]] everyone treated her more favourably and less like a lowly secretary which coincided with her becoming more taunting and mean because she wasn't getting the abuse she craved from them.
*** Yes, she no longer gets the same abuse for being a weird nobody, but these statements and increased dysfunction - as well as her emotional sadism - are later developments (devolution) of her character. She unravels due to her rubber cement addiction and her general insanity increases due to the fact that a 'normal' life is no longer possible for her. She hints heavily that her family had incestuous tendencies, so a lot of her pathologies can be explained ''by her family background'' and thus provide ''another'' reason to want to distance herself from it, and its traumatic grip over her life. Her brother Cecil is no sane fellow by all accounts.
** The ISIS crew in season 6, did they really fail every mission given to them? Or was Holly and Slater setting them up for failure the entire time? Fans tend to go with the latter due to fact that Holly and Slater are very vocal about how they feel the ISIS agents are incompetent and unskilled but repeatedly give them extremely important assignments and use plans that suffer from ComplexityAddiction. Lana even argues this in the season finale. To cap it off, Holly and Slater only hired ISIS to begin with because they were being blackmailed by Malory, giving them reasonable motives to find an excuse to get rid of them.
** Archer is in love with Pam, not Lana. He has the best relationship with Pam out of anyone else in the cast, to the point where he admits she probably his best friend, and she gave him what he considers the best sex of his life. Meanwhile, his relationship with Lana is increasingly toxic and hostile. What's more, in ''Dreamland'' and ''Danger Island'', Pam always takes a prominent role in Archer's coma hallucinations while Lana only occasionally interacts with him. At one point in ''Danger Island'', Archer even muses on the possibility of marrying Pam, much to her mockery. Meanwhile in the same season, Archer admits that his infatuation with Lana is superficial rather than romantic.
** Did the crew really become better more ethical people because Archer was in a coma for three years? Or is because Malory spent those three basically living in Archer's hospital room? Given Malory's methods of running the business, it would be much easier to turn the agency around if she wasn't running it. And if it is a mixture of both, which was the bigger factor?
** Did Cyril really regress back into a wuss because of Archer's return or is it an extension of the emotional break down he had after he found out the robot factory guard he killed in cold blood had children? The next episode supports this a little with Cyril wanting to focus back on office work instead of going on missions.
** Were the crew better people while Archer was in his coma or were they really just pretending everything was fine? Given how no one said anything about Cyril using all the space in the office fridge until Archer brought it up, how Cheryl pretty much immediately gave up on being her new self, and how Lana doesn't know much about her husband of two years and has nothing in common with him, everything clearly wasn't as perfect as they claim it was.
*** Archer himself puts out another theory in the season 11 finale. That instead of actually becoming better people, the crew secretly wanted an excuse to act like their worst selves and just didn't have a good one until Archer came back. Given their reactions to this idea, Archer seems to be onto something.

* CompleteMonster: [[Characters/SterlingArcher Sterling Archer]] dreams up some pretty heinous versions of his then-ArchEnemy Barry Dylan.

* CompleteMonster: Archer dreams up some pretty heinous versions of his then archenemy Barry Dylan.

*** HistoryRepeats as, just like in season 1 with Cyril, Lana's [[spoiler:marriage to her husband Robert ends with her walking in on him sleeping with another woman. As before, it was wrong for him to cheat on her and her reaction is actually quite heartbraking, but when one takes the bigger picture into account, Lana has only herself to blame for her marriage falling apart. Throughout season 12, Lana acts distant and rude toward Robert (to the point that Archer was nicer to him than she was in the episode ''Lowjacked''), and heavily flirted with other men. She when as far as to sort-of cheat on him during a mission to Japan and likely would have cheated on him earlier with Prince Fawd had he not passed out. While Robert shouldn't have cheat on her, Lana was very clearly a nightmare of a wife]].

** Barry sometimes talks to himself and calls himself "Other Barry." Occasionally he refers to himself in the third person. In addition to conversing with himself, he has also been known to speak to, but not with, his gun.

* AmbiguousDisorder:
** Numerous hints throughout the series suggest that Archer has some form of autism: he is often the only character to count bullets during gun fights, including multiple automatic weapons; this coupled with his ability to identify the make and model of firearms allows him to ascertain when enemies are reloading. He is able to identify the make and model of a blender in Fugue and Riffs just by hearing the sound it makes through the phone, and he has an unusual affinity for animals and is able to 'converse' with Babou and Kazak. Archer also shows an inability to pick up on social clues and a lack of empathy on the cognitive level, rather than being void of it entirely, eats baby aspirin, and seems to be unable to dress himself without help from Woodhouse. Another characteristic is his voice, which stays very monotone and changes only in response to strong emotions, particularly rage. The possibility of Archer being on the autism spectrum is directly addressed in the episode Coyote Lovely; when asked if he is autistic, Archer first mocks Lana for suggesting it, but after identifying Border Patrol's Ruger 6s and realising they were out (after being ''shot in the back'') he remarks, "Holy shit, maybe I am autistic?" before collapsing.
** Barry sometimes talks to himself and calls himself "Other Barry." Occasionally he refers to himself in the third person. In addition to conversing with himself, he has also been known to speak to, but not with, his gun.

* {{Shipping}}: Since pretty much every member of the main cast has at least some ShipTease with someone else, this is inevitable.

** ''[[WesternAnimation/ArcherDreamland Dreamland]]'': [[AxCrazy "Dutch" Dylan]] is a [[PsychoForHire psychotic enforcer]] to gangster Len Trexler. Having killed Archer's partner just to watch him die, Dutch enjoys performing hits and dissolves his victims' bodies in acid to sate his blood thirst. After being crippled and having his limbs replaced with mechanical ones, Dutch takes vengeance upon Trexler for the surgery by killing all of his underlings to pose their corpses in a [[LastSupperSteal grizzly parody]] of ''Art/TheLastSupper'', and later tries to murder Archer and all of his allies to avenge his injury.

** ''[[WesternAnimation/ArcherDreamland Dreamland]]'': [[AxCrazy "Dutch" Dylan]] is a [[PsychoForHire psychotic enforcer]] to gangster Len Trexler. Having killed Archer's partner just to watch him die, Dutch enjoys performing hits and dissolves his victims' bodies in acid to sate his blood thirst. Striking out on his own after being crippled and having his limbs replaced with mechanical ones, Dutch takes vengeance upon Trexler for the surgery by killing all of his underlings to pose their corpses, and later tries to murder Archer and all of his allies to avenge his injury.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Cheryl's craziness, outbursts and general oddness are suggested to stem from some mental disorders. She gets aroused by emotional and physical violence, is extremely aggressive, constantly tries to call attention to herself. In "Sea Tunt Part 1", her brother Cecil says she's always been nuts and had been getting worse over time, but he had no idea how bad it was. It is implied that most of her family are either crazy or perverted.

* WinBackTheCrowd: The common consensus on Season 11 (the season after Adam Reed stepped down) is that it's a great improvement on the previous seasons, even if not quite in line with the first three seasons. The comedy is sharper than the coma seasons, and new ideas are explored.

* CreatorsPet: A non character example: the season past season 4. The creator actually likes changing the premise every season and doesn't seem to wish for them to end, despite some fans considering that, since then, the show has entered its DorkAge.

* DorkAge: Season five and beyond feature a premise change every season, forgoing the original office comedy and spy agency setting for gimmicky storylines. It gets worse for the [[AllJustADream dream seasons]], since they only have eight episodes, need to spend about three episodes introducing the new plot, settings and characters, and are ultimately done away with entirely by the next season, making it hard for fans to get attached to the new changes.

* UncannyValley: The jerky animation and semi-photorealistic designs can invoke this trope for some. Especially the ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'' characters [[CrossOver Archer-fied]], it's not that bad if you watch both and are used to the Archer animation (Even less if you've never seen Bob's Burgers) but watch an entire season (or more) of Bob's Burgers, then watch that Season Premier intro again, it's extremely jarring.

** Dr Sklodowska (pronounced skwo-DOV-ska) from season 6's "Fantastic Voyage" is actually named after Marie Curie, whose maiden name was Skłodowska (pronounced the same way).

* FoeYay: Malory and the heads of various rival organizations, including ODIN and the KGB.