Archer, Lana, Pam, and Woodhouse are off to Rome to stop an assassination attempt on the Pope.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Archer says that he prepared for the mission by watching Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, which he found to be underrated.
- Can Not Keep A Secret: Pam at the end of the episode, even when "sworn under God".
- Corrupt Church: The Pope is supposedly going to be assassinated by a radical faction of the Swiss Guard (In actuality, by hitmen hired by Cardinal Corelli, the frontrunner to succeed the current Pope).
- Foreshadowing: The paper Ron is reading displays "Sealab offline". Which would become very important come the next episode.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Cardinal Corelli hired ISIS as a ploy to divert suspicion from himself, and counting on them to bungle the protection job. For once, they don't totally screw up.
- Incompetence, Inc.: The reason why ISIS was hired for this mission in the first place was solely because of their reputation of this trope. Though they avert it this time, protecting the Pope, they try to avoid explaining this to Malory. Naturally, Pam Can Not Keep A Secret.
- Identical Stranger: Woodhouse and the Pope. They make use of it in their plan.
- Mistaken for Gay: After making a snide remark about how "gay" Italy is due to the lack of cool escape vehicles on hand, Archer turns and starts to apologize to the Pope, who misinterprets and thinks that Archer is gay and offers to pardon him for it if he saves his life.
- Pedophile Priest: Cheryl speculates that being abused by a priest may explain Cyril's apparent terror at anything related to the Church. Cyril however denies being abused and claims that he faked his fear as a rationale for not having to go on yet another mission with Archer. At least in the case of the latter claim, there is some doubt whether Cyril is telling the truth given he freaked out about seeing Lana in an S&M nun outfit.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The Pope seems like a nice enough fellow. When an annoyed Archer complains about him getting chummy with Pam, a Lutheran, the Pope even comments that "Luther had some valid complaints".
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Woodhouse tries to flee once he learns that he's actually brought to Italy (not Little Italy) and that he's being used as a decoy in an assassination attempt.
- Too Dumb to Live: Archer believes, based on pictures of the Swiss Guard in ceremonial attire, that the assassins will be armed with nothing but halberds. Thus he did not bother to bring any guns, not even his Walther.Archer: It was ruining the lines of my cassock!
