Samberg plays Rip Digman, an Adventurer Archaeologist in a world where archaeologists are treated as celebrities. Having been betrayed by his partner and lost the love of his life on a job years ago, he finds himself beginning a long climb back to the top with the aid of an eager new assistant. The series premiered on Comedy Central March 22, 2023. A second season has been ordered.
Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2
The following examples will be unearthed in the series:
- Ace Pilot: Swooper Goodfly is one, to the point that "The Mile High Club" is centered around him having to choose between staying with Digman or leaving to pilot the titular airship Utopia after its current pilot, Amelia Earhart, calls him the greatest pilot in the world and her only suitable successor.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: The characters frequently do things that wouldn’t be out of place in an Indiana Jones movie - uncovering lost artifacts, running from traps meant to protect the artifacts, chasing after bad guys who have stolen said artifacts, the works.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In "Fear of GAWD", billionaire and Zane's current boss Quail Eegan tries to take advantage of the accidental destruction of the 10 Commandments and humanity's abandonment of basic ethics by creating his own digital false idol called "GAWD". Despite starting as a digital assistant meant to monitor spending habits, it quickly gains sentience, sees Quail as its father, tries to rebel like a teenager, and then reignites the fear of GAWD in people by threatening to reveal their online search histories if things don't go back to normal. Quail, not wanting to deal with a surrogate teenager, ends up shutting it down in the end.
- Antichrist: In the climax of "The Grail", Bella Torres and Quail's father are possessed by demons, becoming the "Auntie" and "Uncle" Christ and using their powers to start an apocalypse.
- Artifact of Doom: They exist and it's an unspoken rule of archeologists to never donate them to museums, as they'll always be targeted by people seeking to exploit them.
- "Et tu" is about the knife Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar with, cursed to make subordinates that wield it kill their bosses.
- "The Grail" reveals that the Holy Grail Quail obtained is actually the Unholy Grail, which causes Saltine to have horrid visions involving oceans of blood and pigmen when she looks at it too long, and later causes the bodies of Bella Torres and Quail's father to be possessed by demons.
- Artificial Limbs: "The Mile High Club" has Digman's crew taken aboard the titular airship Utopia while searching for Amelia Earhart's plane, where they meet Amelia herself, still alive after 126 years due to replacing parts of her body with these, leaving her with a metal arm and leg as well as jet wings sticking out of her back.
- Becoming the Mask: Rip has a bad habit of getting too in-character when going undercover, as shown in "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet" when he infiltrates an acting troupe under the name Wally Forth and almost immediately forgets who Rip is. Then, as Wally, he's such a dedicated method actor that he breaks his wrist and collarbone before appearing in a medical drama. His friends try to return him to normal by exploiting this trope and hiring Wally to star in a film about Rip Digman, but in the end what really snaps him back to normal is accessing his secret base and seeing his wife Bella's preserved body.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: When Digman raids Quail Eegan's museum in "The Grail", Zane and Trisket confront him and fight back using some of the ancient weaponry on display.
- Came Back Wrong: In "The Grail", Quail revives his father with the Holy Grail, and Digman is about to do the same with his spouse when Saltine interrupts him to warn that it's actually an Artifact of Doom, the Unholy Grail. However, Swooper decides to do it anyways for Rip, which leads to Bella Torres and Quail's father becoming possessed by the "Auntie" Christ and the "Uncle" Christ.
- Cannot Convey Sarcasm: Zane's British accent makes it impossible for most people to tell when he's being sarcastic, which means that when the Pilot ends with him "thanking" Digman for helping him obtain Hammurabi's Hat, the media assumes he's being genuine and museums start sending Digman a bunch of job offers.
- Cliffhanger:
- "Puff People" ends with Saltine quitting her job as Rip's assistant after learning the truth about him preserving his wife's corpse.
- "The Grail", the Season Finale, ends with Rip's wife and Quail's father being possessed by demons and starting an apocalypse, with Rip planning to stop them.
- Compelling Voice: The titular artifact of "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet" is a poem so romantic that anyone reciting it will make anyone listening have an uncontrollable orgasm, including the reciter themself if they lack noise-cancelling headphones.
- Darkest Hour: "Puff People" ends with Saltine leaving Digman to work for Zane after learning the truth about Digman preserving Bella's corpse, leading directly to the events of the Season Finale, "The Grail".
- Deadly Euphemism: In "Fear of GAWD", after encountering the Yeti colony guarding the last remaining spare copy of the Ten Commandments, one of them claims that Swooper's sled dogs were "sent to a farm upstate" while chewing on a large bone. Subverted at the end of the episode when it turns out the farm was real and the dogs are safely returned.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: The Adventurer Archaeologist getting Chased by Angry Natives for stealing an artifact gets deconstructed in the first episode. Digman steals a sacred artifact from a volcano and gets confronted by the legal representative of the modern day citizens who are its owners. When a volcanic boulder interrupts their meeting, Digman hastily exits while proclaiming no longer having to think about the ramifications of his actions. Later, following the trail of a colleague across the globe, the local from each area tells Digman that a cultural artifact of theirs was stolen by his peer, which he cheers, while Saltine eventually tells him this is not laudable behavior.
- Demonic Possession: In "The Grail", the first Season Finale, the bodies of Digman's wife and Quail's father are possessed by, respectively, the "Auntie" and "Uncle" Christ.
- Droit du Seigneur: Digman is happy in the first episode to simply take control of a primitive tribe of neanderthals that worship him, until he learns he has to have sex with all of them, including the men, or else they'll kill him.
- Elaborate Underground Base: At the end of the Pilot, Digman saying he's going to his "secret base" seems to just be his way of saying he's using the bathroom, until a wall in the bathroom opens up and reveals a massive facility complete with his frozen wife on display.
- Enemy Mine: "Puff People" has Saltine working with Zane in order to track down Digman after he gets a hot lead on the Holy Grail's location and ditches her.
- Enfant Terrible: The antagonists of "The Arky Gala" are a group of children that don't want their favorite arcade to be demolished in order to expand the neighboring museum. They hold an entire gala of archaeologists and patrons hostage, threatening to kill them if they don't make the arcade a historical landmark and preserve it. It then turns out that they're actually Ponce de Leon and his followers, with the addictive waters of the Fountain of Youth hidden underneath the arcade.
- Exact Words:
- In "Fear of GAWD", The Fundamentalist Yeti group refuse to lend Rip their spare copy of the Ten Commandments until he's dealt with their enemy, a "child killer". Said enemy turns out to just be running a legal abortion clinic.
- In "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet", when Rip (as "Wally Forth") asks the actor that obtained the titular sonnet where it's being kept, the actor says he'll "take it to the grave". It turns out to be under the stage of his theater, beneath a trapdoor used for Ophelia's grave during their productions of Hamlet.
- Expy: Rip's status as an Adventure Archaeologist very much in the vein of Indiana Jones is lampshaded in the Pilot when he's asked if he has a fear of snakes when a bunch of them are surrounding the lever to a door, and he answers that he loves them because he's "his own unique character".
- Failed a Spot Check: In the climax of "The Grail", Quail is upset upon realizing he hadn't noticed a label on the underside of the Grail he obtained that clearly states "Made In Hell", denoting it as Unholy rather than Holy, before it becomes relevant.
- Faking the Dead: Amelia Earhart claims that the titular airship Utopia of "The Mile High Club" was constructed by the Wright Brothers, who were ashamed at airplanes becoming tools of war and faked their deaths in order to secretly construct a haven for peace-loving aviators.
- Feeling Their Age: "Fear of GAWD" is focused on the consequences of Rip getting older but embarrassed to ask for assistance when he's supposed to be a heroic archaeologist, leading him to accidentally drop and break the Ten Commandments after claiming he doesn't need help carrying them.
- Fixing the Game: "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet" starts with a burly boxer losing a match against a pipsqueak due to having heard the Sonnet the night before and having an energy-draining orgasm. Later, when Digman infiltrates an acting group to track down the Sonnet, they mention they obtained their huge theater headquarters after "a lucky bet", implied to be from the boxing match.
- Fountain of Youth: In the climax of "The Arky Gala", it turns out to be hidden under the arcade that the "kids", actually Ponce de Leon and his conquistadors, wanted to preserve. It also turns out that the energy drink CEO sponsoring the museum expansion knew it all along, and was using it as an excuse to gain access to and privatize it.
- The Fundamentalist: The Yeti colony in "Fear of GAWD" has stayed true to the Ten Commandments copy they've guarded for millennia and adhere to some very outdated values, to the point that they've demonized a nearby Yeti abortion clinic and want Digman to behead the "child-killer".
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Due to everyone attending the titular event in "The Arky Gala" being forced to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, Digman's adventure goes untold and the resulting destruction of the neighboring arcade is reported as a random sinkhole opening up beneath it.
- History Repeats: The Pilot opens with Rip getting betrayed by his assistant Zane during an adventure, and having to choose between getting revenge or getting his wounded wife Bella Torresnote to safety; he picks the former, which ends up becoming a case of My Greatest Failure when Zane escapes and Bella dies. The Pilot's climax has Rip having to choose between getting revenge when Zane steals Hammurabi's Hat from him or saving his new assistant Saltine after Zane shoots her, with him openly acknowledging how My Greatest Second Chance is in play.
- Hollywood Natives: Zigzagged in the first episode. It initially averts the stereotype by depicting natives as modern citizens confronting Digman with legal representation for stealing their cultural artifact. Later exaggerated when Digman discovers an isolated tribe of literal neanderthals that have possession of Hammurabi's helmet, though at least one can speak perfect modern English.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: In "Puff People", Zane ends up marrying Princess Gasolina of the titular Puff People, a woman no taller than his knee, in order to obtain the Grail that is possessed by her people. In "The Grail", they're still married out of love, and he openly enjoys being a "wife guy".
- Inevitable Waterfall: "Et tu" has one at the end of a Venetian canal, when Swooper's trying to help Rip and Saltine escape from Kale Caesar.
- Internal Reveal: "Puff People" ends with Digman revealing to his coworkers that he's keeping his wife frozen in ice while searching for The Holy Grail to cure her, which the audience knew about since the end of the Pilot. Saltine leaves in shock because of it, leading her to work for Zane in the next episode, "The Grail".
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet" has the leader of the acting troupe tell "Wally Forth", who lands the role of Gravedigger #2 in their production of Hamlet, that even the small roles can have vital importance. A random extra with a headband in the back then whoops, and the leader says "Thank you, 'Man with Headband'."
- "The Grail", the Season Finale, ends with Rip stating he's going to tell his team his plan to deal with The Auntie and Uncle Christ "next Season". Rip then clarifies that it's almost midnight on the last day of spring, counting down the seconds until summer begins before starting his speech and getting Interrupted by the End.
- Left the Background Music On: When Digman starts Becoming the Mask in "Shakespeare's Last Sonnet", a dramatic musical sting plays. Saltine then apologizes, as she forgot to mute her phone and it's her ringtone, and Swooper states she should change it because it gives him a great feeling of unease.
- The Lost Lenore: The Pilot opens with Rip Digman's wife Bella getting bit by a poisonous plant during an adventure and dying when Rip tries to get revenge on his treacherous friend instead of taking her to safety. The Pilot's final scene reveals that she's being kept in suspended animation until Rip can find the Holy Grail and cure her.
- The Man Behind the Man: Near the end of the Pilot, Quail Eegan enters a hidden room and presents the retrieved Hammurabi's Hat on an altar, asking an unseen figure if it's to his liking. "The Grail" reveals it's the preserved corpse of his own father who died when Quail was still a teenager, and when Digman finds out while trying to obtain the Grail from him, Quail offers to revive Digman's wife alongside his father with the artifact.
- The Mole: "Et tu" has Roberto, an Italian local that Saltine instantly falls in love with and Rip immediately trusts more than his own assistant due to what happened with Zane, betray them in order to use Brutus' knife for his own ambitious plans.
- Malaproper: "The Grail" shows that Rip has "idiom blindness" that causes him to misinterpret common expressions as referring to his butt. He says "pushing my butt in" instead of "pushing my buttons". Agatha is really frustrated with it, but Swooper convinces her it's easier to humor him.
- Moody Trailer Cover Song: Parodied in the second trailer, with a moody cover of Smash Mouth’s “All Star”.
- Mummies at the Dinner Table:
- "The Pilot" ends with Digman entering his secret sanctuary to talk with his wife, who he's preserved in ice until she can be revived with the Holy Grail.
- "The Grail" reveals that Quail has preserved his own father in an inner sanctum while also searching for the Grail, and is the hidden figure Quail was talking to in his own scene at the end of The Pilot.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Played for laughs in "Et tu", where Digman takes a life for the first time and after a moment of processing goes hysterical. Cut to them flying home on the plane as Digman swears Saltine to never speak of it again.
- Never Be Hurt Again: "Et tu" has Digman struggle to trust Saltine now that she's officially his new assistant, because his previous assistant Zane betrayed him. He manages to overcome his trauma and trust Saltine by the episode's end.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the climax of "The Grail", Swooper arrives on the scene just as Rip has stopped himself from reviving his wife Bella's corpse with the Grail and, not knowing the full story, decides to revive Bella himself. This leads directly to Bella becoming possessed by the "Auntie" Christ and starting an apocalypse.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: As heard in the trailer, Samberg’s voice for Digman is comparable to that of Nicolas Cage.
- Noodle Incident: While trying to dissuade Rip from going undercover in "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet", Swooper states that he always gets too in-character and refers to "The Winnipeg Incident". Saltine has no idea what they're referring to, and neither man wants to elaborate further. At the end of the episode, they finally tell her that it was literally exactly like the adventure they just went on, save for taking place in March instead of May.
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: At the end of "The Grail", Quail is distraught that he's accidentally caused the apocalypse, until he's approached by another curator who invites him into "The Council".
- Piranha Problem: As part of the hostage situation in "The Arky Gala", the kids holding the archaeologists hostage have filled the water feature with piranha, demonstrating their veracity by sticking a crossbow in the water and pulling it out with three chomping at it.
- Pocket Protector: In "Et tu", when Roberto activates the curse of Brutus' knife to make Saltine stab Rip, Saltine has enough control to aim for a wallet full of jerky that Rip keeps in his pocket, preventing a fatal wound.
- Punny Name:
- Saltine is named after a type of cracker, and Trisket, her counterpart working for Zane, has a name homonymous with the "Triscuit" cracker brand.
- Digman's antagonist in "Et tu" is Kale Caesar, a descendant of Julius Caesar that wants to obtain Brutus' Knife before Digman. He inverts Never Heard That One Before by loving when people make "Hail Caesar" jokes, and is also genuinely amused when Digman instead makes a Caesar salad joke. Digman also calls his group "Little Ceasars", but THOSE jokes he's very sick of.
- In "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet", when "Wally Forth" is accepted into the actor group and a list of roles for their upcoming Hamlet performance is posted, the name listed above his is "Curt N. Call" (curtain call).
- Race Against the Clock: "The Grail" has Digman realize that the ice keeping his wife preserved is finally starting to melt, necessitating a raid on Quail Eegan's new museum to steal the Holy Grail from it before that can happen.
- The Rival: Zane Troy, Digman's former assistant turned who backstabbed him during an adventure, is now Digman's greatest rival in the archaeology rankings.
- Sassy Secretary: Rip has his own secretary, Agatha, who tends to speak in a deadpan tone and stresses to Digman that he should take even the jobs he finds demeaning in order to pay their bills.
- Season Finale: "The Grail" is the eighth and final episode of Season One, ending with a Cliffhanger: Quail gets invited to join The Omniscient Council of Vagueness, Bella Torres and Quail's father turn into demonic figures, and Digman starts explaining his plans to deal with them in the "next season" (as spring ends and summer starts).
- Star-Crossed Lovers: "The Arky Gala" has Saltine befriend Trisket, the new assistant to Digman's rival Zane, with Trisket referring to their newfound bond as "Star-Crossed Homies". However, after they end up saving the archaeologists and the patrons from the child-aged kidnappers, Digman's too grateful to stay angry about it, and the episode ends with them playing an arcade game together at Digman's place.
- Smurfing: The Yeti colony in "Fear of GAWD" have a habit of replacing random words with "snow", to the point that Saltine gets confused by the lack of linguistic consistency.
- Team Pet: Rip has his own pet loris, Fleety, that's addicted to methamphetamine and accompanies him on adventures, often providing help such as navigating tunnels to find history's first piece of confetti, which turns out to be the lost part of an ancient map, in "Et tu".
- Team Spirit: "The Arky Gala" has the power of teamwork as a main theme. Rip attempts to win the freedom of the Gala guests from the child-aged kidnappers by beating their leader Hi-Score in a licensed game based on Digman's life (that was so difficult and glitchy, most copies were buried in a New Mexico landfill), only to lose horribly and get saved by Saltine and Trisket. In the episode's climax, Hi-Score admits that the trick to beating the game is playing on two-player because Rip and Bella's combination attack was overpowered, inspiring Rip and Saltine to work together to subdue and de-age the Splunk Energy Drink CEO.
- Teen Genius: Saltine is a student taking an archaeology class from Rip at school before deciding to become his new assistant.
- Tempting Fate: The Pilot begins with a flashback of Digman and his team on a treasure hunt, with a voice over by Digman saying “Legends are rarely real”. Cut to the group running from an erupting volcano with one team member commenting that this legend was real.
- Tracking Device: In the climax of the Pilot, Zane is able to track down Digman and steal Hammurabi's Hat from him because the business card he gave Digman earlier, which Digman never bothered to throw away despite it only containing the words "F--- You", is one of these.
- Training Montage: "Et tu" has a Whole-Plot Reference where Swooper goes through a Top Gun-style sequence in order to train to be a gondolier and rescue Rip.
- Undying Loyalty: Swooper, Digman's personal pilot, is completely devoted to Digman; at the start of "Et tu", he loudly proclaims "I'D DO ANYTHING FOR YOU!"
- Unishment: The British understudy-turned-actor that found "Shakespeare's Lost Sonnet" in the titular episode and used it to commit crimes ends up getting punished by being sent to a penal colony...known as Australia. He remarks to a news reporter that they really should change that law and it's actually quite nice. It does, however, lead to him trying to become the ultimate actor by performing The Tempest during a literal tempest there and drowning from a tidal wave.
- Utopia: "The Mile High Club" has Amelia Earhart refer to the titular city-sized airship as one, as everyone aboard indulges in all of life's greatest pleasures.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In the final scene of "Et tu", Rip throws Brutus' knife into the ocean instead of proceeding with Saltine's multi-step plan to regain fame. It ends up getting caught in the net of a fisherman, who gets taken over by its curse and stabs his captain, leading to the fisherman going to jail and the police giving the knife to Quail Eegan.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: "The Grail" opens with a scene of Quail Eegan's childhood, showing that he used to be an all-star in high school but was disheartened by his father being unimpressed and stating that he'll never own a museum. It's later revealed that Quail was so dedicated to earning his father's respect that, like Digman with Bella, he kept his father preserved after death in the hope of reviving him with the Holy Grail and showing him the museum he now owns.
- Would Hurt a Child: In the climax of "The Arky Gala", the CEO of Splunk Energy Drink shoots Hi-Score, AKA the child-appearing Ponce de Leon, with a crossbow bolt in order to access the Fountain of Youth in order to commercialize it. Then Digman de-ages the CEO of Splunk Energy Drinks into a baby and punches him to death to stop him, with him only snapping back to his old age post-mortem.
