Archer, Lana, and Zara travel to England to stop a smuggler from stealing a possibly-cursed artifact. Meanwhile, at the Agency, Pam realizes her main job as HR isn't as glamorous as working on the field.
This episode includes examples of:
- Absurd Phobia: Zara happens to have a fear for curses, ghosts, and hoodoo. Archer points this out.
- Accidental Truth: Zara tries to make her point about Pam's offensive attempt at an English accent by putting on a stereotypical southern US accent and mentioning stereotypical American foods and her Uncle Cletus. This falls flat because Pam actually does have an Uncle Cletus who does talk exactly like that.
- Air Quotes: Lana does this when calling Clarissa and the other museum employees the “stuff-takers”. Zara points out that it’s okay for her to just say colonizers.
- Blood from the Mouth: As Archer continues to make fun of Zara about believing in the curse, she tells him he won’t still be laughing when he’s coughing up blood. Archer disagrees and says that he will be.Archer: Wait, can you laugh and cough up blood at the same time?
- Later, after getting hurt during his and Ibadan’s fake fight, Archer does indeed laugh while coughing up blood and is happy to be proven right.
- Blunt "No": Lana’s response when Archer gets the idea to use AJ as his kid sidekick.
- Cursed Item: Apparently, the Golden Plaque curses anyone who touches it. Zara truly believes it's cursed. Archer doesn't, until he's unable to get erect and have sex with Clarissa.
- Dramatic Thunder: Thunder and lightning come out of nowhere when Zara is talking to Lana about the curse.
- Expy: Ibadan Peters is an Adventurer Archaeologist entirely in the vein of Indiana Jones. He has a bola he improbably gets use out of as a grappling hook, a Kid Sidekick of an ethnicity different from him, and an accessory that gets left behind a closing door during his escape that he retrieves at the last second. The main distinction is instead of conflict with Nazis to insure artifacts go to museums, he's stealing from museums to return artifacts to their countries of origin.
- Fake a Fight: Ibadan and Archer fake fight to distract the cops so Lana can give another replica plaque to Clarissa and Ibadan & Half-Pint can escape back to Nigeria with the real one.
- Fakin' MacGuffin: When Archer throws the plaque down on a table and it shatters, the group realizes that it was just stone painted with gold paint. It turns out that Ibadan had replaced the real plaque with a replica and is now in possession of it.
- The Highwayman: The artifact smuggler tries to steal the cursed plaque by robbing the truck Archer and Clarissa are driving as it's speeding down the road. Archer even calls him this specifically.
- Heartwarming Orphan: Half-Pint, the Kid Sidekick, is indebted to Ibadan for taking him off the streets and teaching him to be helpful in heists, which only makes the idea of harming the kid even harder to the trio.
- Hero Antagonist: The robbed museums across England happen to own a lot of artifacts that aren't rightfully theirs and have taken them for themselves (under "the law of finders keepers," as Zara puts it). Ibadan is stealing them to return them all to their native places.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Zara calls Clarissa “Skanky Poppins” while talking in the bar with Lana right before Clarissa comes stomping back down stairs, annoyed with Archer for not being able to get it up.
- Indy Hat Roll: As part of his Indy-shtick, Ibadan Peters has a scarf that gets left behind a descending door in his first appearance that he retrieves at the last second.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When Lana worries that the cops are going to shoot Ibadan and ruin their plan, Zara tries to reassure her that cops in England don’t carry guns but is cut off by a cop shooting a gun at them.
- Kid Sidekick: The smuggler Ibadan Peters has a little kid who assists him in his heists. Archer himself wishes to have his own kid sidekick and brings up AJ, though Lana shoots him down quickly.
- Kids Driving Cars: Half-Pint steals a cop car for him and Ibadan to use to escape Clarissa and the police.
- Kneel, Push, Trip: This seems to be Ibadan and Half-Pint’s signature move.
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: Clarissa tells Lana that apprehending Ibadan will make her look good to the school board, very obviously threatening to influence the board to not let AJ into Abernathy if Lana doesn’t do what she’s told. Regardless, she ends her threat with “Do you understand what I mean?” anyway.Lana: You’re pretty much just directly sayin’ it, so yes. If you catch my drift.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: When Archer cannot get an erection to have sex with Clarissa, he blames it on the curse to cause this. But the moment Archer denies that the curse existed, Lana points out that he had a case of impotence, which horrifies the man.
- Mirror Character:
- Zara continues to display this when compared to Archer, as she finds Clarissa a snob only when she introduced herself in a "posh" friendly manner. She also mocks Lana for not finding the museum keeping secrets about the artifacts strange, and reveals having several an Absurd Phobia like Archer's irrational fear of sharks being anywhere in the sea.
- For her part, Lana continues being another Malory by working personally for the mission just to get something out of it (being a letter of recommendation for AJ to get into a prestigious school).
- N-Word Privileges: Zara is offended at Pam's poor attempt at an English accent, and Archer defends it as not offensive because England is a mostly white country. Lana interjects that he definitely doesn't get to decide that.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: Discussed. Cheryl tells Pam that she did her own assessment of the agency’s employees by ranking them on who’d be most useful in an apocalypse. She ranks them all the same because they’d all be food.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Ibadan’s partner is just a little kid, but he’s able to push Archer around without a problem. He’s even called “Half-Pint”.Archer: How is that little kid so strong?!
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The fact that Pam is head of HR who hasn't done any actual HR work since season one, if not her first appearance, forms the B-plot of the episode. She has to evaluate every new hire for the revitalized agency and she completely balks at the task, completely ignorant of what HR does and bored out of her mind compared to field work.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Zara calls Lana out pretty hard in this episode: “Here’s where you messed up: You took this job for personal benefit but chose to ignore an obvious morality issue, you let an unhinged rich idiot come along and gave her the power to tell us what to do, and we’re dealing with some kind of curse that’s likely eating our insides away as we speak…And really, this was all to get something you wanted.”
- Sarcasm-Blind: When Clarissa tries to argue that the Nigerian artifacts belong to the museum because they’ve had them for generations, Zara replies “Ah yes, the law of finders keepers”. The sarcasm of this statement completely goes over Archer’s head.Archer: Wait, is that the law here? Because I just found this beer…
- Secretly Selfish: Lana tries to make it seem like she took the museum job in order for the agency to be “good guys” for once. However, as Cheryl points out, it’s actually because the museum curator is on the board of a pretentious school Lana wants to get AJ into.
- Skewed Priorities: The whole reason Lana is even tagging along is because the museum curator also happens to be part of the board of the prestigious Abernathy school that could accept AJ, so she wants to put a good word for her by joining the mission, something Zara points out to her face when she even gave power to Clarissa to boss them around. To make matters worse for her morals, it's implied she wants to do something to the smuggler's Kid Sidekick.
- Thrill Seeker:
- Clarissa becomes very excited with the mission and especially smitten with Archer, until that spark dies down when Archer is unable to get erect for sex, much to her chagrin.
- Pam realizes that being an HR work is not as glamorous as being a field agent.
- Unimpressive Progress Reveal: After Pam recruits Cheryl, Cyril, and Krieger to help her with employee assessments, clips are shown of each of them conducting interviews. When they’re finished, they say they’ve been at it for so long that they must be close to getting through all the assessments, only for the camera to pan out and show that they’ve only gotten through three (Krieger’s interviewee fainted before he could finish) and a huge stack still waits for them to do.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ibadan Peterson’s motive for stealing artifacts from the museum is because they all come from Nigeria and he believes they should be returned to their rightful home. Lana and Zara are less than pleased to be working for Clarissa when they find out about this.
- Western Zodiac: When Archer makes fun of Zara’s belief in the occult, she blames it on his zodiac sign.Archer: Oh, you’re one of those.Zara: Such a Capricorn thing to say.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Pam’s British accent is absolutely horrible and Zara is right to be offended by it.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Another reference to Indiana Jones, Ibadan says “Voles. Why did it have to be voles?” after falling into a box filled with the rodents.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Archer and Zara find it hard to do anything against Ibadan because his kid sidekick is involved and find the idea of even putting him behind bars too much. Lana is a bit less lenient, apparently.
