Archer will finally climax—phrasing!—with a three-episode finale event in December
Archer: Into The Cold will bring the long-running spy comedy to a close on December 17
Aux News Archer
After 14 years on television—becoming one of cable’s longest-running (and frequently best) animated comedies in the process—FX/FXX’s Archer is preparing to go out with a bang, and not a whimper. As announced at New York Comic Con this week, the Adam Reed-created spy series will end its 14-season run on TV this December, with a three-episode “finale event” titled Archer: Into The Cold. Specifically, the series will run the event on FX and FXX on December 17, before moving over to Hulu the next day, giving a suitably attention-grabbing send-off for a show that’s been such a huge part of the FX brand for so long.
As we noted in our pre-air review of its first four episodes, the show’s 14th season arrived with a kick of new energy, with a new character—Natalie Dew’s former Interpol agent Zara—and a new dynamic, as Aisha Tyler’s Lana stepped up to lead The Agency, and H. Jon Benjamin’s Sterling Archer adjusted to not always being the best spy in the room. (Judy Greer’s Cheryl/Carol, meanwhile, remained completely, and delightfully, insane.)
Although it’s weathered a lot of changes over the years—including a three-season detour into Archer’s coma-based dreams, and the departure of Reed as the show’s main writer a few years back—Archer has continued to truck along, producing at least a handful of tremendously funny episodes every year it’s been on the air. It’s nice to see the series getting a proper send-off, especially since its last regular episode, released back on October 11, ended on a cliffhanger, with the U.N. ordering The Agency to be shuttered, and all of our favorite spies put out of a job.
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While it would have been a very Adam Reed style thing to do to have the show abruptly end with a character just dejectedly going “Well…shit” I’m glad its going to get more closure. We actually got pretty deep in to the lives of most of these characters, especially Archer and Lana, and it’d be nice to get some better story elements that, while maybe not showing us exactly, at least point us towards what their lives will be like after the show ends.
After watching ep 14.08, I assumed that was the finale, because as you say, it would be very on-brand to simply end things with “yep, spy shit’s over” and that’s the end of it. But I’m also glad to hear that there’ll be a more formal wrap-up, because somehow I haven’t gotten tired of these characters after 14 seasons.
That’s the obvious headline to go with, but still, props for actually using it.
I’m glad they’re getting more than the absolute failure of a ‘finale’ that the last episode represented.I’m a little less optimistic in that this season has pretty much broken my love for the show. I once forced my ex to befriend our neighbors with cable so I could watch the show. Now I’m debating if I’m willing to tune in to see how much more the show can mess with what I used to enjoy.
Ah, this is good to know because the “final” episode that aired on Wednesday seemed like a really odd (and bland) way to end the series. Not sure why they billed it as the finale and then doing a NYCC announcement instead of just doing this from the start
BTW, it’d be super cool if yall would review the finale. kthxbye
It’s a pity it’s ending. After the mostly mediocre “coma” seasons (and honestly season 7 mostly wasn’t great either), it was finally putting out a lot of good episodes – and Season 14 was killing it. Every episode this season was good – not like Season 3 where virtually every single episode was one of the best episodes the show has ever done (besides the Burt Reynolds one, which was fine), but still a very high floor of quality. Oh, well. It’s not a movie or another season, but a three-part send-off finale is still pretty cool. The strength of Archer has always been that it has a simply phenomenal ensemble cast of characters when they’re all together*, and I hope the finale leans into it. * You can see it especially in the episode “Vision Quest”: easily a “Top Ten Archer episodes” episode, and it’s literally just the ensemble (except Mallory) stuck inside an elevator for 20 minutes.