The good thing about the season so far is that much of that classic Archer humor is still here, which makes the show still watchable.
However, the season also has glaring issues, which are most prominent in this episode. Chief among them is that the writers seem to think it's necessary to put down Archer for the sake of propping up Zara, which, aside from not being terribly fun to watch, is also plainly unnecessary.
I will preface this criticism by noting that I actually like Zara as a character. In many ways, she fills the role that Lana played in earlier seasons (i.e., two alpha characters butting heads and quipping with each other) while Lana takes on the more senior role of leading the agency (albeit oftentimes from the field). So my critique is not based on the addition of Zara, but on the "subtraction" from Archer.
Comparing Zara to Lana from previous seasons is useful to demonstrate what I mean. In those seasons, Archer and Lana constantly bickered and fought. But the key difference is that Archer was not constantly comic relief then, nor was Lana better than him 100% of the time, whereas the opposite is true for Zara.
Episode one strikes probably the best balance between Archer and Zara, in that it has them essentially evenly matched. Episode two leans in favor of Zara, by having her successfully trick Archer the entire episode and have him basically make a fool of himself. This episode blows that out of the water and makes Archer a (literally) impotent sideshow while Zara can seemingly do no wrong.
I will finish the season, but I hope the writers realized that the "two competing alphas" dynamic only works if both of them are actually alphas. Otherwise it just reeks of denigrating an older character to make room for a new one, which is simply lazy writing.
However, the season also has glaring issues, which are most prominent in this episode. Chief among them is that the writers seem to think it's necessary to put down Archer for the sake of propping up Zara, which, aside from not being terribly fun to watch, is also plainly unnecessary.
I will preface this criticism by noting that I actually like Zara as a character. In many ways, she fills the role that Lana played in earlier seasons (i.e., two alpha characters butting heads and quipping with each other) while Lana takes on the more senior role of leading the agency (albeit oftentimes from the field). So my critique is not based on the addition of Zara, but on the "subtraction" from Archer.
Comparing Zara to Lana from previous seasons is useful to demonstrate what I mean. In those seasons, Archer and Lana constantly bickered and fought. But the key difference is that Archer was not constantly comic relief then, nor was Lana better than him 100% of the time, whereas the opposite is true for Zara.
Episode one strikes probably the best balance between Archer and Zara, in that it has them essentially evenly matched. Episode two leans in favor of Zara, by having her successfully trick Archer the entire episode and have him basically make a fool of himself. This episode blows that out of the water and makes Archer a (literally) impotent sideshow while Zara can seemingly do no wrong.
I will finish the season, but I hope the writers realized that the "two competing alphas" dynamic only works if both of them are actually alphas. Otherwise it just reeks of denigrating an older character to make room for a new one, which is simply lazy writing.