Coming off a streak of Triple A Archer episodes (yes, the A stands for Awesome), "Jeu Monegasque" didn't even stand a chance to win me over.  Especially, when the episode was heavy on the Bond-parody side of things as the gang took a trip to Monaco.

We all know how I feel about these spy-heavy, stand-alone adventure.  Don't?  Then just check out my review of "Swiss Miss."  Fine, I knew you were too lazy.  Hint: not a fan.

It's not to say I didn't enjoy the gang's trip to the tiny country, but Archer is always at its strongest when it's stuck at the office or has most of the gang put together.  Sure the show is a spy parody at its heart, but those make for some of the surprisingly weaker episodes.

I'm not sure when Gillette got promoted to such a field agent that he comes along for all the adventures, but I'm glad he was.  Yes, I realize it was probably this season as he tagged along during "Swiss Miss," but helped back from base during the epic "Skytanic."

Either way, Gillette makes a fantastic addition to Lana and Archer.  This episode he happened to shine as he stole one of Malory's signature suits and dressed in drag... leaving his signature 'stache.  When given the chance to change?  Nah, he's good.  When the rocket launchers enter the car chase?  Suddenly car problems.  Fantastic field agent.

Speaking of car chases, I was actually fairly impressed with the animation.  Between the shaky camera effect and the overall quality of the scene, it almost felt like I was watching a different show than the one that featured the cheesy snow mobile chase scene. 

That said, Archer will never have the animation quality of other modern day episodes of say Family Guy's recent high definition space adventures.  So it's probably best to leave the fancy car chases and action sequences to the movies.

Luckily, the ISIS gang kept things consistently funny in all their brief cutaway scenes in the B story.  Between Pam's blow jobs, err printers, and Krieger's auctioning of ISIS equipment, the idiots had us laughing.

Who are we kidding, we know this review is eventually going to turn into a list of my favorite Archer jokes and references, so let's just hop into a list:

• Love the nods to previous episodes with Archer's tattoos, the choke-bot, and Cheryl's insane wealth from last week.
• How did Archer pull off that heist without a turtleneck!?
• Naming the racers from the Grand Prix Biv, Bell and DeVoe.
• Benoit.  Balls.  Archer did really nail that one in the end.
• Why was Archer dressed like Hitler?
• Who are you, Carrie Nation?

And I apologize for this review coming up the morning after, but I ran out of screeners... until they arrived today.  So, sorry and uh... hey, Gummi Bears all around!

Eric Hochberger is the programmer of TV Fanatic, so please forgive his mediocre writing. His programming is far better. Follow him on Twitter and/or email him. Just don't request threaded comments. They're coming.