Well it looks like Archer has successfully gotten over his mourning period in "Heart of Archness: Part II" and it's great to have our Sterling back.

Not that watching Archer's grieving process of tending bar and banging newlyweds was painful last week, but watching him fully in his element as pirate king from the get-go was just more fun.

Normally the middle part of an adventure tends to be the lull.  Yet somehow, part two of "Heart of Archness" proved to be as strong as the first, and if anything, better.

This week we got to really experience David Cross as the pirate captive and Archer's new first mate, Noah.  Not only did Archer play off him so well, but it really became a trifecta when Rip joined back up with them.  

Only on Archer would we hear Rip and Sterling making fun of Noah's anthropology career, while fighting for their lives against a pirate mutiny. With these hilarious guys as their management, how could the pirates have a morale problem?

But seriously, how much research did Adam Reed do related to pirates?  Humor aside, I was just really impressed with the attention to detail.  I mean, not the booty reference.  That was just basic pirate knowledge.  I mean the rest.  

Lana and Gilette, meanwhile, escalated their ridiculous spending and bickering to even more hilarious levels this week.  Between Gilette buying a boat and renting a man servant, their scenes killed me this week.

Also stepping this up this time around?  The ISIS goons.  It wasn't just Archer that realized Cyril and Pam's value this week.  

It was great to see the return of drunk Pam and her freakish tattoo.  Less awesome to have to see her full naked body to get there.  No amount of scotchgard can protect my eyeballs from that.

And Cheryl and Malory?  Rice?  But do I care about Cyril's swiss bank accounts?  Meh.

But as much as I appreciated the parallelism of the "Wooo!" jokes between Archer and Lana, I can't help but feel like they blew a chance for an amazing "danger zone" when Lana came in for the rescue.  And for that, I have to dock some points.

Now, I can't wait to see how our reunited gang escapes.  But really I just wished I bet on Archer's fight against Bucky's girlfriend.  When will these pirates learn?  You don't be against Archer.

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.