Archer, Season 4 Finale ("Sea Tunt," Part 1 and 2)

Archer season finales and premieres have let me to expect Big Things. In this case, it was just a lot of fun. Not that there's anything wrong with it. In fact, I'm still chuckling over Kristen Schaal's line about "Here, lemme jailbreak your phone! It's a totally reversible process! Ohhh, bricked it!" And Jon Hamm's final line, "Just like the gypsy woman said."

Nevertheless, I'm sure I'm not alone in having expected Barry and Katja. Their whole deal is one of the most intriguing aspects of the show at this point. Partly, it must be said, because the show so rarely visits that storyline. (Some parts of the show are certainly getting threadbare, like Mallory and Sterling's respective drinking problems.)

Instead we got Jon Hamm as an inept and power-mad captain. I think he was supposed to read as "insane," but he struck me more as just plain "dumb." But as The AV Club review points out, "This whole season has been about ineffectuality - particularly the ineffectuality of ISIS - so why not close things out with the world's most ineffectual villain?"

From an artwork perspective, although most of the show was perfunctory, the scenes where the submersible approached and docked with Sealab was absolutely gorgeous. The huge, technologically advanced, and yet dead empty facility reminded me of the Venture Compound. I hope it returns in future episodes; it seems like a shame to "build" such a great set, only to throw it away after about ten minutes of show time.

Along the way, the two-part episode riffed on Sealab 2021, The Abyss, and every show with a female lead ever. It also developed Pam into a doomsday prepper, which seems 100 percent fitting.

And so we bid farewell to Archer until next January. Goodbye, Archer - it's going to be a long, boring year without you.

Boop.

Image copyright Archer/FX Networks