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WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Archer’s Season 12 Episode 6, “Dingo, Baby, Et Cetera,” which aired Sept. 22 on FXX
Archer Season 12 has largely been about fleshing out the world around an aging Sterling Archer and the rest of his allies at the Agency as they juggle an ever-changing world. While it’s been a strong season overall, “Dingo, Baby, Et Cetera” is an entirely different beast for the animated series. Season 12, Episode 6 is a rare dramatic episode of the long-running comedy. While the episode still finds plenty of ways to slip in wild gags, it’s still a stand-out entry from the series. One of the most notable functions of the episode is Krieger, the unpredictable and hilariously weird tech expert, who actually gets to accompany Archer and Lana on their mission. Krieger witnesses one of the most dramatic explorations of Sterling’s character, thanks, in part, to the episode’s extended dive into how he became a callous super-spy.
During an exclusive interview with CBR, Lucky Yates delved into the elements of “Dingo, Baby, Et Cetera” that helped make it such an engrossing episode of the series and shared what it was like to not only see Krieger in the field but to find new layers of Archer’s character.
CBR: So, “Dingo, Baby, Et Cetera” has got enough drama, action, and comedy for a whole season’s worth of stories.
Lucky Yates: It might be my favorite episode of Archer ever. I just watched it again half an hour ago. I watched it last night, and I was like, “All right, I want to watch this one again. I can’t wait to see this one again.” It’s just so beautiful. So much of it is the writing and the direction of it. It’s just so perfectly structured, and a big shout-out to both [episode writer] Mark Ganek and [episode director] Chi Duong Sato. She’s been with Floyd County forever. She’s actually been on Archer a bunch of times, but she’s starting to direct. She just knocked this one out of the park, man. It’s amazing.
Everyone involved really killed it with this one. Some of the shorts in this episode have this feeling… I mean this in the greatest complimentary sense, this feels less like a regular episode of Archer and like the Archer movie.
That’s exactly what I thought.
It’s like a movie because we do get an origin story, right? The transitions between the quote-unquote present day and then the flashbacks and then just the colors and everything about it, it was just exciting and amazing and gorgeous. Just really top-notch across the board. And the jokes all were hilarious in the middle of it all, the zingers being thrown out by the Yakuza boss. So great with being translated. Oh, my God. Everything’s just fantastic in it. I really think it’s like a perfect Archer episode… And Bruce Campbell!
I was not expecting Bruce Campbell, and he’s absolutely perfect as the agent who, maybe more than anyone else, turns out to have defined who Sterling Archer is as a person.
I’ve heard this whole time, like, “Oh yeah, Bruce Campbell’s in this season.” I was like, “He is!?” Because we don’t record together. And so, I didn’t know where he was ever going to end up. And then as soon as you heard his voice on the little Walkman, it was like, “Oh, my God, he’s Archer’s mentor, and that is the most perfect thing.” He gave Archer his style, his catchphrases. It’s so good.
We’ve all known Archer at this point for over ten years. You’ve literally worked with this character for over a decade. But now, there are so many layers revealed about him. What was that like, both as Lucky and Krieger, to learn all that?
Oh, man. Yeah. The depth that this plunges into, all that good character work? It’s the best. You know there’s a lot going on. Even though we really have never dug that hard into it, you just know there’s so much going on with Archer, because on the surface he’s such a dick. He smart-asses his way through everything and is untouchable, but it’s all a guard. When push comes to shove, he will lay down his life on the line for others, and he’s the most caring of them all. So what is in the middle there? There’s got to be so much between those two things… more than just getting to find more and more layers to the character, which is amazing in season 12 that we’re just starting to dig into some cool shit. It’s so great.
Sterling and Lana are both going through such dramatic storylines in this episode, so it sort of falls on Krieger to do the heavy-lifting comedy-wise for the episode. And he even gets to be in the field.
He goes on the mission! He never goes on missions!
He even gets to be in the hero shot of them chasing the Dingo!
I know, because he’s running along. I was thinking, “What’s he going to do?” And then the squid happened, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s what he can do.”
Something else I really love about seeing Krieger in the field at this level is unlike Ray, unlike Cyril, unlike Pam and pretty much everybody else who Archer has been partnered with… Sterling can snark a little bit at Krieger, but there seems to be an awareness of, “I can’t just knock Krieger out. I’m going to need this weirdo.”
He’s ultimately so useful in so many different situations, right? He’s like the Professor at Gilligan’s Island, where he just knows all the things that science does. He knows enough of it to make stuff work.
And as a result, Krieger’s allowed to be reading tentacle porn manga mid-mission.
Loudly.
What’s so interesting about this episode is that it’s so strong despite missing so many elements that are typically thought of with Archer. There’s very little Malory, Cheryl, Pam, Cyril — no Ray to speak of. So much of the show is defined by those group dynamics, but it is ultimately Archer’s show and Archer’s story — and this episode really explored that.
It’s all focused on Archer.
It’s all about his situation and those around him, but also the real b-storyline is Lana and the other agent. Is she going to cheat on her husband or not? But it’s also this thing that sort of mirrors — it’s all about mirroring Archer’s past, which only fuels it all. So it’s still kind of goes back to him. It’s all such delicious character work, digging into who he really is, it just pays off so well. And again, I cannot scream about the brilliant direction of this episode enough. It is just so great. Give Chi all the work!
One of the most impressive elements of Archer has always been that, because it’s so frequently fun and silly, the few times it decides to take things seriously, it lands so effectively. And this episode is a perfect example of that.
He is our American James Bond. He really is. And we should get behind that idea. Yeah, you can have those huge dramatic moments. I think that really came in with the Daniel Craig years, but still, it’s like, he’s such a grounded Bond. And then we’ve got Archer in this episode, who just like, “Oh my God, he is really… There’s a lot that grounds that guy.” This whole season, every time I read a script, I’m like, “Damn, these are really good.” But this one, yeah. I remember being just like, “Wow, this one… Man, this is hot.”
Archer Season 12 airs new episodes at 10 p.m. on FXX, which will be available to stream the next day via FX on Hulu.
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