Every Season of ‘Archer,’ Ranked Worst to Best

James Bond walked to so Archer could fly. Or rather, stumble drunkenly into one international crisis after another. Archer contains multitudes. He’s generally on his worst behavior, but sometimes the best of him shines through. Here are all seasons of Archer ranked worst to best.

14. Season 8

Archer’s eight season is a bit of a departure from the award-winning norm. The entire season takes place entirely in Archer’s imagination while he is in a coma. What sounds like comic gold on paper turns into a bit of a “jump the shark” moment in reality. Archer reimagines himself as a detective in a 1940’s noir story, where he’s trying to solve the murder of his simultaneously beloved ands behated childhood valet Woodhouse. It’s an interesting stab at a backstory for the events that made Archer, but its departure from classic Archer shenanigans leaves a muddled taste in the mouth.

13. Season 9

Similar to Season 8, Season 9 also takes place in the fractured mind of the comatose Archer. In this season Archer imagines himself as a globe trotting adventurer a la Nathan Drake, whose team has found themselves marooned on a dangerous island … called “Danger Island.” It’s a cute story about Archer discovering his appreciation for Pam, but feels like like a bit of a repeat of a glorious earlier season about a similar island adventure.

12. Season 13

There is nothing wrong with Season 13. In fact, it’s Archer at his comic best. Goofy shenanigans abound, revolving around kidnapping plots and intra-spy agency competition. So why doesn’t it quite work as well as other seasons? Because the show is competing with itself at this point. After 12 seasons, it’s a feat for ANY T.V. series to keep fan interest with fresh stories. And while Archer manages to succeed here in fits and starts, it also lacks the emotional gut punches that make earlier seasons so much the sweeter.

11. Season 10

Archer’s coma-imagination seasons are generally some of the weakest seasons that the show has to offer, but the sci-fi inspired tenth season is easily the best of the bunch. Archer takes a few pages out of Star Trek and Futurama‘s books for 1999, a year which holds special significance for fans of the latter series. It’s the year Phillip J. Fry was frozen in time! As a result, the season feels like a call-out to the sci-fi greats of yesteryear, replete with space pirates and the dangers of scientific invention.

10. Season 11

Archer finally wakes up from his three season coma to find that things at his spy agency have changed. Arguably for the better. There’s a new chief and new employees, while some older characters have bitten the bullet. Season 11 approximates the funny but sad tone of Bojack Horseman, as Archer realizes that his glory days are over and he’s faded into irrelevancy. He tries to mount a comeback, to predictably middling results.

9. Season 7

Archer’s 7th season is a departure from the norm, bringing views a season long mystery that Archer’s agency is struggling to crack open. The season begins with a bullet ridden body floating in a pool with barely any clues as to what happened. Whose body is it? Archer’s. It’s a hell of a hook that shook up audience expectations. Despite being a drunken fool, Archer always makes out okay in seasons prior! Season 7 proves that even the dumbest luck runs out.

8. Season 14

Season 14 begins with a bang. The two part episode story that begins the season is one of the series finest, but then it slowly fizzles from there. Season 14 was Archer‘s final season, a surprise decision that blindsided the writers and forced them to have to quickly pivot with three-part series finale Into The Cold. As such, Season 14 isn’t the crowning finale of Archer‘s story, but a prelude to the final act. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still one of Archer‘s best seasons, and there’s plenty of late-game nostalgia that’s sure to give longtime fans a reason to get misty eyed.

7. Season 12

Season 12 packs one of the show’s biggest gut punches, a practical Uncle Iroh Tales of Ba Sing Se event. I’m talking of course about the series farewell to Archer’s boss and mother Mallory Archer, following the death of her voice actor Jessica Walter. The moment is handled beautifully, with the entire cast paying both on an offscreen tribute to the comedy icon, who died in her sleep at 80 years old in her home.

6. Season 5

Archer and the gang go to Miami! While the show’s fifth season is meant to be a parody of Miami Vice, it’s a violent slapstick carnival that feels more like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. After Archer and his coworkers are ousted from The Agency under FBI accusations of treason, the gang are forced to make ends meet in other ways … by selling a metric ton of cocaine that Cheryl managed to somehow procure. It’s peak comedy, but the fifth season also plays well with the deep bonds established between the characters. They need each other, both emotionally and for criminal purposes.

5. Season 4

Season 4 marks the beginning of the bangers, the very best of Archer. It’s spy comedy at its peak, able to compete with genre legends like Austin Powers and Johnny English. The gang has to dismantle hydrogen bombs, stage a rescue mission for a dog, and thwart an assassination attempt on the pope. The cherry on top? The season begins with a Bob’s Burgers crossover episode, where Archer believes that he’s the mild mannered owner of a burger joint and the doting father of Gene, Louise, and Tina.

4. Season 6

Season 6 was peak Archer lunacy, beginning with Archer being ambushed in Borneo by an Imperial Japanese soldier who believes World War II is still being fought. It’s a callout to the real life Teruo Nakamura, a Japanese soldier who didn’t surrender until 1974. Season six only gets ballsier from there, replete with alien invasions, cyborgs, and an Archer embarking on a The Hangover style bender in Las Vegas. The best episode? There are a lot of contenders, but it might just be the Fantastic Voyage homage where the team shrink down in order to fit inside a minisub and destroy a blood clot inside a famous scientist.

3. Season 2

Building atop the foundation laid by a near perfect opening season, Season 2 of Archer somehow managed to ratchet things up a notch. If Season 1 sketched the Agency’s employees as comic caricatures, the second season manages to fill in the finer details. The best episode? Stage Two centers around Archer and his recent (and totally false) breast cancer diagnosis, leading him to embark on a quest to crush a corporation profiting off of cancer meds. The remainder of the gang’s time is spent tracking down copies of director Mallory’s many sex tapes, much to Archer’s chagrin. That’s a side of his mom he’d rather not see.

2. Season 1

Season 1 exploded out of the gate with its The Office meets Austin Powers spy workplace comedy mashup. The first season had a lot of ground to cover, and cover it they did. Archer’s brand of raunchy and irreverent comedy perfectly captured the zeitgeist of 2009, building off the work (and taking some cast members) from comedy hits like Arrested Development. One could argue that the show inspired the American animation’s shift in pairing comedy with more gratuitous displays of violence-as-humor. After all, Archer mercs a dude in the first episode. Without the success of Archer, dark comedy animation hits like Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman might not have existed. Archer took a type of comedy relegated to South Park and gave it an even broader appeal.

1. Season 3

Archer third season is peak. The groundwork of the plot and the comic tone were all hashed out in the first season, while the second season allowed for much needed character development from the cast. The third season was lightning in a bottle, the writers were still hungry to create their best comedy and compete with other shows, but Archer was still new enough that the series didn’t have to worry about rehashing old ideas. The third season features one of Archer’s most character defining moments: finding out his mother dating his man crush Bert Reynolds. Oh, and the death of his fiancé. The surprisingly tragic event causes Archer to spiral off to a desert island and rebrand himself as a One Piece style Pirate King. Archer also has his parents to contend with, as we find out that his (possible) dad Nikolai is a member of the KGB. Just one of Mallory’s many former lovers. And speaking of Mallory, the show’s arguably best character reaches her apex in this season as well. Aside from landing the most former Playgirl model Bert, she also manages to clear her name of involvement in the suspicious death of her former lover, the Prime Minister of Italy. Comic Platinum.