Lana makes rookie mistakes as ghosts from Archer's past haunt him on a special mission.
Tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: In a flashback, when the person Archer is supposed to be protecting insults him, Archer actually thinks it's a nice burn and gives him a high five.
- Bar Brawl: Happens in a flashback when Archer and Reiko are on a date.
- By-the-Book Cop: Incredibly, Sterling Archer was once a strait-laced rookie with a brilliant analytical mind and even refusing to drink "to keep myself sharp." Then McGinley got a hold of him...
- Deadly Hug: When Reiko tries to convince Archer that she still has feelings for him, she stabs him in the side as they kiss. Luckily, he literally fires back with his cane's gun.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: McGinley dies in Archer's arms after he's shot by Reiko.
- Dramatic Drop: Three times; the episode opens on a shot of a falling glass, which Archer excuses as a slip. When he reiterates that the mission involves going back to Japan to confront the Dingo, he drops the next glass he poured for himself. Then, during a passionate kiss with Reiko at the bar, Archer dropped the bottle of beer he was holding on the ground.
- Honey Trap: Archer falls victim to this. Reiko seduces him for information on her target and to steal his pass so she can get in close.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- When Lana wants to avoid innocent bystanders getting hurt to get the Dingo, Archer responds by saying that innocent bystanders getting hurt is a common thing in their work, which is accurate.
- While delivered in his usual blasé and immature fashion, Archer does point out that as much as she tries to deny being unfaithful to Robert, Lana's non-physical tryst with another man was still essentially cheating.
- Last-Name Basis: Reiko is the one who started calling Archer by his last name since the name “Sterling” didn’t quite ring with her. After her death in the end, he considered asking Lana to start calling him "Sterling", but then backtracks as he's too used to this trope.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Archer notes that he has too much branding on going by his last name to start going by Sterling.
- Mal Mariée: Showing her continuing dissatisfaction in her marriage with Robert, Lana gets flirty with a married man and almost has sex with him, only getting cold feet at the last moment. However, she proposes an alternative for sex and believes that she technically didn’t cheat on her husband.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: No way McGinley was getting out of Archer's flashback alive.
- Mood Whiplash: In the Cold Opening, a glass of booze dramatically falls to the ground before cutting to the gang and revealing that everything is normal between them and that the glass is revealed to have merely slipped out of Archer's hands. Subverted in that it really was serious because soon as he reiterates what the mission is he drops the next glass he poured himself.
- My Greatest Failure: How Archer sees his failure to capture the Dingo the first time; The Dingo is a lady named Reiko he had a fling with, she killed his fellow agent McGinley and he hesitated when he had her at gun point.
- Noodle Incident: Lana mentions an experiment of Krieger's wherein he creates helmets that can allow dolphins to communicate sexual consent.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In a rare case, Archer is once more laser focused on the mission above all else due to My Greatest Failure. Malory is aware of it and how it is actually a good thing despite her son breaking two of her Steuben glasses.
- Origins Episode: The episode delves into Archer's very first mission as an ISIS field agent and how the running gags involving him (his drinking on the job, his tinnitus, his "I had something for this" catchphrase, and even his Last-Name Basis) came to be.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Archer gives one to Reiko, a.k.a. the Dingo, after shooting her for her above-mentioned Deadly Hug attempt. Notably, he sounds genuinely sad to say it, as if part of him was still holding hope that her offer to run away together was genuine.Archer: I really wish you hadn't done that...[gunshot] ...who knows what could have happened?
- Red Herring: McGinley. At first Archer's flashbacks seem to be implying that he's the Dingo, and that he was grooming Archer to be an assassin as well. This possibility gets further teased when multiple scenes show Archer gained many of his bad traitsnote from him, and McGinley openly admitted that he only cares about who pays him the most. By the end of Archer's flashbacks, the Dingo turns out to have been Reiko, and McGinley (despite his bad traits and questionable advice), was an honest agent who was genuinely just trying to get a young and uptight Archer to loosen up a bit.
- Smoke Out: Reiko uses an actual smoke bomb to get away from Archer, Lana and Krieger (who grudgingly notes how much more effective that is than just shouting "SMOKE BOMB!" and running away).
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Archer initially believes that even after being shot and falling several stories from the roof they're on, Reiko still managed to escape in the end, and that when he and Lana look over the ledge to check on Reiko, she will have mysteriously vanished. Given the complete inability of some of the cast to die (most notably Barry), and the absurd number of life-threatening injuries and ailments Archer has sustained and bounced back from, this isn't a completely absurd belief. However, when he and Lana do look over the edge, they see that Reiko's body is still there and although it isn't shown, she is pretty thoroughly dead. Who knew that television clichés would not apply in real life?
- Whole Episode Flashback: Nearly. At least 50 percent of the episode is a flashback.
