Archer Season 7 opens with two homicide detectives at the home of movie star Veronica Deane. The two discuss gay porn star names and the dead body floating in the pool, which they identify as a waiter. It’s not a waiter, it’s Sterling Archer floating facedown, a plume of blood oozing from his stomach. It’s the beginning of Archer Season 7 and Archer is dead.
Set six months earlier, Archer has yet to be murdered by the end of the season premiere. And since he’s the titular character we’ll eventually learn how he was never really dead in the first place… right?
@ArcherFX am I the only one that is saddened by archer being dead at the beginning of the show! #TheEndIsNear
— Casey Harms (@mahazuma) April 1, 2016
The Archer premiere opening mirrors the beginning of noir classic Sunset Boulevard. Unfortunately, this reference doesn’t bode well for Archer, since the body in the pool at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard really is dead. Moreover, the dead man in the pool narrates the whole movie, recording how he wound up murdered in an afterlife voiceover booth.
Is this a hint that Archer will actually share the fate of Sunset Boulevard ’s Joe Gillis?
So Archer's dead pic.twitter.com/fprxaBpmG9
— Banele Matsebula (@Skill_Zozo) April 1, 2016
Since the Archer season premiere also folds in a Vertigo-like double and a blackmail plot, it appears Season 7 is less about Sunset Boulevard specifically and more about recapturing the sun-soaked, but oppressive mood of West Coast noir.
So is Sterling Archer really dead? For now it’s hard to imagine a way for Archer to get out of this one. It appears he’s either drowned or shot. Only our expectation that the main character will survive lead us to conclude ‘No.’
