The team plotted to free Archer, who was being held hostage by lisping corporate shill Fabian (voiced by What We Do in the Shadows’ Kayvan Novak) and Archer’s evil cyborg nemesis Barry. Archer’s mother Malory, played by the late Jessica Walter, was absent for the majority of the episode, with Lana revealing she was “distraught” over her son’s kidnapping, but she did appear midway through to kick a little butt and beat up Fabian and his goons in a surprise attack.
“I guess the old gal’s still got it,” she remarked later. (Walter did, according to reports, record nearly all of her Season 12 dialogue before her death in March.) Malory later assisted the crew in annihilating Barry, but she vanished before the final battle. Archer and his friends were able to flee… only to discover that Fabian had purchased their spy agency through a shell company. In a touching epilogue, Archer discovers a letter addressed to him in Malory’s desk, which states, “I thought it would be prudent to make my own exit.
” She made the decision that “it’s time to pass the torch,” she added. “Make sure you don’t burn yourself with it.” Malory later assisted the crew in annihilating Barry, but she vanished before the final battle. Archer and his friends were able to flee… only to discover that Fabian had purchased their spy agency through a shell company. In a touching epilogue, Archer discovers a letter addressed to him in Malory’s desk, which states, “I thought it would be prudent to make my own exit.
” She made the decision that “it’s time to pass the torch,” she added. “Make sure you don’t burn yourself with it.” As we saw Malory and her husband Ron Cadillac lounging on a tropical beach sipping cocktails and holding hands, she promised that “wherever I am, I’ll be watching you.” (To add to the poignancy, Walter’s real-life husband Ron Leibman, who died in 2019, provided the voice for Ron Cadillac.) “In Loving Memory of Jessica Walter,” read the title card at the end of the episode. But how did the producers pull off that final scene? “We collected Jessica and Ron’s lines from every season of Archer and combed through them, selecting those we thought would foster the feeling we were trying to evoke,” executive producer Casey Willis tells TVLine. We collaborated with [series creator] Adam Reed to create a tribute to our beloved ‘Malory.'”
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