For the past few seasons, Archer has gone buck wild—well, buck wilder—with a series of increasingly outlandish fantastical takes on its motley crew of spies, from film noir detectives to outer space. But at Comic-Con last night, the team behind the show announced that the series would get an eleventh season...with a pretty huge change.
The reason why Archer has taken a three-season sojourn into the realm of the absurd, of course, has been because Archer himself has been imagining each season’s escapades in his subconscious, having been in a coma since the climax of season seven. But as Indiewire reports, at Comic-Con the Archer crew showed off the final five minutes of season 10's finale after the surprise announcement of a season 11 renewal to set fans up for what’s to come...
The clip which saw Archer finally battle his nemesis for this season, Barry, in space. Except, mid-battle, Archer’s ship suddenly, violently explodes...and Archer—the real, actual Archer—finally wakes from his coma. Three years have passed while he recovered, and while the fate of the rest of the gang is being kept under wraps until season 11, his mother Mallory has been at his bedside ever since he was rendered comatose.
For a show that was getting increasingly bizarre with its format, this marks a return to the spy-fi the series was first known for lampooning, as close to a “back to basics” approach that something as wonderfully bonkers as Archer can get. But it’s kind of amazing that after three long seasons of surprising us with how deep down the fantastical rabbit hole the show was willing to stretch itself—and, honestly, the fact we thought it was getting to the point that the show would wrap up before Archer ever woke up, given season 10 was meant to be the end—the biggest surprise Archer could bring to Comic-Con this year was a return to its roots.
The 11th season of Archer is set to air on FXX in 2020. The ninth and final episode of season 10, Archer: 1999, will air July 31.
For more, make sure you’re following us on our new Instagram @io9dotcom.