[8.0/10] I love me some “people go crazy in space” episodes! As usual for this season, this one feels like a mash-up of other sci-fi stories, with the usual Archer dusting of banter and humor added in. I’m not sure what the titular cube is a reference to exactly, but there’s a lot of Alien here, and not just because someone tries to suffocate someone else with a magazine. It also comes off like an homage to what seems like half a dozen “Riker goes crazy” episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
But it manages to be intriguing, funny, and scary in equal measure. The cube is actually a really neat sci-fi object du jour. The mystery of its presence, the way it reacts to aggression and swallows of Cheryl, and its sudden and inexplicable disappearance make it a cool little anomaly.
At the same time, this was an episode with a lot of laughs. The group banter over what the cube would turn out to be was amazing. (I particularly liked Mallory’s contributions with “Are those our only two options? Magnets or ghosts?) This is a good Pam episode as well, between her “space phrasing” and the gag about the ranch tub. Again, the dialogue was on point in this one.
I also loved the realness and mindscrew qualities of Archer losing his grip on reality. Archer losing it, turning his gun on his friends, hurting Lana, and doing other insane stuff turns out to be really frightening, in a way that the show doesn't shy away from. There’s also the fascinating way he keeps seeing everybody blip into their real world outfits and not knowing how to deal with it. Plus we get the brief return of Woodhouse who, maybe just because of the liquor, starts to make this feel like a Shining situation.
Overall, this is one of the scarier episodes of the show, and one of the funnier episodes of the season, with promise for big stuff to come given the brief if potent glimpses of things going on in the real world intruding into Archer’s fantasy land. Color me intrigued!
What the hell happened to the cube?
Why is it the episode when Archer starts "losing" his mind is when the series stops sucking quite so hard after three seasons?
Finally that stupid coma detour is coming to an end!!!
Review by Paladin5150BlockedParent2019-07-25T07:38:26Z
Stellar episode! And we may have had a preview of how they are going to segue Archer back from his various fugue state coma-land adventures back into the "real world", (unless, during the ensuing seasons, he has been all dead, instead of mostly dead, which would have meant he was still slightly alive. However that doesn't quite track because if if he was ALL dead, where would these alternate realities have been emanating from? Ipso Facto, , he must just be MOSTLY dead, that is, SLIGHTLY alive, because if he has been ALL dead, the only thing left to be done would have been to go through his pockets for loose change and valuables, which would have made for ONE boring episode.) as his "going crazy" during the episode causes him to see them configured as we knew them before his (mostly dead) dream sequences.
Nice hat tip / head fakes to Alien and Event Horizon, (in the form of Cubert) and, even Star Trek, backhandedly, with Mothers questioning of how Krieger's Alienized "Tricorder", can perform so many different functions in one package. Fun stuff.
And who didn't let out an "Awwwww," in their best Pam voice, at the episode ending appearance of an old friend?????