In a show where even the good guys aren’t that good,
you can only imagine how evil the villains have to be. Or in a world of moral ambiguity,
do some of them actually have more wholesome motivation than our quote unquote “heroes?”
Hi, I’m Caleb from WickedBinge and today we’ll be ranking Archer Villains from Bad to Evil.
For this list we will be looking at Archer villains across ALL seasons
of the show and breaking them up into three categories; The Bad, The Worse and The Evil.
Since some of the middle seasons are not strictly in the Archer canon,
we will be analyzing villains from those seasons in their respective worlds,
and providing as much context as Sterling’s coma state will allow.
One final thing for any Carols/Cheryls/Cristals and Cherlenes in the audience (since this
should go without saying), but a huge spoiler warning is in effect.
With all that said let’s come out to play-ay-ay!
First up are ‘The Bad.’ These are the antagonists from the show that we don’t think
are that evil. Through incompetence, weak motivation, or redemptive acts,
these are the villains that could be forgiven.
Winning the spot for most Bad is Len Trexler.
Len is one of three people that Mallory tells Archer could be his father.
He also just so happens to be the head of the rival spy agency; Odin.
We have to be careful about how we discuss Odin on this list. From their embossed business cards
to their employee perks, Odin seems like the nicer place to work. And aside from attempting
to steal business – it really seems like Isis is the one responsible for all the shady dealings.
If we talk about Len too much, we might have to end up putting Mallory on this list instead.
After him we have Krenshaw//Kremensky.
You might remember him from the pilot episode. Unlike a lot of the villains
we’ve chosen for this list, he was pretty much a one off character.
Perhaps it was his creepy nature, or just the fact that he was the show’s first antagonist,
but he made an impression with us despite not being around for long. The fact that he was
a mole having infiltrated ISIS headquarters during a fake mole investigation? Well that
was just the perfect bit of espionage to set the stage for all the madness that was yet to come.
Though we found him iconic enough to make the list, we didn’t find him particularly evil.
Because of his short run on the show he wasn’t fleshed out as much as some of his peers on this
list, but the fact that he was working for the KGB makes him a good candidate to be, at least, bad.
Following him is Mr. Rompers.
No, he’s not getting preferential treatment just because Cheryl is in love with him.
The fact of the matter is that while Mr. Rompers and his clown
crew may look intimidating and wield big guns, they’re just not that bad.
Especially in comparison to some of the people we have coming up.
They didn’t kill hostages. They weren’t interested in murdering anyone. The entire gang was only
there to steal one necklace. Despite the fact that it became a huge situation with authorities
(probably because of the value of the necklace) they really weren’t doing that much damage.
We hate to even compare the two situations,
but Archer technically does more damage during the robbery than the clowns do.
Following our creepy clowns is Nikolai Jakov, head of the KGB.
This is the second one of Archer’s potential fathers to make the villains list.
(And don’t worry, he’s the last. That we know of.)
While he may not be the only character to hold the position as head of the KGB throughout the show,
he’s definitely the most connected to the job.
It’s part of his identity right up until the time that he defects.
And even though we’re sure we don’t have to tell you this, the KGB aren’t exactly good.
Taking so much pride in running such a corrupt and violent organization
definitely gives him a villainous air about him. Jeez – that’s something we could also
say about his on again off again partner, Mallory.
The more we think about it, the more we think she really should be on this list.
But, we digress.
Back to the character at hand, Nikolai has more screen time than any villain in this tier. His
organization makes him an antagonist on its own, but he has other faults as well. Specifically,
he’s part of the corruption problem. Not only does he carry on an affair with Mallory,
a foreign intelligence agent, he also uses KGB men and equipment to keep tabs on her.
It’s unprofessional, yes, but it’s also a huge violation of her trust.
That’s somewhat of a theme in their relationship.
This is all before we mention the arc where he abducts Archer. After believing that Sterling is
a son Mallory has been keeping from him well into adulthood, he grows attached to the idea. When he
finds out there’s only a one in three chance that he’s actually the father, he decides to
abduct Sterling, get a DNA test, and kill him as revenge should they not be biologically related.
Pretty harsh.
Still, he does end up having a heart to heart with Archer and actually making up for some
of what he did. He was killed before the completion of his redemption arc,
but as we already mentioned, he had defected and was planning on helping out the US intelligence
bases rather than continue to work with the KGB under insane new leadership.
Next up is Captain Murphy.
Isolation can do some strange things to us humans. Even Lana Kane, who has been sent down to make
sure he can’t detonate the missiles he’s been threatening, has to feel sorry for Captain Murphy.
She asks how long he’s been alone down there – and the answer probably should have been “too long.”
So, in that regard he already has some of our sympathy.
But he also has a good motive for, well, threatening to kill everybody.
Captain Murphy, whose underwater lab has forced him to work in close
proximity to aquatic creatures, wants their mistreatment to stop. The environmental
impact of his demands would have been a huge win for the planet
if he hadn’t been accidentally thwarted by Sterling’s lack of interest in gun safety.
While his demands were extreme (and his threats would have caused mass casualties) we understand
what pushed him over the edge of sanity. It can be infuriating how little people in
power care about environmental issues, and you know they’re never going to have to see
the consequences of their actions up close and personal – like someone who works in a sea lab.
Rounding out the tier is someone much, MUCH worse; Glenda McMillan Price.
She was featured in the tenth season of Archer, also known as Archer: 1999.
This means that she was from a parallel, science-fiction based Archer universe.
But even in a world where Pam is an alien and Mallory is sometimes a hologram,
we think cannibalism is still probably frowned upon.
As is convincing your crew to kill themselves so that you can have fresh meat.
This is what makes Glenda McMillan Price a villain.
And under normal circumstances we’d probably put her a lot closer to the evil category.
What gives us pause is that before she was a crazed cannibal stranded
inside the belly of a space beast; she was a famous and beloved humanitarian.
That’s more than we can say for most of the villains on this show.
Actually, it’s more than we can say for most of the characters on this show. Period.
It doesn’t excuse her actions, of course, but it does give her a redeemable side. Plus,
we don’t think she’s entirely to blame for her terrible actions. She resorted to cannibalism
waaaaaaay before she needed to, but we’re pretty sure space madness is a real thing.
If having your ship swallowed whole can’t bring it about, we don’t know what can.
Her good side is showcased for a final time as she ultimately sacrifices herself
so that the others can escape. If only there had been someone there to record her altruism.
We move on now to ‘The Worse.’ These are the villains who aren’t the worst of the worst,
but lack the redeeming qualities of those in our top tier.
Kicking things off here is Conway Stern.
Is that his real name? Maybe.
We’ve come across this character three times in the show and he is shrouded in mystery
and mistrust in each scenario. First he double crossed ISIS, then he double crossed the CIA,
and the third time he’s just straight up working for the bad guy.
Just when you think you know what to expect from Conway, you’re surprised.
His lack of loyalty might be enough to get him into the middle tier on its own,
but he’s also a pretty capable person. He never wins, exactly,
but his means are deadly and his plans are surprisingly competent.
It’s not his fault that he always seems to be thwarted by losing a limb.
Following just behind him is Barry 6.
This was another villain from Archer:1999 and
this time it was a familiar face – or familiar voice, rather. Barry’s back!
While he also wasn’t in the show for very long, we thought it would be worth mentioning.
Despite having much of the same design as the “real world Barry” and being
arguably stronger – we actually think Barry 6 was less impressive in his world.
It’s partially thanks to the science fiction setting. It’s not as impressive
to have cyborg strength when you’re fighting Holograms and
aliens and everyone has access to at least a little bit of lethal tech.
But we also feel underwhelmed by Barry 6 because his appearance was so
fleeting and so early. We were constantly being introduced to
bigger and more intimidating threats, which made this discount terminator seem less impressive.
Next up is one of the illusive female villains of the show; Reiko.
We considered putting her a little higher on the list because unlike
many of the antagonists in the show, she has actually succeeded in an evil plan.
Through flashbacks we get to see that she got close to Archer while he was in training and
successfully murdered his mentor. It left scars in Sterling so deep that he’d actually repressed
the memory until the two ended up facing off again, where she was finally bested.
The main reason she didn’t make it higher onto our list is because she only had a one arc episode
that didn’t give us much time to get to know her. Without fleshed out motivations, or a true sense
of what she’s capable of, she didn’t leave as much of an impression as some of the upcomers.
The show also sets her up for failure as a memorable villain by building her and
her story up too high before letting her be so easily defeated. (Though
we did love the twist that she was not the aforementioned Love of Archer’s.)
And rounding out the tier we have the Pirates.
They were difficult to rank.
On the one hand, they’re just living their life the best way that they know how. They
have a code of conduct that they follow, rules, a community, and even a thriving lacrosse rivalry.
On the other hand, that way of life does rely on taking things from others.
There’s murder, theft, ransoming, and no small amount of violence.
It’s more or less what you would expect from a community of pirates – something
that Archer seems to forget during his brief stint as Pirate King.
And finally we have ‘The Evil.” These are the worst of the worst – to the extent they
even made Mallory’s people look like the good guys they’re supposed to be.
First up is Seigbert Fuchs (aka Nazi Cyril.)
He made his appearance in the 9th season of Archer, also known as Archer: Danger Island.
Seigbert Fuchs is a nazi commander that Archer dreams up during the wildest year of his coma.
He just so happens to look and sound like Cyril.
Though Archer has always seen Cyril as being inferior and incompetent,
Seigbert Fuchs is dangerously effective. He is on the island
trying to steal a radioactive idol from the princess there so that he can give it to Hitler.
He commands a troop of nazi’s who are on the island. He successfully wages
war against Archer and a native tribe of cannibals. He also brings a mech suit to
the final showdown where he succeeds in pulling Archer along to his death.
Not only was he impressive by Cyril standards – but since he succeeded in killing Sterling (even
if it was just a dream Sterling) that makes him one of the more impressive villains of the show.
Following him is Peregrine.
Peregrine may have been underwhelming in her season 11 premiere as a renowned art thief.
She hired the agency, there’s a twist, she’s thwarted by the group’s incompetence,
and berates them a little with her villain reveal.
Honestly, this is standard Archer time and we wouldn’t have thought
to put her on the list at all had that been it.
But later in that same season, Peregrine comes back for revenge.
Whereas a lot of revenge plots in this show involved lots of blood,
violence, and casualties, Peregrine is ice cold. She goes right for the child.
She kidnaps and ransoms Archer and Lana’s daughter; AJ.
This is especially hard since Archer hasn’t seen his daughter since waking up from his coma,
and Lana has residual guilt for sending her to boarding school. Even once Peregrine has been
found out and caught up to, she isn’t done. We learn she never had any intention to return AJ,
wanting instead to keep her and raise her to assassinate her parents for abandoning her.
Of course, that doesn’t come to pass and Peregrine is thwarted.
But it was a pretty messed up plan and we’re surprised she made it as far into
the scheme as she did. While it may not have been super difficult to bring her down,
we have to respect the evil nature of anyone that is depraved enough to make Lana finally rampage.
After her we have the Space Mutineers.
So we have given some leniency on this list for isolation-related madness.
We’ve given some for environmental disaster related stress. We’ve even
let some villains slide by as just “bad” because of their general incompetence.
Since season three’s space mutineers check all those boxes,
you may be surprised to see them still in the evil section.
Despite the fact that they’d been going crazy on a space station and were
led to drastic actions over fear of the dwindling resources on earth – their plan to fix it was so
heinous that we don’t even care if it failed. They’re evil for planning it.
They hired ISIS not to come deal with the mutiny as they had originally claimed,
but to essentially be slaves in their new mars colony. They chose Lana for the mission because
she would be the best “breeding stock” and wanted to make her the new mother of mars.
Their plan for everyone else was just to use them as forced labor while they built their colony.
Obviously this doesn’t work. The mutineers weren’t even the biggest
threat that arc if we’re being honest. But we just couldn’t give a pass to this
kind of behavior because if their plan had worked it would have been horrific.
Taking the Bronze Medal of Evil is Franny Delaney.
Franny Delaney left a huge impact despite having only a couple minutes of screen time.
He was head of the Irish mob – which would have earned him consideration
for this list all on its own had he not also been pure evil.
During the show’s second season he comes up with one of the darkest scams of the entire series;
frauding cancer patients.
His men are replacing the very expensive cancer medication with sucrose, selling the
real medicine on the blackvmarket. Not only is this greedy – it’s endangering the lives of all
the cancer patients who think they’re taking life saving medicine but are just getting sugar pills.
It caused the death of at least one patient, Ruth, and we dread to think
how many others died or were affected by this particular bit of villainy. This guy was evil
enough to actually get us on board with an Archer rampage – how messed up is that?
But unfortunately there is worse to come.
The Silver Medal of Evil goes to Fabian.
This one is kind of disappointing to put here. Fabian lacks a lot of the presence and
impact that the other villains from this tier have in abundance. You see him several
times before his true nature is revealed and each encounter is rather lackluster.
Don’t get us wrong, we like the concept of Fabian.
He is head of the IIA which is the new rival for Mallory’s agency in season 12.
He is buying up smaller spy agencies, poaching agents,
and essentially becoming the spy equivalent of an evil corporation under capitalist America.
On paper he’s a great villain.
In practice we felt like a lot of the conflict he added to the show was overshadowed by the
more poignant themes of Archer coming to grips with himself as a person.
Sterling’s competitive edge and paranoia might have been a more
interesting finale antagonist – and it was an idea that they played with.
At the end of the season Fabian tries to recruit Archer and they have a bit of dialogue about
Archer not wanting to team up with the bad guys. Fabian laughs at the idea that he’s
the bad guy and it gives Sterling a moment of reflection. It was a mature, nuanced moment
for the show that was undermined when Fabian follows it up by laying out his evil plan.
While it may have disappointed some audiences, it was more than enough to earn Fabian a high spot on
this list. Because taking over the world with a spy agency conglomerate? That’s pretty evil and
Fabian is good at it. He gets awfully close and if it weren’t for Sterling, he would have succeeded.
While we’re at it, let’s take just a moment to analyze his personality. Despite being successful,
and having a cheerful outer coating, he really isn’t a good person. He’s arrogant, self involved,
and doesn’t care about the damage his words do to other people. He’s actually a lot like Archer
used to be – which makes sense as he repeatedly points out how much he used to idolize Sterling.
It was very interesting to have an Archer-esque
villain in a season where Archer finally seems to be growing up.
But there is still one villain worse.
The Gold Medal of Evil goes to “Other” Barry Dylan.
You had to see this one coming, right?
Barry and Sterling’s rivalry is one of the staples of the show. Their dynamic evolved throughout the
years, going through several iconic stages. While Barry 6 may have been underwhelming due
to the scope of the world, his inspiration of Barry Dylan was absolutely terrifying.
He starts off as just a rival agent. He works for a different spy organization and
has resentment toward Archer for a mission they once did together where Sterling let him fall
and Barry’s legs were badly broken. The mistrust and bitterness continues to grow
over his next several appearances.
Archer sleeps with his fiancee, pushing Barry to try and execute a hit on him. When that doesn’t
work the two are thrust together again, and once again, Sterling allows him to fall.
This time Barry loses more than just some leg function. Luckily for him (unluckily for
Sterling) the KGB brings him back as a cyborg. His quirky habit of talking to himself evolves
into a full evil alter ego “other Barry” who is intent on making Archer suffer as he has suffered.
This leads to space fights, terminator fights, army of cyborg fights,
and honestly just a lot of the most iconic moments from the show.
In Season 11 we learn that there is a distinction between “Barry” and “Other Barry.”
Barry has worked to improve himself and get a hold of his murderous tendancies
after being reuinted with his mother – and that’s one of the reasons why
we differentiated that “Other Barry” is the one to take the gold medal of evil.
He also, sadly, prevails over regular Barry to make a return in season 12
where he is just as angry and unstoppable as ever.
That’s been it! Our list of Archer Villains from bad to evil. Who did you think was the
worst villain? Let us know in the comments down below, as well as what other videos you’d like to
see us cover. While you’re down there don’t forget to like and subscribe and as always – stay wicked.