Entertainment
How TV's Raunchiest Adult Animated Show Destroyed Itself
By TeeJay Small
| Published
If you’re a fan of adult animated shows, you’ve almost certainly spent your fair share of hours cackling at FX’s Archer. The series, which premiered in 2009, centers on a team of bumbling spies, who take on missions in between drunken benders, one-night stands, and more quick-witted jokes than your brain can process on a single viewing. At one point in time, I would have considered Archer to be one of the best shows on television. Unfortunately, after airing for 14 seasons, the show lost a lot of magic, and ultimately fizzled out with an underwhelming finale.
Many fans have different opinions on when Archer peaked. Some say that the show fell off in season five, after pivoting from a fairly straightforward raunchy spy show into a vaguely defined crime adventure. Others stopped watching in season eight, when the title character is shot and sent into a multi-season coma. Personally, I find it difficult to pinpoint when the show started going downhill, though a lot of the blame rests on real world events outside of the narrative.
Archer’s Isis Problem
The first four seasons of Archer maintained a thin veneer of continuity, with a few running gags in place to reward binge viewing and eagle-eyed fans. For the most part though, the series was episodic in nature, allowing you to throw any episode on the TV while channel surfing with reckless abandon. Right when the series began to reach mainstream success, the writers had to make a hard pivot. This is because the spy agency in the show is called Isis, which you may recognize as a real-life global terrorism outfit. ISIS wasn’t exactly making headlines in 2009, but as Archer carried on, the group became one of the most talked-about insurgencies, which makes for some really awkward dialogue on a rewatch.
In season five, Archer drops the pretext of the Isis spy agency, and the main cast of characters take up work as mercenaries for the CIA. In doing so, the show takes a hard pivot into serialization, meaning you’d basically have to watch every episode in sequential order to know what’s going on. The jokes still work, the characters are still as chaotic as ever, but some of the magic of Archer’s hyper fast-paced writing is lost in the shuffle. Fast forward to the conclusion of Archer season seven, when Sterling Archer is shot and left for dead, and you have the dreaded coma seasons to look forward to.
Explaining The Coma Seasons
I can’t exactly prove this, but I’m given to think that series creator and showrunner Adam Reed wanted to quit the show and branch out into other stories around season seven of Archer. But, since the series had become such a cash cow for the network, FX insisted on renewing it, even if it meant delivering less cohesive material. The coma seasons aren’t unwatchable- they’d even be considered great in comparison to a lesser show- but they’re distinctly not the Archer that fans know and love. Each of the three coma seasons completely reframe the core cast, as they take on new roles as Neo-noir detectives, island refugees, and even space marines.
My theory about Adam Reed seems to prove true when you consider that he ultimately left the show after a very sloppy season ten. In doing so, Reed enabled new management to wake Sterling Archer up out of his coma, and attempt to return to the status quo. Even though I’m not a fan of the coma seasons, this is where the show goes completely off the rails for me. With the loss of Reed’s acerbic wit and the realization that three seasons of material effectively disappeared into thin air, season 11 feels like a cheap imitation of early Archer.
The Death Of Jessica Walter
Even if you’re an Archer super-fan, you’d have to admit that the death blow for the series came in 2021, when Jessica Walter passed away. Walter voiced Sterling’s mother Malory, and offered a stand-out performance that left the show hollow in her absence. The writers managed to use some archival voice lines to give her character a graceful exit in the season 12 finale, though FX made the baffling decision to prop up the corpse of this series for two more seasons afterward.
Seasons 13 and 14 of Archer have moments of joy, and a few solid laughs, but the show never manages to recover its spark once the Archer family matriarch is out of the picture. FX unceremoniously cancelled the series in 2023, and delivered a three-part special finale in order to placate long-time viewers.
What Might Have Been
The writers did their best to tie up all the loose ends, and I still enjoyed powering through to the very end of the show. Still, once the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but wonder what the television landscape would have looked like if Adam Reed had just taken his talents to a new show, rather than fundamentally changing so much of what made Archer great.
All 14 seasons of Archer are currently streaming on Hulu. If you’ve never seen the show, it’s still well worth the watch, just as long as you manage your expectations going in.
ARCHER FINALE REVIEW SCORE
Entertainment
Larry David Said He Would Never Write Another Finale, Then He Did The Funniest Thing Ever
By TeeJay Small
| Published
If you grew up in the 1990s or early 2000s, you almost certainly spent your fair share of evenings tuned into the comedy stylings of Seinfeld. The series, which boasted some of the highest ratings of all time, drew in a staggering number of fans.
The much-anticipated finale was reportedly watched by over 76 million people live, with millions more catching it via reruns and streaming deals. Series co-creator Larry David even returned to pen the final two-part episode, after leaving the show several years earlier. Unfortunately, the Seinfeld finale failed to impress audiences, with many critics calling it the worst sitcom finale of its day.
Larry David Vows Never To Write Another Series Finale
For years, Larry David maintained that he would never write another TV finale again. In fact, he nearly ended his next hit show Curb Your Enthusiasm without telling anybody at all. After airing eight seasons without any major interruptions, news of a Curb season nine simply didn’t materialize for years, leaving many fans and critics to wonder if the show had stealthily been cancelled behind the scenes. Over three years later, David sat down with The Guardian. When asked if he would bring Curb Your Enthusiasm back for more episodes, he proclaimed “I guess, right now, the odds would be against it, probably six to one.”
Larry David continued to explain that the fan reaction to the Seinfeld finale rubbed him the wrong way, and left him unsure about giving Curb a definitive conclusion. He argued “I wouldn’t say I’m mad about it, but it taught me a lesson that if I ever did another show, I wasn’t going to wrap it up.” After suffering through six years of silence about the future of Curb, fans were shocked when season nine finally arrived, in 2017. From there, the show resumed its usual schedule, as though the six year break never happened. Then, in 2023, Larry shocked the world by formally announcing that season 12 would be the show’s last.
The Infamous Seinfeld Finale
Just in case you’re not familiar with the Seinfeld conclusion, let’s run through a few brief bullet points. The finale centers on the main characters as they are drawn into a Kafkaesque criminal trial during an out-of-state trip. Numerous one-off side characters from the series appear and take the witness stand, creating a sort of clip show of the gang’s worst moments. After fruitlessly defending themselves as pillars of moral justice, they are thrown into jail, where they continue to pour over the minutia of everyday life as the camera pans away one last time.
If any of that sounds strikingly familiar to you, it may be because that is exactly how Larry David chose to end Curb Your Enthusiasm 26 years later. Right at the beginning of Curb season 12, Larry travels out of state, and violates a Dickensian law, resulting in him facing a criminal trial. As the season progressed weekly, fans took to social media to muse about how funny it would be if the finale acted as an exact retread of the much hated Seinfeld conclusion. Week after week it became clear that that was exactly what was going on, leaving fans unsure about the artistic choice.
Larry David Repeats The Seinfeld Finale
Season 12, episode 10 “No Lessons Learned” aired on April 7, 2024, and practically served as an exact remake of Seinfeld’s “The Finale.” Obviously, there were a few key differences, like Larry getting off after a juror broke his sequester, but nearly all of the broad strokes served as a giant middle finger to critics. During a visit to PaleyFest shortly after the Curb finale aired, Larry was asked about his decision to end the show, alongside Jerry Seinfeld and executive producer Jeff Schaffer.
Per People, Schaffer stated “it was a joke 26 years in the making. It’s neat that you can stick around long enough to do that.” Larry David didn’t mince words, however, and humorously offered one simple message to his detractors. “F— you!” He shouted. “You didn’t like the first one? F— you!” So if there is a lesson to be learned from the narrative of “No Lessons Learned,” it’s that sometimes, the funniest thing you can do is double down.
Entertainment
Grindr for lesbians? Here are the best dating apps for LGBTQ women.
Read our full Tinder Platinum review.
It’s still a lawless land, but the huge LGBTQ user base and added pronouns make it a viable option for gay gals. If you’re looking for a place to go where you are guaranteed to find a well-populated user base, Tinder is your app. Tinder is often bashed for its high number of creepy users/messages — and rightfully so. But given its sheer number of active users (including queer ones), you know we couldn’t leave it off the list.
There’s a strong chance you know at least one couple that got their start on Tinder. Countless success stories are told on Reddit when someone asks about where to meet other lesbians. You know the drill: Add pictures, set an age range, and fill out a bio as seriously and extensively (or not) as you want. While the matching isn’t exactly strategic, it’s definitely the app that’ll help most with scoping out the most lesbians in the vicinity.
“If you’re looking for a casual hookup with a wide user base, Tinder is usually an easy place to start,” Kiana Reeves, Somatic Sex Educator, Intimacy Coach, and Chief Education Officer at Foria, tells Mashable. “The app allows you to filter potential matches based on gender, location, and age preferences and will certainly give you a broad sense of what the dating scene is like in your area across a wide range of interests and ages.”
Though your feed will likely be packed with way more lesbians than other apps, it’ll see more appearances by men, too. Tinder has a tendency to ignore filters here and there, though men obviously can’t talk to anyone who doesn’t swipe right. Who can message you, though, are the girls you swipe right for who, surprise, aren’t on Tinder to meet women romantically. Some are looking for friends; some are recruiting a third for a threesome with their boyfriend — either way, you’ll have to do some wedding.
Thankfully, Tinder has made some changes within the last few years to improve its safety features, including verified profiles and the “Does This Bother You?” feature, which flags potentially inappropriate messages and asks the receiver if they’d like to report them. You can also block other users for shitty behavior, which is nice.
Entertainment
The best dating apps for serious relationships
Finding love isn’t for the weak. Dating app exhaustion is realer than ever, and while people want to branch out and meet in person, they’re finding it difficult.
One reason is that dating apps are a legitimate way to find a partner, and not just a short-term one. Nearly 44 percent of adults say they use dating apps to find a long-term partner rather than just casual dating or hookups, according to the Pew Research Center. One in 10 partnered adults met their current partner through a dating app, and for younger adults and LGBTQ people, that number rises even higher.
Dating apps aren’t going away, despite fatigue. And it is possible to make them work for you if you want to find your special someone.
Hookup apps for everyone
AdultFriendFinder
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readers’ pick for casual connections
Hinge
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popular choice for regular meetups
Are dating apps worth it?
Even using the “right” app for you may still bring moments of uncertainty and frustration (you’re dating, after all), but finding the app with features that most closely align with your dating style and the type of partnership you’re looking for can still make online dating worth it.
If you’ve been using apps for a while and are experiencing serious burnout, it’s always fair to take some time off and come back to them when you feel ready. Our guide will be here for you! Even the best app can feel exceptionally tedious when you simply don’t have the energy.
Which dating app is best for serious relationships?
There are so many dating apps, but not all of them are created equal when it comes to finding a serious, committed relationship.
Some free dating apps are better suited for casual flings or hookups (e.g., Tinder, Grindr, etc.), while others have matching algorithms and profile features specifically designed to help users find meaningful connections (e.g., eharmony, OkCupid, Hinge, and Coffee Meets Bagel).
The good news is that we’ve done the research (and hands-on testing) to figure out which apps work best for long-term relationships, and Match Group isn’t the only player in the game. Plus, all of these platforms are available via Google Play and the App Store, so having an Android or iPhone won’t limit your options. Some old-school dating sites still maintain desktop versions.
To find your match, here are the best dating apps for serious relationships in 2026:
Larry David Said He Would Never Write Another Finale, Then He Did The Funniest Thing Ever
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