Archer Season 9 Episode 1’s Morse Code Gag Explained (& What It Means)

Here’s the meaning behind Archer season 9 episode 1’s morse code gag explained, and what the code itself actually stands for. For the bulk of its run, Archer has been a workplace comedy about a very dysfunctional spy and his defective colleagues. The show has also featured some themed seasons over the years, starting with Archer Vice for season 5 before moving into a trilogy of “coma” seasons.

Archer season 7 ended with the title spy riddled with bullets and lying facedown in a swimming pool, with season 8 – dubbed Archer: Dreamland – taking place inside his own mind while he’s in a coma. The next series changed up the location once again, with Archer: Danger Island set in the 1930s and becoming more of an old-fashioned adventure series. While the overall reception to the coma trilogy has been mixed, it definitely allowed the showrunners to mix up the formula in creative ways.

Archer season 9 episode 1 opens with a title scene referencing the new theme, which includes Cyril – in his new persona as Danger Island’s Fuchs – typing out something in morse code. This translates to 934TXS, which is a code that has recurred throughout every season of the show. There was much debate among longtime viewers as to what the significance of this code might be, but it wasn’t until Comic-Con in 2019 that Archer producer and director Matt Thompson finally explained what it means.

Thompson revealed that in New York during the 1990s that he and Archer creator Adam Reed used to call up a service dubbed Dr. P. Haze, which was a weed delivery service. They were given the first three numbers and during the call they would have to give a code word, with their code being 934TXS. This code was also used in their previous animated show Sealab 2021, and it makes sense that when it came to writing scenes involving decrypting numbers or codes, 934TXS might be the first thing that came to mind for the duo.

Archer season 9 episode 1 did a great job setting up the new dynamic for the season, with Archer dream casting all the key people in his life in fitting roles. The concept itself is a reference to an obscure 1980’s ABC series called Tales Of The Golden Monkey, an adventure show that was one of Reed’s favorites as a kid. Again, the response to Danger Island’s premise was mixed, but it was one of the show’s most purely fun seasons.

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Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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