Jessica Walter

Archer's Season 12 finale paid tribute to Jessica Walter after the actress's death earlier this year. Her time as Malory Archer was beloved by fans as the long-running sitcom completed another season of espionage hijinks. Also notable was her role as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development. Before her passing, she finished recording for Archer Season 12. It wouldn't be a finale of this show if there weren't some heartfelt sentiment smashed between the one-liners and explosions. Malory comes to her son's rescue at the tail end of the final episode. She leaves Sterling a note and it's a pensive exchange that will leave a smile on longtime viewers' faces. If that bit of emotion wasn't enough, the crew packed in a small cameo as well from Ron Cadillac, who people enjoyed in the earlier seasons. (Ron Leibman, who plays the man stuck in Malory's orbit, was actually Walter's husband in real life too! He passed away in 2019.)

The sun has set on the twelfth season of FXX’s stalwart animated spy comedy, “Archer,” and while the series has already been renewed, Season 13 will get the gang back together save for one pivotal character: Malory Archer. Voiced by Jessica Walter, whose March 24 death broke the internet’s collective heart, questions began swirling immediately, wondering how the series would handle the loss of the beloved performer. Would another actress step into the role? Would Malory meet an untimely end? Those questions were finally answered this week with the release of the Season 12 finale, “Mission: Difficult.” In the episode itself, Malory...

The Archer season 12 finale paid tribute to the great Jessica Walter, who died in March at 80 years old. The episode, titled “Mission: Difficult,” concludes with Archer (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin) reading a letter written to him by his mother, Malory (Walter). “My dearest Sterling,” the note reads,...

There’s no doubting that Jessica Walter made a last impression as the acid-tongued Malory on Archer, FX’s adult animated series about an elite team of spy operatives. Prior to her death at the age of 80, the actress managed to finish recording season 12, which came to an end with “Mission: Difficult” and marked her final performance as the overbearing owner of the top spy agency where her son, Sterling (H. Jon Benjamin), also worked as a secret agent.

It could have been a mission impossible, but “Archer” pulled it off. In the FXX show’s Season 12 finale Wednesday night, the animated spy comedy closed the episode with a heartbreaking farewell to beloved New York actress Jessica Walter, who died unexpectedly in March at age 80. For the run of the show, Walter played hard-drinking, acid-tongued spy boss Malory Archer, mother of the show’s bumbling, self-centered namesake, secret agent Sterling Archer (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin).

Archer bid farewell to Jessica Walter’s character Malory in the show’s season 12 finale. The actress, who died on March 24 at the age of 80, had recorded the majority of her voicework for the latest season before her death. In the season 12 finale aired on Wednesday (October 6),...

[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 12 finale of Archer, "Mission: Difficult."]. Saying goodbye to a beloved character for reasons beyond a show's control is never easy. And it's even more difficult when the character in question was voiced by the beloved Jessica Walter, whose passing in March 2021 was a sad moment for everyone, especially the producers of FXX's Archer — who still found a way, in this last episode, to create a lovely farewell to both the character and the actor.

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Wednesday’s Archer finale. FXX’s silly spy comedy Archer got serious in Wednesday’s Season 12 finale, as Sterling Archer and company bid farewell to one of their own. Most of the finale was typical Archer chaos: The team plotted to free Archer, who was being held hostage by lisping corporate shill Fabian (voiced by What We Do in the Shadows‘ Kayvan Novak) and Archer’s evil cyborg nemesis Barry. Archer’s mother Malory — voiced by the late Jessica Walter — was absent for most of the episode, with Lana revealing she was “distraught” over her son’s kidnapping, but she...

The Archer Season 12 finale honored the FX animated series’ late star, Jessica Walter. The actress, who passed away earlier this year, starred on the show as Malory, the overbearing owner of the show’s central spy agency. Walter was able to finish recording Season 12 before her death, and the season ended by giving her a special tribute.

Archer’s 12th season came to a close tonight with an emotional finale, in which FXX’s animated series said goodbye to one of its main characters, Malory Archer, voiced by Jessica Walter. The finale paid a loving tribute to the Emmy-winning actress who died on March 24 at the age of 80. As Deadline reported in March, Walter had done the bulk of her voice work for the season before her death. Malory has a brief appearance in the finale, swooping in to save her son Sterling from his kidnappers. While she and her team win, her agency is acquired by IIA and...

Prepare yourself to shout "phrasing!," because "Archer" is coming back for season 13. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series will return in 2022. The FXX comedy about a group of the world's (arguably) greatest spies is currently airing its twelfth season, which features the gang going to the jungle for some serious spy shenanigans.

Did you even realize Archer has been on for 12 seasons? The FX favorite launched in 2009, all the way back during the first year of the Obama administration. Somehow it’s kept the quality control in tact across three separate decades. And surely they’ll try to keep it going with the newly greenlit 13th season, with one new hurdle: They’ll have to do with without one of their key cast members, Jessica Walter.

"In Malory Archer creator Adam Reed gives us a woman who doesn't subscribe to the cultural expectation that a mother must nurture and support the child who wants to follow in her footsteps," says Melanie McFarland as the FXX series returns for Season 12. "Her take on parenting takes on a jagged edge of competition. If Sterling is one of the best spies in the world, that's because Malory never let him have anything easily, not even her affection. Despite all he's accomplished, she always finds a way to imply that she's achieved more and done everything he has better than he did. Glimpses at her espionage missions dating back to World War II bolster that attitude. Walter distills all that knowing jadedness into her voice work. And yet, Walter's penchant for telling it like it is was part of her sweetheart persona that was unlike either of the terrifying mothers she played. There's a reason the New York Times article in which she revealed Jeffrey Tambor's verbal abusiveness on set effectively derailed his career: she made us love (Arrested Development's) Lucille (Bluth) and Malory because we trust our affection for her. Her mastery in delineating the nuanced difference between the two characters shows the enjoyment she took in creating each woman. To voice Malory, Walter adopted a slightly raspier timbre, training her tone to effortlessly glide between apoplectic rage fits peppered with aggressive snobbery and disintegrating, frequently offensive put-downs. Because she manifested Malory's affected classism, racism, xenophobia and casual homophobia with such delirious flair, adoring her is easy." ALSO: Archer creator Adam Reed recalls writing "Think Jessica Walter" in his Malory Archer description before he even thought of casting Walter.

The new season of Archer continues the latest phase of the show's history, as a coma-free Archer (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin) returns to the spy game with help from his crack team. The world-saving never changes, though this season the squad gets some additional guidance on their strategy from a pair of marketing executives (voiced by Harvey Guillen and Natasha Rothwell).