For me...
El Secuestro
Live and Let Dine
Skytanic
The Double Deuce
Skin Game
Honorable Mentions: The Figgis Agency, Pocket Listing, The Man From Jupiter.
Skytanic (s01e06)
Vision Quest (s06e05)
The Limited (s03e06)
Once Bitten (s04e06)
The Papal Chase (s04e11)
Honorable mentions:
Placebo Effect (s02e09)
El Contador (s03e05)
Swiss Miss (s02e01)
Bump
shareThe Placebo Effect is my number one. I tend to think of it as "Terms of Enrampagement," though. It's hilarious, kinda touching, and Archer's rampage is just non-stop fun.
Job Offer is really great, too. It's perfect farce.
Swiss Miss does what Archer does best: farce *combined* with a spy thriller. Archer constantly getting caught with his pants down around "Countess Von Fingerbang" is also hysterically funny.
Legs has to make my list, for it contains my favourite line of the whole show: "Oh, that reminds me: Grover Cleveland called, he wants his watch back. Yeah, he left two non-consecutive messages." Epic.
For my final pick, I'd like to go with Heart of Archness, but I feel like that's cheating since it's three episodes. The whole pirate king arc is great. If I can't do that, if it should just be one episode, I'll go with The Limited. "Look out, boys, he's corpuscular!"
Honourable mentions: Baby Shower (for Kenny), Once Bitten, White Nights (Katya's first), Fugue and Riffs, Arrival/Departure (for the plot twist with Mallory), Achub Y Morfilod, The Honeymooners, Crossing Over (How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm...), Lo Scandalo (another classic farce-thriller/mystery blend), and Vision Quest (I love me some bottle episode).
It was really, really hard to narrow this down. I'm a big fan of the show. The writing is sharp, funny, and insightful. The layered dialogue, obscure references, and hilarious plots are all wonderful. I even love the "sucky" seasons. Look, I'll admit that the show started sinking with Archer: Vice (switching to drug dealers was a bit of a shark leap for me), but I still love the rest of them. I even like the much-reviled Season 10. In fact, I'm putting The Leftovers into my "Honourable Mentions" category. I like that one.
Lo Scandolo - "And WHAT is in his A$$??"
Honeypot -
Swiss Miss
The Papal Chase
Space Race - "Whorediot"