Archer bids farewell to Jessica Walter in emotional season 12 scene

(Image credit: FXX)

Archer has said goodbye to the late Jessica Walter in an emotional scene in the last episode of season 12. Spoilers ahead.

Walter voiced Archer's mother Malory in the series, and this episode saw her suit up to come to her son's rescue. Then, at the end of the episode, Archer finds a goodbye letter from his mother. "With all the chaos and confusion of late," the letter says, "I thought it would be wise to make my own exit." She says that "wherever I am, I'll be watching you." We then see Malory and her husband Ron (who was voiced by Walter's husband Ron Leibman, who died in 2019) on a beach watching the sunset.

Completing the scene required delving into the show's archives. "We collected Jessica and Ron's lines from every season of Archer and combed through them, selecting those we thought would foster the feeling we were trying to evoke," executive producer Casey Willis explained to TVLine. "Alongside [creator] Adam Reed, we worked to create a tribute to our beloved Malory."

"If we're lucky enough to get a season 13, we have ideas of how we want to proceed with [Malory's absense],” Willis told Collider back in August. "We're talking about how the characters are going to react and how we even want to portray it. So I don't want to talk too much about it, because I don't want to jinx getting season 13... I think we've come up with some good ideas on how to handle it."

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.