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| Credit Group, Portrayed By | Guest Starring Joel Johnstone |
|---|---|
| First Appearance | Pilot |
| Last Appearance | Four Minutes |
Archie Cleary
Joel’s best friend. Imogene’s husband.
Table of Contents
Biography
S1E1 - Hangs out at the office with Joel, and expresses his excitement about seeing Joel perform.
S1E1 - Watches Joel bomb at the Gaslight
S1E3 - At work, Archie weasels his way out of inspecting the Dow Chemical plant in Jersey. The task falls to Don. Joel promises to move out soon, but Archie tells him there’s no rush.
S1E4 - As Midge clears out her old apartment, nostalgic flashbacks: Archie, Imogene, Joel and Midge play charades, Archie and Imogene attend a new year’s party for 1956.
S1E4 - Joel mentions to Midge on the phone that he has his own apartment and is no longer staying with Archie and Imogene.
S1E5 - Goes out drinking at the Old Town bar with Joel, where he accepts tickets for him and Imogene to see the Music Man with Joel and Penny.
S1E5 - Archie calls Joel and Penny to let them know that he won’t be accompanying them to The Music Man (visually implied to be at Imogene’s behest).
S1E8 - Archie and Imogene attend Estelle’s birthday party at the fairground.
S1E8 - Joel, Archie and Don plan out their upcoming pitch with some help from Mrs. Moskowitz.
S1E8 - Archie accompanies Joel down to the Gaslight as he goes to ask for a slot.
S1E8 - Archie and Joel enter The Music Inn, where Virgil is playing the “Mrs. X at the Gaslight” tape for a pair of girls. Joel overhears it, and has an angry outburst.
S1E8 - Joel quits his job right in the middle of a pitch meeting. Mrs. Moskowitz, Archie and Don are present.
S2E1 - Archie and Joel drink at the Old Town Bar and discuss Joel’s way forward after quitting his job and losing his apartment. On the way out, Archie asks Joel about the “Mrs. X at the Gaslight” tape, and Joel lies about its origin.
S2E2 - Joel asks Moishe to ask his brother to go easy on Archie, who has been in hot water ever since Joel’s abrupt departure.
S2E3 - After a disastrous meeting between Archie’s brother Curren and the Maisels, Archie swings by Moishe and Shirley’s place to tell Joel he needs to move out, and that he managed to coerce his brother into approving their line of credit.
S2E7 - Archie joins in the festivities at Maisel and Roth as the staff celebrate Joel’s acquisition of the building. At the party, Archie remarks on the harem of girls that Joel is dating. After the party, Archie puts a very drunk Joel to bed and pays all the girls their cab fare.
S2E8 - At Imogene’s baby shower, Archie listens to Abe describe an episode of The Twilight Zone, then is present when Midge apologizes to Imogene for being absent through the speakerphone.
S2E10 - Joel and Archie aggressively bat baseballs in the park, each venting their own problems. Archie is upset that he’s about to have yet another child to take care of, and Joel is angry at Midge for introducing Benjamin to the kids. As they swing, Joel has an epiphany that he wants to open a comedy club.
S2E10 - Archie is present at the hospital when Midge visits Imogene and her new baby Millicent. Apparently, he went out with Joel during the birth and got very drunk, leading him to hit his head. He is totally discombobulated throughout Midge’s visit, offering to get coffee but forgetting multiple times what he was doing.
S3E1 - Joel shows off his new 227 Bayard Street venue for his club to Archie, who dubs it the Button Club, leading Joel to dub him his creative director. When a Chinese Man runs out of a secret door shouting, however, the two discover that the club is positioned right above an illegal gambling den. As the two freak out, Mei emerges and subtly threatens them to keep their mouths shut.
S3E4 - Joel and Archie work on fixing up The Button Club. Mei swings by with a surprise gift of a jukebox. Joel and Mei dance to a song on the jukebox, and Archie picks up on their romantic chemistry.
S3E5 - As the two continue fixing up the club, Archie tells Joel that Imogene is getting increasingly testy about all the time that he’s spending here.
S3E6 - Joel sends Archie away so he can have an argument with Mei.
S3E6 - Imogene comes by the club to tear Archie a new one for being away so much. Nevertheless, Archie decides to continue with their pub crawl.
S3E6 - While touring bars for inspiration, Archie takes off his wedding ring to hit on some girls, but Joel saves him from making a mistake by attacking him.
S3E7 - Don swings by the Maisel and Roth factory to pick up some baseball tickets from Joel. While he’s there, he learns how Archie has been living there with Joel for the past two months, and repeatedly comments on how weird it is. As Archie leaves to visit Imogene and the kids, he bangs his head on a pipe as Manny and the rest of the factory looks on.
S3E8 - While setting up the club, Archie accidentally bumps into Olive and another Button Club Waitress, and freaks out because he’s trying to get back on Imogene’s good side and he’s terrified of being perceived as unfaithful.
S3E8 - Archie is present at the opening, still freaking out about the Imogene situation.
S4E1 - At the club, Archie vents to Joel about life with Imogene, telling him that she bought a dog, is always away at secretarial school, and defused his attempts to talk with her by getting abruptly naked.
S4E4 - At the Button Club, Joel tasks Archie with picking one of two wedding rings that a patron asked them to put in the glass for his prospective fiancee. Later, Archie calls out to let Joel know that the patron's proposal was successful.
S4E7 - Archie loses Joel's money to a stray motorcyclist.
S4E7 - Archie watches as Moishe has a heart attack while talking to Joel at the Button Club.
S4E8 - Archie and Imogene come to visit Moishe in hospital after his heart attack. Archie tells Joel that he blames himself for it, because of the bag of money that was stolen from him. Imogene is simply there to provide comfort for others.
S5E1 - Carol runs the door at the Button Club, and shares her concern about Joel’s absence with Archie. A moment later, Joel shows up, drunk from another bar. He hits on several of his patrons, and interrupts the band to do a standup set which is not well-received. Archie does his best to contain the chaos, but he can only do so much.
S5E2 - Joel awakes at his parents' house in Queens, still much the worse for wear from his beating at the hands of the Lin family goons the previous night. He does not remember getting there, and he calls Archie for an explanation. Archie recaps the events of the previous evening, and begs Joel's forgiveness for taking him back to his parents' place rather than his own. Joel prepares to give it, but downstairs, he hears his father and his mother shouting at each other, and reserves the forgiveness for later.
S5E3 - At the Button Club, Archie fetches Joel from his office because Shirley is there, causing a fuss.
S5E3 - At the Button Club, Archie and Joel look on in horror as Shirley occupies one table with Bubbie and another friend, and Moishe occupies another table with Manny and another friend.
S5E5 - Joel and Archie scope out St. Xavier’s (where Archie grew up) as a potential venue to buy, renovate, and open. Being there triggers a lot of childhood trauma for Archie.
S5E6 - (Flashforward) After the Testi-Roastial of Susie Myerson in 1990, various comics gossip about Susie, and in the process they mention that when Joel was arrested for his involvement with the mob in 1985, Archie did not go down with him (despite being his partner in it) because Joel took the fall for everything.
S5E9 - Joel and Archie arrive at the garment factory to try and secure uniforms for Archie's supper club after Shirley swindled him into taking crappy old stock the last time. This is soon derailed, however, when Moishe and Shirley emerge injured, and Moishe announces that he is retiring. A phone call then comes in for Joel from Midge, leaving Archie alone with Shirley to once again be swindled.
S5E9 - Archie and Imogene join Joel in watching Midge’s big debut on The Gordon Ford Show. When the topic of Penny Pann comes up, Archie and Imogene corroborate Midge’s story to Joel.
Quotes & Dialogue
ARCHIE: Joel Maisel, king of comedy.
– S1E3
JOEL: How'd you get Imogene to let you come out with me tonight?
ARCHIE: I explained this is a big deal for you. You needed your second by your side.
JOEL: So if I bomb, you're going up?
ARCHIE: Nope. You bomb, I look the other way. Never met you.
– S1E8
ARCHIE: You know, Joel, you and I are good friends. Close. To the point where we didn't even correct your mother when she implied that we're a couple of queers. And because of that, I need to say… you have got to get out of this fucking house!
– S2E3
ARCHIE: You leased a space with a scary mystery door?
– S3E1
JOEL: You guys should officially meet. Arch, this is Mei. Mei's the building's, uh… person girl.
ARCHIE: I see. I'm Archie, Joel's friend boy.
– S3E4
JOEL: How hard you hit?
ARCHIE: Am I dead?
JOEL: No.
ARCHIE: Then not hard enough.
– S3E7
ARCHIE: I love her, Joel. I love Imogene so much. I miss her.
JOEL: Well, have you told her?
ARCHIE: It's so cold between us. I can't. It'll change. She was my first. There's never been anyone else.
– S3E7
OLIVE: Excuse me, could you…
ARCHIE: I'm married!
OLIVE: I just had a question…
ARCHIE: I love my wife!
– S3E8
IMOGENE: You know, when we first started dating, Archie would sit outside my house for hours. The police never arrested him because, you know, he's Archie. He looks like a choirboy. He was a choirboy.
MIDGE: Mm.
IMOGENE: He's got a lovely baritone, by the way. But they would shoo him off. And the next day, he'd be right back there, sitting in the tree next to my bedroom window.
MIDGE: Romantic. With just a hint of creepy.
IMOGENE: I thought he'd be in my tree forever.
– S3E8
ARCHIE: Joel! There's a terrible martini olive problem that needs your immediate attention.
JOEL: The place falls apart without me. I'll be right back.
ARCHIE: No, he won't.
– S5E1
ARCHIE: There it is. St. Xavier's School for Boys.
JOEL: I got nuns staring daggers.
ARCHIE: I went in a boy, came out a broken soul.
– S5E5
Appearances
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4