Warning: major spoilers ahead. TV's most dysfunctional superspy agency, ISIS, is closing its doors in the fifth season of Archer. The cast is moving onto its next big ambition: industrial-scale cocaine peddling. The changes were revealed by executive producer Matt Thompson less than a week before the January 13 fifth season premiere. As fans of the show know, Archer and the entire main cast work for the Malory Archer's International Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS). In season 5, the show's Bond-inspired setting will be thrown out when the government shuts ISIS down. Turns out, Malory has been running an illegitimate operation the whole time. In a move Thompson says was inspired by Breaking Bad, the unemployed former ISIS agents will switch to selling off the colossal supply a literal ton of cocaine they've confiscated over the years. With the timing of the announcement, it seems likely Thompson wanted to shield the show from fan backlash at the surprising and abrupt twist. No doubt, when Archer shifts from being a show about international espionage to a show about drug dealing, there will be some naysayers. Me, though I couldn't be more excited. For one thing, the worlds of espionage and drug pushing are not that far removed from one another. Just Google the phrase "CIA and drugs." More importantly, it gives these characters something new, exciting and interesting to do, right at the peak of their popularity. Each season it's been on, Archer has gained followers, and for good reason. It's the best-written and best-acted animated sitcom on television now maybe ever. To change course while it's got so much momentum seems like perhaps an odd decision, but it's a testament to the creators' artistic restlessness and, frankly, it comes at the perfect time. Great as the show is, I would finger a few episodes of the most recent season as some of the weakest in the series to date. "Going downhill" is probably too extreme, but "running out of ideas" is more than fair, as the writers themselves have all but confessed. Crafting a new story each week about an assassination or a weapons sale began losing its luster. Some of the more preposterous episodes like the group posing as the cast of a kitchen reality show failed to do justice to the writers' incredible talent for not only crafting jokes, but weaving together a suspenseful espionage plot. No longer will they be constrained by that format. The characters aren't changing, and that's the important point here. None of the established backstories or developments are going away. It's that deep characterization that should allow Archer to get away with such a drastic shift. There will be a whole new dimension for the show's long-running arcs: Malory's romances with foreign leaders, Archer and Pam's affair, Lana's pregnancy, Krieger's experiments. Cyril is being transformed from an accountant into a lawyer. With the exception of Lana, none of the cast is burdened by a very rigid ethical compass, so imagining them in their new drug-pushing clothes is not hard at all. In fact, their talents might even make them better-suited to organized drug running than international espionage. One thing that always impressed me about the first four seasons is just how much the writers seem to know about gadgets, geopolitics, and terminology, making Archer more than just a funny show with literate references that force you to Wikipedia. If the same technical knowledge is brought to the new format, Archer will slip out of the turtleneck and into the Hawaiian shirt without losing a single viewer. It's unknown if ISIS will get its papers in order and become a legit operation, but all indications are that this is the new Archer for the foreseeable future. I'll miss Sterling foiling assassinations and soaking in hot tubs with princesses, but I already have four outstanding seasons of that. I cannot wait to see him switch to capping rival drug lords. Stay tuned to WhatCulture in the coming weeks for reviews of the entire 5th season. The team starts trafficking drugs on January 13 on FX network.