Suave, vain and overly confident, Sterling Archer is an expert secret agent who is inept in most other aspects in his life. His relationship with his mother Malory - who is also his boss at ISIS - is often strained, never sympathetic and sometimes Oedipal. Archer has the less-than-masculine codename of "Duchess" and used to date fellow agent Lana Kane, which makes their working environment tenuous and difficult. At home, he employs an aging butler, Woodhouse.