Ray grew up in the small town of Ferlin in the backwoods of West Virginia. He had one brother Randy. His father was extremely conservative and as a consequence Ray was forced to hide his homosexuality from everyone around him. He kept a number of diaries where he described his homosexual thoughts and feeling specifically in a Miss Piggy diary. His father took him on a hunting trip where Ray killed a bear with a bow. His father forced him to eat the bears heart. Ray was slapped repeatedly by his father when he refused to take a bite out of the heart.
Personality
Ray is one of the more optimistic and genuinely good-natured agents at ISIS, though he has a history of acerbic and sarcastic behavior as well. He regularly goes out of his way to help his friends and often is one the few people in the office that actually considers the others feelings. He takes offence when the other agents don't consider their friends feelings before taking action. Unlike Sterling, he is not nearly as selfish, such as voluntarily going to rescue Pam after her kidnapping, as well as picking up the jobs of others when they're unable to. Like most of ISIS, he finds Sterling rather annoying, and takes pleasure in tormenting him, such as the time he found Malory's vibrator hidden in her desk.[1] He doesn't value Archers life nearly as much as anyone else's such as when he never bothered to tell Archer how to actually disarm the explosives on Malory's desk. He has no problems with lying to his friends and coworkers as he lied to them for months about being paralyzed and felt no guilt when he was found out.
After being paralyzed by Sterling for real however, Ray has shown genuine anger and hostility towards him, going far as to prevent backup being sent when Sterling was being gunned down by KGB agents. He grew far more cynical and depressed. Often seen drinking heavily even at work. His inabilty to go on missions angered and hurt his pride.
Being paralyzed has severly affected Ray's personality. He grew depressed, hostile, and more negative. He especially despises Archer for continually paralyzing him. When Krieger gave him bionic legs he initially was opposed on a moral level believing that it was something only God should do, however, after he got them he was much more positive and happy for being able to walk again. His constant tendency of getting paralyzed is a continual theme and has damaged his emotional stability heavily. He has developed a fear of eventually becoming a complete cyborg as his legs, feet, and right hand are now bionic
Ray is not without his vices, casually spending ISIS funding renting a Malaysian slave boy. He is also prone to dishing out frequent insults towards his co-workers.
Former Life
Prior to his employment at ISIS, Ray had a very interesting and diverse array of life experiences. Details of this life include:
Cheer-leading at Marshall University, demonstrated by deftly lifting Lana while attempting to escape the pirate fortress' dungeon in "Heart of Archness: Part III". Also further demonstrated when he said "1-2-3, Go Herd!" after Dr. Krieger gives him the use of his legs again in "Southbound and Down".
Competing in the Olympics in a giant slalom skiing competition, taking the bronze.[2]
Being married for 2 years to a lesbian he met at a "pray away the gay" camp. (Admitting, "it was a pretty weird time for me.")[1]
Being a disgraced former minister who is still capable of performing marriages for straight couples. (The irony is not lost on him). This fact comes in handy, as he wears a black shirt and collar underneath his clothes.[3]
Career at ISIS
Ray has an antagonistic relationship with Malory since she is biased against homosexuals always referring to Ray a she or mrs. Ray claims that he could write a book about the secrets he knows about ISIS. He has skills in electrical engineering and communications. He is often contacted by field agents to walk them through bomb defusals.[1][4] When called to the ISIS control room Ray often wears his crisis vest.
He assisted the ISIS field agents on their trip to Switzerland to help protect Anka Schlotz.
He assisted Archer in his plan to prevent ODIN from purchasing ISIS. When they were laying out a plan to do so with dolls and a map of the building, he was the "little pink sailor".
When Pam was kidnapped, he assisted in the control room with tracking the phone call. When it was apparent that nobody would rescue her, he volunteered, which spurred Archer and Lana to volunteer. Malory decided to send Ray and Archer on the mission.
On a mission to Monaco the ISIS team was tasked with obtaining a data disc that was valuable to Malory. Ray accompanied and assisted in the mission. When things went bad, he disguised himself as Malory to expedite the mission. He ended up driving a Formula 1 car in pursuit of Benoit. When a helicopter started firing on the ISIS drivers, Ray's car 'mysteriously' lost engine power which kept him out of harm's way.
Malory sent Ray on a mission that brought him near the Russian border, despite Archer's volunteering to go on the mission. He was about to parachute off the C-130 when Archer knocked him unconscious so he could take the mission. Ray remained unconscious for an hour and sustained a heavy injury to his eye. After Archer returned with Katya Kazanova, he accompanied Malory, Lana and Doctor Krieger on their mission to eliminate Archer and Katya because they appeared to have double-crossed the agency.
After Katya's death, Malory sent Ray and Lana on a mission to retrieve Archer from Pangu Island. In order to ensure they could complete the important mission, she lent them the ISIS Black Titanium Credit Card. With an unlimited budget, Ray took advantage of the situation buying extravagant items, such travel by private jet, purchasing a yacht and even "renting" a servant.
While Lana piloted the yacht, she got annoyed by Ray and jarred the yacht, causing a make-up applicator to get lodged in his eye; although this was the second injury to the same eye he was not blinded, unlike Rip Riley, who did suffer blindness on this mission.
After injuring his eye he is shot in the abdomen by "Bucky" (the now arrested pirate mutineer) and is also seen in the end of the episode in an electric wheelchair being called a cripple by Cheryl.
In the episode Bloody Ferlin, it is revealed that Ray had faked being handicapped for six months, telling Lana and Archer "I never said I was paralyzed, you just assumed I was!". This was foreshadowed in The Limited when he said "Yeah, but yeah, other than that, fine." and in "Drift Problem", where he said "Ow... I think." after Archer dropped him in the surprise of seeing his birthday car.
During the season three finale, Ray accompanies Archer and company to a space shuttle to help thwart an apparent mutiny. After they are double-crossed by their employer on the mission and escape, Archer causes the space shuttle to crash land on earth, injuring everyone but himself. In the final scene, Ray leaves the room using his wheelchair, revealing he was genuinely paralyzed by the crash. Archer is confused by his anger insisting that he "already had the chair."
In the opening of Season 4, Ray follows the rest of the group to a resort in hopes of restoring Archer's suppressed memories, while at the same time expressing heavy disdain over his paralyzed state. Later in the episode, he receives radio contact requesting aid to backup Archer after he and Lana are ambushed by KGB agents attempting to hunt down Archer. Ray spitefully hides the request from Malory and the others, denying to send Archer any backup.
In Legs, after hitting the breaking point of frustration with Sterling and some coercion by Krieger, Ray decides to undergo an operation to restore his ability to walk by having his lower body replaced with bionic prosthetics. Despite Pam's "sub-par" assistance in the operation and Sterling's many failed attempts to stop the process out of his fear of cyborgs, the operation is a success, allowing Ray to walk once more. However in the fourth season finale Sea Tunt: Part II the CPU controlling his legs gets fried by a defibrillator thanks to Archer, and he is once again wheelchair bound.
Ray's paralysis causes him to go through depression for the first few episodes of season five. He is shown drinking heavily, crying, and sitting in urinated underwear in the episodes, a shell of his former self. However, in "House Call," Kreiger annoyed with Ray's complaining mentioned to Cyril "Remind me to reboot the CPU in Ray's legs," revealing that his legs could have been fixed at any time. In "Southbound and Down," Krieger repairs Ray's bionic legs to which he declares "About damn time!", which causes Krieger to push a button which disable Ray's legs once more, forcing Ray to begrudgingly thank him and have his legs turn back on.
Following the re-establishment of the ISIS agency under contract of the CIA, Ray is once again a field agent, although his analysis job appears to have been eliminated due to lack of necessity. In Pocket Listing, during a botched mission at the Tuntmore Mansion, Ray comes face to face with an enormous and aggressive carnivorous plant. Though he survives the encounter, Ray's right arm below his elbow is devoured, just before Ray manages to angrily stab the creature to death. Back at the headquarters he is ridiculed for his lack of an arm by the other staff members.
In Achub Y Morfilod, he is given a new cybernetic arm by his co-workers (except Lana and Archer) but it turns out at the end of the episode he was given a black arm by his colleagues who in the midst of surgery accidentally place a discolored arm on him after remembering a movie. His new arm causes him to be subjected to more ridicule in Drastic Voyage: Part I and more jokes about his hand possibly being are made by Archer and Cyril. He and Cyril are placed as the pilots of the miniature submarine and quickly stop Archer from trying to pilot the vessel and possibly ruin the mission.
Quotes
"She (Malory) has never liked me. But I'm gonna write a book about this place. Mm-hmm. A real smackeroonie."
"Just try to think about something else... like how there's no sink in there."[1]
"You guys, my car's slowing down for some unknown reason, must just be out of... carburetor!"
"You can't tourniquet the taint!"
"You know...!"
"You asshole!"
"Girl, please... nobody's that gay."
"Oh no, it's Maximum Overdrive all over again...!"
Trivia
Ray's full name is Raymond Q. Gillette, as stated in White Elephant. The pronunciation of his last name comes off as inconsistent however. Ray and those close to him pronounce it "Jill-ETTE" while his brother Randy and those from his hometown in West Virginia pronounce it "GILL-IT". This is almost certainly intentional on Ray's part, to distance himself from his hometown history. This may be a reference to the BBC comedy "Keeping Up Appearances", in which the main character changes the pronunciation of her last name from Bucket to Bouquet.
Ray's character design is visually modeled off Lucky Yates, who is the voice actor for Krieger[5].
He has $205,188 in his ISIS 401(k) account.[6] However, when he was informed that his 401k is gone he says that he had "almost two hundred grand."
Ray is good friends with Lana Kane. When Lana offers the ISIS employees the chance to have sex on Cyril's desk in exchange for money, Ray lines up, stating that no one is gay enough to turn down sex with her.[7] When it appears that Lana will be promoted to head of the agency, she reassures Ray that she will definitely keep him on board. At a baby shower for Seamus, Lana gets drunk and begs Ray to "pump a baby" into her.
Ray was originally a field operative. After his alleged crippling, Ray was removed from the active field agent roster, being replaced by Cyril Figgis. Despite his objections to this, he did not reveal his paralyzed state was fake at the time, until he was discovered on a ladder inside the ISIS armory, afterwards returning to
Barbra and Liza, respectively.
the active field-agent roster. At the end of season 3, Ray was genuinely paralyzed following a space shuttle crash, forcing a (temporary) shift to a desk job.
Ray has a recurring and open fondness for Japanese culture. His apartment is decorated in a modern Japanese style, and he traditionally eats a Bento box paired with Sake for lunch. He is also known to pack no fewer than five kimonos when on trips, which he claims is not excessive.
He appears to use ecstasy (at raves), and is often seen smoking cigarettes, sometimes with a long cigarette holder.
He stated that it was "assumed" by his coworkers that he was paralyzed, however, he affirmed their assumptions multiple times, such as in El Contador when he was told they would have to "pee in a cup" to which he replied "I can't even do, y'all." and also in The Limited, when asked if he was okay he replied "Paralyzed, but yeah, other than that, fine". Despite this, he spent several episodes remaining in the wheelchair outside of work.
Ray became a cyborg in Season 4, restoring his ability to walk. The operation involved Krieger replacing the bones in his legs and pelvis with bionic prosthetics, as opposed to completely replacing the bone and muscle tissue like Katya and Barry. In truth, Ray only needed the battery portion of the system; Krieger only replaced his bones with bionics due to the fact he considered them "awesome". Although this restored his mobility, Ray is unable to perform the incredible physical feats displayed by Katya and Barry, as attempts to do so place great strain on his organic parts. Ray's bionics were disabled at the end of season 4 following an accident caused by Archer with a defibrillator, forcing him back into a wheelchair. Krieger later rebooted the CPU linked to his legs in the middle of season 5, despite the fact he apparently could have done so much earlier, and simply didn't. This allowed Ray to walk again, though Krieger revealed he could manually disable Ray's legs, as well as control them, via remote control. Ray has lost his right forearm as of Pocket Listing, and later revealed he was unable to receive a prosthetic replacement due to the fact the office insurance policy would not cover for the procedure. Despite this, Krieger later performed surgery on Ray to replace Ray's missing arm with a bionic one, although he installed one with black skin similar to the one used by Conway Stern. Ray was seemingly distraught over this, which most people assumed was out of mild racism due to his southern upbringing, although he later clarified he was simply upset over the fact it was a bionic arm. Unfortunately Ray was almost immediately completely crippled from the neck down due to leaving his seat in a submersible before it jumped to high speed.
Ray is the fourth character in the series to become a cyborg. The bones in his legs are metal and supplemented by a battery installed in his lower back, and his right arm from the elbow down is completely artificial.
Ray's paralysis has become a recurring gag, as well as the fact that it is always caused by Archer in some way. Season 6's finale was the first instance of Ray's paralysis to not be Archer's fault in any way.
Ray is currently the only main character that is not credited as part of the main cast in the opening credits, likely due to the fact he is voiced by the show's creator and head writer Adam Reed.
In "Legs", a pair of ballet slippers can be seen in Ray's trophy cabinet, suggesting that he was at one time a dancer.
Ray is probably based on King Camp Gillette[1], as he is "camp" and bears a resemblance to the razor magnate.
It’s stated in “Vision Quest” that Ray is color blind. Specifically, it’s implied that he has a form of red-green color blindness, suggested by the fact that he repeatedly fails (albeit probably on purpose in order to annoy Archer) to differentiate between the green and red buttons inside of the elevator.
There are 147 images of Ray Gillette on this Wiki, visit the Ray Gillette gallery to view all the images and screenshots. Here is a sample of four images from the gallery:
