The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

OK, so not every episode can be a stone classic.  I said last week that I like the more self-contained Venture Bros. episodes and I stick by that.  But this one felt a little disjointed until the last few minutes.  Maybe it’s Doc Hammer’s approach to the source material.  Don’t get me wrong though, there were plenty of good moments and laughs.

Maybe part of the problem is that with three separate storylines to focus on (Sgt. Hatred and Rusty trying to save the boys, the boys contending with a grief-stricken Henchman 21, and the Monarch in desperate need of some Benadryl), there was simply too much ground to cover.  I’m not sure what I would’ve cut, but I think the Hatred/Rusty bit felt the most flat.  After earning some redemption in my eyes over the course of the season, Sgt. Hatred was probably the weakest link this episode.

The cold open has 21 talking directly about 24’s death (it was a car intentional) for one of the few times this season, and it also revealed the newfound respect he’s earned from his fellow henchmen.  Hell, even the Monarch is singing his praises for increasing the efficiency of his operation (I guess he’s like a Six Sigma black belt of villainy).   But then we see that 21’s grief has morphed into something bordering on insanity, as he still carries on the same inane discussions he had with 24 – only now he’s talking to 24’s burned skull.  Yikes.

Read on Daddy-O…

Stupid real life is really putting a crimp in my ability to review this season of The Venture Bros.  As a result, you may have noticed that last week’s episode – “Handsome Ransom” – was skipped.  I’ll get around to it at some point, but suffice it to say that I enjoyed it quite a bit.  And now on to newer business.

I don’t know about you, but Season 4 of VB is clicking in a way that Season 3 seldom did.  Maybe it’s the more character-driven storylines, but it doesn’t feel as if Jackson and Doc are trying so hard this year.  “Perchance to Dean” is a perfect example.  It’s got the feel of an early episode, but with the comedic and storytelling sophistication of more recent efforts.  It really is a neat hybrid, just like Dean’s creepy, Phantom of the Opera-esque clone brother.

Read on Daddy-O…

So hey, I’m a little late on this review.  I know that seems inexcusable since it is the season premiere, but my damn DVR didn’t record this when it was supposed to.  And if it’s not on my DVR, it doesn’t exist.  But enough of that…VENTURE BROS. IS BACK!!%$#!

I think the question I asked as season 3 ended  – in what direction do Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer want to take this show? – has been answered, at least on the basis of “Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel”.  They’re going to get even deeper into the show’s characters, while at the same time strengthening their geek cred.   And we’re also going to get plenty of laughs.  So we got that going for us, which is nice.

Read on Daddy-O…

I think I’m gonna need some more time to process the season 3 finale of The Venture Bros., but for right now I can’t help but feel a bit let down. I think that’s because Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer haven’t yet figured out what they really want their show to be.  Do they want it to be an homage/parody of the action/adventure genre, or do they want to fully invest in their own universe and mythology?

All signs pointed to the latter as season 2 progressed, and that was reinforced this season with so many plot- and backstory-laden episodes.  The laugh-out-loud moments decreased in general this year, but the payoff was ostensibly a series of richer stories and an opportunity to appreciate the show with more than ironic detachment.

Read on Daddy-O…

No more flashbacks, no more character sketching, and no more filling in questionably important bits of history – the season finale of The Venture Bros. is all about moving forward.  All the buildup and all the backstory is done, so I hope you were paying attention.

Actually, if you think about it almost all of this season’s back end has really been the finale, since most of the episodes have picked up right where previous ones left off.  So in that sense, everything from “Tears of a Sea Cow” forward has been part of one big story arc.

(One caveat before we move forward: the first few minutes of this week’s episode were cut for the television broadcast.  If you want to see the entire episode uncut, you can watch it on adultswim.com.)

In the cold open, things look bleak for the Venture clan.  The Monarch and his crew have infiltrated the compound yet again, but this time they mean business.  The family is taken hostage, while Brock is beheaded by the Monarch’s apparently razor-sharp wings.  And in the strangest twist of all, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch finally gives in to her lust for #21!

Except that it’s all a simulation, designed for training.  Mostly satisfied with the results, the Monarch declares that they’re ready to storm the compound (for real this time).

Back at the aforementioned compound, Brock is dismantling his beloved Charger (“Her name was Adrian.”), since it tried to kill him and stuff in last week’s episode.  He also announces to the Venture clan that they’re not safe, because he is now a target for assassination.  He plans to bring everyone to Spider-Skull Island and seek refuge but before they can get going, said assassins arrive, led by none other than Molotov Cocktease (making her first appearance since last season).

Molotov tells Brock that the O.S.I. asked her to kill him, but she refused the job.  It went instead to three professional assassins – Herr Trigger, Go-Fish, and Le Tueur (French for ‘the killer’), each with his own weird little fetish (Le Tueur, being a lover of Silver Age comics, is my favorite).

Meanwhile, the Monarch and his gang are making their way to Venture Industries, but not in the cocoon, because that’s what Venture would expect.  But when the Hover Tank flies past them, it looks like they’ve been beaten to the punch once again by Sgt. Hatred.

Brock’s first stop after leaving the compound is to see Col. Gathers, perhaps his only true friend.  After dealing with a horribly inappropriate and hilarious pass by Rusty, Gathers confirms that Brock is in fact in deep, deep trouble and hooks him up with some wheels (“you are not gonna like looking for the keys!”) and a list of ex-O.S.I. agents who can help him.

Brock’s plan to leave the family at Spider-Skull Island hits a snag when Hank stows away in Brock’s car.  This follows a sad scene where Brock declares that he never loved the brothers and that protecting them was only a job.  I don’t buy it, frankly, but I understand why he needed to say it.  What follows is a thrilling chase and narrow escape from Herr Trigger.  (the whole chase sequence reminded me a lot of the old Spy Hunter game)

At the compound, the Monarch strikes out big time.  Not only are they too late to catch the Ventures, they’re left to deal with an inconsolable Sgt. Hatred (who is about to become a bachelor and finds out he’s no longer Dr. Venture’s archenemy).

Brock’s next stop is the dock, where he meets Shore Leave and Mile High (now Holy Diver and Sky Pilot, since Jesus slew their demons of homosexuality).  And while Brock tangles with Go-Fish, the classic Ephesians sequence starts (“Is this going to take long?”).  Boom!  Yummy!  But with no help from the former spies, it takes a bit of clever – and gross – subterfuge for Brock to win the day again.  And what’s with all the beheadings on this show anyway?  Someone got a bit of a Highlander fetish?

The final of Brock’s trials takes place at an unnamed hotel (well, a blurred out name), where he faces a showdown with Le Tueur.  Poor Hank finally finds someone who shares his love of Batman and he turns out to be a killer.  Brock escapes death at the cost of one nipple, but just after he dispatches of Le Tueur a pair of armed men bust into the room.  At that same moment, the Monarch’s flying cocoon happens upon the X-1, and is close to closing in on the Ventures…

Obviously I can’t fully evaluate this week’s episode without seeing how it plays out next week, but it was still pretty awesome.  Some laugh-out-loud lines and a metric ton of action, all rendered beautifully.  It’s interesting to me that in spite of all the new characters we saw this year, it all comes down to the core group of the Ventures and the Monarch/Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.  Either way, this was exciting viewing.  Is it Sunday yet?

Final grade: TBD

Best lines/moments:

• “It’s the Monarch!  Pop’s most feared enemy!”
• “OK, this is why I’m anti-Moppet.  Right here, this crap.”
• #21 messing with the mannequin for Dr. Mrs. The Monarch takes his infatuation to a whole new and awesome level.
• “Give him time, boy.  Thinking’s new to him.”
• “People have been trying to kill me since I could pee standing up.”
• “Look at it?  I don’t even want to think about it!  I hate my henchmen.”
• “Anything to declare, Mr. Le Tueur?”  “Excelsior!”
• “Piss off you horrible buzzard!  Tsetse fly, buzz!”
• “You call parking a supersonic jet in front of a titty-bar inconspicuous?  Who taught you how to spy, f&$@ing Gallagher?!”
• “At least now we have the septic system mapped out.”
• On second thought, Herr Trigger is my favorite of the three assassins.  The whole mix of violence and eroticism was too much.  Reminded me of Æon Flux.
• “You wanna end up like Gary Busey?”
• “This is worse than calling Orpheus.”
• “That’s a big cell phone.”  “I’m a big boy!”
• “Holy cow I think I’m in love…with that towel!”
• So Hank remembers jumping off the roof in his Batman costume and killing himself.  Interesting…
• “Why do you sword guys always gotta talk about how cool your swords are?

Setup episodes can be very tricky to pull off.  They’ve got to provide enough information to set the stage for what is to come, and yet be entertaining in and of themselves.  Too much information and the story becomes cluttered, and not very fun to watch.  But make things too subtle, and the episode can seem like a one-off at best, a throwaway at worst.  So how does “ORB”, an obvious setup episode, fare?

Pretty well, thankfully.   The mystery kicks off in the cold open, as the too-smart-for-his-own-good Billy Quizboy pulls a Beautiful Mind and unravels a hidden message in his copies of the old Rusty Venture cartoon.  It’s a set of coordinates leading to the Venture Compound, in what turns out to be Brock’s herb garden.  When Brock refuses to help dig, it’s up to Hank to do the work and he finds…

Their long-dead dog, Scamp’s corpse.  Past that he finds their treasure (a mystery box!), and in the process Dr. Venture, Hank, Dean, Billy, and Pete White spill into Brock’s room (in a hilarious scene that features some brilliant voice acting by Patrick Warburton).  They take the treasure into the kitchen, and the tension builds until the mystery box is opened to reveal…

Yet another clue.  Back in Brock’s room, he plays a gramophone cylinder left for him.  It was recorded by famous strongman Eugen Sandow, who was apparently the bodyguard for one Col. Venture.  The recording segues into a lushly illustrated flashback aboard a Victorian era dirigible, where we see an unnamed guild consisting of the greatest minds of the day, including Col. Venture, Mark Twain, Aleister Crowley, Oscar Wilde, and Fantômas (looking and sounding very much like Phantom Limb’s ancestor).

The guild, currently battling a rival faction led by Nikola Tesla, is concerned with a mysterious orb in their possession.  While some (like Col. Venture and Wilde) wish to study the orb and find if it can be used to mankind’s benefit, others (Fantômas chief among them) want to tap its power for their own benefit now.  Wilde’s rejoinder to Fantômas foreshadows the formation of the Guild of Calamitous Intent.

The only thing holding this scene back from true greatness was that once again, the formidable voice acting talents of the Venture crew are stretched a bit too thin.  Crowley evoked Dr. Orhpeus too much, while I could clearly hear traces of the Monarch in Col. Venture.  I’m sure the show’s budget isn’t seven figures, but more vocal variety would really help.

Back in the present, Sandow’s tale is interrupted when the cylinder ends, which leaves Brock to find the second one so he can learn what his next orders are. His path (and separately, that of Dr. Venture and Billy) takes him to New York City.  Brock barely arrives after his car makes an attempt on his life, while Rusty suffers the indignity of wearing his old Rusty Venture outfit.

In a weird meeting with Col. Gathers (what is it with all the colonels on this show anyway?), Brock discovers that his real mission from O.S.I. is not to protect Dr. Venture, but to kill him should he discover and try to activate the orb hidden by Jonas Venture. He tracks down Kano to find out more about his mission, and finds him surprisingly talkative.  We also get a strong hint that it was Kano who killed Jonas Venture, just as Sandow killed Col. Venture – in both cases to stop the orb from being activated.

Rusty and Billy, not surprisingly, have no luck when their quest brings them to Studio 54.  But Rusty attempting to change Billy was totally worth it.

Back at the compound, Dr. Orpheus reviews Team Venture’s code-breaking and finds it a little lacking.  So he calls the Alchemist for what is probably his funniest and most satisfying appearance yet.  Using an old-fashioned dictionary, he pulls off a bit of deduction worthy of Sherlock Holmes and discovers the current resting place of the orb – the Whistler Wing of the Frick Museum (actually the Frick Collection).

As Rusty and Billy enter the Frick, Brock is right behind them, seemingly ready to carry out his deadly orders.  The only thing that saves Dr. Venture is a rare display of restraint and common sense.  And for the capper, a “Go Team Venture!” with a way-too-enthused Billy.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff!  Despite the sheer amount of dialogue and story development that took place in “ORB”, it did have a good share of action.  It was also one of the more visually stunning episodes of the season.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the amazing score by J.G. Thirwell, who has had some doozies this year.

So now it all comes down to the last two episodes of the season, and where it goes is anyone’s guess.  Will the orb play yet another role or is it just a MacGuffin?  What of the rekindled Venture/Monarch feud?  Since Brock’s orders were not actually to protect Rusty, what now?  And where the hell is Phantom Limb anyway?

Final grade: B+

Best lines/moments:

• *shudder*  “Congratulations, you’ve discovered pornography.  Oh, that’s unsavory.”
• “I could save 1.3 miles if I take Ridge Street.”
• “All you’ve proved is that you’re way too into cartoons, and that I should find out why I haven’t seen dime one from those DVD sales.”
• “Fine!  When I got assigned this ridic…important assignment…”
• “I think I have heat stroke.”  “You have lollygagger’s syndrome, that’s what you have.”
• “Is this a rec room?  Please tell me there’s bumper pool.”
• “And if poison gas should come out and kill us, I just want to tell you that I was the one who carved Dean’s name into the bathroom door.”
• So Oscar Wilde gets credit for naming the Guild of Calamitous Intent.  Cool.
• “Man, the poor chump who came up with this riddle didn’t bank on us having the internet, huh?”
• The best line of the whole season: “Rusty Venture – brought to you by smoking!”
• “Next season will be all about the man capris.”
• “Master Rusty has found orb?  Did he find it under the couch while looking for change?”
• Hank and Dean TP’ing Orpheus while he astral projected was frigging gold.
• “Achh, internet.  It’s only good for finding out that your boyfriend is sleeping around.  Friggin’ MySpace.  What, I’m not supposed to look at his friends’ comments?  They’re right on the first page!  That’s hardly snooping.”
• Rusty walking right past Billy as he crawled along his rope was great.
• “We haven’t found it yet so keep your pants on.”  “Why, you planning on taking them off again?”

At some point before season four of The Venture Bros. gets underway, I’m going to run a countdown of the top 10 episodes from the first three.  And right now I can’t think of any reason why “The Lepidopterists” won’t be on that list.  With a few exceptions, I’ve been thoroughly entertained by all of this season’s episodes, but this one had me laughing out loud as much as when I discovered the show sometime around the beginning of season one.  And that’s definitely saying something.

Assemble Ventronic!

To start, the cold open here is one of the funniest of any show I’ve ever seen.  We join the action right where “Tears of a Sea Cow” left off – with the Monarch’s flying cocoon hurtling toward Spider-Skull Island and a showdown with Dr. Jonas Venture, Jr.  JJ doesn’t quite get what’s going on (“not sure what the flying pine cone is all about, but I’ll give Mr. Evergreen a run for his money!”), but once he does he unleashes the mighty Ventronic, in one of the greatest sequence in this show’s brief history.  The animation and music were perfect in this Voltron homage.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’m going to hell for laughing at all the Ned jokes but damn if they aren’t some of the show’s best ones.  I almost lost it when I saw that Ned’s portion of Ventronic was a clown head, and the interior looked like a pre-school playroom (I love the “Ned #1″ floor tiles).

So anyway, Ventronic wipes the floor with the flying cocoon, which is apparently a violation of the agreement between the Guild of Calamitous Intent and their arches.  While JJ tries to work through the bureacracy involved between the Guild and O.S.I., the Monarch sends Henchmen #21, 24, and 1 carry out a “Dark S7 maneuver”. So who is #1?  He’s Scott Hall, of course, and 21 and 24 are convinced that this over-eager henchman is dead meat walking.  And they’re not shy about telling him either. It’s a funny gag but does border on the obnoxious toward the end.

Back on the island, JJ finally gets the help he’s looking for, in the form of two mysterious men named Mr. Doe and Mr. Cardholder.  They are lepidopterists of a sort, and they’ve recruited none other than Brock Samson to help Jonas with his Monarch problem.  Jonas doesn’t really care for the whole costumed aggression thing, thinking that it’s a relic from the ’60s. But he goes along with the whole thing just the same.

The B storyline concerns the Sea Captain, who walks the dreaded path to addiction via a hankering for tranquilizer darts.  Not the best storyline ever but it’s amusing enough and doesn’t detract from the main show.

Back on the cocoon, the Monarch gets the news he’s been waiting for all season – thanks to a loophole in Guild guidelines, Jonas’s over-aggressive attack (a la Ventronic) means the Monarch is now free to arch Rusty Venture again.  Sweet!   Before that, though, he must try for one more attack on the island.  But JJ is waiting for him, and is packing a rather large late-’60s ultra death ray.  The outcome of this battle involves a bit of trickery that I (or Dr. Girlfriend for that matter) never thought the Monarch capable of.  Oh yeah, and #1 does get killed when Brock finds him and pummels him mercilessly.

I’m running out of ways to praise these episodes, but this was truly a gem.  It had TONS of action, which has been all to infrequent lately.  There were plenty of laugh-out-loud lines as well.  And for good measure, there were some key story arc developments that weren’t beaten over our heads, such as the resumption of the Monarch/Rusty rivalry, and the strange appearance of Brock to aid someone other than Rusty (is O.S.I. up to something?).

Oh, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch not only takes her old name back, but dons the old costume as well.  What’s up with that?

Final grade: A+

Best lines/moments:

• “No time for inappropriate and baffling sing-song, Neddy.”
• “What the f*$@ is that?!” “Um, I think it’s a giant robot with an ice cream cone for one of its arms, I think.”
• “No no word!”  “Yes it is, Neddy.”
• “I gotta ask this – is there a reason you always use 21 and 24?”  “I know it sounds crazy, but they both have that rare blend of expendable and invulnerable that makes for a perfect henchman.”
• “When you were a kid, did you ever make GI Joe hump Rainbow Brite?”  “Yeah?”  “He’s what their kid would look like.”
• “Me and my associate are amatuer lepidopterists.”  “Youuuuuuu want to see my stamp collection?”  “Only if we were philatelists.”  “Which we aren’t, Mr. Smart Guy.”
• “I like the cut of this guy’s jib.”  “I like the cut of his hair.”
• “Which one of you idiots broke my wife?”
• “If that were a woman, I’d marry it.”  “And I’d jeopardize our friendship by nailing your hot wife.”