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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Go Team Venture! A Venture Bros Retrospective: Season 4A

Hello all you happy venturoos! I”m jake and I review comics and animation, and today we return to the world of guys in costumes, stuffed dead cats, batman obessed blond mop heads, super science shenanigans and naked men, as my Venture Bros retrospective makes it’s triumphant return!

For those of you who missed the looks at the first three seasons, which is fair the season 3 review was two months ago, here's some links

Season 1!

Season 2!

Season 3!

The short version: Since high school i’ve been a huge fan of the Venture Bros, but due to my watch queue being as bit as the posts linked above and this one your reading, I simply never got around to it. So late last year when I decided to continue the trend i’d started of starting a review of something I love dearly to the point it’s a part of my very soul, the choice was obvious and thus this look back at the series had began. Like with Scott Pilgrim I noticed tons of deeper things about the series I hadn’t before, re-evaluated episodes I once hated, got to enjoy ones I loved again and found some.. were just as crappy as always. Hello Fallen Arches, Love Bheits, Guess Whose Coming to State Dinner, and an episode we’ll get to shortly. I got to bask in the titular bros shenanigans, recoil in horror at just how low Doc could sink, and see the badassery and jerkassery of brock sampson and many many more in this stuffed to perfection cast.

So with how well this was going you might wonder why I stopped.

Okay I do have some but I coudln’t resist that gag. The first delay was because I got sick unexpedetly and had to push it back as it was the only review I could afford to. As for the second it’s ironically for the same reason this season got cut in half: Much like Jackson I was burnt out after stupidly overtaxing myself and thus delayed some things rather than half ass them. These reviews mean a lot and just like Jackson i’d rather things take longer than come out half assed and exausted. Thankfully a few days off last week, even with ANOTHER cold because I have Rusty’s luck without actually deserving any of it, did the trick and i’m primed and ready to jump into what is easily my favorite season, and I feel comfortable saying that both having only rewatched one half and having had to sit through Perchance to Dean again. By episode 4 the season is on full blast, taking everything that made the show work thus far from oddly specific references, to the gorgeous art direction, to the fatnastically lived in and well constructed world to the titular boys themselves, and took it to it’s peak. The first three seasons are good, especially seasons 2 and 3.. but season 4 is damn near perfect.

As usual before we get into the season itself we have to see how the sausage gets made. And the key part of this one’s development was burnout. Season 3 was the first season they had made that had the promise of another one. It’s WHY they upended the show: As Doc pulled it its’ no fun to do something like say, killing 24 or having brock quit, something that changes the shows dna.. and then just walking away. You don’t end on a cliffhanger unless your sure you’ll get to resolve it. It’s why Doc and Jackson were so determined to find some way to end things after season 7: having Hank leave possibly forever is not the note you end a series on, it’s the kind of note you play knowing it’s leading into another song. It also meant having to shelve an episode idea till next time was less frustrating: for all the ones the big status quo shifts would make unwritable, there were dozens more that would be just fine next time.

The problem was, much like myself, Jackson overestimated just how much he could do and how long it would take. As such he expected to be ahead of schedule and fell horribly behind instead, something I again know all too well and something that according to Doc he does every year. It’s just this year he didn’t have the gap between seasons to recharge his creative batteries so they burst into flame on him. All but one of the episodes aren’t bad and the one that is isn’t because of burnout, so he didn’t let the work suffer but having put so much into it he was about ready to collapse and utterly behind when he got to what would become the season 6b premire “The Diving Bell Vs The Butter Glider” he had the ideas.. but he just coudln’t bring himself to make the script.

Doc was fully supportive as like any sane person when he hears a person screaming I need a break his first inscint isn’t to crack the whip and increase the crunch like too many assholes out there in creative fields.. but to let Jackson slow the fuck down. Jackson went to the network and convinced them to let him split the season in half and add a few extra episodes: Adult Swim gets basically two seasons of it’s most popular show and Jackson gets a LITTLE rest. They didn’t really STOP or anything, they just didn’t have to go as hard and despite being exausted to hell in the second half we’ll get to next month, Jackson still was utterly proud of what he produced and never made the mistake to not have a decent gap between seasons again. And look most shows do come out at a once a year clip, but I can’t blame the guys for working at their own pace, epsecially having to do dvd stuff, promotion, all sorts of other things going on around each season.

As for why keep the split it’s two reasons: the first is that i’ts simply less exausting to do two batches of 8 episodes versus one motherfucker big 16 episode giant, 17 really as Prom is double length. I have my limits and while these reviews are some of my faviorite work i’ve ever done they still take a LOT out of me. And that’s knowing one of the next shows i’m going to going to do full season reviews like this of has 24 eps a season. But said eps are 11 minutes, so it’s a bit easier to swallow compared to trying to cram down 15 half hours and one full our in the span of a month. How Totally Not Mark does WAY more than that every month, even without two other reviews in the week to consider, I have NO idea. More than that it also just.. feels right to split the season. While on a nostalgic level it’s how I watched it both halves , while making a whole together, still FEEL like their own seasons with their own dedicated premires. More than that thanks to Brock’s absence 4a just has it’s own feel and even it’s own status quos for Gary and Hank that get shifted a bit next season. While hank is still a tad more rebellious and mature and gary still entirely badass while still very much gary, both shift in priortities with Hank having his absent surrogate dad back in his life, thus having no need to rebel against his other authority figures anymore, and Gary questioning the life he’s chosen. We’ll obviously get to those more next month, but you get my point: each part while making a whole together is it’s own thing, kinda like how the two halves of amphibia seasons 2 and 3 each feel very diffrent from each other while still flowing into one another. So it just makes the most sense to do each part on it’s own. So with that let’s begin this journey with the first part as Hatred moves in, brock moves out and 24 dosen’t really move on so much as talk to his halluciation of his best friends ghost.

Content Warning:

This Review Contains mentions of Pedophilia as one of the main cast members at this point is a former pedophile, as it will sexual assault. Discretion is advised

The Season(Piece) and Me

When making the intro I forgot to get into how I experienced the season way back when, or at least this part. And despite this review being a meaty boy that took several days, I still felt I needed to go back and add it. The whole reason i’m doing this project, and frankly do most of my projects, is it means something to me. Sure I take comissions and patreons and gladly, i’m getting paid to do what I love. I’d never walk that back and I do have to sign off on the thing i’m reviewing before I actually agree to take money. But one of the best joys of this job is just getting to jaw on about works I truly love, the good and the bad of them. And on rare occasions tearing apart things I truly hate, see you next month Quagmire’s Dad!, but my point is I do this retrospective out of love and the deep history I have with the show so not sharing it now we’re in the thick of me watching it one on one is just silly.

So by now I was hooked, having written my own utterly terrible fourth season during sophmore year of High School.. it’s thankfully lost to time. I loved this show so while I checked season 3 out casually this was the first season I went into hyped as hell and obviously it did not disapoint. This really was the golden era of my being a venture bros fan: the mantis eye experiment, a fansite that not only still exists but is where I get most of the screencaps for the episode guide, allowed me to talk about the episodes as my struggle to find people who share some of my werid intrests is eternal apparently, and it was just pure fun. I got to see things progress and change, the characters truly evolve and ooo and ahh as the show really hit it’s peak. It was a great time to be alive and to be a venture fan.

Seasonal Stylings

Starting us off is something I don’t feel i’ve gushed enough about in general but hits it’s stride here: the animation. The show has always had a gorgeous art direction, essentially being a filmation superhero show or a hannah barbera action show if it had the actual budget it deserved, and every season it’s improved from being slightly chonky but still lovely in season 1 to improving on that and helping it become more cinematic in season 2 to the HD upscale last season that reworked the character models to fit the shows art evolution.

Now with Season 4 and most of the characters getting a redesign the art direction truly has hit it’s stride and it’ll keep, and sometimes up, this level of quality from here on out. Last season was the show upgrading to HD, wisely knowing that’s where things were headed. This year was the show taking that to it’s ultimate form.

Said redesigns are also all cherry: Brock and co’s sphinx unfiorms should absolutley not work, being poo brown with some gold accents. But they look damn cool and the muted brown fits their off the books gone rogue approach to tackling super villany. LIkewise hank gets my faviorite look for him here, only rivaled by his seasons 6 and 7 rainbow jacket and hella good hair: the grown out hair and brock’s jacket, draped over the team uniform or his pjs depending on what time of day it is. We also get 21′s upgrade to buff as hell wolverine style badass. I also do love Team Venture’s new look, something I didn’t notice as a teen. Ala the fantastic four they now all have the same uniform, with Hank naturally adding his own touch with the jacket. We’ll get more into what that means story wise in a moment but It’s clear jackson and doc took the big changes as an excuse to really have some fun. In the past the characters generally stuck to their classic looks, with only Shelia getting a big change with the dr. mrs the monarch suit but here everyone in the main cast gets changes great and small with only monarch keeping his classic outfit and SHielia sticking with her change up from last season which fits: both are in the most stable place they’ve been since season 1 so unlike everyone else, who is going thorugh a lot of upheavel, why WOULD they change.

Change is the theme of the season. The first three seasons had a strong continuity and a mini arc here or there: Richard Impossible’s degrading marriage and sally leaving him, JJ slowly getting disllusioned with his big brother, the order of the triad trying to function as a team, dean’s crush on triana slowly progressing. Just some things on the outskirts. But as far as the main cast was concerned only the monarch had any lasting changes to his life: he had a messy entirely his fault breakup with his girlfriend, got framed by her ex, went to prison, adjusted poorly without her, won her back thanks to a combo of Dr. Henry Killinger (and his magical murder bag) and Shielia realizing why she left limb in the first place, succesfully wedding her despite Phantom Limbs attempted guild mutiny and bride abduction, and having to TRY to not arch venture before eventually finding his way back within the rules. While Malcom didn’t change a LOT as a character he still went through a lot and it effect his arching every time.

In contrast team venture remained mostly the same. Hank and Dean did evolve as characters, with Hank going from a jock bully moron to an intensely weird, immensely loveable, and entirely specific weirdo who thinks he’s batman instead of barely qualifying for robin and is the only one in his group who enjoys this superhero crap like anyone else caught in this vortex, whlie Dean went from a put upon nerd to a proudly geeky in the 60′s style nerd who is unabashidely optimstic, naive and sweet, while Brock slowly grew to accept his roll as nanny before the stress of it lead to him noping out. Rusty remained pretty much the same asshole just marginally better every season

But their core deal was the same: Doc was a failing super scietnest resulting to increasingly shady side hustles to get by, Brock was his best friend, loyal body guard and constantly failing at his job because Doc won’t listen concisence who kills anything that dares threaten his found family, Hank batusi’s into danger despite having no buisness doing so and dean has a panic attack. together they get arched by a jackass in a butterfly suit (and for one season a recovering pedophile with a military gimmick) when their not on globetrotting adventures or dealing with the remains of rusty’s latest bad decision. The show never rested on it’s formula or anything but there was an inherent saftey in the core status quo. A combination of Brock Mothefucking Sampson and having survived far worse meant that while we knew rusty COULD die in the shit he kept getting thrown into, he probably woudln’t, while the boys not only had the brock saftey net but also the clone one. As long as they were arround, they were imortal.

Season 3′ sending cleverly cut both safety nets to ribbons: Brock is not only gone but he’s replaced by Hatred. As Jackson put it Brock occasionally did badass herculean feats of strength, stuff no normal man could do and even some paranormal men would say “fuck that” to trying. Hatred is just a middle aged guy who wouldn’t be out of place at possum lodge who only has guns, army/osi/guild training, and inside baseball knowhow of the guild. He can protect his unit sure, but he’s just not the guaranteed instant win button. Meanwhile the clones are gone: they grow in real time and even if Doc COULD make more, The OSI is making sure he DOESN’T. The Boys are the last one he has.

With the safety net gone and someone whose not even remotely like brock taking up his old duties... it cleverly changes things. The ventures are now bolted to the compound and doc has switched from get rich quick schemes aborad to simply renting out to whoever will take it. The old offsceen adventures are gone and what’s left is a family struggling to hold it together when their heart ripped himself out and walked away. And as a result the family is BARELY holdling it together in this part: While Doc TRIES to be a parent it only works with dean, who he affectionately mentors. With Hank he’s just somehow even more of an ass to him than anyone he’s ever been an ass to (which given he reached one hundred on the “Rusty Sucks Suprising No One Count” last season is saying something), and Hatred just isn’t good like brock was at ballancing that out, with hank rejecting him most of the time and for understandable reasons (he replaced his dad and also tried to molest him. I can’t blame the kid) Meanwhile hank acts out more as a result of both loosing brock and his dad being a dick. Dean is really the only one whose got it together this season and that’s only by a hair. The family was always dysfunctional but now they’ve hit their lowest point and it will only get marginally better from here.

It changes up the show.. and for the better. It shakes things up at just the right time: three seasons isn’t a bad amount ot keep a set status quo, getting fans used to the show.. and then shaking it to hell and back like Rusty probably did with the boys as babies. By changing everything the show was allowed to truly grow, having already slowly done so and hit it’s true peak. Anything could happen with Brock gone and it did: 21 became a badass, a new member joined the family, a longtime mainstay in triana exited, and things would only keep c-c-changing from here. And the show would only be better for it.

Roll Call

As usual we start with Doc who is trying to be a parent for once, staying at home to try and keep the kids safe.. not that this makes a ton of sense given most of the boys deaths HAPPENED in the home but hey, rusty’s life never makes a ton of sense and the boys have become marginally less death prone, and it is a place where he can keep a better eye on them before they do something suicidally stupid. He’ll NEVER be able to control costumed jackasses attacking him but he can at least try.

The problem is his efforts are so titled to one side i’m suprised Hank didn’t shoot off into the stratosphere. Doc IS geninely trying with dean, to guide him into doing actual science via giving him a lab (instead of growing experiments in the kitchen) and most heartwarmingly introducing him to his love of pro rock to inspire him. While he’ll be more of a pushy dickhead in later seasons toward dean following in his footsteps, here he’s gentle and when the guild invades his compound and you know, dosen’t realize how utterly horrible any of that would look to everyone inside, especially one fo their ex employees, Rusty not only gently helps his son with his panic vomiting , assuring him that’s half the reason to wear a speedsuit, he actually goes along with dean’s plans to confront them. It dosen’t go anywhere, but it’s heartwarming to see Doc REALLY trying for once, realizing that this is the last son he gets and now Dean CAN grow past being a teenager, it’s time to prepare him

The problem is while he’s being a good parent for once to Dean it’s ONLY Dean. While Hank IS acting out, refusing to accept Hatred as his new bodyguard and calling Doc insults , including my personal faviorite “A Honky”, both for the delivery on that line from Doc and the Monarch understandably snickering.. Doc predictably is being extra obnoxious about one of his sons finally defying his abusive ass. Over the course of the season he geneinly seem to consider not rescuing hank from the monarch (He actually does put in the effort to get him back but still), tries to bar him from using the bathroom, physically abuses him for the first time while blaming him for something he didn’t do and doesn’t really trace back to him, and snarks about Hank working in UPS as an adult. He is just awful to my boy all season and even putting me spiritually adopting hank aside, this is easily the worst i’ve seen rusty. We’ll get WHY he does this next time but it dosen’t make him any less awful for treating hank like this simply for acting out, especially since Rusty himself acted out plenty with his own dad in college. He’s also not great to Hatred.. to a point. His comparing him to brock constantly is just sad as it’s clear by the finale DOC is the reason Brock left the compound. Brock genuienly laments not being able to “tell the boys their safe” and misses them.. but while Doc will always be his close friend it’s clear he’s fed up with his crap and relishes getting to call him an ass. Doc had a good bodyguard by pure luck. Hatred is exactly what he deserves for his threat level and he just can’t accept he has to actually try now. That being said Hatred is also an ex pedophile who begged for the job, shows up naked in Doc’s room during an emergency, and unashamedly talks about how he was masturbating piror to being tranked. And look masturbation shouldn’t be stigmatized.. but Rusty is right Hatred dosen’t need to TELL him about it especially in an emergency. Just because you can and should be able to talk about masterbation dosen’t mean you HAVE to bring it up when you don’t have to.

We also have Doc finally get some therapy.. only to chuck it deciding he’s better than everyone else in the group. Which.. he is to a point. He makes a good point how unlike the hardy boys by way of the mendez brothers, patton oswalt’s robin and action johnny he is better off.. but being better off than the REST of his group dosen’t mean he’s better. It’s honestly.. sad. Doc DOES need help, he does need to grow but because the Monarch can’t grow up for five minutes and accept Rusty can have one night a week he dosen’t get arched, he looses that and convinces himself he dosen’t need it back. Once again the adventure life has cost him peace of mind, but this time he just accepts it. He probably would be more pissed the Monarch was interfering with his life than that he actually caused his therapy to end. Rusty NEED help: he has decades of trauma, abuses his kids, and is a former addict. He NEEDS someone to help him through his issues so he can be better... but the thing about mental health is you NEED to want help or it’s not going to take. You need to WANT help.

We’re also given the heartbreaking reason WHY he hasn’t gotten help: SHOCKINGLY Jonas gaslit his own son, playign therapist while really just bullying rusty for not wanting to have a grown man put an empty gun to his head and whisper “not today rusty”. Yeah even if Jonas isn’t playing the HUGE roll he did last season he still gets worse this season. So it’s easy to see why Rusty turned out this way and sad to see he can’t see the way to dig himself out of the hole his own poor decisions and his father's abuse buried him in.

Now onto Hank who out of the two boys gets the most development this season and part of that is his dope outfit change. I’m not one to take the side door, i’ll go up front and knock: i’m not a fan of Hank’s classic outift. It’s not terrible and provides a nice color contrast to Deans and as Hank points out this season he can rock a kerchief but it never worked for me. So it’s probably not a coincidence teen me finally noticed just how awesome hank was the same time he got a sweet new outfit, getting his own team uniform while adding Brock’s Jacket to it and growing out his hair. It’s not supposed to be neat looking, it’s what a teenager is supposed to think is cool and past me can confirm but evne as an adult it just flows better and fits hanks insane personality better. It’s also part of why I feel the season splits into halves so well: Hank in part 1 is a different hank than hank in part 2 down to sadly shedding the hair cut and eventually the jacket.. though he keeps the speedsuit and gets some other fun outfits next season, so it still works out and he thankfully grows his hair back to an even better style during the new york era. I don’t hate shaved hank but I prefer him with some hair as it just looks better.

Anyways, Hank has taken his only positive role model leaving him poorly and thus is changing the most. Dean loved him and misses him too.. but to Hank brock was everything: he was the one he tried to be a kid sidekick to, the mulleted ladies man badass who let him hang out in his room and quite honestly... his dad. Doc can barely be assed to be a parent so while Hank treats him like a dad.. Brock actually ACTED like one. He was tough but fair with him and actually bothered to spend time with hank and teach him stuff. And now he’s simply stuck with the bitter resentful jackass who clearly prefers his brother not going on adventures anymore.

When you look at his changes... he’s TRYING to be brock since he can’t have brock: he’s wearing his jacket , growing out his hair and taking up Brock’s place of busting Doc’s balls. Granted part of that is also that hank needs someone to blame so he lashes out at the guy who replaced him and the guy who clearly drove him away in hanks eyes... which is part of it but not the ENTIRE reason Brock left, so fair enough. He just wants Brock back and is in denial that he’s gone. Well okay he’s on the same yard, but he’s not present. It makes two parts of the premire in paticular heartbreaking: The first is Brock’s full exit: while he did quit at the end of the season it’s clear no one on Team Venture bought he was really leaving.... until he does, running out to escape the OSI and leaving his watch behind. While both boys are devistated.. it’s Hanks face that’s the most hurt. Brock not only REALLY is leaving.. but he didn’t say goodbye. It’s why Hank retreats into blaming everyone else but Brock for leaving: because he can’t take the idea his mentor, his dad, REALLY thought so little of him as to leave and really didn’t care about him. He does of course and Brock really just left because he had no time to say goodbye and it hurt him to know he was close to his kids but coudln’t see them, but to Hank it’s just his favorite person in the world leaving.

The hardest one though is the end of the same episode when we catch up with real time.. and see Brock with Sphinx. Jackson’s performance is utterly heartbreaking. He hugs his missing father figure.. before asking some pretty soul crushing questions, sounding not like the fearless, reckless, endlessly confident doofus we love.. but a scared child wondering why his father left him. His “why did you leave me” just.. breaks me every time i’ve heard it, and the “Why didn’t you say goodbye right before” .. it’s just utterly heartsmashing to see hank break like this and you can tell Brock just wants to tell him but knows Sphinx needs to remain in the shadows both for it’s good and Hanks and asks to share him a while. He dosen’t even properly comfort the kid he has to go before that. It’s not one of brock’s better acts, basically asking hank to hide he was there, and thus any chance of finding him and to just accept he’s gone.. but the fact it’s not so simple, that Brock knows what he’s doing is hurting them both... it’s masterful writing.

It’s just a half a season of a sad child wondering when his dad will come home while having a LOT of shit piled on him. And i’m not exagerating: in the span of 8 episodes he only gets to see brock for five seconds and gets no good reason why he left, gets kidnapped by a man trying to make him into his new sidekick instead of you know, get therapy while his dad only tries to rescue him because he has to, thinks he killed his brother, gets blamed for said brother’s deranged clone’s actions, gets kidnapped AGAIN this time by one of his only friends, has said friend block his view at the movies, then has to use himself as bait to help prevent his new bodyguard from having a spiral back into pedophilia. it was dressed up as his ex wife, to be clear, but it’s still no less fucked up. I didn’t even realize it till I rewatched this batch: hank goes through a lot and the fact he got through all of this his usual dopey self speaks to his resielnce. The kid has been through so much shit before and after this season and he just keeps going, happy as ever and as determined to be batman as ever.

The season does compensate though by showing some real growth in hank: While he’s still far more skilled in his head than in reality, he does show some flashes of actual skill: he has a robin style battle as wonder boy with 21 and the monarch and while both are going easy on him (21 ONLY punching him because he was being a little dick), and the monarch as he needs his hostage, he still dodges both fairly well and dosen’t get recaptured and for someone who used to get kidnapped every other week, that’s a win. He later manages to stall the bulk of the guild of the calamtous intent’s military simply by stonewalling them with the intercom. Granted again the opponent didn’t have killing intent, but not only did hank NOT know they didn’t and was willing to put his life on the line if they did, but their still highly trained, deadly strangers who still got outwitted by a 16-17 year old weirdo who did it by treating them like telemarketers. Hank is starting to go from someone who thinks he’s badass to the true badass he was destined to be.

He’s also grown emotionally. I mean he’s still hank.. we still get the whole conversation with hank where he asks if he has a “weird dingus” becauase he assumes gay people are transgender and somehow manages to be unwittingly trans and homophobic all at once.. but in the same sentence his response to being asked if he’s ashamed of his ignorance, even just a little?” “Constantly” it’s both hilarious but shows hank is’nt a malicious idiot, just one raised by Rusty who isn’t the most socially concious guy on a good day and he hasn’t had a good day in 20 years.

Hank first shows it in said captain sunshine episode. While he’s more than happy to basically be robin after a Kevin Conroy voiced combo of superman and batman kidnaps him without realizing he’s not an orphan (or that dean exists), to be his new ward, especially since for all his awkwardness, Sunshine isn’t a dick like his actual dad. It’s everything hank could possibly want, especially since we later learn that cap took over from his butler/dad desmond, meaning Hank would be a shoe in to basically become a rainbow combo of batman and superman. But it just.. isn’t right and hank can see that. The Good Captain hasn’t moved on from loosing wonder boy, breaks down frequently, nearly beats a guy to death and in general just ISN’T ready to take on a surrogate son and is trying to make hank into someone he isn’t. Hank isn’t wonder boy and he sees Captain sunshine needs help not a young ward.. and givne he clearly gets one later it sadly didn’ take. But hank tried and it says a lot when the hank of a few seasons ago probably would’ve been a lot harder to convince to come home. but this hank, even if his home sucks.. it’s where he needs to be.

His next big moment comes in “The Revenge Society”. IT’s not one of his finest hours to start as he preys on Hatred’s fear to try and steal his dad’s playboys and other shenanigans.. but Hatred is able to get through to his moral center by guilt tripping him without hank even realizing it. It shows that while Hank is willing to get into shenanigans when he realizes there is real stakes he’ll try and as we saw he didn’t do bad. And he eventually did find those playboys thanks to karma. So good for him

Finally we have The Better Man, which I didn’t expect to have choice Hank as I remembered everything else going on in that one more, but here we are. While Hank being the one to finally break it to dean he’s not in a relationship with Triana and it’s not headed that way, the fact he does so rather well and with minimum hank is what stuck out to me. I do say minimum as he opens his questions to dean with “Have you seen her naked”

But the rest are honest ways to get Dean to realize their relationship hasn’t gone anywhere past platonic: “Have you kissed her?” “have you held her hand?” “Have you gone shopping with her?” And is the last one a tad accidentally sexist... yes. It’s hank... but the fact they really HAVEN’T hung out in a coupley way is a fair point. And frankly given the fact Hank was raised by every woman’s nightmare and a serial womanizer i’m shocked his advice is not only entirely on the nose but functional. Granted his next move is to take Dean to the mall and literally throw him at girls after making him look like Rufio but he’s trying. He even gives Dean a well deserved “touche” when he tries to razz his brother for “falling in love with the first girl to live in your backyard”.. only to be reminded of his longstanding crush on the mail lady (”In my defense she had very attractive shorts”). Hank is just sweet here.. entirely out of his depth, he woudln’t be any good at this till season 6, and it’s nice to see the two really gelling as brothers despite the divide between them growing by the day. After half a season of Doc being said wedge, it’s nice to just see Hank try and help dean and the two really hang out again. Pity it won’t last but we still got a few moments with them to savor before we get to .. that one. But I got a few months before I have to dissect that trainwreck of a creative decision. Hank’s at his best.

Dean also changes a bit this season piece, just not as dramatically as hank. He’ll get his turn in Season 5. For now he’s still the same loveable little goody two shoes whose anxious as hell about this life yet geninely seems to still want it on some level.. he just has the kind of pencil mustache most boys get as a teenager.

His progress though is neat: He tries super science for the first time and while Doc’s treatment of hank absolutely sucks, him mentoring dean is adorable and a this stage, while as we'll see next season half open to other careers he genuinely WANTS to try science, and relishes getting his own lab for a bit. He also takes to prog rock which is a sweet bit of father and son sharing a hobby. It’s also neat to see the parallel with his own dad: both of them WANT to continue science like their father before them and seem to really enjoy it.... it’s just the costumed crap that comes with it really bothers them. Doc is numb to it but for Dean.. he just wants it to stop on some level. Dean actually having some enthuastic for science here is important as he tries to drive away from it: he can do it.. it’s a question of SHOULD he do it that will span the rest of the series and probably the movie. Still no word in the last 5 months dammit.

The other bit is the beginning of the end for a series mainstay: Triana Orpheus leaves the cast this part and while she’ll return for Operation PROM, she’s gone from then on. And surprisingly her departure WASN’T doc’s breakup with her va or simply just not caring: She was intended to come back... it’s just they never found an opportunity and probably won’t with the movie. The reason was simple: She was growing up and at the age she’d leave the nest and the boys just wren’t there yet. This super science world just wasn’t her. She was fairly normal and thus had to move on. Granted she did so by going to train to be a sorcerer supreme like her dad because it pays more than art school would, but still it was her version of going on to college, something Dean himself would need a season and a half more to get to.

And honestly while I do feel the character could have an awesome return down the line, I seriously doubt Jackson and Doc will stop entirely and now they don’t have the show they could continue in comics if they wanted, I do feel she just lost her place in the show: Dermott was working better as a link to the outside world, especially as he and dean slowly grew to tolerate each other, the rest of the order served as better non-doc foils to orpheus, and Dean really didn’t need a love interest especially if they had no intention of going anywhere with it. At the end of the day she was a very normal person in a very abnormal world who just had no place being there other than her dad happened to be part of it. IT made sense to ship her off so she’d become more part of it and she simply hasn’t drifted back yet because her dad, her primary link to the show, slowly drifted out of focus.. and while she could easily exist independent of him if she and dean patched it up as friends, which is plausible he did end things dickishly but she seems forgiving enough and Dean seems like he’d offer a hell of an apology for being a butt (We’ll get to that incident last time), but she needs that link to her dad to hook her back in to have anything to do with our cast of loveable assholes.

So having Dean move on was what the show needed and how they do it is good: Hank gets him to see his relationship with triana while POSSIBLE hasn’t gone anywhere, and after again his brother lovingly shoved him into some teen girls, just talking to one and seeing where it goes (Nowhere as it turns out), taking Dermott’s advice allow shim to TRY to move on. Granted his trying to quickly backtrack when he “breaks up with triana’ shows he’s not over her and sadly.. as good as an ending as him “breaking it off” and her humoring him with both parting as friends WOULD’VE been.. this is the venture bros. Things often don’t end well fo rour heroes.. and it’s often their fault. And sadly it’ll be dean’s fault when we pick this thread up again next time.

Next up we have our new and for better or worse pemenant addition to the family: Sgt. Hatred. His replacing Brock was far from a popular move, something Jackson and Doc knew would happen so the question is.. was adding him to the main cast a good idea?

I do think hatred isn’t a TERRIBLE character: replacing brock with a far less compitent, emotoinally open and loud replacement works comedically and it’s fun to see Doc be the sane one in a bodyguard super scientest relationship for a change, and as I said he can be competent in the right context. He also does have some genuinely great moments: his letting hank shoot him to gain his trust, while utterly insane, is also bizzarely touching: he just wants the kid to trust him and can’t get through to him. And the entire scene with him and doc in return to malice is pure magic: from him showing up basically naked to just.. casually admitting he was masturbating, it shoudln’t work but it does.

The problem is the elephant in the room, something Jackson and Doc obviously shoudl’ve seen as a problem in promoting this character beyond supporting and of having him around long term but clearly didn’t: Sgt. Hatred was a pedophile. He is a reformed one: he takes medication (If an injection in the neck because of the show we’re in and whose giving him the drugs), geninely regrets what he did seeing it as being in a dark place, and it’s revealed part of why he kept it up for so long is the Guild saw this.. as an asset

So it’s not like they aren’t writing him as a guy TRYING to reform from being this monster in the past terribly. When he runs out of his drugs while at the last film in a fantasy trilogy with the boys, he well.. runs out and locks himself in the panic room, not wanting to harm any innocent children. He’s TRYING not to be a pedophile.

The issue is they just don’t handle the topic well. At all. Venture Bros deals with many issues with great nuance. Doc is a great example, being both utterly loathsome but also on some level pitable. You don’t forgive how he treats the boys.. but you get WHY he’s like this and thus can sympathize with him on occasoin without forgettnig what an ass he is. But with Hatred it just dosen’t work

As for why for starters they mostly use his pedophila as a punchline and wanting to sleep with children.. isn’t funny. It just isn’t. I never really found that shit funny and I find it even less funny now I have neices, nephews and niblings to worry about. Kids getting horribly scarred for life by being raped is not funny and it never will be. So having jokes about Hatred still having child porn on his computer aren’t funny. Him wanting to go to thailand to buy a child isn’t funny. And worst of all him RAPING BILLY because he looks like a chlild isn’t funny. Yes they made one of the main cast a rapist. I only vaugley remember it happening and while they don’t outright say he did it, the implication is VERY clear. He’s naked, he’’s happya nd billy is horrified to find out he was clearly raped. It is easily the worst joke in the entire series thus far, and as good as the series is that is not an easy title. But just casually having one of your main cast rape a person for a joke is just.. holy shit. I didn’t think the show sunk this low.

I could stop at “he raped billy” as reasons I no longer like the character, but the fact he tried to rape the boys, if offscreen, in season 2 DOES NOT HELP. He did and part of hank’s reluctance is that exact incident and they just kinda.. brush past it. And whlie brushing past horrible shit is usually the show’s bread and butter and usually works you just.. can’t casually walk off the fact the guy now in charge of the boys care once tried to rape them. You can’t. Having someone more pathetic as the new bodyguard was a good idea.. but adding hatred to the main cast was a VERY bad one and only made the character worse. And yes i’m focusing mostly on raping billy but it says to me that even WITH the drugs Sgt. Hatred would gladly resume raping if he could get away with it. He suffers ZERO consequences from this and it’s treated as a gag because “DUR IT’S A MAN”. And look on the whole the “men getting raped is acceptable trope” is fucking disgusting and needs to be burned, thrown off a cliff and into a pool of acid. This one gag destroys any chance of me ever carring about this character again and i’m willing to double down on that. There’s nothing I remember in the rest of this season that really adds to him as a character enough, he never apologizes and next season thinks “giving him boobs” is funny which

But we’ll get to that. I get the sense Jackson really likes working with the character but he also says shit like “We don’t relaly go into that side of him” on his pedophilia.. and that it’s just a “sword of damocles hanging over his head”

And I do love Jackson and Doc but man oh man when they fuck up it tends to be dramatic and noticeable, like the moppets last season. Adding hatred to the main cast was one of the series biggest mistakes, something I realized more and more as I wrote this section. It’s a miracle this season is as good as it is despite ole hatred.

Okay that was a lot of hatred in both senses of the word. Thankfully we’re on to the last of the clan venture, Brock. Brock left the family and while some shows would resolve this cliffhanger fast, Jackson and Doc wisely decided to keep brock away, and using his story as bookends for this part of the season was genius. Blood Of the Father, Heart of Steel, wisely dosen’t keep us waiting a whole season to see where Brock is now, which was also to prevent fans from hunting them down and burning them in a brock themed wicker man, but still it did it’s job of keeping us informed while still keeping the mystery up to the finale. We see brock escape (and the heartbreaking scene of the boys realizing he’s REALLY gone), go on a wilderness sabatical with steve summers and sasquatch, two characters I honestly DIDN’T think ever returned properly, and finally going after the people who screwed him over. It dosen’t qutie work out with mol, but he does find out what Hunter was up to.. and joins him.. likely as hunter planned. We then see him and shore leave at the top of the season and while on the surface the scene, him trying to get hank to calm down despite having every reason to you know.. apologize or anything, dosen’t paint him in the best light i’ts clear later why.

And that later is the finale. It was a MASSIVE gamble to get rid of Brock for so long, especially since we fans watching.. had no idea if he was coming back or not. I wrote embarrassing fan fiction between seasons, that I thankfully didn’t post online and I can tell you I just.. didn’t think he was coming back. didn’t replace him with anybody but I just wrote him off and went on with shipping dean and triana because I was a naive little idiot like dean so I glommed onto that relationship.

But of course the guys always planned to bring him back as they knew the fans might accept brock being gone a few episodes, or half a season, but wouldn’t accept him leaving the main cast for too long. It’s why this season feels like two seasons really: brock is gone for this part, and next part his coming back and SPHINX! now being open with their presence on the compound changes things.

Speaking of which we have the shakeup with finding out just WHY Hunter went Rogue. As it turns out it wasn’t for no reason but simply because he had grown tired of how the OSI runs things. Easy to see why too: as we’ve seen now we know the orginzation better the most they do against the guild is try to do covert stuff with guys like doe and cardholder, they never vindicated brock and hunter for going after them despite not only learning one of their own was compromised, but that Phantom Limb was indeed working with the guild, and the entire operation with brock, while setup by hunter himself, was utterly bungled: they tried talking to him sure... but with a giant army on his doorstep. Of a guy who takes out giant armies on a regular basis. They didn’t try talking or doing any investigative work, they just went in guns a blazing and assumed he’d gone crazy or flipped to the guild despited neither making sense. So wanting to not only break from that but take out the guys the other orginzation are missing, i.e. super science nuts who plan world domination or dirty bombs, makes sense.. and it makes sense why Brock would join them despite hutner’s betrayal. He was probably still mad at him at first but after so long having to take it on the chin getting to go after the costumed set and co who step out of line.. it had to be cathartic. It was a chance ot do real good for the world instead of babysitting a garbage fire or doing the work of an orignzation who clearly hadn’t cared about him. Hutner did use him true... he could’ve just.. given brock a job offer and he woudl’ve considered it. Then again he woudln’t be hutner if he did. But I get why Brock took it: this is a chance for a fresh start away from the OSI

It’s not away from the family as it turns out he was on compound for months, and the pain of not being able to tell the boys they were safe was a lot. Noticably though he dosen’t seem to have missed doc much.. can’t say I blame him. And the second he gets a chacne as seen in the stinger, he reconnects and as we’ll see next time, makes it so the boys aren’t being mindwipped anymore. Partly for their good.. but it’s clear he misses them. They’ll never not be his family.. but you can’t blame him for hitting burnout and wanting to go back to doing cool superspy crap that for once feels like it has a real purpose. The guy he and Shore Leave take out on a mission had a geninely dangerous weapon and was a genine asshole. It also is clear from said mission Brock is HAPPY where he is. Hunter still isn’t the most ethical boss, trying to keep what’s going on with monstroso from brock, but frankly to be a spy master while you have to have SOME ethics, you can’t have a ton so fair on him. But he and Shore Leave go from two guys who hardly knew each other to best friends, and Brock seems far happier doing this than killing the monarch’s men. Before he was just slaughtering for a job. Now he has a purpose and he’s happy. And now he has the boys back he truly has everything.. or almost.. but we’ll get to her next time. Also yeah lotta next times this review but that’s what happens when you review half a season and given i’ve put out THIS much for just half a season. .you can see why I cut it

Onto the Monarch and the Mrs who.. honestly haven’t changed much. And it makes sense to not really rock the boat with them: the two have had two seasons straight of upheavel from their breakup to adjusting to their marriage and a venture free life. It’s fine to let 21 be the one to really change and evolve this season and just let them do what they do: come up with elaborate schemes for a guy who coudln’t care less and try and talk their husband out of the dumber parts while supporting him best she can respecitvely. It’s just nice after their relationship was dead for almost all of season 2 and struggling a bit in season 3 to let them just be happy.

The only real change is the Monarch does up his game. Clearly being away from Venture only made him think of new ways to torment him, starting with the geninely clever scheme of ransoming the boys, knowing Doc’s main weakness is his checkbook. He only even gets the money because Billy and White got startup money. His other schemes are more classic monarch from the scarionette canon, to preventing venture’s therapy because he’s a selfish prick, to his half assed plan with monstroso that nearly destroy shim. HE hasn’t really changed as a person but he is trying more than just the old game of cat and also cat with Venture and it’s fun to see. Shielia is also largely the same and I don’t really have anything to say about her.

Now we have our main event, as 24′s death has utterly changed Gary, transforming him from an out of shape geek with no competence to a ripped geek whose vowed to not loose another henchman. He’s got cool wrist glove claws, is respected and feared by his fellow henchman, and even ignoring the brock factor is actually getting mortality rates down. It’s like Jackson and Doc outlined when talking about the finale in the art book: what happens to half a comedy duo when the other half dies? What was two friends throwing out a really dumb suggestion became one of the series most intresting arcs. No one , myself included, saw Gary turning into this but it was the right call, taking a stale double act and instead building it’s better half into one of the shows best characters.

And part of that is he’s still gary. He still has a chest of nerdy stuff, still pines for dr. girlfriend, botches water tourture and goes to a fantasy movie on an unexpected night off after dropping off a viper for his boss. What makes him so intresting is he’s STILL gary.. he’s just the best version of himself. or almost. I mean he still talks to his best friends ghost.. or what he thinks it is. And given his harsh reaction to the idea that he isn’t really a ghost it’s clear he may not even be that.. but that hard truth comes next time. For now it’s clear that while Gary has bettered himself and is close to his best self he’s also still torutured by 24′s death via said “ghost” chats and hunting his killers, kidnaping the boys and later scraping with brock. This part of the arc isn’t over.

That said before we move on from him and to the last part of the cocoon his fight with brock is easily one of the best shows of character development i’ve seen: mimicking his earlier lightsaber debacle, Gary instead punches brock at the boo and when left bloody his response is “bring it”. He’s gone from a geek super running away to a geek who get sto be the fucking wolverine. While Gary of course looses, it is brock freaking sampson he got said brock freaking sampson’s respect. Gary. Of all characters GARY geninely earned one of the biggest badass’ respect and got to team up with him to finish the score, showing no fear as he faced the physical equal of the kingpin... or blockbuster. either way motherfucker big , strong and ready to beat his ass. Gary ends this half a hero.. and may just like the sound of that.

Finally we have the Moppets and thank fucking god, Jackson and Doc listened to fans. Given how stubborn they can be on that, we’ll get to the kim thing again next time, it’s nice they relaized they didn’t work and their only apperances are getting dragged by their bosses: the monarch gets an UTTERLY awesome scene when they try to keep him from leaving his house. His response?

“I'm only gonna say this once. I don't like you two. And if you ever, ever try to give me an order again I will kill you both and feed your tiny, rotting bodies to the neighborhood dogs!! Now what were you saying?“

It shows that clearly the ONLY reaosn he put up with them for so long.. is that he wasn’t at the top of his game, still effed up from not getting to arch Venture. Once he can.. we finally get cathariss after a season of their shit. While it wasn’t say 21 getting one on them, that’s next season and it is also glorious, it was so damn good. Likewise is Dr. Mrs not only calling them out for tattling on 21 in the finale, but admitting she finds them creepy. It’s just nice to finally not have to seriously deal with them as characters.

Okay onto the supporting cast. The big one is Dr. Orpheous, who goes thorugh what’s sadly his last bout of character development. He does get two more episodes where he gets a lot of focus: “Assisted Suicide” and “A Very Venture Halloween”.. but this is the last time the show really feels like it cares about progressing him as a person, with him being absent from season 6 since they coudln’t squeeze him in and only returning for the morphic trilogy after, and only one of those eps focuses on him. It’s sad to see the era of his relevance end.. but easy to see why. While the magic stuff is fun, it just dosen’t mesh entirely with this weird world of costumes and super science. It fits in enough that Dr. O isn’t out of place or ever fully removed, but it’s not enough he can easily be brought into plots. He’s a magic guy in a super science and b-list costumed villian type show. He has a great cast, a great personality and is truly one of the shows greatest characters.. but ultimately he’s a relic from a time when the show threw everything at the wall to see what stuck and now the guild and super spy stuff is sticking in additoin to the usual venture hyjinks.. he just dosen’t work as a mainstay anymore. Supporting cast yes, it was a crime he was left out of season 6 as understandable as said crime was, but his time in the sun is over and i’ll miss it.

That being said he does leave being in the main cast with one hell of an episode: The Better Man is truly excellent and works simply by bringing in Orpheus real nemisis: The Outrider aka his former apprentice or as Dr. O puts it “THE MAN WHO STOLE MY WIFFEEEE!” or in laymans terms the guy who made him a

So he naturally does what Dr. O does: mad that the outrider also reached the second world he’s desperate to find out why... while even Triana can see he just desperatley wants to prove he’s better in the vain hope of getting back with his ex which naturally the master mocks him with by transforming into her. and so he can jumprope naked but hey he’s likely alone in that room for hours. He’s gotta find SOMETHING to do. But he makes a valid point: none of this is going to make him better than the outrider and he’s only pissed because the outrider once again beat him. Granted Dr. O, as usual with the master, didn’t take it right away and tries to find a portal... but despite his issues his true character does show when the outrider emerges from the portal. He sees that while this is still the bastard his wife cheated on him with, and is within his rights to resent the man.. at the end of the day... he’s not a terrible person. He did a bad thing.. but he also went ot hell and back to hlep torid. It backfired but he still did. So when given a chance to lie about his death and just leave him there comotase and truly win.. he dosen’t even consider it. He takes the man back to help him, finding out the Outrider cheated to get ahead dangerously putting a magical artifact in his brain via trepanning

And it isn ‘t as removing the thing he used for it with special brother of the order of the triad billy, they get stuck between worlds and only get out because Jefferson’s magic. That is a nice bit of character stuff itself (Don’t worry Al fans, he gets his next time). After once again feeling useless for being the team normal in a team of magic guys, Jefferson finds out he’s between worlds. It’s not exactly useful for every day but for one moment he’s their only way out and gets to enjoy it.

Importantly for orpheous though.. he makes peace with the outrider. Even allowing him to take triana with him to her mothers. He realizes ultimately that while the Outrider did sleep with his wife, still never going to not downplay he slept with his masters wife, the marriage falling apart was due to his work.. he wasn’t a great husband or father... and he accepts it and treis to be better.

And that leads to Triana’s exit. While I covered most of it above, and it’s a great turn for her character, what’s most telling is that this is the tenth time the master has done this. Granted he does so by dickishly resembling dean’s worst possible future because he fucking sucks nad dosen’t get triana isn’t THAT intrested, I love the guy but he is the worst sometimes, but still he, and likely the audience expects orpheus will just mind wiper her again.. but instead he dose’nt. He clearly listens to her and let’s his daughter go. And while it truly hurts.. it’s also him accepting that just because his life has been rough because of his job.. dosen’t mean hers will. She can be better than him and it’s up to him to let her. As for why her mom and stepdad that’s easy: Orpheus likely knows he coudln’t teach her properly himself as he’d be holding himself back or trying to keep her safe, something her mother won’t do as much. She’ll keep her safe.. but she’ll also let her go. And so Dr. O let’s his daughter go and we let him go... he’ll still be around but... this is the end of his true relivance and it will be missed.

We then have Billy and White. Their arc won’t come full circle till next time, but they have money now. So that’s a thing. The real notable thing about billy is that they up the abuse the poor guy takes: he has his money stolen, gets kidnapped twice for surgery, gets raped and gets mindwiped by an abusive asshole. The show just makes the poor guy into a punchline and it’s not funny.. especially the rape thing which yes I still haven’t let go. How the fuck have I not thought about how messed up this is more? Did I just block it out?

Finally out of the notable side cast we have Shoreleave. HE dosen’t do much this half, just be awesome, but it is the start of his evolution from minor shipwreck from bibleman parody into proudly gay badass, expert marksman and all around great character. He’s only prominent in the last episode but boy does god damn does he make an entrance and he’ll only get better from here.

Episode Guide:

40. Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel

Summary: In parallel stories showing where are heroes are post season 3-finale, Brock Of Ages goes on the run from the OSI, paints some terrible paintings, gets a gut, looses a gut and joins his old bosses rogue spy agency. Meanwhile Hank grows his hair out, Hatred moves in, Gary’s life savings are destroyed and Dean gets a dog that turns out to be hitler. So average tuesday for Team venture. My Thoughts: I didn’t remember this episode all that well before rewatching it. It’s fair enough as a LOT’s going on and thus my brain gravitated to the bullet points: Brock starting up with SPHINX, nazis, dean having a boy and his dog plot but the dog has the reincarnated soul of hitler. You knkow the stuff you remember. That said rewatching it it’s a decent episode. I earlier had the take Jackson and Doc aren’t great at premires when really they have hit it out of the park at times with Shadowman 9, Hostile Makeover and Curse of the Haunted Problem... it’s just often these episodes aren’t AS good as what to come and this is the purest example of that. It’s not bad, and the stuff with hitler is some of the series funniest stuff from the casual (for him) way orpheus tells dean his dog is the “spawn of hell”, to dr. venture being fed up with nazi’s for being cliche rather than nazis, to his “Wait.. you guys are nazis” and of course the iconic line “I love hitler and hitler loves me!”. The brock stuf fis fine, including his shitty photo, but this ep is really just that. Fine. It has a neat gimmick but isn’t the best or the worst and if I ranked every episode which...

So yeah a solid middle tier episode that helps set everything up right and has some all time classic jokes, and the fact a mid range episode in this season has so much iconic stuff says something about the season as a whole. Best Moment: “I”ll pay you ten bucks not to shoot your dad” ALMOST won, it was very close.. but I gotta give it to Doc’s “Wait.. you guys are Nazi’s! James deilveriy is just perfect.. just the right sorta “this again” baffled tone like they were a sitcom neighbor whose dog crapped in his yard again and not you know, The Fourth Reich. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 102. Refusing to you know.. actually look up the Marvel Comic and then letting it get beat up by the kids. Though I will give him credit for not working with actual nazis. Hanktastic:Hank’s confidence he can shoot a bullet off his dad’s belt buckle and have it ricochet. Again “I’ll pay you ten bucks not to shoot your dad” is an all time classic line. The wolf mask is also neat. Deanarific: “I love hitler, and hitler loves me! He’s not all bad, Hitler just needs someone to belivie in him. can’t you just give hilter a chance?” part of it is for how delebertly out of context the episode stages it but it’s mainly just Mike’s through commitment to the bit. Questions For Later: Gary being with a larp group and disappearing for some time will come up in a few episodes, while the Brock SPHINX mystery gets solved end of season. First Appearance: Hitler Reincarnated as a Dog. I mean normally I save this only for characters who I know show up again, as to not clog it but some things only happen once in your career and you gotta take your shot.

41. Handsome Ransom

Summary: The Monarch what kidnaps the boys again but this time plans to ransom them to bankrupt his arch foe.. only for one of his utter arch foes to swoop in and take hank. So while Hank hangs out with a literal sunshine superman voiced by THE batman and gets creeped out a little, Doc scrambles to get the money and keep it and the monarch scrambles to get hank back before his scheme unravels. My Thoughts: This episode.. wasn’t as good on rewatch. As Jackson himself admits the jokes, having batman come off as a pedophile (Though not actually be one in this case), comparisoins to micheal jackson and just general stuff. It drags the episode down slightly. That said.. it’s still not BAD. It’s just the main “He comes off like a pedophile joke” isn’t funny the first time they say it aand isn’t that funny by the time Monarch comes out and says that’s what it is. But the stuff around it is filled with great jokes: Hank having called Doc a honkey (and The Monarch naturally loving this fact), the constant treating of dean as half a person, something he takes in stride, tiny money hatred, “It’s chuck scarsdale, hide or we’ll be on the news!”, the sheer dumbassery of the monarch’s plan and the truly awesome freedom fighters pastiche. This episode is full of too much gold to be TOO bad.

Though while the sunshine has a bit too many pedophile jokes, especialy in a season where they have an actual pedophile living with hank, it ends up not tanking entirley thanks to one man: Kevin Fucking Conroy. THE batman playing a parody of batman with a lot of superman in him. It’s Kevin’s being fully game to play this sad, desperate and untetionalyl creepy version of him that works. From the calling a sleepover to the PTSD laden shouts of WONDERBOYYYYY to his breakdown, kevin both gives the character perfect silver age comedic timing (doubled thanks to said things being said by THE post silver age batman. Love you keaton but... he’s the chosen one), and pathos: i’ts clear he’s a man who hasn’t moved on and needs help and sadly never gets it as we see later. He’s a tragic character, not reailizing how broken his cycle is or how he threw out his second wonder boy. I wish the character had come back to get developed more, but hey Kevin’s a busy man and sunshine dosen’t easily fit into the show, so I undrestand. Overall again not a top tier episode like I used to think but still a hell of a good time, as well as one i’d use to intro people to the show. Best Moment: Hank having called Rusty a Honky, mostly for again James delivery. THe Monarch and Hank sniggering over it just completes it. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 104. Insulting Dean for no reason, as funny as it is and outright threatning not to rescue hank. Hanktastic: Again, calling his dad a Honky Deanarific: Just how he takes his dad treating him as just.. a casual object of little intrest is hilarious. He just dosen’t care. He’s just happy to be included. Questions For Later: Desmond will be important next time. First Appearance: Captain Sunshine and Desmond

42. Perchance to Dean (Pissed in God’s Eye Award Winner)

Summary: Doc introduces Dean to the power of Prog rock, a cloned dean does this

Hank thinks he killed dean and Doc gets arrested and blames it on hank due to some wacky circumstances. My Thoughts: Yeah not even a close race. Every other episode this halfa season is either a true classic or at least watchable. This one, while still loaded with some good jokes.. is neither of those. It’s not as bad as past season’s bombs but it still dosen’t work, something Jackson acknoledges. I feel Clone Dean is just too sad and horrific to really fit with the show’s tone well which does have unedning horror but threaded with laughs. But a sad teenager hunchback whose haunted by a hallucination of his dad urging him to kill.. I just want to give the poor kid a hug that dosen’t end in an explosion. It just dosen’t work. It also ups the hank abuse with hank getting grounded for.. some idiots thinking the compound is a cult.. whic his a fair assumption but isn’t fair to hank. The episode is dark and mean spirited in a way this show just usually isn’t.. dark yes, while the show isn’t over the top dark it’s pretty fucked up when you think about it. But it’s usually used for black comedy, like having a scooby doo group resembling famous serial killers or an orphan heart powered fantasy machine. The show can get dark.. but it usually either uses it for drama effectively or for a laugh. An the show will do horror later iwth the morphic trilogy and worse stuff than this, but they just aren’t there yet. Best Moment: “He’s in a floyd hole!” Just the way James delivers that line man three in a row so far. I swear this is the best season (or part of one but semantics) for James deliveries. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: Hanktastic: Hank’s response to dermott being suprised he didn’t know they weren’t using acid “What am I bill nye the science guy? I don’t know what any of this stuff does. “ Rusty Sucks Suprising No One:... better strap in. Trying to BAN HANK FROM THE BATHROOM, insuiating both that he’ll work in package delivery and doing so as a classist as hell dig (Ironically he DOES end up as a delivery boy but i’m not giving rusty any points for that. Most teens work food service), HITTING his son, and grounding him based on flimsy evidence when he has no reason to think hank did that especiallya fter he saw the clone explode. So that’s 5 for the supremely fucked up first one, 1 for the second, 10 for the hit (while verbal violence dosen’t > phsyical violence he still hit him repeadtely), and 5 for the last one. so 21 for a grand total of 125 Deanarific: Hard choice given, for all the episodes weaknesses we have a lot of good dean this episode, including the beautiful as hell prog rock sequences.. but I gotta give it to his weird belieif there’s a hair fairy. Hatred Paedo Jokes: We start tracking these with Hatred telling the police not to check his computer. Yes he still keeps chlid porn around 1. Also yes I had to add another running thing and i’m sure given my track record, this won’t be the last. I already have one in mind for season 6. Dermott is Spare Parts Bud: Claming he’s moved a lot, trying to burn off hank’s finger prints and in general thinking fleeing an accidental hit and run was in any way a good idea.

43. Return to Malice

Summary: 21 begins his hunt for 24′s killer, starting with the boys, leading the rest of the cast to try and to undo ths fiasco whlie the Monarch.. deals with a bad shelfish allergy. Would you belivie this is one of the best episodes of the series so far? My Thoughts: Yeah never thought i’d be typing that. I remembered not really liking this one but on rewatch? This is where the season goes from pretty good , even the tire fire, to truly excellent. As the season has been so far i’ts packed full of great jokes but what REALLY elevates it is the character stuff, something the other eps had but this one really digs in with and what makes the show special. We see who 21 is now, how he got that way and that he talks to a skull a lot. It also dosen’t bother the monarch because he does the same thing with the greatest new character of all series; Mister Mostly Mittens. RIP. We also get some great character interactions: Dean gets to interact with 21 at length for the first time as he was geninely paired with 24 before his untimely demise, Rusty and SHelia have a genine conversation for the first time with Doc only hitting on her a little (Which for him is imporvement) and as I mentioned earlier the Monarch telling off the moppets was so damn cathartic. This is a hidden gem of an ep that’s worth a revisit. Best Moment: Mister Mostly Mittens. Not only the full shot of the horrifying taxidermy cat, but how the Monarch seems to think this is remotely normal “He could catch a rubberband and bring it back to you. Just classic venture bros going off on some weird aside that has nothing to do with the plot but is still soaked in character. Hanktastic: When 21 realizes in a way he killed 24, dean tries to comfort him with an “We all did” Hank.. dosen’t take it “Not me I didn’t!” Deanarific: Dean geneinly comforting gary and getting through to him. Best boy. Hatred Paedo Jokes: Just outright mentioning it casually.. though it’s one of theo nlyt imes it works as it has Doc rightfully questioning hiring him. 2. ALso forgot to add 4 from previous seasons so 6. (The refrence to him trying to rape hank ins eason 2, his needing them awayin season 3 and his later mentionnig giving up the little boys and calling the chlidren sexy at the daycamp0 Questions For Later: First Appearance:

44. The Revenge Society

Summary:

Phantom Limb makes his grand return, kidnapping Billy and two of the council.. and making them into a two headed man because Jackson and Doc loved the idea of a two headed man, with intent of getting the ORB, so it’s up to david bowie, dean and doc to stop them while Hank and Hatred try to super runaway from hatred’s past.

My Thoughts: Look i’ve talked quite at length about the hatred bit, and that was forgetting the book has a bit where Doc tries to say “nah nah see they just cuddled” which I geinely can’t tell if he’s in denail or trying to cover his ass as they did cut back on the pedophile jokes, but yeah it was utterly awful and drags this episode down slightly. Also that explination dosen’t help as billy “thinking” he got raped as a joke still isn’t funny and isn’t at all what you were going for. The rest of the ep still shines as Phantom Limb returns half crazed and having an army of inanimate objects as his “Revenge Soceity” and Urabanik completely sells crazy limb while Jackson and Doc play off him great as mantle and dragoon. The two are easily one of the best additions the cast got over it’s long run. They were right on the money that making a double act that can’t phsycially get away from each other worked and the fact the two didn’t choose this but just have to deal with it makes for that much more comedy. The mileage they got out of a character simply being two bickering old men with one attached to the others shoulder is amazing. Bag Billy is also amazing aside from that stinger. We also get great character stuff: Hank and Hatred’s bonding with Hank realizing he has to do the right thing and Dean and Doc’s even better bonding as Doc is geninely helpful.. it’s all great pieces. Add in some premium david bowie and you got it. I’m also fine the ORB thing ended with an anticlimax.. it’s a good swerve and i’m baffled so many people thought it should go somewhere. Even as a teen I thought it was a great swerve and as an adult it fits the show: something big super mcguffin turning out to just be a pile of broken parts no one checked because they were too busy killing anyone that did. It’s classic venture bros.

Best Moment: Hard to choose.. which I know I keep saying some form of but these episodes are absolutely stuffed... but in the end i’ll go with what I picked for the picture: The reveal that Phantomas kidnapped richie valens and the big bopper.. just to have them play crappy music. And that this somehow is the secret origin of them becoming super villians. This show is fucking stupid and I love it.

Hanktastic: As said in his section hank holding off the full brunt of the fucking guild.. with the hank equilvent of “dave’s not here man”. Good god I love this boy.

Deanarific: Dean bravely deciding to take the fight to the guild and do reconcizne.

Hatred Paedo Jokes: GUESS

Questions For Later: Just where Phantom Limb goes from here. While unsuprisingly it involves a jail cell , suprisingly it dosen’t end there.

First Appearance:Red Mantle and Crimson Dragoon

45. Self-Medication

Summary: Doc gets out of arching for therapy but when his therapist is killed by a snake themed coffee deathtrap, his therapy group takes on the mystery to find his killer... in theory. IN practice they get beat up at a strip club and get talked out of beating up an old man before he calls them all loosers. Meanwhile Hatred takes the boys to the movies and slowly breaks down over being out of meds.

My Thoughts: Another spectacular episode this time with both a great premise for both plots and a throughly stacked guest cast. Huge fan of the show Patton Oswalt, VA and screen legend Seth Green and John Hodgeman all do a wonderful job. Jackson had wanted to do this one for a long time and it shows as the idea of getting all these washed up boy adventueres together works great from the menendez hardy boys, to robin if he never became nightwing to an unsettling version of astro boy, all anchored by our old friends rusty and captain johnny. It’s just comedy gold , especaily Johnny which is brendan small at his best in the roll as just about everything he says is hilaroius as it is messed up. It also shows just what Rusty might’ve been in diffrent cirucmstances, from strung out to killing his abusive dad to .. well probably not wonder boy. Add in some great stuff with dr. z and this plot works.

THe Hatred plot is one of the few of his that work as the pedophile thing is treated as a horrible addiction he needs to face and he’s shown doing everything not to surrender to it and once he is in that state, he’s already locked himself away where he can’t hurt anyone or act on gary glitter’s tip. It has no real resolution, he apparently got diffrent drugs? I dunno, but it’s at least trying. Overall a classic, if not one of my favoirites.

Best Moment:”You got a little herpe on your lip. You get it from your wife... after I put herpe in her?” This joke wouldnt’ work at all without Brendon’s delivery.

Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 126. Deciding he’s “Too good for therapy.

Jonas Sucks Suprising No One: 36. Yes a whopping 20 points for pretending to be his own son’s therapist just to gaslight him. He may not be a point leader but he makes up for it.

Hanktastic: HIs weird logic that somehow Gary and co’s wing sblocking him counts as an arching. Look I love hank but he hasn’t been as full tilt nuts this season.

Deanarific: Dean showing his full strength and heart, encouraging hatred to fight his urges and refusing to let him out knowing he’ll do something unforgivable he’ll regret. Granted not letting a man buy an underaged sex slave off a tip from Gary Glitter is something any person should do, but the fact Dean figures Hatred can fight it and does his best is fantastic, as is , after realizing Hatred’s will isn’t strong enough, finding a way to take out his uncle so he’ll get help. Dean’s come a long way from being afraid of the coming of jesus last season.

Hatred Paedo Jokes: The Subplot

This Didn’t Age Well: Mrs. Z’s voice. Good god no.

46. The Better Man (Super Good Award Winner)

Summary: It’s a three fer as Doctor Orpheus tries to one up the man who his wife left him for and ends up in hell, Triana discovers her destiny in her closet, and Dean tries to move on from her with the less than helpful advice of his twin and the suprisingly helpful advice of his half brother.

My Thoughts: It was HARD picking the best ep this time, as most of this batch could qualify.. but in the end I gave it to this one for it’s character depth. I’ve gone into most of that above but each bit is brilliant and joke wise it’s stacked as this season has been, from Hank’s disasterous attempts to wingman for dean, his crush on the mail lady (”She had very attractive shorts”), to dean’s all time great roast on dermott, to all the drags on orpheus desperation at the start.. this ep is just stuffed with some of the best the series can offer. It’s why i’m being so breif: this episode is a fucking good, soulful, and hilarious ride and I’ve said most of what I need to say about it above.

Best Moment: LOT of contenders, as usual, but this one especailly. I’m giving it to one of my faviorite scenes in the whole show: dermott advising dean on the girl he just met. It takes dermott from hank’s idiot sidekick to a fuller human being, a kid who may be VERY stupid and very egotistical, but isn’t all bad nor always an unhelpful pile of acne who thinks he’s steven segall and has the ego to match. The boys response is also fucking great with Hank geninely confused Dermott was helpful, clearly starting to see his friend for what he is and Dean having one of the best digs of the whole series “Better check the temprature in hell”

Hanktastic: LOT to pick from, but I have to go with his crush on the mail lady “She had very attractive shorts”, as well as the fact he dosen’t back away or try to justify his crush, simply giving dean credit for poitning out he dosen’t have MUCh ground to stand on.

Deanarific: Again a lot of choices , with “I look like rufio” coming very close. But in the end his smug as hell face when triana says she can’t keep him from all the ladies wins it.

Questions For Later: Triana’s training and the outrider both come back in the season finale, Orpheus having a room free will be just as important as it brings a certain well loved paunchy gay man into the fold, and Dermott’s part time job will be a fixture from here on out.

First Appearance: The Outrider

47. Pinstripes and Poltergeists

Summary: Brock returns and just in time as the Monarch’s latest ill thought out scheme puts both him and the venture compound in the clutches of Monstroso and it’s up to the unlikely dynamic duo of 21 and brock to take him out while Doc finds out about SPHINX

My Thoughts: One of the series best finales and as Jackson put it a good note to end on, giving us plenty of brock to make up for his absence and explain where he’ sbeen with the brilliant sphinx sequence, the asendency of shoreleave and some all time classic gags like Doc revealing shit to the boys pre mindwipe, “Cigar?” and that fight scene, a show of how far 21 has come. Add in a great ending, a great big bad for the season in monstroso, and you get an all time classic. If this dosen’t make my adjusted top 12 list I’ll be a little suprised and given teh quality of this season it just might not. This is the season rising even higher and i’ts only going to go up next time.

Best Moment: The 21 and brock fight. It ALMOST lost to the rusty sucks suprising no one moment bellow, but in the end it’s just too iconic to the series to not give it and too damn awesome too. It’s breif but it’s so damn beautifully shot, well acted and cathartic, showing just how far 21′s come to the point he earned brock’s respect

Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 132. A double pointer for the “Have I ever told you boys about your mother, or that your both clones?” and a single one for not keeping billy from being mindwiped, 2 for being put out at having to do something ood with the space with an additional one for not seeming to care brock was gone. And while 32 points in 8 episodes is a lot, most of that was from one episode. He’s been suprisingly less horrible this batch.

Hanktastic: Hank’s reunion with brock.

Questions For Later: Monstroso and what he and his investors mean for our heroes. The fight with 21 and brock will also lead to consequences for the big man down the line.

First Appearance:

Monstroso

So that about wraps it up. This was one of the funnest times I had and it was great to get back to it after so long. Next time we get some of the best the series has ever done, again and finally get to my all time faviorite episode, something I don’t think my rewatches of seasons 5-7 is going to change. If you enjoyed this review consider joining my patreon to help me keep these thick boys going and for bonus content

You can find it here

And as an added bonus in a few days i’m doing a summer fun poll to pick a movie for me to review that’s summery this month. Me and my patreons have picked some true classics: UHF, Hot Fuzz, Batman 1989, Transformers the Movie and The Simpsons Movie are all on the ballet and it’s up to you to pick which one. So you lucky folks who read ALL this way get to vote early.

Poll link is here, vote wisely

And i’ll see you all in a month though your free to stick around for more fun stuff.

#adult swim #the venture bros #hank venture #dean venture #sgt hatred #brock sampson #rusty venture #kevin conroy #henchman 21 #retrospective #go team venture #dr byron orpheus

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