All roads lead to the Blue Morpho.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
The Venture Bros. has stayed unusually laser-focused this season. Rather than bouncing from one group of characters to the next and slowly building up an overarching conflict, the show is keeping all its attention on Dr. Venture’s new corporate empire, Monarch’s surprisingly successful new career as a superhero and the Guild’s inability to keep both men in line. This more focused approach does have its disadvantages, but it’s hard to deny that this season has been one of the most consistently entertaining.
The Monarch and Henchman 21 are quickly becoming the MVPs of the season as they continue their transition from failed archvillains to unwittingly competent vigilantes. The Monarch never seems to succeed on purpose. He dealt a crippling blow to the Venture family when he accidentally crashed the Cocoon on the Venture Compound, and now he’s systematically wiping out all his competition completely by accident. This episode cemented his status as the linchpin of the entire season. Thanks to an ongoing comedy of errors and an endless series of coincidences, now everyone believes Dr. Venture is secretly Blue Morpho. Dr. Mrs. The Monarch isn’t happy about that, and neither will her colleagues. It’s easy to see where the conflict is headed these next few weeks, though no doubt Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick will find ways to escalate matters to even crazier extremes.
This episode also managed to mine a lot of humor out of the boring bureaucracy that drives the Guild. All the endless paperwork and the “Level 10 Protagonist” chatter served as a reminder of how ridiculous this organization really is. The endless battle between good and evil in this series is really just an elaborate, meaningless pageant to which the Guild is utterly committed to upholding and enforcing all the formalities. Watch and Ward treat the whole thing like a valuable service they provide their clients. Not that that stopped them from giving Dr. Venture the customer service runaround.
At the same time, there’s a certain element of tragedy to this game being played between the Venture and the Guild. This episode added two more bodies to the growing list of supporting characters accidentally killed in Blue Morpho’s crusade. This week we met Think Tank (voiced by Jeffrey Wright) and Battleaxe (voiced by Barbara Rosenblatt). Both villains set their sights on the VenTech headquarters, and both met their doom in that pesky pit in the lobby. Maybe once Manolo finishes remodeling Monarch’s mansion he can take care of that hole.
Dr. Mrs The Monarch takes no prisoners.
Battleaxe was an amusing enough addition to the show, but Think Tank easily ranks among the best minor villains in recent memory. A lot of that was simply down to Wright’s terrific vocal performance. It’s hard to imagine better casting. But Think Tank also worked as a great parody of Avengers villain M.O.D.O.K. Maybe “parody” isn’t the right word, as you can’t really outdo M.O.D.O.K. in the goofiness department. Wright helped sell the idea of Think Tank as this fiendishly brilliant mastermind who still couldn’t escape the cloud of failure that plagues just about everyone on this show. It was almost a shame to see him taken off the board in the climax, but at least there was a weight to his death as a result. Outside of the core cast of characters, Hammer and Publick aren’t being very precious about their toys these days.
On top of everything else, Brock’s character arc was hilarious this week. As worrisome as it was to see him revert to his original role as Venture family bodyguard, Brock is in a far different place this season. The move to New York seems to have thrown him off balance in a major way. Whereas Brock used to be one of the few consummate professionals in the Venture universe, he too is wracked with psychological problems. He’s become drawn into his submissive sexual affair with Warriana and seems determined to prove his masculinity at all costs. He’s grown reckless and stupid, as we saw when he claimed to be able to dodge a laser blast at point blank range. Lucky for him he has that metal plate on his chest. It turns out a stupid Brock is an entertaining Brock.
The one flaw the show continues to struggle with right now is that not all characters are being given the same loving attention. It was nice to catch a glimpse of Colonel Gentleman and the old Team Venture crew, but at this point I’m not holding my breath for the Order of the Triad or the ex-Revenge Society members to put in any sort of appearance this season. To say nothing of Dermott, who’s fate is still hanging after discovering the truth about his parentage. As for the core lineup, I’m willing to accept that Wide Wale isn’t quite the major player he seemed at the beginning of the season, but it’s frustrating to see so little attention paid to Hank and Dean. There’s been little progress on Hank’s dating front, and so far any focus on Dean’s budding college career has been used to push other storylines forward rather than really make use of the character. The show really doesn’t seem very interested in the younger generation of characters this year.
It continues to be frustrating that this season is devoting so little time to Hank and Dean, but in all other respects The Venture Bros. is firing on all cylinders lately. Monarch’s evolution into a deadly competent superhero is hilarious, as is Brock’s apparent midlife crisis. The various running storylines are dovetailing nicely, promising a big showdown between the Guild and the Venture family at the end of the season.
