The Venture Bros. review: “The Rorqual Affair”

Is The Venture Bros. a serialized show? In its early days, I’d argue it wasn’t; you can pretty much watch any episode from the first three seasons and at least get the gist of what’s happening, give or take a few two-parters.

Seven seasons in, things have changed. These last few episodes in particular have been heavily serialized; it almost feels like creators Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick are working their way up to making a season-long movie, something I’m sure would be a nightmare to plan given the show’s careful attention to continuity. At the moment, they’re giving us a Pulp Fiction spin on serialization, with last week’s episode covering events from the perspective of the Venture clan and this week’s from the point of view of the Guild of Calamitous Intent. It’s deft work, and I’m excited to see how far they’ll take the idea.

Right now, I’m enjoying picking up the clues and having the a-ha moments. For example, last week, Hank Venture fed Wide Whale’s guards a pizza laced with sleeping serum so he could sneak past them and romance Sirena, Wide Whale’s daughter. Now, we find out that he could only enter the apartment in the first place because Dr. Girlfriend laid out a couple of guards outside the door. Or, even more interesting: Red Death tells a terrifying story about a time in the ’80s when a bunch of villains boarded Gargartua-1. They were going to hold Jonas Venture hostage, but someone opened the bay doors and the lot of them floated into space and died, with Red Death only surviving because he was still in his space suit. (“With this face, the helmet never came off.”) It was movie night on the space station when it happened. “Got to see a little Sharky’s Machine,” Red Death remembers.

The opening to Sharky’s Machine is underscored with “Street Life” by The Crusaders, the song haunting the VenTech Tower last week. Whatever’s going on there, it started on that movie night. And then there’s cliffhanger at the end — who’s that new Blue Morpho? And what happened to the cave under the Monarch’s house?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Thats the fun of middle chapters (and I suspect they’ll wrap up this storyline next week): trying to follow the breadcrumbs to their source.

Aside from that, we have characters deepening all over the place, mostly in Wide Whale’s camp. Rocco, Wide Whale’s over-protective Mad Libs-loving bodyguard, is a fun addition; the show manages to spit out engaging tertiary characters like him on the regular. I like how parental he is with Sirena, insisting that if it were up to him, he’d hide her from the Blue Morpho’s reign of terror “in the Plaza with every Nintendo game they got,” anachronisms be damned.

But Wide Whale himself gets the lion’s share of screentime, plus a full-on origin story! Eagle-eyed fans had already figured out that Wide Whale was related to Dr. Dugong, the cuttlefish-loving super-scientist the Monarch murdered in season 3 in a fit of misplaced rage, but it’s good to have it spelled out, and for Dugong to return, having regrown his head thanks to his starfish DNA. Seeing Wide Whale yearn for his older brother’s approval softens the edges of his character, as well.

We also see that Wide Whale is smart, or at least not as dumb as a lot of his colleagues. He can see through the Monarch’s Blue Morpho disguise the second they’re in a room together. (“That’s the only way we can identify each other: eye sockets!”)

So that’s a dig at Batman and Superman and all the other superheroes who think they can keep their secret identities safe by wearing a cowl or taking off a pair of glasses. But like most villains on Venture Bros., Wide Whale likes to have it both ways. He’ll mock that superheroic convention, but he’s still playing a role, acting like a Sicilian mafioso even though he’d only ever been to Italy once in college. That’s the unwritten rule adhered to by heroes and villains alike: they know what they’re doing is a ridiculous fantasy, but they suspend disbelief because it’s fun. The Monarch’s plan to assassinate Wide Whale may have failed spectacularly, but he can still find joy in the fact that he spun a dagger in a cool way as Rocco grinds his face into the floor.

Likewise, I’ve expended way too much thought trying to figure out the mystery behind the use of “Street Life” when I could just as easily sat back and laugh uncritically at the cavalcade of Jaws references piled on in “The Rorqual Affair,” with Red Death as Quint, Dr. Girlfriend as Brody, the Monarch as the shark’s first victim, and newcomer Tunnel Vision as the “a what?” guy:

But that’s been the hallmark of The Venture Bros. for awhile, particularly in the later seasons: the ability to be both a densely plotted DIY ballet of maladjusted characters AND a self-consciously silly sendup of adventure story cliches packed with esoteric references to movies and music and fashion and serial killers and whatever else is knocking around Publick and Hammer’s head when they put pen to paper. The first episode of the show aired 15 years ago, and it’s remarkable how little the energy level has flagged. And the breadcrumb trail winds on.

Nothing But Bullet Points

• Glad to see a return of supervillain-Andy Warhol, if only briefly.
• “Abort the mission! I’m not even at Grove St. yet.”
• “My only skills are brick-throwing and frog-being!”
• What is the Guild of Calamitous Intent offering for killing the Blue Morpho? “Free dues and mugs with our logo on it.” “Your weight in mugs!”

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