The Venture Bros. review: “Arrears in Science”

A big finish saves an exposition-heavy episode of The Venture Bros.

“Arrears in Science” closes out a story arc that began at the end of the show’s fifth season, when the Monarch moved back into his old family home with Dr. Girlfriend and Henchman 21. We learn all there is to know about the Blue Morpho just in time to watch him die, get a real-time conversation between Rusty and Jonas Venture, and see that Dean lacks the leg strength to run down an up escalator. This should have been an emotional and comic blowout like “Operation P.R.O.M.” or “All This and Gargantua-2.” Instead, it’s dragged down by a lot of explaining.

To be fair, there’s a lot of explaining to do. Part of what sets The Venture Bros. apart from other half-hour comedies, animated or otherwise, is the extreme depth of the lore. That can be an asset; there are a ton of moving parts to this show, and when they’re all chugging along in sync, there’s little else like it. But there’s a high barrier to entry for newcomers, and “Arrears in Science” was so busy walking us through the ins and outs of this story, which spans decades, that it didn’t have room for many good jokes. The best one came in the stinger, when the gang are watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade from the roof of the VenTech Tower, recently seen rocking on its foundations. Dean: “Is it safe to be up here?” Rusty: “Not according to that know-it-all fire marshal, but there was no way in hell I was giving up this view.”

Let’s see if we can boil the plot down to the basics. We learn that the Blue Morpho — the real one, not the Monarch — is actually Vendata, the villainous guild councilman who fell for the O.S.I.’s honeypot operation back in “Bot Seeks Bot.” Before he was Vendata, he was Venturion, a cybernetic supersoldier Jonas Venture created from the corpse of his friend the Blue Morpho, who died in the same plane crash that left the Monarch an orphan. Jonas, who’s been kept alive in the P.R.O.B.L.E.M. ever since his death aboard Gargantua-1, is up and running again and confronts his old friend.

We learn most of this through the Blue Morpho’s fragmented memories…or are they Vendata’s? In any case, this character carries the episode, which a is a problem because we haven’t seen Vendata in a long while and don’t particularly care about him. Red Death also kicks in a flashback, showing us the role he and a bunch of other then-up-and-coming villains played in Jonas’ death. For most of the episode, we’re learning background information, getting up to speed on these characters’ twisted histories. As Hank says, it’s kind of a lot.

That’s not to suggest there isn’t value in all this exposition. I like that the more we learn about Jonas, the less likable he becomes. He and the Blue Morpho seemed like the best of friends, but we learn here that Jonas blackmailed him into doing wetwork with a sex tape that the Blue Morpho, a deeply flawed family man, regretted making. Also, Jonas took advantage of the Blue Morpho’s emotional vulnerability to sleep with his wife, meaning Jonas is probably the Monarch’s father. The man was a real monster; Rusty never stood a chance.

So all that stuff is interesting, but it doesn’t pay off until the final moments of the episode. Jonas’ plan is to have Billy transfer his brain into Vendata, meaning Jonas thinks nothing of killing his one-time friend, just as he thought nothing of bringing him back as a cyborg, something even the Action Man and Colonel Gentleman thought beyond the pale. After Billy refuses, Jonas flies into a rage and attacks Vendata, which is genuinely scary. Rusty and the Monarch are caught in the struggle. After Vendata flips on his rocket boots, the foursome fly over the New York skyline, locked in history’s weirdest family reunion.

Rusty and the Monarch land safely on a parade float, and Jonas — still in the heavy P.R.O.B.L.E.M. box — crushes the Blue Morpho/Venturion/Vendata, killing him for good (probably; you never know with this show.) The Monarch spends one moment reconnecting with his maybe-dad before quickly taking credit for killing the Blue Morpho, absolving himself of the supervillain murders he committed (after a fashion) over the past several episodes. “Oh, and I kicked Jonas Venture’s ass, too!”

As finales go, it’s good stuff, but not the fireworks I was expecting after so many episodes of buildup. And as often happens, it leaves some plot threads dangling. We’re still not sure who killed Jonas Sr., along with the crew of Gargantua-1, during that fateful movie night. Vendata is one suspect, but the that fact that he’s put forward but not confirmed as the culprit pretty much guarantees someone else is behind it. Also, the O.S.I. takes Jonas’ brain, which will surely come back to haunt everyone. And the show will have to follow up on the whole Rusty-and-the-Monarch-are-half-brothers thing sooner or later.

I’m starting to think it will be sooner. For the first time since the show began, I can sense it circling an ending; we seem to be running out of mysteries to solve. Unless Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer want to go back to when the show was an episodic Jonny Quest parody, I think the end of may be in sight, and when it comes, I hope it’s more memorable than “Arrears in Science.”

Grade: B-

Nothing but Bullet Points

• Dr. Orpheus: “I sense…great confusion.” Rusty: “Yeah, you’re sensing that from me.”
• “But still, zombie grandpa head!”
• Dr. Z remembers the night he found Venturion in Jonas Venture’s trash: “But Jonas was not home, so we figured we’d just throw garbage on his lawn, call it an arch.”
• “O.S.I. don’t give a crap.”
• Dean diagnoses Hank with ADD. Someone had to.
• I gotta list the old guard villains we saw in Red Death’s flashback: Stab Girl, Laugh Riot, Mr. Fahrenheit the Supersonic Man (who looks like Freddie Mercury, naturally) and Hate-bit.
• “The man was a genuine Cy-bore!”
• Did you notice the young General Timothy Treister in Red Death’s flashback?

• I dd enjoy the bit where Colonel Gentleman and Kano shuttled the Action Man to a hospital on the back of a giant cockroach. “They didn’t even hesitate. It’s like they’ve done that before.” The Action Man had a stroke, just like Dr. Orpheus predicted waaaaaay back in “Past Tense”; you can’t fault this show for fudging continuity.
• The Monarch’s real name is Malcom Fitzcarraldo, a reference to a Werner Herzog movie.
• Of course Dr. Orpheus would be seduced by a “Dr. Strange window.”

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