The Venture Bros. review: “The High Cost of Loathing”

Over the last three weeks, The Venture Bros. exploded its mythology with a series of complicated, exposition-heavy episodes that used every character from the show’s deep bench and climaxed with Rusty Venture, the Monarch, and their fathers flying over Manhattan locked in a strange, unhealthy, over-the-top embrace. It was a good time, but it’s been a while since The Venture Bros. got back to exploring the day-to-day lives of its characters. That’s what we get in “The High Cost of Loathing,” where everyone is poor.

VenTech is hurting for money. The destruction of Gargantua-2 set the company back a fortune, and they spent another one getting VenTech Tower back into shape after Jonas highjacked it. Rusty’s solution to this, naturally, is to pass off one of Jonas Jr.’s inventions — the little belt with the woobles that allowed him to float through the air — as his own, intending to sell it as a kind of aerial Segway. And it might have worked had he not demonstrated the device by crashing through his boardroom window and getting all kinds of sliced up in the funniest Hudsucker Proxy parody I’ve ever seen. It’s a great Venture Bros. joke; take a fantastical idea from pop culture, add in a dose of reality and all of a sudden you’ve got Rusty Venture hanging limp in midair after yanking a jagged piece of glass out of his leg and fainting. It’s the comic high point of the episode, and it comes early.

But who needs laughs when you’ve got themes? Hank is also hurting for money. He’s not in college, so Rusty isn’t giving him any money for school, and he doesn’t have a job, because Wide Wale chased him out of the pizza delivery business. But Hank’s always been a hustler; he’s renting out his former room to Scandinavian AirBNB-ers in no time. I just hope Brock and Hatred didn’t accidentally murder them.

And the Monarch is hurting for money. His trust fund, which has propped up his villainy for the past six seasons without the show ever feeling the need to examine it, has run dry, and it’s hard to pull off a bank robbery in New York City with the Brown Widow (Nathan Fillion) spraying anal webbing at you. At least he’s left his Blue Morpho persona behind and is once again trying to climb the Guild ladder as the Monarch, although the show has to circle back around to the whole Rusty-and-the-Monarch-are-half-brothers thing sooner or later, right?

So what we have here is an episode where everyone deals with money problems, a popular go-to for TV writers. You can tell this episode was written by Jackson Publick; compared to Doc Hammer, the other creative force behind the show, Publick’s episodes are more focused, more coherent, and run from A to B in a more-or-less straight line. That can be a good thing — stories need all that stuff — but a lot of the off-the-wall energy of The Venture Bros. comes from its anarchical, twisted non sequiturs and seeming non sequiturs. “The High Cost of Loathing” ends neatly, with Dean writing the Monarch a hefty check in exchange for being left out of the whole supervillain-superhero dance the Monarch loves so much. But it’s almost too neat; where this episode’s version of the reveal that Henchmen 21 has been keeping villains in a Saw-style hole for months, or an out-of-left-field Christopher Lambert cameo?

But like I said, shows do need to light the lights and pay the bills, and “Loathing” sets up storylines that could pay dividends down the road. The other big thread this week involves Dean’s first days at college; he even moves onto the campus, rooming with the Brown Widow. Who would have thought that, back in season 1, Dean would grow up to be the Venture most desperate to escape the family business? It’s been a slow burn watching him go from wide-eyed boy scout to gothy teenager and finally to a young guy who’s just done with this crap; his “no no no noooo” after the Monarch bursts into his classroom is palpable. Giving the Monarch his inheritance is another big step for Dean, although I have to wonder if he’ll come back to super-science eventually; after all, Rusty rebelled against his father and look where he ended up. The cycle continues.

I’m a little worried over what the show is doing with Sirena. She’s been a fun new addition to a cast lacking in interesting female characters, and I’d hate to see her amount to nothing more than an instrument used to get Hank and Dean to fight, as fun as that will inevitably be. So far, she’s been a great mix of brash, sweet and funny, with Cristin Milioti providing her a very distinctive voice. I think she’ll come out of this with her dignity intact…but still, I’m watching you, show.

I mean, obviously I’m watching. I wonder if the rest of the season will keep things quiet and grounded or dig into the mythology again. The cycle always restarts eventually.

Episode Grade: B

Nothing But Bullet Points

• Today in overly obscure references, the title of the episode refers to The High Cost of Living, a 2010 Zach Braff drama.
• The dream sequence at the top of the episode was fun. “Two Months Later.” If you’re going to do in media res, do it like that, where it’s completely confusing. Also, we got a Wilhelm scream when the one dude fell off the boat.
• Dr. Z was killing it at the top of the episode. I’m going to start yelling “Precisely the point of a surprise inspection!” in my daily life. Also: “Army…Taylor Swift runs with a bigger squad.” It’s just funnier when he says it.
• I never thought about how much product the Monarch must use to keep his eyebrows like that until he ran out of it.
• The first thing Hank unpacks when he and Brock arrive in his dorm room is a dreamcatcher, because he’s just that college.
• Now that we have the Monarch’s official name, the show is throwing around “Fitzcarraldo” on the regular.
• “No need to apologize, just give me money.”
• Actress Kate Jackson played one of the original Charlie’s Angels. Both Hank and Rusty have a crush on her, something else they have in common. When are those two going to break down and cry and admit they love each other and have a pizza party and make friendship bracelets?
• Poor H.E.L.P.eR. looked out-of-his-mind desperate at the VenTech Tower reception desk. H.E.L.P.eR. with a pistol is a funny image.
• “Dr. Von Helping” is yet another great idea for a superhero/supervillain name. How many of these can they come up with before the show is over?

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