The Venture Bros. review: “The Forecast Manufacturer”

Splendid visuals and a procession of absurd twists carry “The Forecast Manufactuer” into next week’s season finale.

This was a solid episode of The Venture Bros., but before we do anything else, can we take a minute and marvel at how far the visual effects have come? Compare this mid-air action scene from season 1…

…to the X-12 flying smoothly through the air above a massive weather machine, with Rusty and Billy inside doing their best to dodge incoming cans of “Mountain Whizzy.” The episode looked great on the ground, too, with the falling snow adding a lot of atmosphere, particularly in the Hank sections.

And no, I don’t know why that clip is only available on YouTube in German.

But as slick as the operation has gotten, The Venture Bros. hasn’t lost its identity, even with Juno Lee taking over Jackson Publick’s normal directing duties this year. The Monarch and Gary’s story in particular felt like vintage Venture. (Is it okay to just call him “Gary” now? I feel like they haven’t used “21” in a while.) The Guild sends the pair to assassinate the Creep, a one-time O.S.I. agent disavowed by the organization after he slaughtered a troop of boy scouts while securing the site of a supervillain’s lair. (“They were wearing paramilitary clothing!”) The Creep is in charge of the radical wing of the Peril Partnership that’s been causing problems of late, and has sworn revenge against the O.S.I. and the Guild both. To get close enough to kill him, the Monarch and Gary must earn his trust, which he’ll only give if they win “the most dangerous game,” which in his case means a very long round of dive bomb, where you throw lawn darts in the air and try not to get hit when they fall.

The whole thing is so damn this show. It subverts our expectations, in this case our expectations about how the leader of a powerful organization should act — voice actor James Adomian has a great time taking the Creep way, WAY over the top — and how the Peril Partnership subplot would play out; raise your hand if you thought it would end with the guy at the top impaling himself with a lawn dart. And lawn darts themselves are typical of Venture Bros. references; colorful, unexpected and big in the ’80s. The show was on familiar ground here, and it was a lot of fun.

Backing up for a second, we’re not entirely sure the Peril Partnership subplot is over. In fact, I’m expecting some follow-through in the finale, although it’s hard to predict what shape it will take. Easier to picture is more of the Hank-Dean subplot. Hank’s desperate journey to reach Sirena was the most involving part of the episode, both because the show really sold his plight with those snow effects and because it was tough watching the happy-go-lucky Hank agonize over a girl who’s clearly pulling away from him. When you start speculating about amnesia and clones and “phone pirates” to explain why your significant other isn’t talking to you, you’re headed for a fall.

I was concerned back in “The High Cost of Loathing” that the show was going to use Sirena as a plot device to drive a wedge between the Venture brothers. While we still have an episode to go, it looks like my fears were justified, which sucks a little, because other than Dr. Mrs. The Monarch there aren’t many well-developed female characters on the show. We didn’t get much build-up to the Dean-Sirena hookup; like Hank, we stumbled on it, which was an effective way to end the episode but could feel cheap if they don’t flesh out these relationships next week. We’ll see what “The Saphrax Protocol” brings.

On the one hand, it would be exciting to get some honest-to-god conflict between the Venture brothers, perhaps the kind that never goes away. On the other, it would be completely in keeping with the show’s history to resolve this plot, pregnant as it is with explosive drama, in a low-key, subversive way, ORB-style. Even in this episode, the tone of the Hank sections pendulated wildly. They were intense, sure, but the funniest moment of the episode was when Hank was playing football with himself and cracked his head on a lamppost buried in snow; no wonder Rusty needed clones of these kids. And using Scare Bear to get Hank to Dean’s dorm was an inspired choice.

You think Scare Bear plays into this somehow? Is he a member of the Peril Partnership? Would that even make sense? Finale, please.

Grade: B+

Nothing But Bullet Points

• I didn’t talk much about it in the main review, but I enjoyed Rusty and Billy’s subplot. The thermal regulation suppository in particular leads to some big laughs, and it’s also a pretty good idea. Rusty’s been having a lot of those lately. He’s so close to being successful at something.
• Unsurprisingly, the show remembered that the Peril Partnership is a Canadian organization, as first mentioned by Brock back in “Every Which Way But Zeus.”
• I enjoyed the Creep statue made of chicken tenders. “After we eat the chicken statue, we need to eat this paper.”
• Brock can’t pronounce “spaghetti.” The world will never be the same.
• Sargent Hatred is reading the novelization of The Day After Tomorrow.
• “Trade snorkels with me. Yours matches my fins.” The Monarch has his priorities straight.
• The Monarch and Gary did look a little like the Cult of Personality video in those scuba outfits.
• I hope to god we meet Nat King Cobra eventually.
• The Creep’s original name was “Mission Creep,” a military term referring to gradual, unplanned changes in objectives that happen over the course of a campaign. The Vietnam War is a good example of mission creep. So is a security detail that transforms into a PR disaster involving a bunch of dead boy scouts.
• Grover Cleveland’s Presidential Time Machine is first glimpsed in “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean.” That doesn’t explain why Rusty and Billy pop out of it, though. Or why Rusty calls the Monarch by his real name.
• Jared or Dean or someone has scribbled a Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference on the door to Dean’s dorm room; very college.
• “The Bellicose Proxy,” “The Terminus Mandate,” “The Forecast Manufacturer”…Yeah, Venture Bros. is definitely doing a thing with its episode titles this year. They all sound like the names of Big Bang Theory episodes. Anyone wanna guess what, if anything, it means?

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