"Arrears in Science" The Venture Bros. S07E03 Review

And so "Arrears in Science" tells us the answers to a lot of secrets. Including some we didn't know we knew. All with the Macy's Parade coming. Confused? You will be.

Let's recap first. We return to the cliffhanger ending of part 1 of "The Morphic Trilogy" as the Venture Tower shakes as Jonas (trapped in the Problem machine) goes berserk. We find out that the "Blue Morpho" that has arrived is actually Vendata, a cyborg super-villain. Vendata thinks it's Blue Morpho. And it is. Kind of.

Cue a lot of flashbacks as we find out that Blue Morpho went to Jonas when he and his wife had fertility problems. Jonas did wonders with science and gave his friend a child... who is Monarch, aka Malcolm. In return, Jonas asked Blue Morpho to do him occasional "favors". Eventually Jonas turned Blue Morpho into a cyborg, Vendata. When Vendata and Jonas were killed when Vendata threatened to kill the crew of Gargantua-1 in the Movie Night Massacre to force Jonas to stop blackmailing him. Jonas didn't take the threat seriously, Vendata apparently opened the bay doors, and Jonas and the crew were killed. The Old Team Venture found Jonas, accidentally broke off his frozen head, and put it in the problem machine.

Meanwhile (there's a lot of "Meanwhiles"), Dr. Z found Vendata and reprogrammed it for evil. However, Z was busted in a drug rap in Singapore, and Vendata bounced around for awhile. Eventually he got some fragmented memories back of his wife and home, went back to Newark (and the home is Monarch's current childhood residence), and entered the Morpho Cave. Vendata donned the backup Blue Morpho costume and that's who arrived at the Venture Tower in episode 2 of the current season.

That sums up the past. In the present, Action Man has a stroke and Pete uses a shrink gun to shrink Gentleman, Kano, and Action Man down so the first two can carry the third out through the sealed security gate. The Guild and Red Death arrive, and they retire to a nearby diner with Brock to discuss how to deal with the situation. It turns out Red Death and a bunch of 80s "hard" super-villains hung out at the diner with Vendata, and they jokingly suggested that they board Gargantua-1. They didn't intend to massacre the crew. That's when Vendata got aboard to threaten Jonas with killing the crew, and ended up apparently doing so.

Brock is shocked to learn all this, since Sovereign (remember him? David Bowie-impersonating shapeshifter?) took credit for the massacre posing as the head of SPHINX, setting off the Pyramid Wars. Since Brock was recruited by OSI to help fight SPHINX, Brock is none-too-happy to learn his life was a lie.

At the end, Vendata mentally enters the Problem machine and confronts Jonas. Jonas goes berserk and attacks Blue Morpho. In the real world, this means the Problem machine grabs Vendata. Rusty and Monarch end up onboard the machine as Vendata blasts it out of the building with his boot jets. It crashes. The Guild returns from the diner and assumes Monarch killed Blue Morpho. And Monarch is glad to take the credit, since it clears him of the charges of him impersonating Blue Morpho.

The next day the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Day Parade happens, and Venture Industries has a giant Rusty float in the parade. In the end tag, Sgt. Hatred and his men lose control of the float, which drifts toward the Venture Tower. Meanwhile, Rusty has Jonas' head in a box but Brock informs him the OSI wants it. The Order of the Triad finds a building with low rent and a "Dr. Strange window" to use as their new base of operations. And Hank wonders if he's suffering from disassociateive personality disorder.

Overall, it's a pretty stuffed episode of Venture Bros. There's a lot of continuity tossed out (going back to the 1st season "Careers in Science", hence the title), and it doesn't help that the show has been airing since 2004. There are callbacks to pretty much all of the seasons: the OSI (Colonel-now-General Hunters shows up), the Pyramid Wars, Vendata, Gargantua-1, Monarch's parentage, and much more are all referenced.

Credit to creators Christopher McCulloch and Doc Hammer for keeping track of all of this. While providing their usual 10-12 recurring and guest voices as well.

I'd say the whole thing is pretty plot-dense and intimidating to a newcomer. But I'm not sure Venture Bros. is aimed at or interested in newcomers these days. You pretty much have to know what is going on to keep track of everything, and even then you'll probably need to run to a wiki to update yourself on some stuff. If you're not familiar with the show, try to make heads or tails out of the recap above.

And that's not even mentioning all of the cultural references and in-character moments. There are references to Sharky's Machine, Legion, Dr. Strange, and Split, among others. Hank questions his schizophrenic incidents. Dean looks bored and amused at his brother's antics. Red Death sports a Mohawk in the 70s flashback, and voice artist Clancy Brown still successfully walks the line between a super-villain trying to go straight, and a guy consumed by unquenchable blood lust and villainy from time to time..

And there are just bits that are off the wall, like Dr. Z describing his lost weekend when he and a couple of minor villains got drunk and decided to trash Venture's lawn because they couldn't get past the security fence.

Overall, Venture Bros. is what it always is: a parody of superheroes and Jonny Quest-style cartoons, with its own weird cast of supporting characters and backstories that go on 10+ years. It's like Tom Servo on MST3K: "I'm like the wind, baby! Nobody gets me." If you get everything that is going on with Venture Bros., good luck to you. Otherwise all you can do is strap in and enjoy the ride.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?