"The Forecast Manufacturer" – The Venture Bros. S07E09 Review

And so with "The Forecast Manufacturer" we come to the penultimate episode of Season 7. And... not much happens. Okay, things happen, but it doesn't seem to have much to do with last week's episode, "The Terminus Mandate". It kinda ties in with the plot threads of the season of the whole. But it doesn't really feel like a build-up to anything. Unless you're really into the romance between Kimberly and S-464.

Or Hank and Sirena's on-again/off-again romance. But we've seen that so rarely this season it's hard to have feelings one way or another for that, either.

Let's recap. Like most Venture Bros. episodes, the plot goes in several different directions at once. The main plot is NYC is being swept by a blizzard, and Rusty and Billy take the X-12 Venture jet up into the storm to investigate. They discover a machine is generating the weather, and eventually learn S-464 is responsible. He stole the machine from the Guild and activated it to get Kimberly's attention, figuring the OSI would send someone to investigate. Why he thought they'd send Kimberly, I don't know.

The Guild ends up capturing S-464, and offer him back to the OSI as part of a prisoner exchange. But they've adjusted his brain so he no longer remembers who Kimberly is and is more robotic than ever.

There's lots of Rusty/Billy interplay, as Billy tests a thermal regulation suppository and then uses it to shut down the weather machine by blocking its intake valve.

While this all goes on, Hank discovers Sirena isn't returning his messages. So he walks out into the blizzard, knocks himself out, and is rescued by someone in a Scare Bear costume. Scare Bear takes Hank to Dean's dorm room where Dean and Sirena are making love. Hank doesn't get it, and I don't either. Yes, they suggested five episodes ago in "The High Cost of Loathing" that Sirena was attracted to Dean. But it feels like we've missed a few episodes of plot development. That the creative team were more interested in the Guild, and the Monarch, and Rusty, and the Kimberly/S-464 romance.

I don’t mind the Venture Brothers are a second thought on a show called The Venture Bros. They've long since stopped being the major source of humor on the show. But let's not try and pretend we care about them when the creative team doesn't.

Finally, Girlfriend and Dr. Z ask Monarch and 21 to infiltrate the secret island of the rogue branch of the Peril Partnership that has been making things miserable for the Guild. When our intrepid villain duo get to the island pretending to be Guild defectors, they discover The Creep is Mission Creep (James Adomian), a former OSI operative who was expelled for accidentally slaughtering a Boy Scout troop because they were wearing paramilitary uniforms. The Guild has too many rules, and MC hates rules, so he's formed the Peril Partnership.

MC challenges Monarch and 21 to "the most dangerous game". Lawn darts, the most lethal children's toys known to man. They throw them up into the air and then run at the last second. Mission Creep is distracted when Rusty and Billy arrive from the future in one of MC's stolen items: Grover Cleveland's Time Machine (which has been referenced before on the show). A distracted MC goes down with a lawn dart in his head, future-Rusty and Billy leave, and Monarch suggests they don't tell the Guild what happened.

Again, this doesn't seem to go anywhere. The Peril Partnership was building up to a potentially major threat. But it's apparently run by some guy who we've never seen before, who doesn't seem competent to eliminate Monarch and 21, much less lead a rogue outfit that can give the Guild conniption fits.

Unless you're really into suppository humor, the MC segment is the funniest part of the episode. Monarch and 21 meet Girlfriend in a strip-mall dojo where they're recruiting new henchmen. They then go to a restaurant where Girlfriend and Dr. Z show them a model of The Creep's head made out of chicken tenders. Dr. Z presents a weird riddle with the answer of "assassinate". Z then spends a lot of time hemming and hawing around the fact he can't come right out and say the Guild wants MC dead. Girlfriend gets exasperated and finally tells Monarch and 21 to kill the guy.

Then we get an extended sequence of MC luring Monarch and 21 to him. I did get a snicker out of lawn darts being "the most dangerous game", but MC is just one of the typical Venture Bros. villains that is more build-up than pay-off. Not only does he seem pretty non-threatening, but then he takes himself out with a lawn dart to the head.

FYI, that's why Red Death is so good on the show. He's a villain that has plenty of pay-off to go with his build-up, which makes him pretty unique on The Venture Bros.

And then there's Scare Bear guy. Why a guy in a Scare bear costume brings Hank to Dean's dorm to let him catch Dean and Sirena in flagrante, I have no idea. Maybe it's a future Hank in the costume. Maybe it's not a costume.

So "The Forecast Manufacturer" was a mediocre episode of the series, and the worst of season 7. It didn't seem to set anything up, and one wonders if it was intended as the season finale. Hank finds out Sirena is with Dean, the big threat to the Guild goes away. And that's it. It could set up a rivalry between Hank and Dean, but they've been off-screen so much that it's hard to care.

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