serpentine malign (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
serpentinemalign) wrote2021-07-02 11:43 pm
serpentinemalign) wrote2021-07-02 11:43 pm
Entry tags:
what are we, some kind of venture brothers? (part 5 of 7)
WARNINGS:
NAVIGATION
Welcome back! This time we’re covering the short, sweet, and possibly best season of the show, although my opinion on this is likely to change, because from here it's almost nothing but bangers. We will be counting All This and Gargantua-2 as part of season 5 because it’s pre-the big status quo change in Season 6, and most of this season feels like it’s building up to the special. This is impressive because the whole season has the feeling of looking forward and back all at once — tying up loose ends as though this season was going to be the last. Almost every episode is dense with callbacks to previous lore and plots. It’s not completely inaccessible to anyone coming to the show fresh, but I guess this is the point that being rerun-friendly isn’t the goal. This approach massively benefits the show, because then the writers can focus on developing the continuity they’ve already established. Probably the episode with the least callbacks is Spanakopita!, which as we all know is a fucking classic and one my partner and I have often pulled out to get friends interested in the show.
Hammer and Publick are finally reaping all that they’ve sown over the 55 (I think?) episodes prior to this season. I think season 4 was already tending towards this, but here is where shit gets intricate and fleshed out and incredibly polished. In fact I’d say it’s telling that the weakest episode of the bunch — still a pretty good episode; it introduced anthro furries into the canon after all — draws on a plot element from the only episode neither of them wrote, ¡Viva los Muertos!. Everything feels neat and wrapped up well, and while it’s not as much of an emotional gut-punch as season 4, I never come out of any of Season 5’s episodes unsatiated.
Who is the star of Season 5? Difficult to tell. This is kind of an ‘ensemble’ season, and for the most part, everyone gets a little time in the spotlight. Every appearance feels meaningful. Dean discovers he’s a clone and has a Lot of Angst About It, Hank spends some time coming into his own while being GNC as fuck, Rusty and the Monarch embrace their (metaphorical, but soon to be revealed as literal) kinship in listless depression, Dr. Mrs. finally gets some appreciation and power, Dermott finds out he’s a Venture brother and we get to see him break down a little, Gary plays around with heroism only to inevitably play the villain at every step, Brock’s ties to the Venture family fracture his commitment to the O.S.I.… and all this development feels super natural and organic? All this shit is stuff that’s been hinted at already, and that’s what makes it all so good. I would say that I wish Dr. Mrs. had more to do this season? But that's my one complaint.
I was originally going to declare Augustus St. Cloud as the star of the season by default, because he’s a fucking meme. But actually, he perfectly encapsulates what’s so good about this season. Augustus is great because he serves the dual purpose of a) tying up the loose end of how Rusty is paying his bills and b) giving Billy and Pete something to do that isn’t directly attached to Rusty (that sounds dirty, but I guess that fits too). So he’s a useful recurring plot device and he helps flesh out Billy and Pete — he serves plot and character equally and as a bonus he’s fucking hilarious. His promotion from background character to recurring cast member is purposeful and genius and the way they did it feels very natural and in keeping with the world. (I have an upcoming ‘bonus part’ where I demonstrate how Augustus and Shore Leave are the best recurring secondary characters on the show. It was originally part of this part, but then I realised that a full viewing of the show might be required to do it properly, so you’ll get that after part 7.)
Augustus is also a rarity, being a character who enters instead of departs in this season. Season 5 kills off and ‘disappears’ a lot of characters, with many dying or not coming back past All This and Gargantua-2. But this isn’t for shock value or emotional punch — it feels more like cutting out a bunch of shit we didn’t need so to focus more closely on our core cast and give them new challenges. And these decisions are incredibly sensible — they ensure the longevity of the show and tie up enough loose ends to make a big change for next season, completely shaking up the setting and allowing the main cast to move on past the compound.
I think that previous seasons introduced characters a little too arbitrarily. Often characters would come in for a brief episode plot or series arc and then they’d keep coming back and it would suck. Basically I’m talking about Professor Impossible and Bud Manstrong. But especially Professor Impossible. I think, basically, a show like The Venture Bros. needs its recurring characters to have enough of an emotional connection to the main cast, or they fall flat. Single appearances don’t have this same amount of pressure because they don’t have a chance to outstay their welcome, so you can rely more on vibes and humour — like Dr. Quymn and co. (as much as I kind of hate the episode they’re from), or those three assassins Brock kills in season 3. I think this is why people clamoured so much for Kim, Triana’s friend, to come back and actually get mentored by Dr. Girlfriend, because that episode introduced such a solid and interesting connection between them and then did absolutely nothing with it.
But sometimes I think there are characters so absorbed in their own bubble of other minor characters that I just cannot bring myself to care… but they keep coming back anyway. Though he’s barely in Season 5 (his only speaking role is in All This, IIRC!), I don’t think you could pay me to be interested in Professor Impossible. Like, he taught Rusty in college, and then Rusty was gonna fuck his wife, and I was kind of hoping for more along those lines, but his story arcs past Seasons 1-2 — breaking up with Sally, his downward spiral, etc — are only peripherally related to Rusty. I don’t care that Sally leaves him; I don’t care that he’s a monster to her brothers — it’s all lazy deconstruction I feel like could be in any parody of the Fantastic Four. He finally gets a bit of nice development when he joins the Revenge Society (and so we get a bit of his past with his fellow ex-professor, Phantom Limb, AND he also teams up with Underbheit, our version of Von Doom, who… probably would suffer from this problem too if not for his more direct beef with Rusty and rivalry with the Monarch) and when he takes Dean under his wing as an intern — because then he is attached to characters we actually have been following more closely and have a reason to care about. So, it’s not exactly that a character can’t be introduced who doesn’t already have intense emotional connections, but more that if the writers don’t mine those connections, I’m going to be frustrated. But, you know, this is my opinion. I always want more drama in my stories, and so I have a soft spot for characters who really push those buttons — usually because their relationship with the main cast is heated, whether by love or by hate or by something else.
But, back to season 5. I absolutely adore Monstroso because his entire design and personality FUCKS for me personally, but even he is a victim of this, and though I wish we’d gotten more of him before he (seemingly) died, I also understand why they killed him off when they did. Past the point of him being Molotov’s love interest — I mean, I guess it would be pretty neat if they kept dating while Molotov joined the opposing side, but given all the existing threads, I totally understand why they didn’t go this route — there wasn’t a reason to prolong his existence in the show. And after he had been such a point of tension for the latter half of s4, being demoted to background Guild member wouldn’t really feel like an appropriate end. He didn’t burn for the Venture family, and his evil was, by nature, purely administrative and professional. The same goes for the Investors, who had no real tension with the main cast either since Billy fulfilled his debt.
JJ’s death is the one exception to the rule, because I feel as though he could have had more development. But the killing is still a smart one because it allows Rusty to come more into his own, giving him less of a point of comparison to his more successful brother (which, of course, replaced him comparing himself to his father) while simultaneously granting him some Gargantua-based trauma of his own to match the rest of Team Venture’s.
So, yes, the killings of season 5 and All This are incredibly pragmatic, cutting out the shit we don’t need and focusing on developing our core cast, while only introducing new characters when they are able to contribute to this development. Writing out Myra to renew the mystery of the boys’ mother was also a smart move and I hope it pays off in the movie, although knowing Jackson and Doc, I very much doubt that the ‘woman from their past’ is actually gonna be the boys’ mom.
Here are my rankings for this season!
S-tier: Spanakopita!; O.S.I. Love You; Bot Seeks Bot; All This and Gargantua-2
A-tier: What Color Is Your Cleansuit?; A Very Venture Halloween; SPHINX Rising; Momma’s Boys; The Devil’s Grip
B-tier: Venture Libre
C-tier:
D-tier:
E-tier:
I think this season might have the best S-tier-to-total ratio of any season, but we’ll come back and check that at the end. This is such a consistently good season that I have very little to say about individual episodes, although I would like to say that O.S.I. Love You might be my favourite episode of this entire show. I might do an S-tier throwdown where I overanalyse each S-tier episode and then rank them? We'll see. I hope you'll come back for season 6! :)
- Venture Bros. spoilers.
NAVIGATION
Welcome back! This time we’re covering the short, sweet, and possibly best season of the show, although my opinion on this is likely to change, because from here it's almost nothing but bangers. We will be counting All This and Gargantua-2 as part of season 5 because it’s pre-the big status quo change in Season 6, and most of this season feels like it’s building up to the special. This is impressive because the whole season has the feeling of looking forward and back all at once — tying up loose ends as though this season was going to be the last. Almost every episode is dense with callbacks to previous lore and plots. It’s not completely inaccessible to anyone coming to the show fresh, but I guess this is the point that being rerun-friendly isn’t the goal. This approach massively benefits the show, because then the writers can focus on developing the continuity they’ve already established. Probably the episode with the least callbacks is Spanakopita!, which as we all know is a fucking classic and one my partner and I have often pulled out to get friends interested in the show.
Hammer and Publick are finally reaping all that they’ve sown over the 55 (I think?) episodes prior to this season. I think season 4 was already tending towards this, but here is where shit gets intricate and fleshed out and incredibly polished. In fact I’d say it’s telling that the weakest episode of the bunch — still a pretty good episode; it introduced anthro furries into the canon after all — draws on a plot element from the only episode neither of them wrote, ¡Viva los Muertos!. Everything feels neat and wrapped up well, and while it’s not as much of an emotional gut-punch as season 4, I never come out of any of Season 5’s episodes unsatiated.
Who is the star of Season 5? Difficult to tell. This is kind of an ‘ensemble’ season, and for the most part, everyone gets a little time in the spotlight. Every appearance feels meaningful. Dean discovers he’s a clone and has a Lot of Angst About It, Hank spends some time coming into his own while being GNC as fuck, Rusty and the Monarch embrace their (metaphorical, but soon to be revealed as literal) kinship in listless depression, Dr. Mrs. finally gets some appreciation and power, Dermott finds out he’s a Venture brother and we get to see him break down a little, Gary plays around with heroism only to inevitably play the villain at every step, Brock’s ties to the Venture family fracture his commitment to the O.S.I.… and all this development feels super natural and organic? All this shit is stuff that’s been hinted at already, and that’s what makes it all so good. I would say that I wish Dr. Mrs. had more to do this season? But that's my one complaint.
I was originally going to declare Augustus St. Cloud as the star of the season by default, because he’s a fucking meme. But actually, he perfectly encapsulates what’s so good about this season. Augustus is great because he serves the dual purpose of a) tying up the loose end of how Rusty is paying his bills and b) giving Billy and Pete something to do that isn’t directly attached to Rusty (that sounds dirty, but I guess that fits too). So he’s a useful recurring plot device and he helps flesh out Billy and Pete — he serves plot and character equally and as a bonus he’s fucking hilarious. His promotion from background character to recurring cast member is purposeful and genius and the way they did it feels very natural and in keeping with the world. (I have an upcoming ‘bonus part’ where I demonstrate how Augustus and Shore Leave are the best recurring secondary characters on the show. It was originally part of this part, but then I realised that a full viewing of the show might be required to do it properly, so you’ll get that after part 7.)
Augustus is also a rarity, being a character who enters instead of departs in this season. Season 5 kills off and ‘disappears’ a lot of characters, with many dying or not coming back past All This and Gargantua-2. But this isn’t for shock value or emotional punch — it feels more like cutting out a bunch of shit we didn’t need so to focus more closely on our core cast and give them new challenges. And these decisions are incredibly sensible — they ensure the longevity of the show and tie up enough loose ends to make a big change for next season, completely shaking up the setting and allowing the main cast to move on past the compound.
I think that previous seasons introduced characters a little too arbitrarily. Often characters would come in for a brief episode plot or series arc and then they’d keep coming back and it would suck. Basically I’m talking about Professor Impossible and Bud Manstrong. But especially Professor Impossible. I think, basically, a show like The Venture Bros. needs its recurring characters to have enough of an emotional connection to the main cast, or they fall flat. Single appearances don’t have this same amount of pressure because they don’t have a chance to outstay their welcome, so you can rely more on vibes and humour — like Dr. Quymn and co. (as much as I kind of hate the episode they’re from), or those three assassins Brock kills in season 3. I think this is why people clamoured so much for Kim, Triana’s friend, to come back and actually get mentored by Dr. Girlfriend, because that episode introduced such a solid and interesting connection between them and then did absolutely nothing with it.
But sometimes I think there are characters so absorbed in their own bubble of other minor characters that I just cannot bring myself to care… but they keep coming back anyway. Though he’s barely in Season 5 (his only speaking role is in All This, IIRC!), I don’t think you could pay me to be interested in Professor Impossible. Like, he taught Rusty in college, and then Rusty was gonna fuck his wife, and I was kind of hoping for more along those lines, but his story arcs past Seasons 1-2 — breaking up with Sally, his downward spiral, etc — are only peripherally related to Rusty. I don’t care that Sally leaves him; I don’t care that he’s a monster to her brothers — it’s all lazy deconstruction I feel like could be in any parody of the Fantastic Four. He finally gets a bit of nice development when he joins the Revenge Society (and so we get a bit of his past with his fellow ex-professor, Phantom Limb, AND he also teams up with Underbheit, our version of Von Doom, who… probably would suffer from this problem too if not for his more direct beef with Rusty and rivalry with the Monarch) and when he takes Dean under his wing as an intern — because then he is attached to characters we actually have been following more closely and have a reason to care about. So, it’s not exactly that a character can’t be introduced who doesn’t already have intense emotional connections, but more that if the writers don’t mine those connections, I’m going to be frustrated. But, you know, this is my opinion. I always want more drama in my stories, and so I have a soft spot for characters who really push those buttons — usually because their relationship with the main cast is heated, whether by love or by hate or by something else.
But, back to season 5. I absolutely adore Monstroso because his entire design and personality FUCKS for me personally, but even he is a victim of this, and though I wish we’d gotten more of him before he (seemingly) died, I also understand why they killed him off when they did. Past the point of him being Molotov’s love interest — I mean, I guess it would be pretty neat if they kept dating while Molotov joined the opposing side, but given all the existing threads, I totally understand why they didn’t go this route — there wasn’t a reason to prolong his existence in the show. And after he had been such a point of tension for the latter half of s4, being demoted to background Guild member wouldn’t really feel like an appropriate end. He didn’t burn for the Venture family, and his evil was, by nature, purely administrative and professional. The same goes for the Investors, who had no real tension with the main cast either since Billy fulfilled his debt.
JJ’s death is the one exception to the rule, because I feel as though he could have had more development. But the killing is still a smart one because it allows Rusty to come more into his own, giving him less of a point of comparison to his more successful brother (which, of course, replaced him comparing himself to his father) while simultaneously granting him some Gargantua-based trauma of his own to match the rest of Team Venture’s.
So, yes, the killings of season 5 and All This are incredibly pragmatic, cutting out the shit we don’t need and focusing on developing our core cast, while only introducing new characters when they are able to contribute to this development. Writing out Myra to renew the mystery of the boys’ mother was also a smart move and I hope it pays off in the movie, although knowing Jackson and Doc, I very much doubt that the ‘woman from their past’ is actually gonna be the boys’ mom.
Here are my rankings for this season!
S-tier: Spanakopita!; O.S.I. Love You; Bot Seeks Bot; All This and Gargantua-2
A-tier: What Color Is Your Cleansuit?; A Very Venture Halloween; SPHINX Rising; Momma’s Boys; The Devil’s Grip
B-tier: Venture Libre
C-tier:
D-tier:
E-tier:
I think this season might have the best S-tier-to-total ratio of any season, but we’ll come back and check that at the end. This is such a consistently good season that I have very little to say about individual episodes, although I would like to say that O.S.I. Love You might be my favourite episode of this entire show. I might do an S-tier throwdown where I overanalyse each S-tier episode and then rank them? We'll see. I hope you'll come back for season 6! :)