TV Review – The Venture Brothers Season Two

The Venture Brothers Season Two (Adult Swim)
Written by Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer with Bed Edlund
Directed by Jackson Publick

While the Venture Brothers was primarily focused on parodying children’s shows, from Johnny Quest to G.I. Joe, it could also be strangely poignant. Where season one was about the co-creators Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer finding their footing in this world, season two is about expanding that established universe and adding depth to its characters. The three characters I found to get the most development this season would be Brock Samson, The Monarch/Doctor Girlfriend, and Doctor Orpheus. The show also teases the lore behind Hank & Dean’s origins. Are they clones of Rusty and Brock? Do they have a real mother? Is Dr. Girlfriend their mother? (Of course not). It was all of this with continuous references to the absurdity of genre media & culture.

The first season ended with the deaths of Hank & Dean. Season two opens with Rusty enjoying his freedom from being a father until Brock pulls him back. Orpheus is the audience stand-in who has it explained to him that the boys have multiple clone backups and they have died many times over. In a later episode (“I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills”), it’s revealed that while the boys live as newly turned 16-year-olds, they are, in fact, 19 years of age. In ¡Viva los Muertos!, the boys discover their own clone bank only to have Rusty deceive them by claiming it was their Christmas present, clones to do all their chores for them. Having dropped off after season three during the series’ original airing, I am curious to see how this ongoing story develops. Will it just be a running joke, or will there be a storyline that reveals the true nature of the boys’ birth?

Season Two also saw the development of henchmen numbers 21 and 24, The Monarch’s most faithful & oft-inept lackeys. The Monarch is locked up in federal prison, where he plots an escape with his fellow villains. I particularly loved the Batman Rogues parody of Mister Monday, whose one suggestion for the escape plan is if they could do it on a Monday. The Monarch’s arc this season is to learn to be a better partner to Dr. Girlfriend, who ends up with Phantom Limb for most of the season. The Monarch has made his obsession with Doctor Venture so destructive that it drives the one person who loves him the most away. The back and forth in this love triangle is one of the highlights of season two and provides the setting for the two-part season finale, which is one of the best episodes from what I have seen of the show.

Love appears to be in the air throughout season two. J.J., Rusty’s formerly believed-to-be-deceased twin, shows back up and makes Spider Skull Island his base of operations. After a globe-spanning adventure to stave off the alien destruction of Earth, J.J. ends up stealing Sally Impossible away from her husband. Dean’s infatuation with Orpheus’ daughter Triana continues; while he is deeply in love with her, Triana finds Dean cute, but it doesn’t seem that there’s more than that yet. Speaking of Dean, he ends up confused for Rusty’s daughter by Baron Ünderbheit, who quickly arranges a wedding. A fun detail that always cracks me up is the revelation that Ünderland borders Michigan. There’s also love between Ünderbheit’s former henchmen, Catclops & Lady Hitler. 

Brock starts undergoing such richer character development, starting with “Assassinanny 911,” where he leaves the boys with Molotov Cocktease to go after his former boss turned rogue Hunter Gathers. Through a series of vignettes framed after spy movies and Apocalypse Now, Brock finally discovers that Hunter is a transwoman, which is why he has left the Office of Secret Intelligence. Later, Brock goes on a psychedelic trip with a group of Orpheus’ friends which has him yearning to leave behind the mindless killing before a mental construct of Gathers reminds him of his purpose.

The big blemish marring season two for me is the continued use of “retarded” as a pejorative and the many transphobic jokes about Dr. Girlfriend and Hunter Gathers now. The transphobia stuff is terrible but is complicated. The doctor performing Gathers’ surgery corrects Brock’s pronoun usage, and I didn’t feel that was played as a joke. Even Brock accepts his former boss’s decision citing their rule about not harming “women or children,” which means he can’t do anything to Gathers. However, Brock always reacts with immediate disgust when anything related to transgender behavior or identity. 

I hope that the show improves in this regard with successive seasons. I’m not someone that allows “it was the mood of the time” as an excuse because, as I read more history and theory, I found that plenty of people stood on the opposite side of these beliefs. We didn’t hear them because the media of the time & contemporary historians didn’t amplify their voices. For all the slave owners and those supporting that industry, there was a loud & powerful abolition movement that fought against it. The “retarded” slur is just lazy writing, in my opinion, the type of insult left over from middle school days that has no place in the media unless the person saying it is being framed as a bad person. 

Aside from the season finale, “Showdown at Cremation Creek,” some of the best episodes from this batch include the season opener “Powerless in the Face of Death,” the hilariously structured “Escape to the House of Mummies Part II,” Hank’s double date in “Victor Echo November,” and the insanely dark parody of Scooby Doo in “¡Viva los Muertos!” I enjoyed a lot of season two, except for those bits where the creators allowed their prejudices to seep into the writing. Hoping season three sees an improvement in that regard.