The first “proper” scene shows Brock 20 years later, now “mothering” Hank and Dean, combing their hair, removing invisible smudges from their cheeks, as his one-time foil/crush Molotov Cocktease looks on in disgust.  Mothering, she feels, is not fit work for Brock — Brock is a man, which is to say he is a killer — this is opposed to Dr. Venture, who fusses about clothes, and Hank and Dean, who are mere boys.

Now that the Cold War is over, Molotov wants to consummate the flirtation that was begun with Brock 20 years earlier during a Paris stakeout.  That stakeout ended with Brock being pinned down to a bed with knives in a flaming hotel room (and is apparently not the same time that he took her left eyeball, as Molotov escapes unharmed).

But Molotov is not about to get what she wants, for Brock has been called away on a mission and has asked Molotov to babysit Hank and Dean.  The mission (an assassination, a killing — his “old” male identity) is just a piece of gruntwork for Brock, who finds his new role as nurturer and caretaker much more rewarding and, let’s face it, more challenging.  Challenging as in Manaconda (another phallic symbol), who leaps out of the X-1 fusillage (another phallic symbol), is killed by Molotov (who, for the purposes of this episode, is the male, ie “killer” presence), and turns out to be, as Dean notes, “Womanaconda” (thus underlining the episode’s themes and foreshadowing the surprise ending).

Brock doesn’t exactly drag his feet on his way to meet his contact, he’s not that kind of guy, but neither does he have patience for the spy-spy rigamarole of his briefing — the spy biz has changed too much since he was in it, it’s no longer a “man’s world” — Brock tosses out the gadgets and weapons from his kit, muttering “gay, gay, useless…” as his briefing officer tries to tempt him with a unthreatening-looking pen(is).  (In case the gay subtext in this scene is not strong enough, it is noted that Brock will get the next part of his briefing from, er, “Captain Swallow.”)

(Side note: when Brock opens the case file to see that his target is Col. Gathers, the file is, in fact, printed backwards.  Is this a mere technical glitch, or are Jackson and Doc hinting at a “backwards” nature of Col. Gathers’ personality?)

Once Brock is gone, Molotov turns herself to her task of “turning Hank, Dean and Rusty into men.”  This involves shooting at them with a machine pistol and getting Hank and Dean to try to kill each other.  (There is, on top of everything else in the show, a puzzling dwelling on the wounds of Christ — Brock is stabbed through the hand by Col. Gathers, and Dean is stabbed through the foot by Hank with a pen[is]cil.  Are Jackson and Doc suggesting that Christ was not a “real man,” as he was not a killer but rather a healer?)

Once Hank “kills” Dean (or so he crows, having wounded him), he believes himself to be a “real man.”  The ability to kill gets mixed up in Hank’s mind with the desire to have sex with Molotov — one gives rise (so to speak) to the other, in spite of the fact that the object of Molotov’s affections, Brock, is a killer but no longer wants to have sex with her.

Rusty, for his part, believes his “mature” status gives him an edge over the boys (“mature” here meaning “stealing the neighbor’s newspaper for the double coupons”), while Dean, as ever, is just confused and hapless.

On the way to his rendezvous with assassination (shot from the phallic submarine in an even-more-phallic torpedo), Brock remembers his training and partnership with Col. Gathers.  The phallic symbols (sharks, spearguns, oxygen tanks, the Eiffel Tower, baguettes [“don’t eat that!  It’s C4!” — indeed]) and sexual confusion (Col. Gathers’s cross-dressing) abound as Col. Gathers explains the finer points of assassination etiquette — “no women, no kids.”  Minutes later (literally, as the “clock” in the lower left-hand corner of the screen indicates) Brock finds these rules tested as he attempts to bed Molotov and finds himself bedded instead — it seems that he could kill Molotov if he wanted to, but is restrained by his code of assassin’s honor.

Back at the Venture compound, Molotov finds herself doing some “mother” work, perhaps in spite of herself — we see her with a very un-assassin-like bag of groceries (bought with Rusty’s double coupons?).  Her single “motherly” gesture is not wasted on Hank, who becomes filled with Oedipal rage when he sees his new “mother figure” become “friendly” with Rusty and the “real man” urge to kill becomes intertwined with the urge to have sex with Molotov.

(One wonders if having a motherly presence in the Venture compound would be in any way a good idea, as the sexual dysfunctions compound themselves so quickly with the mere presence of a female.)

Brock, on his mission, shows how not-gay he is by bedding a native woman, who shops from the Bond Girl catalogue — thus signifying her as a “real woman” — a purely sexual object who comes complete with six-pack and easy-open bikini-top.  The “native woman” is a lover, not a killer, not, essentially, a “man,” like Molotov.

By the poolside, Hank drowns as Dean chats with his own foil/crush, Triana.  Molotov must perform the ultimate non-assassin act, bringing Hank back to life with mouth-to-mouth resusitation.  Both boys suffer from swollen swim-trunks in this scene — Hank’s from his mouth-to-mouth erection, Dean’s from having his pockets fill up with water.  Hank, we see, is at least physically ready to have sex with a woman (although he is pointedly not mentally ready — when his erection is pointed out, he panics, saying his “pants are haunted”).

There is a nice double climax (so to speak), twin Apocalypse Now parodies, as Hank turns his murderous Oedipal rage on Rusty and Brock confronts his target.  Hank, for his part, grabs his crotch and swings his phallic sword wildly as Brock is confronted with Col. Gathers’s ultimate truth.  Brock is shocked with what he finds, but he should not be: he has come to the same conclusion, in his own way.  Brock has found value in life outside of killing (ie being “a real man”).  Col. Gathers has taken the notion to its logical conclusion, and in the context of The Venture Bros has struck on a solution that would satisfy even 

— he has escaped the dead-end role of “real man” by becoming a woman.  As the surgeon makes explicit, Col. Gathers started as Brock’s Frankenstein father and ends as his even-more-Frankenstein mother.

Brock returns home, lesson learned.  The episode ends with Hank’s melancholy as Molotov drives away, suggesting that, for him at least, this struggle is not yet over.

Discussion of the other episodes of Season 2 of The Venture Bros can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.