The Venture Bros: The Lepidopterists
Or, as one might call it, “The Rules of the Game.”
As Brock explains it, it seems that the conflict between the Guild of Calamitous Intent and OSI exists as an elaborate game to keep costumed supervillains occupied. The intent, as I understand it, is that if demented freaks like The Monarch were let loose in the real world, they could cause genuine destruction and hurt real people. By sanctioning and directing the malediction of their members against “super scientists”, who can presumably take care of themselves, the Guild and OSI collude to make the world a more orderly place. The Guild-sponsored supervillains attack the OSI-protected superscientists, nobody gets hurt (except for the occasional henchman, and then only for dramatic purposes) and the world, somehow, keeps spinning.
Besides, if The Monarch were to kill Rusty, then what would he do with his life? We’ve seen that he’s not happy arching anyone else. What would happen if his ambition were fulfilled, if Rusty was blown to smithereens by The Monarch’s lightning cannon? Would The Monarch then take off his costume, let go his henchmen and live in suburban comfort? Doing what? What is he qualified to do, besides supervillainy? We’ve seen that he steals all his weapons from others, it’s not like he could get a job designing flying cocoons, the market for which seems extremely limited. And would Dr. Mrs. The Monarch stay with him, or would she become, finally, her own supervillain instead of someone else’s sultry sidekick? How could she live without appending a title to her name?
The Monarch, and all the Guild-sanctioned supervillains it seems, are addicted to the game, as surely as the Sea Captain is addicted to tranquilizer darts (and to feigning outrage, but that’s another story). Where does this addiction come from? What is the source of the need for this game? Well, the 60s-era shows and movies that The Venture Bros salutes and parodies were a product of the Cold War, when the US and the USSR were locked in a cat-and-mouse game of one-upsmanship, a game where billions of lives theoretically hung in the balance, but where both sides seemed to understand that any actual fight would be absurd. And so the two nations rattled their sabres and made their childish threats, but the missles stayed resolutely in their silos and the casualties were all peripheral — North Korea and South Vietnam were the “Scott Hall” or “Henchman No 1″s of the Cold War. The US and USSR, it could be argued, never really hated each other, never wanted to destroy each other, but created the Cold War as a safe way to create a set of national identities (just as the Monarch desperately needs his status as a supervillain to create a personal identity) and, yes, to create a permanent military-based economy. Benton Quest and James Bond, GI Joe and their costumed nemeses were cartoon versions of the East vs West conflict, and “The Lepidopterists” suggests that the Cold War’s basis as a meaningless game of cat-and-mouse is reflected in those cultural artifacts. Benton Quest would never kill Dr. Zin, Bond would never kill Blofeld, GI Joe would never defeat Cobra. There could be no “end” to the game — to end the game would be to end the series. And just as the point of the series is to make money for the corporation who owned the network or studio, the point of the Cold War was to make money for the military-industrial complex.
The USSR “lost” the Cold War and the world’s conflicts are quite differently-structured now, which is where The Venture Bros comes in. Rusty has inherited the military-industrial complex created by his father, but the cartoon nemeses of the Cold War (like, you know, Castro) have been downgraded to demented freaks like The Monarch.
We’ve read in recent weeks about how The Joker = Osama, but a more legitimate question might be does Monarch = Osama? The Monarch, we see in “The Lepidopterists,” wants to “play the game” of harmless (if expensive) Guild-sanctioned attacks (he’s outraged when Jonas Jr — gasp! — fights back) but in his heart he is a true cold-blooded killer, a man who truly hates the Ventures and wants to destroy them and everything they stand for. It’s as though Al Qaeda had somehow become a Soviet-sponsored state. OSI (and the Guild, for that matter — although I, for one, won’t be surprised to learn that they are actually the one and the same — they almost say as much in this episode) is at a loss as to dealing with The Monarch — they are both bound by the code of their elaborate “game” and also perfectly willing to crush him like the insect he pretends to be. The Lepidopterists of the title are caught in this bind (if they are, indeed, agents of the OSI) and so, oddly, is Brock. Brock, who helped the Monarch re-build his cocoon this season, and who seems to want the Monarch back in Rusty’s life (to give it some sense of order?) here gets addicted to the game as well, cozy with the Lepidopterists and desperate to shoot off Jonas Jr’s giant laser (boy, try to type that sentence without feeling dirty).
The schism between the us-and-them clarity of the Cold War and the what-the-fuck-are-we-supposed-to-do confusion of the War on Terror is reflected by the b-story comedy of the henchmen. Henchman 1, the only competent henchman we’ve seen so far in the Monarch’s story, represents the super-capable agents of the Cold War, while 21 and 24 represent the modern way of warfare — a couple of incompetent, wise-cracking idiots who, thanks to the construct of “the game,” manage to keep wandering from mission to mission, laughing at the deaths of those who care while they have no clue as to what’s going on.
Meanwhile, Jonas Jr, for a guy who has spent most of his life inside someone else’s abdomenal cavity, seems to be pretty well-adjusted. He leads a family/team of adventurers damaged even by VB standards and unifies them — I especially like the Ventronic robot, which literally creates a “whole man” from the sum of its parts (well, near enough anyway). He’s managing the whole “make your family your adventure” thing well — he even takes care to include Ned on his adventures. Indeed, he seems to think more of Ned than he does the Sea Captain — either that or the Sea Captain is simply more sensitive to Jonas Jr’s backhanded geniality. If Jonas Jr and Sally are the “dad” and “mom” of this team of Venture castoffs, Ned and the Sea Captain must be the “children”, with Ned as the “baby” and the Sea Captain as the Rebellious Teen. (This is, of course, a reflection of the Fantastic Four family — Reed is the father, Sue is the mother, Johnny is the rebellious teen, and poor Ben, with his diaper and his tantrums, is the baby of the Richards family.) The Sea Captain seems unhappy with this role, in spite of the fact that he plays into it at every opportunity — he’s sensitive to his “parents'” opinions, and he compensates for his misery by getting addicted to drugs.
Aside from all this metaphorical mumbo-jumbo, I found “The Lepidopterists” to be the most tightly plotted episode of the season so far. As a bonus, the Monarch constructed a plan that, due to the efforts of the one competent henchman on his staff, actually worked.
(Another clue that Brock is working for the Monarch: the “Dark S-7 Maneuver” [or as I like to think of it, “the Speed trick”] affects only the video surveillance of Spider-Skull Island, yet Brock reports that the Monarch’s Cocoon is “twenty miles off” or something while looking atsomething other than a video monitor — why is he helping with the Monarch’s plan, if not to bring the Monarch and Rusty together again?)