Television Zombies
Long-time WADPAW reader the most pressing issues of our day TV shows. Chris has been following my Venture Bros analysis and asked me to contribute a little something to his show, and I was happy to oblige. The podcast can be heard here or through your nearest iTunes thingy. My contribution, where I gas on about how I go about my VB analysis, is toward the end, but the whole show is certainly entertaining enough to listen through, and features a guest-opening from Rusty Venture himself.
Venture Bros: Pinstripes and Poltergeists
What does the Monarch want? The Monarch wants what the Monarch has always wanted: he wants to "win" in his arching battle against Dr. Venture. Never mind that Dr. Venture barely seems to know that the Monarch exists, and gives no thought at all as to his motives or reasoning. For that matter, never mind that the Monarch hasn’t really thought through what it means to "win" against Dr. Venture, or what he’ll do after he’s "won." The Monarch wants so badly to "win" against Dr. Venture that he makes a poorly-thought-out alliance with a fellow villain who actually wears a bathing cap with devil-horns on it. "Faustian bargain" is evidently not a phrase with which the Monarch is familiar.
Venture Bros: The Better Man
What does Dr. Orpheus want? Dr. Orpheus has brought his Triad to some sort of desecrated cathedral, to stop Torrid from opening a portal to Hell. When The Outrider, Orpheus’s romantic rival, steals Orpheus’s thunder and takes care of the Hell-portal problem, Orpheus wants to prove to his ex-wife (or maybe only himself) that he is a "better man" than the Outrider.
Venture Bros: Self-Medication
"Self-Medication," in a way, removes all the subtext from The Venture Bros: this is a show about child abuse, plain and simple. Rusty was abused by his father, everyone in Rusty’s therapy group was either abused by their fathers or father-figures (even Ro-Boy reserves his rage for "big robots"), Rusty abuses his own children by putting them in the care of a pedophile. "Boy adventure" almost becomes a code-word for trauma suffered at the hands of an abusive father. The group therapist, quite eloquently, considering, explains that his patients’ behavior is what they do to keep themselves from dealing with their real problems — they are obsessed with their "boy adventures" because they can’t deal with the fact that they’re all abused children. As long as they can solve one more mystery, defeat one more bad guy, escape one more trap, they won’t have to face up to the horror of their existence: they were all abused, molested and neglected by their fathers.
Venture Bros: The Revenge Society
The protagonist of "The Revenge Society" is Phantom Limb, who has undergone a transformation since we last saw him. This is, of course, nothing unusual in the Venture-verse, "transformation" is one of the strongest themes of the show. Phantom Limb transforms in this episode, The Sovereign transforms several times, Red Mantle and Dragoon merge into one (with limited success). Sgt Hatred tries desperately to transform into a good father-figure for the benefit of Hank, and Rusty even continues his delicate transformation into a father-figure for Dean.
A note on Mad Men
Mad Men is the greatest show in the history of television, certainly the greatest hour-long drama.
Venture Bros: Perchance to Dean
What does D-19 want? That’s easy — D-19 wants to be Dean. He’s bound to be frustrated in his pursuit, because there’s no way he can actually become Dean. Setting aside the fact that Dean isn’t really "Dean," since "Dean" has been dead many times over.
Venture Bros: Handsome Ransom
What does Hank want? Hank wants a father. Rusty is as close to a biological father as he’ll ever get, but Rusty has no interest in acting the role of father to Hank (Dean, it turns out, is a different story). Hank loves and idolizes Brock, who is now gone, replaced by the obnoxious, overbearing Sgt Hatred. Hank states outright that Hatred is not his father, and he refers to Rusty as a "honky" (which, to be fair, he is).
Venture Bros Season 4 premiere
The premiere of Season 4 of The Venture Bros snuck up on me — I’ve been immersed in a screenplay polish deadline and have not been paying attention to whatever mountain of promotion I’m sure was out there.
Mr. Urbaniak was kind enough to direct my attention to the online presentation. When I watched it, I seriously thought there was something wrong with the website. This episode is far too weird to absorb quickly, this may take a day or two for me to process. Mr Urbaniak explains: "Yeah, the Brock story runs forward from after the Season 3 finale to the present and the Venture family story runs backwards from the present to after Season 3 finale. Crazy kids."
Query
Is it just me, or did last night’s two-hour Season 6 premiere of House totally suck in every possible way?