The Venture Bros: “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay” part 2
Act II of “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay” begins with a continuation of the episode’s “B” story, as Hank and Dean seek adventure while stuck in a hotel room in New York City. Their father, Dr. Venture, has forbidden them to leave. Dr. Venture was a boy adventurer when he was their age (younger even), but the grown Rusty aggressively denies the boys their own adventures. This is his trip, to exorcize his demons, the boys don’t enter into his plans. One guesses he’d rather not have the boys on the trip at all. One guesses, in fact, that he’d rather not have the boys, period.
So the boys play astronaut with a paper cup in the bidet, then, when that gets boring, they move on to playing submarine in the bathtub with the case that Rusty’s invention came in.
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Venture Bros: “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay” part 1
My analysis of The Venture Bros fell behind with Season 4. As Season 5 gears up, I’m going to rectify that, but I’m also going to go back and look at Season 1, starting with the pilot, “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay.”
A pilot episode is a tricky thing. The intent is to introduce the viewer to the world of the show, but too many pilots err too far on the side of introduction. The narrative of a pilot script often pauses too many times to introduce a character or an element, slowing things down and feeling, essentially, too much like a movie and not enough like a TV show. The desired effect of a pilot is have it feel like a mid-season episode: that’s when television works best, when the world has already been established and characters can groove on each other instead of introducing themselves.
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Venture Bros history
It’s my intention to take up analyzing the Venture Bros episodes as they are aired, so I found this especially helpful.
Television Zombies text
A few weeks ago, I did a little thing for the Television Zombies podcast, describing how I go about analyzing The Venture Bros. For those who missed it, the text of my thing is below the fold.
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.
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.