The Venture Bros.: Tanks for Nuthin'
February 29, 2016 7:47 AM - Season 6, Episode 5 - Subscribe

Dr. Mrs. the Monarch investigates the death of Harangutan, Brock begins a relationship with Warriana, Harangutan's widow, Battleaxe, grieves, Dr Venture gets a new arch, and the Blue Morpho and Kato go to get the Morphomobile out of the impound lot.
posted by GuyZero (36 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Spoiler warning:


THAT HOLE

THE HOLE IN THE LOBBY

IS THE GREATEST THING EVER
posted by GuyZero at 7:48 AM on February 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


It eats villains, and its hunger is bottomless, though it is not.

Don't forget Harangutank in the tags - Thinktank isn't the only tank around here.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:51 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also I realize comma are hard but there it is.
posted by GuyZero at 7:54 AM on February 29, 2016


I'm excited to get to the point where there's enough detritus in the hole where they can just put the floor back over it.
posted by hobgadling at 8:49 AM on February 29, 2016


I'm sad that's all we get of Think Tank, but I guess it's still more than we've gotten of Truckules over 6 seasons
posted by elr at 8:54 AM on February 29, 2016 [3 favorites]


I loved Dr. Nidaba. So sad he's gone.
posted by painquale at 9:47 AM on February 29, 2016


Is it me, or by the end of the season the Monarch will secretly become Blue Morpho full time once he flips out after Dr Mrs the Monarch starts henching Dr Venture as payback for what Blue Morpho did to Harangutan?
posted by lmfsilva at 9:56 AM on February 29, 2016


I'm looking forward to the wacky "twins" scenario when Blue Morpho and Dr. Venture are in the same room, in front of Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:30 AM on February 29, 2016


I'm looking forward to the wacky "twins" scenario when Blue Morpho and Dr. Venture are in the same room, in front of Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.

Anyone else worried that the season will end with Dr. Mrs. The Monarch and The Monarch getting divorced after this scene happens? The only alternative I can see is her leaving the Guild and defecting to OSI.
posted by hobgadling at 10:34 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


What the Monarch is doing behind the scenes is totally what attracted Dr. Mrs. to him in the first place. She's the one being inauthentic. I picture the Monarch destroying the Guild entirely and Dr. Mrs. being briefly furious... but then realizing that, wow, he hasn't been a schlub over the last few months... he's proving himself to be a Level 10 villain, and it's hot! And then she'll flip and they'll finish off the Guild together.
posted by painquale at 10:51 AM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


Is that the same university that shows up in every other episode? Because it seems to be the source of every super-scientist and villain so far.
posted by GuyZero at 11:09 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


I loved Dr. Nidaba. So sad he's gone.

Yes! What a shame to lose him so quickly!

My favorite bit, aside from Brock and Wariana being honest with each other, was Watch and Ward doing GCI customer support and driving Rusty up the wall. With 24 dead Watch and Ward are probably the best "Doc and Jackson talking to each other" duo in the show.

Also: "William! There's a Nazi here to see you."
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:20 PM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


"I liked it!"
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 2:06 PM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


So how many college professors in the Ventureverse aren't involved in either superheroism or supervillainy?
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:26 PM on February 29, 2016


Any anal leakage?

This season has been worth the wait.
posted by Catblack at 4:00 PM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]


I can't believe there are only three episodes left. It feels like I'm just settling in.
posted by painquale at 5:21 PM on February 29, 2016 [5 favorites]


I loved Dr. Nidaba. So sad he's gone.

The best thing about Nidaba/Think Tank? He's obviously a M.O.D.O.K. analogue, but it's mashed up with another character that I couldn't quite place until I saw the voice credits at the end. It turns out that he's voiced by Jeffrey Wright, consciously riffing on his own ridiculous, tightly-wound scientist character from Source Code. Now that's casting!

(I also stumbled upon this: Paul F. Tompkins -- the Blue Morpho himself! -- cracking wise about Source Code, as well as Wright's suspiciously-overwritten IMDB bio.)
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:22 PM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


I took him to be a fusion of MODOK and Cornel West.
posted by painquale at 5:29 PM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


I loved Dr. Nidaba. So sad he's gone.

Yes! What a shame to lose him so quickly!


Yeah, I loved everything about him. The fact that I loved him so much made me laugh even harder when he died like that.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:58 PM on February 29, 2016


Dr. Nidaba isn't MODOK, he's Hector Hammond.
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 7:21 PM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


Nidaba would have been a good arch for Jonas Jr.
posted by painquale at 7:43 PM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


The part where Dr. Nidaba basically tells Dean to get the hell out of his house for a really specific half-hour period has me of two minds.

One one hand, it's kind of sweet.

On the other hand it really just goes to prove what a huge charade the whole arching racket is. Like, WTF was Harangutan even expecting to accomplish other than simply verbally abusing the entire Venture clan? I'm not sure what Think Tank was even planning to do other than beat Rusty at chess. These guys aren't even criminals.

As a parody of comics, it's funny. In its own self-contained world it might actually be funnier.
posted by GuyZero at 7:45 PM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]


Dr. Nidaba isn't MODOK, he's Hector Hammond.

That is one deep cut right there.
posted by GuyZero at 10:04 PM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]


Dr. Mrs Etc has had a neat arc over the course of the show, coming into her own after many years as someone's more talented sidekick. She's a really complex figure for a woman on a show entirely written by dudes, whose cast is 90% dudes, who is literally voiced by a dude -- she's had figure out how to be both brilliant and femme to the core, in a world that's not good at imagining both of these things in the same body. She likes hot stylish clothes and Memoirs of a Geisha and functioning as part of a team rather than being the figurehead, and it's taken a long time for her to find a context where people won't dismiss that. Honestly, her marriage to the Monarch isn't even quite what she needed. Being on the Council is it.

At the same time, the two of them really need each other, or did. The Monarch has a moral elasticity and creativity that she lacks (in the same way that he lacks her conviction and book smarts). He may talk a mean game about being a villain to the core, but actually he's an aesthete who's mostly in it for the cackling -- right now he's become a hero and it's been an astonishingly easy flip. Whereas Dr. Mrs, who talks a similarly mean game about how attracted she is to the Monarch's villain cred, is really talking about herself. Nobody is more committed to the Guild or the arching life. Red Mantle/Dragoon has been doing it for fifty years and even for them, it seems to be more of a social thing.

(I just endlessly enjoy Red Mantle/Dragoon, by the way. Like, even if they have one line each and it's strictly expository, they manage to make it both funny and touching -- they're what every acrimonious friendship on this show can hope to be someday. Well, not Billy and Pete, who actually would just bite each other to death if they were made to share a body, but you know what I mean. "I could be your wingéd man!")
posted by thesmallmachine at 12:30 AM on March 1, 2016 [6 favorites]


Jeffrey Wright also played Dr. Narcisse on Boardwalk Empire, and I thought there were shades of that character as well. Hits both the intellectual and villain marks.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:16 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Dr. Nidaba isn't MODOK, he's Hector Hammond.

That is one deep cut right there.

Also a sick burn.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:36 AM on March 1, 2016


Pope Guilty: I loved Dr. Nidaba. So sad he's gone.

Nobody's gone until the body is found.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:30 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


As a parody of comics, it's funny. In its own self-contained world it might actually be funnier.

Your mileage may vary, but for me at least this has been true since roughly the middle of Season 3 - that's the point at which the internal logic of the world became fleshed out enough for me to notice how it could carry the entire premise, swallowing the original spoof like the gaping hole in the Venture Industries lobby swallows supervillains.
posted by AdamCSnider at 9:49 AM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


like the gaping hole in the Venture Industries lobby swallows supervillains.

I want this to turn into a recurring joke so much you have no idea.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:56 AM on March 1, 2016


lmfsilva: I'd say it already has the feel of a recurring joke, all we need now is for one more to fall in there next week.

Re internal logic: I'd would say this might be the best fleshed out world out there right now; we all know how everything functions up and down the system. When Dr. Mrs. The Monarch says Rusty is a level 10 protagonist, that's calling on years of worldbuilding thats been done.
posted by hobgadling at 10:12 AM on March 1, 2016


I'd say it already has the feel of a recurring joke, all we need now is for one more to fall in there next week.

Or - there was one last week. This week there were two. Next week...
posted by AdamCSnider at 10:40 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]


Exactly. I want this to be like the trash cans in Police Squad!

Season finale: Meteor Majeure falls on top of VentureTech
posted by lmfsilva at 11:24 AM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]


They can end it any way they want if they announce they've signed a deal for season 7.
posted by GuyZero at 12:03 PM on March 1, 2016


They've basically said there's going to be a season 7, there are a bunch of plots they couldn't get into this season, specifically Orpheus stuff.
posted by hobgadling at 12:06 PM on March 1, 2016


I love that even on national TV, he's still "Pirate Captain." Also Brock's interactions with Think Tank were great.
posted by Peccable at 7:56 PM on March 2, 2016


So great.
posted by Peccable at 8:03 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


« Older The Walking Dead: Knots Untie...   |  Podcast: Hello from the Magic ... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster