The Venture Bros.: Red Means Stop

March 21, 2016 6:57 AM - Season 6, Episode 8

In order to destroy the Blue Morpho, the Guild joins forces with the OSI to conduct a sting operation using Dr. Venture's next arch, the supernatural assassin Red Death, as bait. [Season Finale]
posted by filthy light thief (9 comments total)

Rusty didn't bankrupt VenTech (in fact, the financial well-being of VenTech wasn't even mentioned in the last few episodes), there were more hints at the connection between The Ventures and Blue Morpho, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch is still vowing to personally get the Blue Morpho. But as Publick said in an interview,

The same thing happened to us last season, actually. We didn’t have a big finish last season, because we shot ourselves in the foot. We basically ran out of episodes to get to the point of the story that we wanted to do a blowout ending for. So that’s why you ended up with the Gargantua special, the space special last season. That story would have been the hour-long or two-part finale of Season 5, but we hit our 10-episode mark before we got to it. So we did a special that bridged the two seasons. And the same thing is happening at this point.

And Hammer added: We want them never to use the word finale. The "final episode of the season" would be better to use. And it’s not like it’s a letdown or anything, it’s just that we didn’t get to finish our thought.

Publick: Right, don’t think of it as a finale so much as a year plus pause in your viewing pleasure. [Laughs]

So I botched this post synopsis, but you get the idea.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:06 AM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, that was a great episode, and maybe even a good finale, depending on a special next winter (I assume). Red Death was amazing, and the Saw thing was just amazing, poor Gary trying to do the right thing and ending up with a butt-eater instead. I really wanted to see Dr Mrs The Monarch confront the Blue Morpho, but now we'll probably get an hour of that at some point.
posted by hobgadling at 7:28 AM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

This was a great episode, there was actual tension and there were solid laughs. It's not really a finale though. I wish Adult Swim would buy a bigger 12 or 16 episode seasons like in the past - hopefully there'd be less of a wait if there as a bigger episode buy.

But man, The Red Death. And Rusty hitting on Shiela, again. AND SHORE LEAVE AS BROCK.

Too good.

Until next season, good night you princes of Venture, you kings of sleepovers.
posted by GuyZero at 7:46 AM on March 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

OK, not referencing this episode totally, but man, there have been some deep cuts this season:

Candiru vs Dean asking if candiru are native to New York in "Faking Miracles"

That marionette thing you built for Rusty Venture is this marionette thing!

(both via this week's discussion thread on reddit.com/r/VentureBros)

And weirdly in both cases Rusty uses his knowledge of obscure Guild regulations to get out of trouble.
posted by GuyZero at 8:06 AM on March 21, 2016

Red Death is Clancy Brown: pants-shittingly terrifying when he's working, sweet and courteous when he's not.

Man, what a great episode, and what a great season! I love how the Venture Brothers keeps getting denser and better, both in its writing and animation.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:42 AM on March 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Now I'm sad. Hopefully there's a special later this year.

The payoff for the SAW-esque bathroom was great.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:34 AM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is the Venture Bros not a popular show by [as] standards? I can understand delays caused by Jackson and Doc's attention to quality but I'm surprised that a miscommunication over accounting would lead to an abridged season.

Given the rabid fanbase, I would think that they could say, "oh the special counted as two episodes out of our ten-count? Could you budget us one more?"

Or is the [as] business model more profitable on passive viewership that's more interested in the general programming (which on any given night is 80-100% reruns) than specific shows?

I really enjoyed the season and would have definitely enjoyed more of it.
posted by elr at 11:19 AM on March 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

You're assuming [as] has it's shit together, and margin for error that probably doesn't exist.
posted by pwnguin at 9:26 PM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I came to see if people were calling this the Season Finale, in which case, maaaaaaaaaan. I mean, it was good, but I didn;t feel there was any closure of any of the story arcs. I hope they have at least two specials lined up! I have questions that I want answered!

That's the only drawback to this show, is that we have to wait inbetweensies forever for these awesome story arcs to emerge. So, see you all in 2019 for the next season! But as I said at the beginning of the series, it's worth the wait.
posted by not_on_display at 12:47 AM on March 30, 2016