The Venture Bros.: What Color Is Your Cleansuit?, Review
Kaci celebrates the return of Adult Swim's The Venture Bros., which is back for its fifth season and geekier than ever...
This review contains spoilers.
5.1 What Color Is Your Cleansuit?
Howdy, Venturoos. If you’re anything like me, it’s been far too long since your last visit to the Venture Compound (barring the Halloween special, of course). But luckily for us, the Adult Swim gods have smiled upon us and brought the show back for season five with an hour-long opener.
So if you accidentally inhaled some of Doc’s “antidote” and can’t remember what went down, here’s the basic recap: Doc’s got a major deadline looming for Gargantua 2, so he recruits a group of college students to be his interns. As often happens when super science is involved, genetic mutation predictably ensues and the interns form their own society complete with rituals and myths. And then they decide to mutate the entire rest of the world.
Gary, who has been left behind by all the former agents of S.P.H.I.N.X. when they all decide to rejoin OSI, saves the day by wrangling everyone into line and running command. And can we just take a minute to appreciate the fact that this character started off as a glorified redshirt whose only notable character traits were his geekiness and complete inability to do his job? When I wrote the 7 reasons you should be watching The Venture Bros article, I talked about how much this show respects and appreciates geeks (we’ll get to the geekiest moments of the episode soon, I promise), the main reason I believe that is because I look at what a three-dimensional, strong character they’ve turned Gary into. The biggest geek on the show is, usually, the Only Sane Man and happens to be one of the most competent characters outside of Brock. It’s a pretty cool feat they’ve accomplished with his character and it’s not something we should overlook.
Also going through some character development is Dean, still reeling from finding out about his clone status in the Halloween special. After burning his bed and some of his more innocent possessions, he moves out of his shared room with Hank and into the attic. Oh, and he falls in love with a girl who actually likes him back, miracle of miracles, and even gets to make out with her. There are some characters out there who you just know have had such a terrible life that you’re pretty sure they deserve something good in their lives, and Dean Venture is one such character. After all the hell he’s been through, he deserves something as normal as a mutual attraction. Well, as normal as it can be when the girl genetically mutates to grow an extra set of arms, an elongated head, and telepathic abilities.
Meanwhile, Billy gets his very own arch in the form of Augustus St. Cloud, and naturally, their rivalry is quizzing-based. St. Cloud’s superpower is having a lot of money, but luckily Billy’s still a better quizboy than him, so for now all is well. I can not wait to see how Billy does with his own arch over the season. Especially since back in season one, Billy and Pete wanted a mutual arch; is Pete going to be bothered that Billy got one but he didn’t?
And then there’s the Monarch, who refuses to accept that Gary has truly moved on and spends the entire episode swinging from serious pining over his lost friend (while refusing to admit that they were friends, of course) and being seriously sexually frustrated after his attempt at roleplay fails.
So now you’re all caught up on what went down, but let’s get to the stuff we all want to talk about:
Geekiest Moments of the Week!
Very few shows are as geek-friendly as this show, so each week I’ll be ending these recaps with the best geeky moments from the episode. Here are the nerdiest bits from the season premiere.
“It is not stupid! It’s spectacular!” – The Monarch, going into fanboy mode after Dr. Mrs. The Monarch insults Game of Thrones during a failed attempt at roleplaying Khal Drogo and his Khaleesi.
“Come, let us retire to my sunken lounge, as seen in the 1983 cult classic Highlander.'” – Augustus St. Cloud, flaunting his geek knowledge.
“You’re talking about a bunch of geeks from State University. You mutate that kind of outcast and it gets all ‘SyFy Channel Original Feature’ real quick.” – a House Tom, pointing out why things have gone completely insane in the E-den.
“This is nuts! Like, half of it is written in Klingon, and the rest of it is Sindarin.” “Actually, that’s Quenya — High Elven. Very similar to Sindarin.” – Gary and Billy, sharing a moment of geekitude.
“Star Trek: TOS, episode three, season two, The Changeling. Nomad was referred to as a ‘thinking machine,’ ‘vessel,’ ‘device,’ ‘mechanism,’ and ‘probe.’ You’re flawed, St. Cloud. You must sterilize! Sterilize!” – Billy, making Trekkers everywhere shriek with glee.
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