The moment we’ve all been dreading has finally come. Season 6 of the Venture Brothers has finally come to a close. However, instead of mourning the end of new Venture episodes, I would much rather celebrate the glorious episode that we all had the pleasure to watch.

An unfamiliar man slowly opens his eyes. He is in a dark and filthy bathroom wearing soiled clothing, one ankle chained to a pipe. “What’s going on? Let me out of here!” he begs, his voice rising into hysterics.

He wheels around and spots a fellow prisoner also chained to a urinal. “Oh geez, what are you screaming about?” he asks, rubbing his eyes. He suddenly realizes his pants are gone and joins his cellmate in screaming. “Help! Let us out of here!”

21 is washing the Morpho Mobile in the Morpho cave when his boss enters, offering good news and bad news. The Monarch’s bad news is that his marriage is falling apartment and he’s jerking off to hentai because he’s lonely and unable to connect with real people. The good news is that the Guild is in sequester so the Blue Morpho can strike again!

21 doesn’t want to do any more Morpho arching, as he is still injured from their last few adventures. Monarch says that there are only two more villains left between them and their sole Venture arching rights, so they must persevere.

One of those two remaining villains is Red Death, whose is known for his lethal once-a-year arching missions and terrifying demeanor. 21 insists that they won’t be able to take down such a legendary villain, and the Monarch angrily tells him he will just do it himself.

A familiar face sits on a bench in Central Park. Hunter Gathers, whom we haven’t seen in a long while (and who I’ve missed dearly), is feeding the birds when he is approached by Dr. Mrs. the Monarch, badly disguised in a black trench coat, beret, and sunglasses. (Can I just say how much I’ve missed the MAC Pink Poodle lipstick on her? I love the new dark red, but the pink is such a Sheila classic.)

The two exchange some strange back-and-forth before getting confused and giving up on the code phrases they previously emailed about. Dr. Mrs. asks him if he is willing to agree to their deal, and Hunter agrees that the OSI will help the Guild with their sting as long as their help stays off-the-record.

Brock lowers the newspaper from his face from his seat on the other side of Hunter on the bench. “You guarantee the Venture’s safety?” he asks. “One-hundred percent guaranteed,” Dr. Mrs. the Monarch promises. She shares with the men that the Morpho’s next target is Red Death, as he is the next villain scheduled to arch Venture. Phantom Limb approaches the bench speaking in code, and Brock compliments him on his hat, which is the same as his.

The prisoners in the bathroom try to use broken pipes to break their chains. While aiming for the chain, one prisoner accidentally hits his cellmate’s hand with the pipe instead and breaks one of his fingers. The victim insists that he pull on his dislocated finger to reset the bone, and he resists because he thinks its a setup to a fart joke. He eventually agrees to pull the finger to fix the break, and the pain of having his finger reset causes his cellmate to fart. Of course.

Nearby at the playground, a “Best Dad”-hatted Monarch approaches Red Death on the bench as he watches his daughter play. Red Death points out his daughter, the only child in the park who also has a skull face and bright red skin.

The Monarch slowly takes a gun out of his diaper bag when Red Death suddenly addresses him by name. “You know who I am?! You’ve heard of the Mighty Monarch?!”, the Monarch asks eagerly. Red Skull tells him that he is a big fan of his arching work, and the Monarch is flattered.

Red Skull grips Monarch’s shoulder and warns him to keep his work separate from his personal life. He threatens that a man can do terrible things when he’s lost his way.

In the lobby of the Venture building, Hatred yells at a crowd of Guild and OSI members to go no further. They ignore him and continue to the elevators. Hatred’s injuries prevent him from doing anything other than beg the intruders to stop. Brock tells him to lock up and take the day off.

21 is sitting at the Monarch mansion dining room table, checking his phone repeatedly. The Monarch walks through the door and 21 scolds him for being late for supper. “Who eats dinner at 4?” the Monarch asks. “Supper! Not dinner! Supper! I said supper!” 21 yells angrily. It was not surprising to see this husband and wife dynamic between the two, as Monarch and 21 grew closer while Dr. Mrs. the Monarch was away on Guild business, and their marital bickering showed just how much the Monarch household has changed.

21 cannot stay angry with his boss after hearing that he spent the afternoon talking to Red Death. The Monarch says that Red Death is both terrifying and an incredible guy, so there is no way they can kill him.

When finding out he has to climb the stairs to go to the bathroom, Monarch pisses in the sink. Again. For the second time today.

Dr. Venture proves that he will never in his life learn to take a hint as he yet again flirts with Dr. Mrs. the Monarch. She ignores him and yells for the OSI/Guild combo team to remove the civilians.

Watch and Ward are dressed up to be the Hank and Dean decoys for the sting. Hank doesn’t approve of their “Grand Funk Railroad”-esque Venture costumes, and instead gives them the iconic blue neckerchief and maroon sweater vest outfits – “Classic model Hank and Dean!”

Brock and Shore Leave are playing rock-paper-scissors to see who has to guard the Venture boys for the night. Shore Leave loses because Brock insists that rock conquers both scissors and paper. Shore Leave is dressed up as Brock, complete with blond mullet wig, black polo shirt, and green pants, giving me a visual I never knew I needed.

Rusty, Pete, and Billy leave to go to Billy’s mom’s house for the night. Billy tells Rusty that he can smuggle him out if he’s “feeling blue”, meaning that even after the God Gas wore off, Billy’s belief that Doc is the Blue Morpho did not.

In the bathroom, the two prisoners argue over whether or not they should eat the chicken dinner given to them. The blonde prisoner insists that the food is poison. He reveals that he has been trapped there for weeks and survived by eating the butt meat of the corpses of the other prisoners. You read that right. The butt meat. He just ate their butt cheeks.

In his bathroom, Red Death gets ready for his once-a-year arching. His wife packs his dinner to-go, including a brownie.

Shore Leave (dressed as Brock) tries to take the Venture boys to a night club but finds that it has been changed into a mall. “Okay, plan B: We’re going to CBGB’s!”

Red Death flies across the sky above them on his satanic horse, screaming “Die, Dr. Venture!” Shore Leave is beyond jealous that Brock gets to kick the legendary villain’s ass when he’s on babysitting duty and wonders, “How come even when I am Brock I still wish I was Brock?”

“That is something I have been living with my whole life,” responds Hank.

The Monarch and 21 disguise themselves as Guild henchmen and make a visit to Red Death’s house. They tell his wife he has been compromised and she and her daughter should go to her mother’s house.

On the Venture compound lawn, a young Rusty Venture giggles and pulls the Action Man’s finger at his request. Action Man tricks Rusty and shows him that he pulled a pin out of the grenade he is holding instead of his finger. Action Man throws the grenade towards Rusty’s dog Scamp and Rusty throws himself on top of it to save his pup. The grenade isn’t real and only releases a flag, but the flag somehow goes right through little Rusty’s body, hitting his kidney.

The story is being told around the table at Billy’s mom’s house, where Doc, Billy, Pete, Rose, Action Man, and Colonel Gentleman are eating veal piccata.

At the Venture penthouse, all team members on the Guild and OSI teams are in position. Red Death arrives at the rooftop, and is greeted by a decoy Team Venture – Watch and Ward as Hank and Dean, Hunter Gathers as Dr. Venture, and best of all, Phineas Phage as HELPeR. Watch and Ward sneak in a classic “Go Team Venture!”, the only one of season 6. Brock plays himself.

The two prisoners in the bathroom are drinking coffee and trying to figure out how they recognize each other. They discover that they are both supervillains, although only one of them has real powers.

When it is clear that the Blue Morpho isn’t going to show, the OSI and Guild teams, decoys, and Red Death stop acting and talk casually. Red Death receives a call from the Blue Morpho telling him that his wife and kids have been kidnapped. He responds with a terrifying and spot-on impression of Liam Neeson’s Taken speech, which scares the Monarch so much that he can only respond, “Oookay?” and hang up the phone.

At Rose’s house, Colonel Gentleman tells Billy and Dr. Venture stories about the original Blue Morpho. He confirms that the first Morpho is definitely dead. Both Gentleman and Rusty refer to Pete as Billy’s “boyfriend”. (This caused me to AWW just as loudly as it did in the season 5 finale.)

The blonde prisoner has finally turned on his new cellmate. He thinks this is what his captors want him to do. He kills him with a metal pipe so he can feed on his butt.

Red Death bursts through the wall of the Morpho cave on his horse. 21 and the Monarch are hiding in their costume pods, and Red Death finds them immediately. They immediately reveal that his family is at his mother-in-law’s and beg him not to kill them.

“So why doesn’t the Monarch tell me everything,” Red Death says. “From the beginning.”

Dr. Venture exits the elevator to his penthouse as Dr. Mrs. the Monarch gets in. She is absolutely furious that the Blue Morpho stood her up and made her a fool in front of the Guild and the OSI. “I am going to go look for the Blue Morpho. I will find him and I will kill him MYSELF.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Mrs. forgot to press the elevator button, so the doors don’t close after her speech and her dramatic moment is ruined.

Dr. Venture walks out onto his deck to see that a volleyball tournament of a good guys vs. bad guys is occurring in his pool. Hank is on the bad guy team as Phantom Limb’s replacement. Doc offers to make Doctails for everyone. Both teams cheer.

The Monarch talks to Red Death about his intense hatred for Venture. Red Death tells Monarch he needs to follow the rules, but then also confesses that the only way he could get over his obsession was to finally kill his arch nemesis. It will be interesting to see how this talk affects the Monarch’s actions and motivations in season 7.

21 asks Red Death if he ever feels guilt for killing people, and reveals that he has not actually been killing the supervillains on the Venture arching list. He shows Monarch and Red Death the bathroom where he locked them all up, and finds that the remaining prisoner has killed all of the others and ate their butts. Red Death kills him.

Monarch is angry at 21, but not because he didn’t kill the villains. “Why didn’t you tell me we had a bathroom down here?”

Up on the highest rooftop overlooking the pool, an OSI and a Guild sharpshooter have been talking all night. In the post-credit scene, they confess their love for each other. The OSI agent takes off their helmet to reveal that they are actually female. The Guild agent takes off his hat to reveal that the top of his head is removed and covered with a plastic dome with tubes coming out of it.

The extremely talented Clancy Brown voiced Red Death in this episode. You may know him from the recent film Hail Caesar or from one of his many voice acting roles, and you’ll definitely recognize his face.

At first, I was disappointed to see that so little was resolved in this season finale. What about Hank and Sirena?! How is Dean doing in school?! Is Dr. Mrs. really going to kill her husband?! WHY IS THERE NO WARRIANA IN THIS EPISODE?!

However, I’ve found some comfort in the abundance of loose ends. The lack of resolution means we are definitely getting another season and that some of that season is probably written already! Someone on Reddit pointed out that one of the reasons for the long wait between seasons 5 and 6 was due to the change in scenery and all of the new backgrounds and character designs that were needed. I don’t know if this is accurate, but if so, maybe it will be a slightly shorter wait between seasons 6 and 7.

I’m not a Venture fan who complains much about the long wait. There are always ways to keep busy in the Venture fandom. Not only do we now have an entire new season to rewatch to our hearts’ content, we also have new DVD commentary to look forward to in the future! Just think of all the new Venture cosplays that we will see from this season! There’s so much Venture goodness to look forward to in the future!

I’m going to write another post about my overall feelings about season 6, so be on the lookout for that!

Most of you know how much The Venture Brothers means to me. I’ve made so many friends and had so many incredible experiences through this show. Its a cliche, but I can honestly say that I would be a very different person without the influence of Team Venture (or at the very least, I wouldn’t have a busty butterfly-themed supervillainess tattooed on my leg forever.)

When I looked at my blog stats, I was shocked to see that so many of you visited yesterday, assumedly to read my recap of the finale. It has been SO much fun writing about Season 6 and discussing it with all of you. I love this show and I love this fandom. You have all made the 6+ hours I spend on these every Monday completely worth it. Thank you for reading.

Team Venture forever.

 

PS: My personal favorite Shirt Club shirt this season is available this week! I might be slightly biased because I’m a Brock fan, but its a really great design. It will be the last shirt of the season so if you’re one of the people who missed all of the other shirts you should definitely grab this one before its gone!