Recap / The Venture Bros S 1 E 13 Return To Spider Skull Island

Episode - 1-11 (13th in Broadcast order)

First Aired - October 30, 2004

The Venture Family steps off the X-1 after The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with everyone dressed as characters from the show. An alluded-to incident at the theater led to a lot of people being injured. Suddenly, Venture doubles over in pain, with a big bulge protruding from his stomach. Brock rushes to get the Doc to a hospital, while Hank and Dean deduce that their father must be pregnant. This is confirmed (for them, at least) when they arrive at the hospital, which is full of Rocky Horror victims, and only has room for Venture in the maternity ward.

Brock sends the boys home in a taxi for Dr. Orpheus to take care of them. Brock stays at the hospital as Venture has a "tumor" removed. The doctor confirms that the tumor wasn't cancerous...but that it also disappeared after they removed it. (Outside the window, the X-1 can be seen taking off and flying away while Brock and Venture are in the hospital.)

At Dr. Orpheus' place, Hank and Dean discuss having a little brother or sister. Hank figures the new baby will get all of the attention, and that he and Dean will have to become Orpheus' kids. Dean likes the idea at first, but Hank then points out that would make Triana his sister. With that, they run away from home. Orpheus, aware of what they are doing, decides to follow them to keep them safe while allowing them some freedom.

Brock and Rusty make it home, where Brock puts Rusty to bed and goes to the kitchen to make him soup. There, Brock notices the oven torn apart and quickly gets hit over the head with a wrench, knocking him out. Rusty, meanwhile, has fallen asleep and has a dream about eating another embryo. His father then appears, telling Rusty that there is another Venture. He wakes up embryonic Rusty with a punch. Rusty still thinks he is dreaming when a man with a face similar to his father's stands in front of him with a robotic body. Rusty hits the alarm button and slides into the panic room.

The boys, riding their hover bikes, are stopped by the police for going 15 in a 60-mph zone. A misunderstanding ends up with the boys being arrested and taken to jail. While in jail, they are sent to a "scared straight" program with The Monarch. The Monarch recognizes them and wonders why they are there, and how they are alive, admitting that he put a hit out on them. He then launches into a rant about Dr. Girlfriend.

Rusty continues to be chased by the robotic bodied man, who is revealed to be his twin who he absorbed in the womb. The twin has been trapped in Rusty for his entire life, knows what Rusty knows and has experienced what Rusty has experienced. (Hence, why he knew the code to the panic room door and that none of the inventions Rusty tries to defend himself with will work.) He constructed his body out of spare parts and fashioned a working laser gun which he plans to use to kill Rusty.

Brock awakens chained to the roof of his car. He instructs H.E.L.P.eR to drive the car, where they crash into the lab containing Rusty and his new brother. The brother's robotic suit is destroyed in the collision, revealing that he only has a tiny body and a malformed arm. Brock moves in to kill the little man, but Rusty stops him, informing him that the little man is his brother. The brother introduces himself as Jonas Venture Jr, just as Orpheus comes in to tell them that the boys are in jail.

Orpheus, Brock, Rusty, and JJ are in Orpheus' car, having bailed the boys out of jail. They are following behind the boys on their hover bikes ahead. (A suggestion of Dr. Orpheus.) Rusty and JJ argue over who gets what of their father's possessions, with Rusty conceding the old Venture compound on Spider Skull Island, as well as the X-2. Henchmen 21 and 24 drive past them and end up side-by-side with the boys. The Henchmen discuss 21 needing a haircut, as well as them needing some ammo to kill the Venture boys, unaware that they are right next to them. 21 shouts out the window asking the Venture boys for directions to a barber and a gun shop, holding up the gun as he does. The gun, which turned out to be loaded, goes off, killing the Venture boys and causing them to crash their hover bikes in a fiery death.

Tropes:

• All for Nothing: Hank and Dean end up running away from the Venture Compound because they were afraid of Rusty's new baby stealing attention from them. It turns out it was actually Rusty's conjoined twin escaping him, so they actually have a new uncle. Running away in the heat of the moment also kicks off a chain of events that leads to them dying.
• Always Identical Twins: Just like Hank and Dean, Rusty and JJ avert this.
• And I Must Scream: Essentially what JJ experienced while trapped in Rusty's body for over 40 years. It drove him more than a little insane.
• Anyone Can Die: Both Venture brothers are killed off rather suddenly at the end of the episode. In a meta sense, as the series hadn't been picked up for another season when this episode was written, it ties things up in case there was no renewal while leaving Rusty and Jonas Jr. to become the new "Venture Brothers" if it was. (Of course, in the season two premiere, the writers Take a Third Option to get things back on track.)
• Bullying a Dragon: While tailing the boys, Dr. Orpheus is pestered by a couple of gay-baiting rednecks. Orpheus ends up trapping their souls in a Homeboy figurine.
• Conjoined Twins: Rusty absorbs JJ in the womb and carries JJ inside of himself for most of his life.
• Dead Guy Junior: JJ, by his own choice.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Rusty spares JJ's life after Brock destroys his power suit, and they (sort of) reconcile.
• Evil Twin: Jonas Jr. seems this way at first, what with trying to kill Rusty and everything. By the end, they've come to a peaceful (if reluctant on Rusty's end) agreement.
• Foreshadowing: During his visitor's phone conference with Henchman 24 and 21, the Monarch makes off-hand reference to "[sending] the charred remains of Wonder Boy to his beloved Captain Sunshine", a character that won't be seen until Season 4.
• Last Episode, New Character: JJ is properly introduced this season finale.
• Mini-Mecha: The robotic body JJ builds for himself out of scraps and oven parts is somewhere between this and Powered Armor.
• Mistaken for Gay: Brock and Rusty, dressed as Rocky and Dr. Frank-N-Furter, respectively:
  Doctor: [Venture is taken to the emergency room to extract a tumor] Sorry, medical personnel only.
  Brock: I go where he goes.
  Doctor: Oh. You must be his... partner then?
  Brock: No, it's more like I work for him— Wait a minute! NO!!
• Noodle Incident:
  • Exactly what happened at the theater to cause so many painful injuries is never explained.
  • One of 21 and 24's assignments was to "rewind and return the tape of Working Girl," which 24 claims they tried to do but for some reason it didn't work.
• Our Hero Is Dead: The episode ends with the apparent deaths of Hank and Dean. They really are dead — but they get better.
• Series Fauxnale: The show hadn't yet been renewed when this episode was written, so ending with the shock of Hank and Dean dying could serve as a series finale in case it wasn't. Thankfully, it was.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Venture family is returning from seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the beginning, all dressed as characters from the show.
    • Dr. Venture as Dr. Frank-N-Furter
    • Brock Samson as Rocky Horror
    • Dean as Riff Raff
    • Hank as Columbia
    • H.E.L.P.eR as Magenta
  • The 911 operator at the beginning confuses the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the Rocky franchise, specifically mentioning Rocky IV.
  • Dr. Orpheus' tv is stuck on Animal Planet.
  • Hank calls Dean "little miss can't be wrong" while running away, a reference to the Spin Doctors song of the same name.
  • As Brock and H.E.L.P.eR crash through the lab's window in slow-motion, doves can be seen scattering, in an homage to director John Woo.
  • The way the boys die (being gunned down from a moving vehicle while on motorcycle-like vehicles) is very reminiscent of the end of Easy Rider.
• Tears of Remorse: Dr Orpheus cries his eyes out after accidentally contributing to the boys' deaths. Meanwhile, Rusty and Brock are dead calm.
• Vocal Evolution: James Urbaniak uses a more sinister, gruff voice (like a raspier Rusty) for JJ in this episode compared to his smooth, laid-back tone (more like Jonas Sr.) in later episodes.
• Wham Episode: Hank and Dean die at the end.
• Wham Line:
  Rusty: All right, get their clothes.