Episode - 1-01
First Aired - August 7, 2004
Rusty Venture is in Tijuana, Mexico as a guest lecturernote at the university along with the boys and Brock. While there, Rusty intends to get some questionable prescriptions by bribing a Mexican doctor as the boys and Brock enjoy some of the Mexican culture. (Sombreros and fireworks for the former, hookers and gambling for latter.)
While they're all separated, the Monarch's henchmen, led by an eager-to-earn-his-wings Speedy, knock the boys out with tranquilizer darts with the intent to kidnap them. Brock spots them before they can get away and, while enraged, grabs Speedy by the neck as the other henchmen pump him full of darts. Brock finally succumbs to the tranquilizers (after being hit by the henchmen truck,) but doesn't relinquish his grip on Speedy, forcing the other henchmen to put him out of his misery.
Rusty meanwhile wakes up from a nightmare, where another embryo is annoying him in the womb, in a bathtub full of ice with his last kidney removed. (A scar reveals that he lost the other kidney in a previous trip.) When Brock and the boys fail to answer Rusty's wrist communicator calls, he summons H.E.L.P.eR instead. After refitting H.E.L.P.eR to act as a dialysis machine, he sets off to find Brock. Instead, he finds only a shallow grave with Brock's knife as the marker.
Meanwhile, the boys are held captive by the Monarch (agitated by Rusty's apparent lack of care for his boys) and Dr. Girlfriend. Monarch tells his origin story, about how his parents were killed in a plane crash when he was eight, leaving him to be raised by Monarch butterflies in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. (Also leaving him a substantial trust fund.) Dr. Girlfriend encourages Monarch to be a father towards the Venture boys.
Rusty, now drunk (much to his dialysis machine H.E.L.P.eR's dismay) has built a shrine over the grave of his fallen bodyguard. Brock emerges from the ground, finishes Rusty's tequila, and wants revenge on the Monarch's henchmen. Monarch, now serving the boys cookies, is jumped by the Venture boys but mistakes their attack for horseplay. Brock, with Rusty in tow, launches an attack with his Dodge Charger (dropping it out of the X-1 piloted by H.E.L.P.eR) on Monarch's cocoon. Brock kills a good number of the Monarch's henchmen with his car as the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend flee in an escape pod.
Back on the X-1, with the boys safe, Rusty explains that he will need a kidney from one of them. The boys play rock-paper-scissors to determine who loses their kidney. The post credits stinger reveals that they tied, both throwing "rock," so Rusty takes a kidney from each.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: The Monarch is pretty horrified by how long it takes for Dr. Venture to notice his sons have been kidnapped. Later he takes a kidney from each of them.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Doc considers the chupacabra "total crap", and believes that when you apply the scientific method to Catholicism, "something interesting happens."
- Back-Alley Doctor: The Mexican doctor Rusty tries to bribe for questionable prescriptions.
- Buried Alive: Brock, while heavily tranquilized from the Monarch's henchmen, is believed to be dead and buried by the locals.
- Characterization Marches On: Rusty's bout of Arbitrary Skepticism regarding chupacabras becomes rather strange in light of later seasons, where he's established as a guy who's observed far weirder things than chupacabras, and tends to be, if anything, rather gullible as a result.
- Chupacabra: Rusty is in town as a guest lecturer trying to disprove their existence. It turns out that Mexico is full of them. One even attacks him from Brock's car.
- Five-Aces Cheater: In The Teaser, Brock plays a game of cards with a gang boss where the boss lays down a jack-high and declares it to be a royal flush. The boss is pretty clearly trading on the threat of "if you don't accept it, I'll kill you", underestimating just how dangerous Brock is.
- Foreshadowing: Rusty's embryonic nightmare.
- Left for Dead: Brock by the Monarch henchmen. He's really only heavily sedated and knocked out after being hit by a truck.
- Lima Syndrome: The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend develop it towards the Venture boys.
- Mercy Kill: The Monarch henchmen perform one on Speedy when they can't release him from Brock's death grip.
- Noodle Incident: How Rusty lost his first kidney is not explained.
- Organ Theft: Rusty has his second kidney stolen from him. (He provides the current page image for that trope.)
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Brock gets his on the Monarch's henchmen.Brock: "They hit me with a truck. <eye twitch>"
- Tranquillizer Dart: The Monarch's henchmen shoot Brock with a few dozen of these, but he just shrugs them off as he continues his rampage. It takes being hit with a truck to actually put him down.
- T-Word Euphemism: This exchange between Hank and Dean:Hank: "Ah, double dammit!"
Dean: "Hank! You said the double-D word!" - Urban Legends: Rusty wakes up in a bathtub full of ice after having his kidney stolen. This is apparently the second time this happened to him...
- Weapon Tombstone: Brock's knife marks his (temporary) grave.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: How the Monarch mourns of the loss of henchman Speedy.Monarch: "Speedy. Poor little guy. He was this close to earning his wings."
