Episode - Season 4, Episode 14 (Production Code: 4-53)
First Aired - October 17, 2010
Brock, Sgt. Hatred, Shoreleave, Dr. Orpheus, Hank, and Dean are all playing a game of touch football in the Venture compound yard. Dean proves to be utterly useless while Shoreleave complains that he wanted to be on the "skins" team, but Dean's fear of sunburn led to them being "shirts" instead. As the group bickers, Brock senses that someone is in his car and runs off to investigate. (Hank mentions having seen Brock do that "from a continent away.")
Brock finds Dr. Venture in his car, completely catatonic but attempting to commit suicide. Brock notes that he converted his car to electric, so Venture won't be able to commit suicide there. He tries to get Venture to talk about his problem, but Venture remains speechless. He tries to kill himself with a road flare, Brock's knife, and then Orpheus' tie before the group takes him to his bedroom. Orpheus inspects Venture there, and concludes that Venture must be possessed. The group prepares to perform an exorcism on Dr. Venture.
It is revealed that Venture's problems are being caused by the Monarch, using a mind-control device banned by the Guild. Monarch's body is in the Cocoon with Dr. Mrs. the Monarch and Henchman #21 looking on while his mind is projected into Venture's. He is the one driving Venture to try to kill himself. The device apparently takes a significant toll on the Monarch's body, causing him to flatline. Dr. Mrs. the Monarch quickly uses a defibrillator to save him.
Dr. Orpheus is trying to enter Venture's mind, using the things that Venture holds most dear (money, things from his adventuring in his youth, a signed photo of Loni Anderson, the boys, and several old Rush cassettes) to open the door. The ritual fails repeatedly, until Brock suggests not including Hank. It again fails, so the group removes one of the Rush cassettes, for being a "Best of" album, and Dean. With neither boy present, the ritual finally works. (Shoreleave comforts Dean by telling him it must have been the Rush cassette, not him.)
Inside of Venture's mind, Orpheus meets the personification of the two most powerful forces of the human psyche: Eros (love), manifested as Billy Quizboy dressed as Cupid, and Thanatos (death), manifested as Pete White in Victorian-era mortician garb.
With the Monarch stable, the Moppets knock on the door for a mandatory Cocoon inspection. Since the mind-control device isn't sanctioned by the Guild, they can't let the Moppets see it for fear that they might report it. Thinking quickly, she runs over to a dresser and throws 21 some fetish clothing, telling him to put it on. As the Moppets force their way in, they immediately stutter and back out of the room, saying that everything checks out. Dr. Mrs. the Monarch sits on top of the unconscious Monarch in a cheerleader outfit while 21 sits nearby in assless chaps with a ball gag in his mouth. This display was enough to scare the Moppets off.
Inside Venture's mind, Orpheus, Billy/Eros, and Pete/Thanatos dodge a horde of zombie-like dead Hank and Dean clones. They feel a rumbling which Pete/Thanatos says means the approach of "the Leviathan," a manifestation of "the beast within us all" which causes people to murder and make war. The three duck into one of the "doors of perception" to escape.
Brock and Hatred stand guard over Venture's body, with Brock still acting like the family bodyguard. This is getting to Hatred, who wants Brock to understand that it is his job now.
Orpheus, Billy/Eros, and Pete/Thanatos then meet Venture's Id, which is Rusty as a little boy. On a nearby rotating table are all of the attractive women from the show. The Id claims that "the Rusty" could have had any of them if he had simply "sealed the deal." Orpheus asks for permission to pass, but the Id demands to see "the flying baby" make love to "the black specter" first. He eventually settles for them kissing. They are allowed to pass to the Ego level, where a dejected, middle-aged version of Dr. Venture struggles to assemble a wooden puppet of young Rusty.
The Monarch, still inside the control room of Dr. Venture's mind, flips a switch that opens the floodgates of Venture's tragic past. Meanwhile, Dr. Mrs. the Monarch and 21 talk over the Monarch's body, getting drunk on wine. They discuss 21's disillusionment and depression after the death of 24, and 21 suggests Dr. Mrs. the Monarch deserves someone better than the Monarch. The two then share a drunken kiss.
Orpheus gathers all of the girls from the Id, saying not to ask what he had to do to get them, and has them help Venture's Ego "rebuild the Rusty." The Ego then suggests seeking the Super Ego for further help. Venture's Super Ego is well-built and more confident, similar to Rusty's father. He suggests using the "tragic memory ducts" to get into the Master Control Room, as they "lead everywhere" in Rusty's mind.
The horde of Hank and Dean clones shows up in the control room and sets upon the Monarch. As they try to hug him and call him daddy, he wakes up back in his own body in bed with 21 and Dr. Mrs. the Monarch making out above him. They stop just in time as he comes to.
Hatred and Brock are called outside to deal with a screaming Dean. It turns out he sat in an ant hill and they are biting his ass. Brock hoses him off while Hatred argues about how humiliating that is for Dean. Hatred and Brock argue over whose "problem" the boys are when an awakened Dr. Venture comes outside. He declares that the children are his "problem," not the responsibility of the bodyguards.
The Stinger shows Dr. Venture telling a story to Hank about a time he was humiliated at his 16th birthday party by his father and the original Team Venture. Jonas Sr. invited a ton of people to the part, including models and some actual prostitutes. The Action Man and Col. Gentleman pulled Rusty's shorts down and shot his dick with a shrink ray in front of all the people. He implies that this, amongst countless other incidents caused by his father, is why he is the way that he is today.
Tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: 21 is surprised to learn the Monarch's machine is called the Monarch Mind Infractor, and suggests the Monarch Mind Machine or Monarch Mind Mutilator. Dr. Mrs. The Monarch lampshades the alliteration.
- All Psychology Is Freudian: Eros, Thanatos, Id, Ego, and Superego all appear in Venture's mind.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Rusty's id comments "And there shall be laughing! And mirth! And also ass-grabbing!"
- Bungled Suicide: Under Monarch's mind control, Rusty tries to kill himself by sitting in a car parked in a garage with the engine running. However, the "garage" is a huge airplane hangar, meaning it would have taken an incredibly long time for the carbon monoxide to build up enough to kill him if it ever did at all, and Brock has replaced the car's engine with an electric motor anyway. Rusty determinedly but ineptly goes on trying to kill himself with methods like putting a road flare in his mouth and strangling himself with Orpheus's tie, but Brock and the others always easily stop him.
- Casanova Wannabe: The Id has an "Invisible Harem", a group of woman Rusty believes he could get if he just put in the effort, but he just doesn't want to.
- Circle of Shame: The entire episode was designed to humiliate Dean. First, he suffers excruciating pain up his butt from an ant infestation. The episode concludes with Dean bent over on all fours, pants pulled down, and his bare ass shoved up in the air as Brock attempts to relieve him of the pain by blasting his behind with water from a hose, all while surrounded by his friends and family who laughed and ridicule him
◊. - Conditioned to Accept Horror: Rusty is mind-controlled by the Monarch with intent to force him to kill himself. Orpheus warns that watching his body self-destruct against his will could have broken Rusty's mind in itself - but Rusty explains that the repeated trauma from his father's upbringing made him immune.
- Continuity Nod:
- All of the women on the Id's rotating carousel have been seen or mentioned previously in the show: Molotov Cocktease, Myra Brandish, Sally Impossible, Dr. Girlfriend, Dr. Quymn, the Nurse Stripper from the night club, and Lindsay Wagner.
- Many of the dead Hank and Dean clones in Venture's mind are shown to have died in the ways depicted in Powerless in the Face of Death.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the Ego's workshop, one can spot wooden models of H.E.L.P.eR and the X-1. A degree from State University can be seen in the Superego's prison cell, referencing the fact that Venture never graduated college.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Dr. Orpheus believes this is why Rusty's subconscious is filled with zombie Hanks and Deans.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Orpheus travels into Dr. Venture's.
- Kissing Under the Influence: 21 and Dr. Mrs. the Monarch share a kiss, atop the Monarch's unconscious body, after drinking.
- Magical Defibrillator: The sequence with the defibrillator features the classic "using it to stop a flatlining patient" issue—in real life, defibrillators stop a person's heart.
- Mind-Control Device: Monarch uses a non-Guild sanctioned one to take control of Dr. Venture and attempts to make him kill himself.
- Our Zombies Are Different: A horde of zombie-like dead clones of Hank and Dean roam Rusty's subconscious, apparently representing his guilt.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The plot is kicked off when Brock finds Rusty in a trance trying to kill himself. Orpheus concludes he's been possessed by a demon but it's actually the Monarch using a machine to control him.
- Sexual Extortion: Rusty's Id tries to make Thanatos and Eros have sex in exchange for their passage. Orpheus manages to convince him to tone it down to just making out (with getting to second base involved).
- Ship Tease:
- It's common knowledge (to the fans and of course Henchman 24) that Henchman 21 has a thing for Mrs. the Monarch and it's been seen as one-sided... until now, where the two of them bond over an unconscious Monarch. 21 ups the ante by kissing Dr. Mrs. the Monarch... seconds before the Monarch wakes up from his mind-control arching. Thankfully, he didn't catch them but the damage is still done. The more interesting part is that Dr. Mrs. the Monarch does genuinely like 21, so maybe it's not as one-sided as we think.
- The status of Pete White and Billy Quizboy as Mistaken for Gay Heterosexual Life-Partners has been milked for a good number of jokes over the years in the fandom. Here, representing Eros and Thanatos in Rusty's mind, they are forced by id!Rusty to make out offscreen.
- Shout-Out:
- During the football game, Shoreleave calls Dr. Orpheus "Professor Snape."
- 21 references the movie Flatliners.
- 21 and Dr. Mrs. the Monarch discuss the Star Trek: The Original Series episode The Corbomite Maneuver.
- When 21 describes all of the things he has seen, he quotes Blade Runner when he says that he has "seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion."
- The doors in the hallway of Venture's mind are referred to as The Doors of Perception.
- When Orpheus correctly identifies Eros and Thanatos, Thanatos replies saying "good going, Count Freud." A reference to Count Floyd from SCTV, and to Sigmund Freud, whose psychoanalysis is considered to rely heavily on the ideas of sex and death.
- The Unfavorite: Orpheus tries astral projecting into Rusty's mind by holding the things he loves as keys to enter. At first he holds the Venture Bros hands, but when that doesn't work he tries holding only Dean's hand and a box of Rusty's things, which also doesn't work.
- Unseen Evil: We never see what form the "Leviathan" inside Dr. Venture's mind takes. Orpheus, Billy/Eros and Pete/Thanatos avoid it when they hear it coming, but even the dead Hank and Dean clones seem to be running away from it.
- You Do NOT Want To Know: Orpheus managed to convince Rusty's Id to give up its harem so the fantasy women could help the Ego put together the Rusty puppet, but he begs the others not to ask how he did it.
