Review: The Venture Bros. “All This and Gargantua-2”

Space Stations, light sabers, and clones. Sounds like Star Wars, but better!

Spoilers!

Where do I begin? Venture Bros. has gone into another long hiatus, with no formal premiere in sight. In the meanwhile, we get what boils down to a stop-gap until we get season six. Thankfully, “All This and Gargantua-2” ties up most of the dangling story lines from a shortened season five.

The Investors were a focal point, as was The Revenge Society, and the Council of 13. But make no mistake, this episode centered around Gargantua-2. This felt more like what the season finale should have been, not the unusual ending we got, with The Monarch’s base crashing in the Venture Compound. I felt that the ending was pretty lackluster, because there was just so much that wasn’t accounted for. Luckily, we get what should have been the season finale last night.

Speaking of which, I think it was fantastic that “All This and Gargantua-2” started right before the final scene in “Devil’s Grip,” with a new fully trained Revenge Society getting ready to take their powers to the world stage. Unfortunately, most of the focus was on Phantom Limb, Professor Incorrigible and Killinger, Fat Chance (now known as Fat Choice) was used as a teleporter, but you can tell that there were definitely three tiers of focus with the Revenge Society.

That said, the only real focus on the Guild of Calamitous Intent was the systematic death of all but two. The Sovereign’s reasons for the dissolution of the Guild just screams of a lie, especially under the circumstances. A funny moment was when Dr. Mrs. The Monarch confronted The Sovereign, and they kept pulling super villain cliches for the end of the episode. I always love it when shows make jokes on themselves, and “All This and Gargantua-2” pulled this off smoothly. Make no mistake, however, the real focus were the massive amounts of villains that came out of the woodwork. Dr.

What cemented the special as one of the best Venture Bros. episodes yet was the finale with Killinger and the Investors. What we thought was a bad ass battle of Sith versus Sith ended up being something similar to a genjutsu battle from Naruto. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed Killinger throughout this entire episode, and what is going to amount to a new Council of 13 in the coming season six.

Enough with the villains, let’s talk about the heroes! The Rusty clan made their way to Gargantua-2, and Rusty has the worst time, because he feels that JJ keeps slighting him. Billy, Rose, Horace, and Dean and Hank all seem to be having a fun time, in spite of Rusty’s constant bitching. Rusty goes right to JJ to find out why JJ is putting the screws to him, only to find out that JJ is dying. That immediately puts all qualms to rest, just in time for the Investors and The Sovereign’s plans to collide.

All in all, this was as close to perfection that Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer can get to. While complicated, the plot of “All this and Gargantua-2” was well written, and able to be navigated. Seeing as though most of the focus was on the villains, there was nothing going on that went as expected. Every single act by a villain was the outcome of a double cross, especially Phantom Limb and Killinger.

As odd as this sounds, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch was as close to a protagonist that a villain can be in the Venture-verse. Whenever she was on screen, Doc Hammer slayed it. There was a lot of work done by both Doc and Jackson, because like normal, they play the majority of the characters. However, you know who came back? Stephen Colbert came back as the voice of Professor Incorrigible! They found a way to bring in most of the characters that have graced the screen, minus the celebrity voiced characters, and nothing felt like it was forced.

If there is only one Venture Bros. episode this season, let it be “All This and Gargantua-2,” because it was perfection as both what the season five finale should have been, as well as a stop-gap for us until season six comes out.