Review: Venture Bros. ‘What Color is Your Cleansuit?’

Finally, the Venture Bros. has made its long-awaited return to television.  To be honest, it’s been so damn long that I barely remember any of what happened during the season 4 finale.  Luckily, they give us a little bit (very little bit) of a lead-in and don’t try to tie too much into what the previous season held.  This one jumps right into its own story, complete with Doctor Venture and the Monarch squaring off against each other once again.

The episode begins with the aftermath of season 4’s closing and moves right along to show the dissolving of S.P.H.I.N.X.  Yup, Brock Sampson is back to the OSI it seems, though still not currently back to guarding Venture from himself.  21/Gary, however, doesn’t qualify to be in OSI, so he’s stuck as the last remaining member of the now-defunct team.  So he hangs out and does patrols and mostly keeps the place clean.  The Monarch can’t live without his old trusted buddy though, so he stalks him and delusionally believes that 21 is still undercover and will come back to the cocoon at any moment.  Eventually, this stalking leads to revelations about what Doctor Venture is up to and prompts the Monarch to take some direct action.

Meanwhile, on the Venture compound, things are sort of returning to normal.  Except that Dean appears to have gone emo on everyone, burning his learning bed, cursing and just generally being rude.  Doctor Venture himself is once again on the spot, having signed up to complete a project for his brother but forgotten about it.  So he hires up a bunch of interns that, after some poor safety protocols, end up mutating and planning to take over the world.  Everyone must then come together to stop this horrible fate.

Dean challenges the leader for dominance at the behest of a woman’s boobs.  Billy and Pete White have to face down their new arch-nemesis, St. Cloud - a creepy quiz guy like Billy though with tons of money.  Doctor Venture has to figure out some way to develop a vaccine to return the mutants to a human state.  And 21 has to coordinate the entire thing.  Everything comes down to the wire at the grand finale and chaos ensues.  Oh, and Sergeant Hatred ends up with boobs for some reason (to be explained?).

I’m glad to see the series back and it’s nice to see the creators developing some of the characters further.  Dean’s new attitude and Billy getting a nemesis were the definite highlights of that.  It’s also great to see the Monarch fighting Venture again instead of sitting out like he did for much of the last season.  The story was as epic as anything they’ve put together in the past and, if the rest of the season runs as well, it should be a good one.  Heck, it might even end up being worth the 3 year wait… maybe.

If you haven’t had a chance to see the new episode, you should immediately head over to the Adult Swim website and watch it.

What Color is Your Cleansuit courtesy of noiselesschatter.com