Philip J Reed, Author at Noiseless Chatter

The Venture Bros. Review: “Rapacity in Blue” (season 6, episode 4)

I admit it: I picked a damned terrible season of The Venture Bros. to review in this format. Not because it’s been a bad season — it’s been very funny on the whole, and never less than interesting — but because there’s so little to appraise in isolation on a week to week basis.

The Ventures aren’t jetting around the world getting into scrapes, they’re not beset by villains of the week, and complications are raised without being resolved.

That’s the nature of the story Doc and Jackson are telling this season. It’s not a problem. In fact, it’s exciting. The lack of a 22-minute hard stop for all of their ideas must be liberating; whenever they need more time to develop an idea, they let it bleed into the next week. And the week after that. These are good things.

But man does it make it had to look at it in weekly chunks and speak about it intelligently. Like any story, you need to look at where it’s going before you get the whole picture. In the absence of knowing where it’s going, all you’re left with is how well is it being told. That’s a great thing to focus on, but I don’t want reviews like this to be various repetitions of “‘Rapacity in Blue’ was very funny.

Having said that, “Rapacity in Blue” was very funny.

The pattern so far this season seems to be one episode of wall-to-wall setup, followed by one episode of partial payoff. So far, I like that; it keeps the plates spinning without leaving us afraid that it’s not going anywhere. I wonder if that’s going to keep up. If it does, I wonder how successful it will seem in retrospect.

The biggest payoff this week came on the heels of last week’s Blue Morpho setup, which isn’t surprising. The reveal of The Monarch’s father being a hero — let alone a hero who associated with Jonas Venture, Sr. — immediately seemed like a fruitful avenue for the show to explore. If I’m worried by anything it’s the fact that it took four episodes to get The Monarch into the Blue Morpho suit.

The slow burn worked, don’t get me wrong, but the story possibilities, the jokes, the atmosphere…everything became so urgently rich that I could spend eight episodes watching nothing but that. (Speaking of which, do we think The Monarch will appear in every episode this season? I’m thinking he will…and if I’m right it’ll be the first season in which that’s the case. He’s long felt like a secondary protagonist for this show, and maybe that’s finally happening from a structural standpoint.)

The entirety of this material was great. There’s plenty of fun to be had with The Monarch simply discovering a cave full of gadgets, but tying it into his bloodline, his destiny, and this show’s always brilliant exploration of the difference between a good guy, a good guy, a bad guy, and a bad guy…it just brings the comedy and the potential to a whole other level.

It’s the discovery of an old video cassette that helps The Monarch accept that his father was a good guy, and it helps him accept that precisely because there was some moral ambiguity to the man. It comes first in the form of a jokey conversation with Jonas and a staged confession to the camera…but let the tape run a little longer and you see your father cheating on your mother, relishing and abusing the power over strangers that comes with fame.

It’s fully possible that the Blue Morpho was a genuinely great human being before he became friends with the self-absorbed, debaucherous Team Venture, but The Monarch here sees evidence of grey around the edges, which makes his birthright — as 21 puts it — a bit more palatable.

And, of course, once he gets into the suit, he becomes a good guy. The clothes absolutely make the man. He starts by toying with the idea of blowing up an aggressive driver (the fact that he only toyed with the idea is major progress for The Monarch) and ends by coming to the legitimate rescue of Billy Quizboy and giddily celebrating with 21 how good it felt to be the hero.

The Monarch has long been a perfect illustration of the show’s artfully hazy approach to good guys and bad guys. In fact, he was arguably the show’s first illustration of that approach…and it’s something that’s been explored by innumerable characters since. (Let’s not forget as well as the constantly shifting alignments between and within the show’s various factions.)

Dr. Venture, too, serves as a constant reminder of the blur between the heroic and villainous…in fact, Dr. Venture may well be responsible for more of the show’s most terrible events than The Monarch, and The Monarch was unquestionably part of more of the human and emotional moments.

21 has also explored both sides of the dichotomy…albeit more actively. When he was a villain, he knew he was a villain. When he was a good guy, he knew he was a good guy. The Monarch and Dr. Venture each reject their “other” side whenever somebody brings it up, but 21 was perfectly willing to explore himself and try to find his actual place in the world. The fact that he’s a villain again — while acting as a hero — is a great way for him to tie those two competing aspects of himself together, actively, with an eye toward personal unification.

In fact, come to think of it, Hatred’s “once a bad guy, always a bad guy” speech to Gary last season seems to have been proven correct. Of course, the big irony there was that Hatred himself was a bad guy who was no longer a bad guy. Then again, he started as a good guy, so maybe the inevitable return to factory settings isn’t such a bizarre thing for him to endorse. There’s the suit, and there’s the man inside the suit. But who is it really?

“Rapacity in Blue” (which has the best episode title in several seasons) still doesn’t tell a complete story, and it starts a couple of new plates spinning with Dr. Venture’s panicky scramble for a new invention and Brock’s sexual frenzy for Warriana — the latter of which seemed a bit odd and which I expected to have resolved in the show’s tag — but it’s also…satisfying. Thrilling. It’s like sneaking away in the middle of the night and getting away with something you know you shouldn’t do. We come home giggling and tripping over ourselves, even if it hasn’t (yet) really amounted to anything.

As ever with season six, though, what happens this week will be defined or redefined or undermined by what happens next week. And I was definitely left confused by a few things.

For starters, I’m not sure why Billy had to be under the effects of the God Gas when he met Blue Morpho. Sure, he concluded it was really Rusty in that suit, but I think he could have done that anyway, and it’s odd to me that the only witness to anything that happened was someone whose perspective is clearly unreliable. It would have been far more interesting to me if Billy was actively convinced it was Rusty, rather than being in every position to doubt himself.

That’s pretty minor, though. More significantly, I’m not sure I buy that Dr. Girlfriend would jump to the conclusion that The Monarch went on a date night with 21…she should be a bit savvier than that, especially since last week she (believed she) saw her husband arching Dr. Venture against her wishes.

Speaking of which, The Monarch knows about Copy Cat’s little ploy last week…so has he discussed that with his wife? There’d be no reason for him to keep it to himself and every reason to tell her what really happened, so I don’t know if we’re still dealing with relationship fallout from last week or not.

It just feels slightly sloppy around the edges, and, if anything, that’s made more clear because the core idea of the episode — and its central thrill — is so well handled. (I also have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the vocal return of 24; I’d honestly expected we were done with him entirely.)

“Rapacity in Blue” is my favorite so far of the season…and it promises some incredible fun to come. I hope we haven’t seen the last of the original Blue Morpho, but this newest incarnation — with a Kano who isn’t even Asian — represents the single most exciting development the show has had in years.

It’s times like this that eight-episode seasons really start to feel like a gyp. Things get interesting just in time to start winding down.

Here’s hoping The Venture Bros. does what it does best, and proves me dead wrong.

What this site could look like

Running a website is its own reward. As you know, I just need to turn on my computer and lots of money and sexy ladies and respect come tumbling out of the screen and into my lap. It’s great and you should all feel pret-ty envious. Probably even suicidal.

But it has its…less rewarding aspects as well. Mainly the investment of time and money to keep it operational.

Time is not exactly a rigid requirement, I admit. Yes, it can take me several hours of work for an ALF review, or several days of work for a Fiction Into Film, but on the whole it doesn’t take too long to sit down and write something.

However, if I am sitting down to write something, that’s time I’m not spending writing other things…whether those are personal projects, freelance work, or just the emails I owe friends who at this point definitely assume I’ve died.

Then there’s also fresh air (whatever that is) and a social life, or reading, or watching movies or playing video games or, basically, experiencing all of the things other people have created. And so it can be difficult to balance. Sometimes I’ll go for weeks on end doing nothing but writing. Other times I want to spend that time catching up on things I’ve missed.

And I can do that. That’s the best thing about having my own website and not working for others anymore: I set my own deadlines.

That’s also the worst thing about having my own website and not working for others anymore: I set my own deadlines.

So while this means I can delay something (or many somethings) it also means that if I’m not posting anything, people will check back less and less often. And if they check back less and less often, finding very little to read when they do return, they might stop showing up. And while that’s okay, it’s not ideal. I don’t write for the sake of having an audience, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t value having an audience. And I value it deeply.

This audience. The one you’re a part of. The audience who is reading this right now, wondering why the heck I’m bringing any of this up. (I love you and you are handsome.)

Well, that’s because it ties into the other less-rewarding aspect: money.

Running a site like this isn’t free. There’s not an exceptional expense, but it’s significant for someone in my…ahem…modest income bracket. I pay for the domain and I pay for the bandwidth. The latter of which I had to upgrade about a year ago when my traffic increased, and which I’ll have to increase again before long.

And those things are fine; believe me, I’m not complaining, but I want to make it clear why I’m interested in defraying the cost as much as possible, and within reason. (We’ll define “within reason” before long.)

Frankly, Noiseless Chatter operates at a loss.

Big deal. I’m okay with that.

But I’d be foolish if I wasn’t at least a little interested in reducing the degree of that loss.

Fortunately, webmasters like me can pull in money hand over fist! Every day I get offers from people who want to throw money at this site. LOOK!

I mainly just thought this one was funny…later emails were more in line with what you see below — I did ask for clarification — but anyone who comes to this site and thinks I’d be the kind of guy who wants to open crates with a crowbar can’t have read a word that I’ve ever written. And I don’t think any readers hang around here because they think they’re reading the ponderous thoughts of a man who blogs between crowbar sessions.

I’m sure that a broad spectrum of international organizations would be touched to have their content featured between screengrabs of a masturbating puppet, but I had to decline. I know what the content looks like. It all looks the same. It’s without value or meaning, written for the express purpose of fooling search engines into associating one specific company with one specific keyword. In short, they’re writing to fool a robot. And they’re wondering if I could be bribed to let them do it on my readers’ time. For the princely fee of $20.

And hey, look, confirmation that the folks reaching out to me aren’t even bothering to customize their templates beyond the barest minimum. Surely the content they’re offering will be stellar. (They’re doubling that money, though. I’m twice as tempted to fuck over my readers!)

I get these a lot. Like, all the damned time. Sometimes they take the time to learn my name. Usually they don’t. One of them, for some reason, called me Sue. And none of them, ever, care about you, or the site, or what anybody coming here would like to read.

They write garbage. I know they write garbage, because I used to work for a digital marketing agency that pulled this same crap. We wrote garbage, too.

But…well…wouldn’t that be nice? If I could just take one of these folks at their ostensible word every month? That’s an extra $40 every 30 days. And, hey, what if I did two per month? Or three? I could pull in $1,200 a year easily, just by posting this crap that nobody cares about. And doesn’t that sound like a fair trade? Maybe I could even post it on Sundays, when I never post anything and nobody even thinks to visit the site anyway. Who would that hurt?

It’d hurt the site.

It’d hurt what I’ve built.

It’d hurt you guys, and make poor use of your time.

I don’t want to hold Noiseless Chatter up as some exemplar of quality or anything, but I hope it can have just a little bit of integrity in a medium that…doesn’t always value it. And doesn’t always want it. And is glad to fake it just long enough to turn itself around for an easy buck.

There’s a blogger I used to visit that, within the past year, has turned her site over to sponsored content, and it’s sad. I won’t name her site here because I don’t intend to shame her and I don’t know what’s behind her decision, but I went from having a blogger I was interested in reading whenever she had something to say, to having a shell of a blog that doesn’t seem to have much of her in it at all.

I don’t want anyone here to feel that. If you get any joy out of this site whatsoever, I’d like to maintain that. If you don’t…well, even then it’s not like sponsored content is going to change your mind. Nobody wins.

I make money, yes…but nobody wins.

I’ve hosted pieces here that were provided by outside writers, but I’ve never accepted a penny for doing so. I’ve reviewed other people’s products and wrote about their projects, but never in exchange for money. And I wouldn’t take any. Ever. If I get a review request for something that interests me, I ask for a copy of that item, which I think is fair. If they offer money, I refuse. As you see above, people do indeed offer money.

I’ve had people ask how they can support the site. One reader — whom I don’t wish to embarrass, but feel free to out yourself in the comments — said he goes out of his way to click ads on my site in order to help.

And, yes, that’s a way, but never, ever feel obligated to do that. If you see an ad on my site for something that interests you, and you click it, I get a little money from Google. If you don’t click it, I get a little less (as long as the ad actually displays).

Don’t click for the sake of clicking…but if you do click, it helps. I’m not asking you to click; I’m just explaining how it works. If you tell me here and now that you’d never click a damned thing on my site, I wouldn’t think any less of you, and I have no expectations that anybody will click anything.

Really, the only thing I would ask is that you disable adblock on my site. And that’s not even a very strong request. Frankly, I don’t mind what you block or don’t block. But if you’re wondering “how can I help?” that would be the extent of my answer.

Ads are a touchy subject. I feel dirty every time I see them on my own site. At the same time, they’re helping me afford to keep the site. Does that make them a necessarily evil? I…honestly don’t know. And it’s probably not for me to decide. Many of you don’t seem to mind either way. Others, I’m sure, hate that they’re here. Believe me, I hear you, and I understand. If there were any other way to defray the cost of maintaining the site, I’d be all ears.

I could offer something for sale, here. And maybe I will, at some point. Right now, you could always buy a mug if you haven’t already. They’re good mugs! But that’s just an option. Maybe in the future I’ll have more options. Again, I’m all ears.

But, really, there’s not much that you can do. I could set up a donation link or something, but I’d rather there be something of value changing hands. I do have an idea for something else to offer in the near-ish future, and I’ll probably announce that in the near-er-ish future, but right now the way to help…the best way to really help…is just to read.

To comment.

To like this stuff on Facebook.

To share it with your friends should you feel so compelled.

That’s all. It’s not money that keeps me going. If this site one day broke even I’d do a cartwheel, but that’s not what I’m after. I could make this site immediately profitable at the expense of its identity…and I don’t want that.

I want you guys.

And every time you show me you’re engaged — even through disagreement — it means the world to me. That’s what keeps me here, investing time and money and, on Thursdays, my sanity. I read all comments. I value every like and retweet and everything else. I get giddy when I look at old articles and see that they’ve been shared dozens of times. In some cases hundreds. In one case thousands.

That means everything to me. That’s why I write. That’s why I have this site. And that’s why no amount of money is going to tempt me — really tempt me — to part with it.

The internet eats great things alive.

Thank you for giving me reasons every day to keep this small one afloat.

ALF Reviews: “Gimme That Old Time Religion” (season 4, episode 17)

Welcome to the second “ALF becomes a _______” episode in as many weeks! I hope it’s as good as the last one, in which nobody seemed to care that Lynn is going to be in debt for the rest of her life in order to attend a school at which she has to sleep with her teachers in exchange for good grades.

Seriously, what the fuck is Willie’s problem? Why isn’t this episode 30 minutes of him curb stomping the guy he learned last week is using his position of authority to sexually manipulate his daughter? And what the fuck is this show’s problem that the moral in that one wasn’t “If a teacher says this to you, rip his nuts off”? Why was it about ALF learning — and then apparently disregarding — the true meaning of being an artist?

FUCK. THIS. SHOW.

Anyway, this week ALF becomes an ordained minister — presumably because he’s fingered Brian often enough that he might as well make it official — and I see no way this can be problematic at all.

The episode opens with Willie wondering what to get his wife for their 22nd anniversary, because he hasn’t bothered to get to know her in that time, I guess. I think this is why “anniversary plots” tend to be about one character forgetting that it was coming up; when the plot turns out to be “I don’t know what to get him/her,” it makes you wonder why they’re married at all. Every human being forgets things; very few of us know somebody — let alone are wed to somebody — for 22 years without having some concept of what they do and don’t enjoy.

Lynn, bless her heart, suggests taking ALF to the desert and leaving him to die. Which, yeah, let’s please do that. It also leads to a funny enough line from Willie when he says that that’s what he plans on doing for their 25th anniversary.

ALF enters the room to remind them that whatever shit they’re talking about, that’s not the plot of the episode. He says that he overlooked something until just now, and it’s causing him great distress: when Melmacians turn 233, they have six months to become a minister. If they don’t, they become outcasts. It sounds at first like he means “outcast” in a social sense, but shortly he refers to being one for eternity, so maybe there’s a spiritual consequence to not becoming a minister.

This…is not a bad concept for an episode, really. Not “ALF will one day go to Hell,” because if you’re going to tease me with that I’d better damned well see it, but “ALF explains what religion was like on Melmac.”

I’ve wondered many times about Willie’s religious faith, as the show keeps alluding to it but never explores how it would have to evolve — if not be outright shattered — by the fact that he lives with evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence. Now, though, I see I’ve overlooked another interesting angle: how does ALF’s religious faith get shaken by his new life here? He’s encountering evidence of intelligent extra-terrestrial life as well.

It’s not often that the writers of this show beat me to considering interesting territory, but they did it here, which means that this could either be a good episode, or watching this shit has melted my brain.

There’s even a valid reason ALF is only discussing this now, as opposed to…well, any time sooner than this: He turned 233 at some point within the past few months, and needs to take action fast. (Speaking of “forgetting the date” plots…) I can’t remember if placing his age at 233 contradicts anything we’ve been told previously — especially with this show’s insane disregard for any kind of definitive timeline — so if you have any knowledge of that, let me know in the comments.

Me? I’m not nit-picking just yet. I’m genuinely interested to see how this plays out. Melmac has never been portrayed as an especially spiritual place before, so whatever they do with its religious climate in this episode will definitely be the result of graceless shoe-horning…but it still has every possibility of being interesting and clever in its own right, so…yeah. Show me what you’ve got, ALF.

Ugh. Nevermind.

ALF mumbles a bunch of vaguely scriptural bullshit and makes the Tanners sit through it. At one point he begins singing “The Name Game” about Barry, which is what Melmacians called their god. By the way…did you know that that’s an actual song? I learned that a few years ago, and was kind of blown away by that fact. (It’s also pretty impressively funky!) I always figured it was just some kind of schoolyard nonsense, but I guess it’s more standardized than that. It’s always interesting to me to find “patient zero” for stuff like this.

Anyway, the Tanners must read him four questions from the Holy Scroll. (Which I guess he had on his space ship? Yet another thing he went back to get instead of saving any of his friends or family.) It’s a good thing there are only four questions, because if they were five they’d have to age Eric up right quick.

ALF explains that if he can answer three of the four questions correctly, he’ll become a minister. Which…okay. But I have to confess that I really couldn’t care less whether this masturbating puppet does or does not become a minister in a made-up religion that didn’t exist last week and will never be mentioned again. Call me a stick in the mud, but I am somehow not invested in his spiritual journey just yet.

Brian asks the first question: What’s the kindest thing you can do for someone else? ALF replies, “Burp downwind,” and Willie confirms this in what I guess is the Melmacian bible.

More props to the…uh…props guys for making the book look alien, but I’m not sure books with deep, wavy cutouts at the edges are especially suited to any species with fingers. I appreciate the effort, though, and I’m amused by the fact that somebody on the ALF staff took a band saw to a Bible this week. And you assholes thought I was disrespectful…

Lynne reads the second question: What one gesture will prove your undying love for another? ALF replies, “A Mazda Miata,” which Lynn understandably calls bullshit on.

Oddly, she calls bullshit on it not because Mazda doesn’t export cars to Melmac, but because the Miata was only introduced the previous year. (And she’s correct; this aired in 1990, and the Miata was introduced in 1989, for the 1990 model year.) ALF explains that, technically, the answer is “any red convertible,” which isn’t hilarious, but it at least addresses the kind of continuity flaw we’ve had to deal with on this show a lot (ALF was conceived in a DeSoto, remember) and tries to spin an additional joke out of it.

It’s a good impulse.

Question three is read by…oh. It’s Brian again.

There’s nothing wrong with that; I’m just not used to the kid getting two lines.

He asks, “When does track lighting go with Berber carpet?” Nobody calls him on the “Berber carpet on Melmac” shit, of course, but, whatever, they tried. ALF replies, “When you stick with stripes and solids, and stay away from patterns.”

Willie takes great delight in saying, “That’s wrong. You’re wrong, ALF.” Or, more likely, Max Wright does. According to the book, the answer is: “Stick with patterns. Stay away from solids; they’re cold and they don’t create a welcome environment.”

ALF sighs and says, “Religion is so subjective.”

And that…okay. I didn’t laugh, but that was pretty funny.

Lynn reads the final question: “You’ve been dancing all night, and you’ve noticed your partner’s dress shields have given out. You like her, but others are starting to point. Do you tell her?”

It wasn’t clear earlier if female Melmacians could be ministers as well (or, I guess, were passively obligated to be when they turned 233), but this question seems to make clear that they can’t. It may also indicate that homosexual Melmacian males couldn’t be ministers. SO THERE’S THAT QUESTION ANSWERED.

ALF replies that the answer is no; you dance with her and then “reach in and change them without her knowing.” So, basically, only straight male sexual predators could be ministers.

He’s right, so they all congratulate him on this fake imaginary horse shit nobody cares about, but he forces them to start the ceremony all over from the beginning, because he told them to stand without him saying “Barry says” first.

So, basically, only straight male sexual predator dickheads could be ministers.

That whole mess does at least pay off in a really nice — and clearly deliberate — Peanuts homage, with ALF’s confessional taking visual inspiration from Lucy VanPelt’s psychiatry booth.

Brian and Lynn come in, and ALF says, “Come, my flock. It’s time for me to hear your sins and earn a couple of bucks on the side.” Which…again. I didn’t laugh, but I liked that well enough. It’s an effective one-liner, and a decent jab at a very specific kind of religious manipulation.

Lynn declines, as she has to memorize the periodic table. It’s…an odd education she’s getting, isn’t it? Periodic tables, painting, and acting in St. Joan.

Maybe the writers should have picked a major for her after all, because right now it’s just whatever garbage they feel like making a shitty joke about. It’s probably for the best that she’s occupied, though. I definitely didn’t need to see five minutes of ALF masturbating to Lynn describing her “sins.”

ALF hornswaggles Brian into coming over, using some shitty Irish accent, which is a shame because the rest of this exchange is…

…fuck.

It’s…kind of good.

Brian tells him that he doesn’t have two dollars; he only has a quarter. “You’re in luck,” ALF says, taking the quarter. “It’s happy hour.”

Then Brian expresses some dismay at the fact that if he confesses his sins, ALF will know what he did…so ALF offers to close the shutters to maintain anonymity.

And that’s a really cute joke both about the Catholic church and the design of the set. The plot window is a perfect place for ALF to ply his trade, but it also happens to allow for an observation like that, which is shockingly efficient for this show. I know some folks in the comments are going to accuse me of exaggerating, but this episode really is better than contracting genital warts.

When Brian complains about how shoddy ALF’s operation is, ALF says, “Take your quarter. Go to your room.” And it’s pretty adorably dismissive.

I enjoyed a Brian scene. And I’m pretty sure that’s in the book of Revelation.

Then Kate comes in and ALF starts ranting like a faith-healer, which is pretty annoying. I don’t know why this episode is leaning so hard on funny accents. When it’s actually telling jokes about its premise, it’s doing pretty well. But then I guess the writers remembered that Paul Fusco is the Man of 1.5 Voices, and they’d better let him work the crowd.

Oddly, to me, Kate is wearing a sweater vest. I’ve…never seen a woman wear a sweater vest. Have I? It seems odd to me, at least. I always thought it was a masculine thing. Then again, I only see women through bathroom windows…and they ain’t wearin’ much iffin’ you know what I mean!!!

Kate tells him to fuck off.

“I’d rather confess my sins to Jimmy Swaggart,” she says. And since she just left it there I was a little disappointed…the “recognizable name as punchline” thing is pretty lazy. But ALF replies, “You’d have to go to a cheap hotel for that,” and…

Am I liking this one?

It’s not great, I know that…but I think I’m actually liking this one.

The Swaggart joke, by the way, could use a little context, because it was pretty cutting for its time. The initial Swaggart scandal broke in 1988, but wasn’t a one-time thing. Evidently Swaggart made a big show of exposing some fellow preacher who’d had affairs. Which is bad, yes. In fact, Christianity pretty explicitly forbids that kind of thing. So Swaggart made an example of this guy, and, in retaliation, the guy exposed Swaggart’s hobby of hiring prostitutes to fuck him in scummy motels. Which is…y’know. Kind of worse.

Photos were taken, witnesses came forth, and Swaggart was pretty well finished. The guy Swaggart exposed in the first place probably isn’t held in very high regard by those who know him today, but he’s largely forgotten while Swaggart himself became a global pariah and posterboy for religious hypocrisy…especially at the (frankly disgusting) the pay-to-pray level.

Swaggart, needless to say, apologized for his behavior and swore it would never happen again. So in 1991 he fucked some more hookers and became a laughingstock once more.

ALF had no way of knowing Swaggart would become a punchline again (for the same reason!) the year after this episode aired, of course, but that coincidence made this a very well-timed joke, and I’ll give the show credit for that. It was funny then, it got funnier a year later, and it’s still funny now.

Later, Willie and Kate passionately read-some-books each other’s brains out.

ALF knocks on the door and asks, hopefully, “Are you being fruitful and multiplying?” So it’s great that his obsession with watching people fuck survived the transition into this new life of spiritual fulfillment.

He comes in and tells them that he’s afraid he might lose his ministry. He then hands the Melmacian Bible or whatever to Kate, and tells her to read it. She does so: “Can you find Barry in this picture?”

And I laughed!

I laughed at that!

ALF performed a legitimate miracle!

Granted, Anne Schedeen sold the line, but it was a funny enough idea to begin with. (And I’m very willing to believe that the easily distracted Melmacians would include activity pages in their holy texts.)

ALF directs her to another passage: “If the newly ordained minister does not perform a good deed by officiating at a hallowed ceremony within ten working days, thereby proving his worth as a man of the cloth, the penance shall be dire and catastrophic to all those concerned.”

…rrrrright about now I start realizing how ridiculous it is that Kate can read Melmacian script. It’s one thing for ALF to be able to immediately speak and understand English as soon as he arrives on Earth — it’s absurd but not impossible that he studied the language at some point — but Kate shouldn’t be able to read this horse shit. Unless Melmacian holy texts really are written in English, and I can’t decide which explanation is more ridiculous.

But then the episode does something smart: it makes me laugh again, and I stop worrying about that. Kate finishes reading the passage…she lets “dire and catastrophic consequences” hang in the air…and then Willie says, “There he is. There’s Barry. Right there, right by the big clock.”

Guys, I hate Max Wright, but that was great.

…less great is ALF explaining that the consequences involve him yodeling for the rest of his life.

Willie and Kate fuckin’ hate it as much as I do.

It’s pretty lame, to be honest, but I like where the conversation briefly leads: Willie asks if Barry would even know what he does or doesn’t do. After all, Barry was a Melmacian god…and there’s no more Melmac. ALF is all the way on Earth now.

And that could raise further interesting questions. What does a god do when the world He presides over is destroyed? How long and far is His reach? If there are only a handful of survivors, and they’re cast out into the cosmos, does He still care if they adhere to the letter of His law? Or is He more concerned with their ability to survive? Or is He not concerned with them at all anymore as He pretty clearly has other major concerns?

Forget Willie’s crisis of faith or ALF’s crisis of faith…what about Barry’s crisis of faith? A god without anyone or anything underneath Him. What does that mean for Him? For His time? For His sanity? What does He do now? God can sit back all he likes and lord (ahem) over Earth, and that’s fine, if you believe that’s what He does. But what happens when the inevitable meteor strikes and Earth is gone? What happens when we elect Trump and the Earth commits seppuku? What happens if the population of China stands on buckets and jumps at exactly the same time, knocking us out of orbit and dooming us to a frozen, fatal drift through space?

Without a planet, what’s a god? Without mortals, what’s an immortal?

Was Melmac’s destruction part of Barry’s plan? If so, shouldn’t ALF be pretty upset at him? If not, what the fuck was Barry doing? And what is Barry doing now? Is He beating himself up? Rationalizing after the fact? Whipping up a new race of hairy rapists to pork their way through the universe? Is He the laughing stock of other gods? Did He blow up Melmac because he was as sick of their shitty antics as we are? And if He’s all powerful and this was just a nuclear accident, why doesn’t He use any of his limitless power to turn back the clock and prevent so much needless death, devastation, and horror?

All great questions. All ripe for intriguing discussion.

Instead, ALF yodels.

This is the halfway point. We’ve had some pretty good stuff and the possibility of obnoxious horse shit to come…so, really, this one could go either way.

Place your bets now.

After the commercial, Max Wright silently worries that somebody videotaped that party last night.

Brian gets his best line ever, bar none: “I like yodeling as much as the next guy, but I have my limits.”

Yeah, ALF is yodeling. Why? Who knows. He still has time before his ministry is dissolved, so I’m pretty sure he’s yodeling off camera just to prove how much he hates this family and their happiness.

The solution to the problem — at least the one ALF proposes — is that he should preside over the renewal of Willie and Kate’s wedding vows. Which, of course. ALF has been a major component of just about every milestone in their lives — childbirth and their honeymoon, for instance — so he might as well get his grubby, shit-caked claws sunk into their wedding as well.

What I like is that Willie and Kate don’t just blindly allow this week’s setpiece to descend upon them; in fact, they disagree pretty strongly about it.

“It’s just that I think this may be another trick of ALF’s just to get us to do what he wants us to do,” Kate argues.

Perfectly valid, and — importantly — something a mother should take into account. Parents must always find the balance between giving in to everything your child demands, and ignoring everything at the risk of serious problems going unaddressed. Those are the two extremes, and finding the middleground is both urgent and difficult. It can’t be easy to know if your child is faking illness because he or she wants to stay home from school and play video games, but you need to make sure you aren’t letting them stay home every time or assuming they’re faking every time. There needs to be a balance. Kate is considering that balance right now.

“I say, who cares,” Willie replies. “Let’s just do it.”

And while that’s shitty from a parenting perspective, it’s…pretty valid from a human perspective. Yes, you run the risk of rewarding bad behavior, but you also stop the naked sex criminal from yodeling…so, swings and roundabouts.

“Do it because it’ll shut him up” is a pretty bad mentality to rely on long-term, but I can’t fault him for considering it in the moment.

I can fault him for being a dick to his wife, though. (Seriously, when’s the last time you heard someone say “Who cares?” when his wife raised a concern? If you did hear it, did you not immediately follow it in your mind with “what a dick”?)

But I guess that’s nothing new. Assholes gonna asshole.

ALF comes to the plot window, hoarse with yodels. He says, “Only 400 more years of this. Then I get to die.” And, sure enough, that aligns with what we were told way back in “We’re So Sorry, Uncle Albert.” There we learned that Melmacians live to the age of 650…and, yes, 400 years from now ALF will only be 633, but it’s close enough that I suspect the writers did their homework.

Also, oddly, that episode suggested — knowingly or not — that Melmacians couldn’t die until that age; there was no shock of death. So does that mean that the explosion of Melmac just sent this civilization of butt-fucking assbags spiraling off, individually, for four centuries into the dead and lonely abyss of space? Are their conscious but destroyed bodies doomed to float through cosmic emptiness with no hope of rescue or reprieve for six fucking centuries?

No matter how you slice it, this is a fucking morbid-ass show.

Anyway, Kate says “Fuck it, nobody listens to me anyway, I’ll ruin the memories of the only happy day I’ve ever had in my life.” ALF throws up on the carpet.

Then ALF takes his place in front of the Muslim Prayer Curtain.

There’s a lot of Brian stuff in this scene. In this whole episode, actually, what with him having things to say and do throughout, but in this scene he actually gets a lot of focus. And it’s…weird.

He asks Lynn if she thinks he can get his parents to buy him a new Nintendo game if he yodels for a bit. (I guess he finally upgraded from the Atari.) She replies that he’s more likely to get some new teeth, so he does this weird thing where I think he’s trying to get her to hit him, and he says, “Come on. First one’s free.”

At least, I assume he’s gesturing at his mouth so she’ll hit him. It’s possible he’s offering oral sex.

Then she asks him if he has the rings, and he says, sarcastically, that he sold them for magic beans.

Jesus…who did mother Gregory let finger her?

ALF tells Willie that if the couple isn’t genuinely moved by the occasion, it doesn’t count and…I dunno. He’ll have to do it again, I guess? Thank Christ that wasn’t a requirement for the viewers of “ALF’s Special Christmas.”

Mrs. Ochmonek comes over and makes the same face I made when I realized Kate would marry Willie a second time.

This is Mrs. Ochmonek’s final appearance on the show, as she at last follows her husband into that good night. This isn’t completely surprising; it’s often the case that when one spouse passes, the other follows fairly soon. Living without the person who’s helped you make it through so much of your life isn’t easy. The same, I’m sure, can be said for the time you spend acting on ALF.

I’m glad that this is her last appearance, because it’s a good, final reminder of how much nicer the Ochmoneks were than the Tanners, no matter how often the show tried to tell us otherwise. She comes over because she saw so many flowers getting delivered, and was worried someone had fallen seriously ill. True to the end, those Ochmoneks. God knows the Tanners haven’t stopped by to make sure everything was okay when they stopped seeing their nephew, or when her husband disappeared without a trace.

Liz Sheridan did what she could do with the character. I wouldn’t say she excelled with her material the way John LaMotta did with his, but in her other roles — Seinfeld most notably — she made it very clear that she has the ability to be quite good and quite funny. The fact that she didn’t hit a grand slam on ALF is meaningless; she was up against a truly incompetent pitcher.

Mrs. Ochmonek never became the “episode highlight” the way Mr. Ochmonek did, but she’s had some good lines, and seeing her and LaMotta bounce off each other — and lovingly, convincingly fawn over each other — was great. It was also nice to have a recurring character who wasn’t a walking cockhole with teeth, but now she’s gone, and…yeah, I don’t think there are many characters I look forward to seeing left on the show. Hooray. We’re trudging onward to the end with only the worst of the worst.

Anyway, the family spins some bullshit excuse about Brian’s turtle Gabby passing away. Mrs. Ochmonek sees through it, after the family gets way too long a sequence in which they try to convince her of this turtle crap.

She finally says, “If you want me to leave, why didn’t you just say so? In fact, don’t even say so. I’ll leave on my own.”

Then Willie says, “I think that would be best.”

What. A fucking. Asshole. I’m glad Mrs. Ochmonek’s final scene on this show is calling the Tanners on their bullshit and walking away from them for good. It’s pretty cathartic. The only way it could be better is if she kneed Willie in the balls.

She leaves, and ALF starts the ceremony. He mentions that Willie and Kate met 22 years ago…but thanks to Willie’s exposition at the beginning of the episode, we know that that’s also as long as they’ve been married.

Nobody corrects ALF, so maybe those two really did get married immediately. That would certainly explain why she married him at all. Had she taken even a week to get to know this guy, she would have gone running back to Joe Namath.

Willie gives some half-assed speech about how much he loves her, and Max Wright clearly is not invested in this. He’s saying all this crap to her quietly, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s romantically. The words are there, but none of the emotion. At some point he even mentions that she’s given him “three beautiful children,” and none of these clowns seem to realize that the third beautiful child wasn’t even invited to the wedding.

Then Kate does the same thing, and you realize pretty quickly that the failing of Willie’s speech can’t entirely be laid on Max Wright’s shoulders; Anne Schedeen’s is unintentionally funny, too, and she’s a far better actor. The failings of the scene are especially apparent when she refers to Willie as “my rock, and my strength.” You know. All the stuff that literally any clip from literally any episode of ALF would disprove instantly, but we’re supposed to buy it. And we’re supposed to buy that she buys it.

We don’t, and she doesn’t, and he doesn’t. Give me a scene of the Ochmoneks renewing their vows, and they’d not only be funnier (they have actual character traits and personal quirks to play off of), but I’d be much more likely to believe them. After all, the Ochmoneks have actually acted like they’re married. And they’ve touched each other. And they’ve enjoyed each other’s company, as crrrrazy as that sounds!

What have Willie and Kate done together? Aside from ignore each other and stare at opposite walls of the living room? This scene is clearly supposed to be moving and emotional, but it isn’t because these aren’t characters, and speeches like this can’t retroactively grant characterization. (Not that it even really tries to do that — there are no “cute” memories or observations sprinkled throughout, as there would be for actual humans in actual love — but it still goes to show how doomed this scene was from the start.)

It’s a lot like Neal and Margaret’s little moment at the end of “Love on the Rocks.” We weren’t invested in their relationship, so the emotional beats floundered. This is Willie and Kate, whom we’ve known for almost 100 episodes now…and the emotional beats flounder just as much. In the former case, we could shrug and say, “We’ve just met these people.” In this case, we can’t do that, and we’re faced instead with irrefutable proof that we’ve spent four years of our lives with a totally incompetent writing staff.

I’m a sucker for love stories, but this is less love than it is two sexless action figures carelessly tossed into the same toybox.

Then the ceremony ends and Anne Schedeen remembers she’s stuck on this show for another seven weeks.

I love Anne Schedeen (srsly Anne call me) but those are the fakest fucking crocodile tears I’ve ever seen. It’s even less realistic than ALF’s tear in the Christmas special, and that was just a peeled grape stapled to his face.

There’s some bullshit about how ALF didn’t get to say all the romantic stuff about Willie and Kate that he wanted to say…after all, who cares that those two characters just shared a moment? If ALF doesn’t share a moment, too, it literally doesn’t count.

So, yeah, ALF talks about how incredible Willie and Kate’s marriage is, and then Kate cries. And — fucking hell — did this episode crash and burn. Remember when it was about religion and was both interesting and funny? Now it’s about Willie and Kate renewing their vows, which could have been great except that it’s got nothing to do with either of their characters. It’s just some standard, vague nonsense about being in love, and we’re treating it like it’s revelatory.

The fact is that ALF could have waddled over to the bus shelter and married any two people there and the same speech would have been exactly as specific to their characters.

The show hurtles onward to its conclusion, and we still don’t know who the two main human characters are. Neither do the writers. They’re married, and that’s about all anybody involved with production knows, so we get some all-purpose palaver about marriage.

What a waste of an episode that was so close to doing something fun.

In the short scene before the credits, ALF asks if they fucked a lot last night.

Fuck this show.

Countdown to ALF being sacrificed to Barry in front of the Tanners: 7 episodes

MELMAC FACTS: Willie and Kate have been married for 22 years,* and the sex was just as good the third time as it was the first! When a Melmacian turns 233, he has six months to become a minister. Otherwise he will become “an outcast.” Melmacians pray to a god named Barry, and they kiss the first two fingers on their right hand whenever they invoke his name. ALF’s religion is considered “Reformed.” The Melmacian Bible states, “He who burps downwind can party with Me any time.” Melmacian ministers must officiate at a hallowed ceremony within 10 working days of being ordained, or else they must yodel for the rest of their lives. Earth is located on the side of Barry’s good ear. ALF’s religion is for ages three and up. Melmacian ministers only have to serve one weekend per month, two weeks in the summer, and whenever there’s a national emergency. And while I’m down on this episode as a whole, that last joke is pretty fucking good.

—–
* This puts their wedding in 1968, if we assume the episode takes place in 1990, the same year it aired. (If it doesn’t take place in 1990, then we have even more timeline madness to sort out, so let’s just assume it does.) At first I figured the big continuity flag would be Woodstock, which they both attended…and that was in 1969, so that checks out. However I happened to read back over my review of “Isn’t it Romantic?” and that episode gave the date of their honeymoon as July 11, 1967. So, yeah. The writers did their homework about the life expectancy of Melmacians, but didn’t bother to research their main human characters. That…sounds about right, actually.

Better Call Saul Reviews: “Switch” (season 2, episode 1)

Better Call Saul is back, and, with it, an ongoing question of — and struggle for — identity. It’s something that we all experience on some level. For our ethically grey protagonist, it’s an eternal, Sisyphean nightmare.

Saul Goodman was somebody. We remember him well from Breaking Bad, and the clear draw of Better Call Saul is the chance to learn his backstory. But very quickly this newer show become about something deeper, if not necessarily larger. It wasn’t a simple question of when a switch gets thrown to turn James M. McGill into Saul Goodman. In fact, as “Switch” and “Uno” both make clear, “Saul Goodman” isn’t even this character’s terminal point.

After Saul, he becomes somebody else. Before James M. McGill, he was Slippin’ Jimmy. Somebody becomes somebody becomes somebody becomes somebody.

We may never learn much more about his future than we see in these black and white flash-forwards, but they’re enough to help us contextualize what we’re watching; Better Call Saul isn’t one man’s journey from point A to point B. It’s one man’s journey from point E to F, with some glimpses of G and some suggestions of D and the possibility of much more to explore in both directions…to say nothing of the possible alternate paths that Jimmy closes off one by one.

Better Call Saul is about a man discovering who he is…over, and over, and over again. And we are reminded at the top of this hour that — though we know he’ll find it — his journey doesn’t stop there. For at least the third time in his life he will have to shed everything he’s become, and forge a new identity. It’s sad enough to know that Jimmy will become Saul. It’s sadder still to know he’ll then become an anonymous Cinnabon manager waiting quietly by a dumpster for someone to let him back in the building.

It’s a story whose tragedy is all the more effective because we feel it looming. Yes, there’s something at stake when Jimmy turns down an offer from Davis & Main, just as there’s something thrilling about seeing him with Kim, laughing like teenagers over the bathroom sink. But it means more because we already know where he ends up.

Every gain is meaningful, every moment of small triumph or fleeting happiness important, because we know it’s only a matter of time before gravity asserts itself, and he falls. Likewise, even the smallest tragedies — Kim not answering his calls, for instance — feel ominous.

I have to admit, I’m curious how long the show will keep us in McGill territory. It was a bit worrying to me that the first and last episodes of season one both went out of their way to give us very Saul-like promises, as though viewers would lose interest in his story otherwise, but Better Call Saul seems, on the whole, prepared to take its time. It’ll throw the switch now, just to see what happens, and throw it back again a moment later. Just…you know. For curiosity’s sake. The switch is there. Why not throw it?

It’s still too early to say much about the direction season two is likely to take, but we have a few indications of where things might go. The Jimmy and Kim relationship is the most promising aspect to explore, as there’s such a natural chemistry between them that it’s impossible not to become invested. And for now, at least, they keep each other balanced. She keeps him from flying too high, and he shows her how to have a little harmless fun.

Of course, we know that eventually she won’t be there to reign him in, and that his fun will get significantly less harmless, but that’s what makes it count now.

Their time is limited.

At some point, relatively soon, something terrible is going to happen to them.

And so a little bit of jokey flirtation in the bathroom or a stolen kiss by the swimming pool means that much more. Every moment of happiness is a subtraction from their total. They’re approaching zero. Each one matters.

The next is the unready drug dealer we met back in season one’s great “Pimento,” who fires Mike and strikes off on his own. I honestly doubted we’d see that character again, and the very fact that we did meant nothing good could be in store for him. Firing Mike just brought eventual tragedy nearer to us all, and the fact that his story was left open at the end of “Switch” means we may well have our “important” client for season two lined up.

Then, of course, there’s Jimmy’s new employer. With Ed Begley, Jr. playing his new boss I think it’s safe to say that development will stick around for a while, and, really, it could go in any number of directions. Jimmy’s had both flashes of competency and seductive moments of willful weakness. He’s passed up big paydays in the past for the sake of doing the right thing, but he promises Mike that he’ll never do that again…and reminds Kim that doing the right thing has gotten him nowhere. He could either climb the professional ladder a bit to make his fall that much more devastating, or hasten his descent into Goodmanism. There’s no chance of a positive outcome, but there’s a heck of a lot of potential.

The best thing about Better Call Saul is simply the time we spend with the characters. We have our funny moments, our sad moments, our touching moments, our painful moments, our exciting moments, but the real joy is watching Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, and Rhea Seehorn do their things.

We don’t need massive, weekly plot developments. We don’t need setpieces and reminders of Breaking Bad. We don’t need anything except time to enjoy the company of these impressive creations.

Yes, it’s fun to watch Jimmy bullshit a bullshitter (Ken, who was also one of Walter White’s earliest victims), but it’s just as fun to watch him gently paddle closer to the Ziplocked phone floating beside him. Yes, it’s fun to watch Jimmy lap cucumber water from a spigot, but it’s just as fun to watch him succumb immediately to the temptation of a mysterious light switch.

There’s mileage in these characters, as they are right now, and that’s why I would be perfectly happy to make it to season 9 of Better Call Saul before people stop referring to him as Jimmy McGill.

We’ve seen Saul. We’ve spent time with Saul. We know and understand and love Saul. Saul has a place to exist.

This is Jimmy’s chance to shine, in so many ways. It’s thrilling when he does. And it’s effective and terrifying when he considers the darkness.

I’d like to stay here as long as possible. Maybe Jimmy would, too. But Kim asks him if he has somewhere to go…and we already know he does.

The Venture Bros. Review: “Faking Miracles” (season 6, episode 3)

I wonder if this season will play much better as one long story than it will as a series of episodes. So far, it’s difficult to judge them on their own, individual merits, and that’s both worrying and thrilling. It’s worrying because we have three episodes so far that don’t tell a complete story in their runtime. But it’s thrilling because, if the plates are kept spinning, we could end up with something incredible.

It’s too soon to tell, but unlike “Hostile Makeover” these unresolved plot-threads hold some very clear potential. I’m a bit disappointed that the closest thing we had to payoff was Dean painfully urinating some nanobots down the toilet, but this week’s chapter in the elaborate setup of season six is…well, pretty promising.

The title refers to Dr. Venture’s digging through his brother’s old, abandoned projects with Billy and Pete, but we’ll get to that shortly, because the more interesting story thread, for my money, is the (proper) introduction of Sirena Ong. We met her briefly in “Hostile Makeover” — with a strong implication that she was related to Wide Wale — but didn’t learn anything for sure except that she had gills.

Now we get a better sense of who she is: a stubborn, spoiled young girl who — like Hank and Dean before her — is stuck in a life that she doesn’t especially want. Her station is defined by her father’s station, in true, tragicomic Venture Bros. tradition. And when she finally gets to interact with an outsider, she falls more for what Hank represents — escape, freedom, rebellion — than who Hank really is.

Their brief exchange on the veranda (ending with one of the few times Hank’s managed to pull off something genuinely cool, even if he’d already mindlessly gloated about running away from stupider henchmen than her father’s) was probably the highlight of the entire episode. And, in keeping with Sirena’s perspective, it wasn’t because of what it was, but rather because of what it represents.

Hank’s romantic dabblings have given us two of the show’s all-time best episodes: “Assassinanny 911” and “Everybody Comes to Hank’s.” I’d have a difficult time articulating why those two episodes managed to be so emotionally disarming, even though Dean’s dabblings (mainly with Triana) were unquestionably more relateable and true-to-life, but seeing another such story get queued up like this is very exciting to me. The show has worked wonders with the premise before, and I have total confidence that it can do so again.

In fact, Sirena’s introduction provides Wide Wale with a clearer identity as well. Previously I wasn’t sure why Wide Wale existed. I didn’t know his joke — aside from being some degree of sea creature — and I especially didn’t know why he seemed to be taking over Monstroso’s role in the show, as we already had a hulking, powerful businessman in the rogue’s gallery.

Last week RaikoLives pointed out the obvious, and then he pointed out the second-most-obvious: “Obviously I keep wanting to say ‘and he’s dead’ but that’s never stopped anyone in this show before.” Which was basically my thought process, too. If Doc and Jackson need a character back, they can bring a character back. In this case they didn’t…and I honestly wasn’t sure why. Especially since his replacement was so similar.

Sirena helps make it clear that Wide Wale is more of a Godfather figure. Which, yes, that’s certainly been alluded to already, but her birthday party — which is clearly just a party for her father’s organization and powerful friends, while she sulks in her room and is repeatedly forbidden to have any fun — cements that as the direction the show is taking with him. Monstroso was a businessman, and so is Wide Wale. But though they’re both villainous, one’s business is a little more legitimate than the other’s.

Interestingly, the show really seems to be leaning into the Italian jokes lately. Wide Wale is a Mafia don, Serena is a spoiled princess, Hank works at a pizzeria, Scaramantula returned for the opening scene (along with some shots at the Italian automobile industry), we had that whole scene with The Ambassador a couple of episodes ago…I’m not complaining, but I find it an intriguing coincidence. I wonder why so much Italian humor is clumping together, especially when it’s generated from a pretty wide range of characters and contexts.

I do also kind of love the fact that Hank has a menial job. The squandering of the fortune a few weeks ago seems now like it just happened so we could get some jokes along those lines. Yes, wasting money he didn’t earn was a very Dr. Venture thing to do, but last week and this week we see members of the family bringing money in as well, and that bodes ever so slightly better for their future.

Whew. So, what else? Dean got some nanobots shoved up his creepy dog dork, which was…fine, I guess. I got excited when Billy dropped the test tube because it’s been a while since “strange Venture technology” played much of a part in an episode, but I don’t know that it went anywhere. I’d assume we’d see more such nano-shenanigans in a later episode if they weren’t flushed away at the end, so I guess we got a weird scene with him and Brock and that’s that.

Then we had an interesting twist on the periodically rocky relationship between The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend. I’m glad they didn’t go the easy — but admittedly natural, especially considering her new clout — route of simple jealousy on his part, because that’s territory we’ve explored several times before, but they instead gave us a fairly satisfying, complex subterfuge that positions them both as pawns in somebody else’s game.

It’s good, and it gives the rest of the season a lot to work with, but best of all it employs a new character who immediately gives us a sense of his utility; there’s no way anybody can watch this episode and not instantly think of a dozen ways the show can use Copy Cat.

This is the kind of thing I was concerned about in “Hostile Makeover.” With all of the new characters introduced there, there was very little sense of what they’d be good for. (Apart from one or two “This is kind of like that” jokes, which are fun, but which are no substitute for characters who are interesting in their own rights.)

Copy Cat’s personality just seems better developed, and his power offers story opportunities that no other character’s does. I’m looking forward to seeing more of him. And he wasn’t the only new character who screams with potential…

I’m speaking, of course, of Blue Morpho. Oh, man, am I speaking of Blue Morpho.

It’s a short scene, but a crucial one, as not only does it reveal what was in The Monarch’s basement — Blue Morpho’s old hideout — but fills in some dark backstory both actively and passively. Actively because we’re outright told that he’s The Monarch’s father. Passively because…well…we’ve already met The Monarch’s father.

Yes, Vendata gets namedropped here, and that’s no coincidence. Back in last season’s best episode — “Bot Seeks Bot” — Vendata was very, very strongly implied to be The Monarch’s father. Here, now, we can piece together more of that as-yet-untold story:

Jonas Venture Sr. was rescued from Scaramantula by the guy…only to violently grab and threaten him. Gary tells us that they later became friends, which is borne out by the photo in “SPHINX Rising,” in which we see The Monarch and his parents with Rusty and Jonas. The man was then presumed killed in a plane crash — along with his wife — but was actually resurrected by Jonas as Vendata.

That’s…a pretty sad character arc, and the more we learn about it, the sadder it’s likely to get. But that’s all more than The Monarch knows; for him, the worrying thing is that he may have hero DNA in him. Which is a nice detail, because we’ve long known that Dr. Venture has more than a little of the villain in him. Lines get blurred, roles are reversed, one character is revealed to be another.

“Faking Miracles” is a fun episode, and it sets up a lot of things that the rest of the season can play with…but I have to confess, I’m a bit nervous. Last season was only eight episodes long. Season four was split into two chunks of eight episodes each. I don’t know how many we’re meant to get this time around, but if it’s only eight, we’re going to be at least at the halfway point before “promise” can become “fulfillment.” That’s a bit worrying.

At the very least, we know we’ll have fun along the way…but The Venture Bros. has always been more than just “fun.” It’s hilarious, and heartbreaking. It’s frivolous, and profound. It’s cruel, and sweet. It’s parody, and sincere. It’s bombastic, and contemplative.

It’s a longform experiment in opposites, and it’s a very successful one. I’m not writing season six off by any means, but I am looking forward to seeing the pendulum start to swing back.