So, what happens when a henchman is forced to lead and gather henchmen of his own? Find out after the jump!

 

This has to be a rather unique episode. I personally like when there’s an episode of any show where it focuses on the ancillary characters. These episodes show that the creators of the serieswant to build up the lore and the stories of their non-core characters, and I always welcome a watch.

So, I here’s the summary, and of course, there’s SPOILERS AHEAD!

Guess who’s back with a vengeance tonight? Yes, that sudden bad-ass motherfucker, Gary! Unfortunately, Gary takes down a Long Division trailer, with Shoreleave and Brock on it, killing an 8 year old in the process. Back at the compound, Gary and Hatred are discussing the latest attempt Monarch takes to kill Rusty, and it’s acid. Gary calls everything Monarch does, right down to jettisoning the lunch room. Meanwhile, people are looking at the ad Gary put out to be a henchman. He recruits Dean, calling himself Destiny. So, Monarch tries to infiltrate Sphinx, and he gets his old man face on, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch looks like a Brooklyn trucker. And here comes the recruit speeches from OSI and Sphinx. If it were up to me, I would be in OSI in a second. General Gathers just has a badass speech. He could win over anyone. Gary tries hard, but, what he has to worth with makes a bunch of retarded baboons seem like choice operatives.

After the break, Mr. and Mrs. Monarch try to infiltrate the Venture Compound using terribly put together “Beaver Inspector” costumes. Hatred and Gary are arguing about Hank and Gary being a bad guy. Both of which end up drastically different endings than expected. Meanwhile, at OSI, Gathers is ripping into Brock and Shoreleave, because they let Gary leave after blowing their cover. After a brief planning at Sphinx, Rusty and the “Beaver Inspectors” are in the tunnels, hunting imaginary beavers. Hatred tries to get help from Dean. So, he has a terrible time identifying how actually depressed he is. As he is trying to get help, Sphinx takes off. Sphinx Commander takes over the ship, putting Sphinx back under his control. In the tunnels, Hatred finds the explosives from The Monarchs, thinking it was Gary. OSI thinks Gary is coming towards them in the Sphinx, not knowing it’s Sphinx Commander. Hatred Rusty, and misinforms him about the explosives.

Gary gets the lowdown on the plan off Sphinx Commander’s second rise to power, while Hatred sets all of the Monarch’s explosives at the Sphinx doorstep. OSI and Sphinx seem to be on a collision course with one another, while Sphinx Commander doesn’t even realize that it’s Hank, and not Countess. OSI infiltrates the Sphinx, Shoreleave finds Gary, who is looking all over for Hank. Lo and behold, Brock finds him, with the strength suit frozen on Sphinx Commander’s lap. After a fairly funny bit, Brock shoots Sphinx Commander in the face! Now, that’s the Brock Sampson we all know and love! The last scenes have Brock handing over the crossbow  back to Gary, that he ripped from him earlier in the episode. After the credits, we can finally say goodbye to Sphinx!

This episode sure had a lot going on tonight. We have the misguided attempts by Gary to get Sphinx into what it once was, and an episode with Brock! And the twist that Sphinx is now utterly destroyed had me shocked for a minute. This was a very non-Venture centric episode, and I like it. Doc and Jackson are doing a lot of different things, and it shows. This season of VB is going to be a frontrunner for show of the year at this rate. One thing, however, that I found odd was that they spent a lot of time getting people accustomed to Gary being in Sphinx, only to completely annihilate it.

Overall: 9 / 10

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