Review: The Venture Bros. “The Saphrax Protocol”

The Venture Bros season seven bows out gracefully, if not a bit quietly.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

For the season finale of The Venture Bros, Dr. Venture gets kidnapped by a Guild blackout team for unknown purposes. Meanwhile, Dean sits at the side of his brother Hank, who is in a coma after suffering from hypothermia in the blizzard from last week’s episode. Dean is mired in sorrow and reads off a list of all the terrible things he’s done as Hank’s brother. Hank, however, is off having a “Coma dream,” where’s dressed as Landa Calrissian on the ice planet Hoth. There, he meets Action Man, who’s had a stroke and is sharing the same coma dream as well.

The Monarch and Henchman 21 are summoned to the Guild’s asteroid base to take place in an arcane induction trial centered around the very first villain, Saphrax. The two villains dress up as Saphrax and his loyal henchman and re-enact the bizarre and hilarious story of his life. Back at the Venture Building, Brock Samson is having a field day with the blackout team. After having been out of action for so long, Brock is keen to stretch his killing muscles and locks the blackout team inside to engage in a no-holds-barred slaughter-fest.

While Hank and Action Man share wisdom about life in their collective coma dream, The Monarch and Henchman 21 complete their “trial” of Saphrax, an accomplishment that earns Henchman 21 the rank of the villain and gives The Monarch the opportunity to kill Dr. Venture, as his final test. Surprisingly, The Monarch and Henchman 21 reject these opportunities and declare that they would rather be friends than participate in this weird, backward Guild. As it turns out, this was the true final test of the ritual, and as a reward, both The Monarch and Henchman 21 are inducted as level 10 villains, as partners. This is just in time for the two henchmen who analyzed Dr. Venture’s blood to reveal that he and The Monarch are related.

Back on Earth, Hank decides to grow up in his coma dream, and somehow awakes from the said coma and escapes from the hospital. Dean panics as he searches for his brother high and low, but finds his hopes are to no avail. Dean is gone, for the time being.

Our Take:

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and The Venture Bros season seven closes this week with a stark look at Hank and Dean’s relationship complete The Monarch’s promotion to a level ten villain, complete with a bloody massacre by Brock Samson for your trouble. While there’s a whole lot that I liked about this episode, it felt a little bit too quiet for a season finale. This is the time to bring out the big guns for the show, but the episode is a bit too scattered to leave a strong impression on its audience. Even though we are treated to some excellent character moments.

The Guild has never been more developed as an organization, and the “Saphrax Protocol” The Monarch participates in is a great display of how much the Guild as grown as a story piece. The ritual, from start to finish, is ripe with good humor, being an admirable parody of secret society rituals, complete with the pop culture satire that Venture Bros does oh so well. It’s ending goes well, too, and it shows just how far The Monarch and Henchman 21 have grown together. Their friendship withstands the test, and it really does warm the heart.

Hank’s coma dream, funny as it is, feels like it weighs down the episode too much, and honestly could have been cut out completely without losing a lot. I would have loved to see more time given to seeing Brock Samson do his thing.

Speaking of which, getting a chance to see Brock Samson in action again is a sight to behold. This season has been auspiciously lacking in Samson moments, and its such a fun turn to have him locked in a violent paradise of his own making. The trouble is, this only amounts to a couple scenes in a rather dense episode, so he doesn’t get his time to shine. It feels as if this opportunity was missed out on.

This isn’t to say that the episode isn’t good. It certainly is. It’s far better television than you’re going to find on most every channel out there, its just not as good as I’d like it to be. There’s a sense of missed potential. This episode comes out of nowhere, ending the season on a couple cliffhangers but not feeling like it came together in the way that it should. The season finale of The Venture Bros brings lots of great ideas, stuff I can’t wait to see in the next season, but doesn’t quite land the dismount on finishing off an otherwise spectacular season of animated television.