The Venture Bros: My girlcrush on Shoreleave grows stronger

(Guest Clacker Katie Schenkel comes at us from movie website Just Plain Something, where she likes to walk the fine line between entertaining and informative.)

First and foremost, “The Silent Partners” saw the end of King Gorilla, a funny but only sporadically used minor character. Creators Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick gave us fair warning; the giant Tarzan-lover wasn’t doing great when he showed up with lung cancer a few weeks ago. While he could always be written back in later seasons as zombie King Gorilla (which is not too out of the ordinary for Venture Bros.), I’m thinking getting his heart literally ripped out so another villain can use it pretty much sealed the deal on his exit from the show.

So after King Gorilla dies, the plot begins with Billy getting kidnapped by who he thinks are vampires (but of course the truth is stranger) and Pete White convincing Sphinx to rescue him. Compared to last week’s mindbending, tension-filled episode, this week’s actual story isn’t as thrilling, per se. What “The Silent Partners” does bring to the table is some amazing details, gags and quotes that had me laughing out loud (LOLing, if you will).

To be sure, the funniest stuff came from the rescue team, in the form of Hunter, Brock, Shoreleave and the Pirate Captain (I looked it up on IMDb, and I couldn’t believe that’s really the character’s official name). Due to the Sphinx oath of complete honesty, we discover Hunter misses his womanly bosoms and Brock once masturbated more than a dozen times in one day just to see if he could. We also find out that since Jonas Jr.’s Spiderskull Island is considered its own municipality, drinking and smoking are illegal, but the residents have been growing a large pot field and recently legalized gay marriage. I nearly died laughing when Shoreleave declared he was going to retire there.

Speaking of Shoreleave, he is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters. I think Publick and Hammer knew after his one-scene introduction in Season 3 that the character had more to say. If anything, Shoreleave (voiced by Hammer) has cemented the phrase “BOOMYUMMY!” into my vocabulary. Another perfectly priceless moment in the episode comes from that lovable gay sailor as well, when he and the Captain discover their mutual love of long-time running Canadian teen drama Degrassi. As someone once sucked into that guilty pleasure of a show, I totally agree with them; I can’t believe they killed off JT either.

The Billy stuff wasn’t as great, but the addition of Monstroso made up for it. This is the second time this season a sad virgin got some and this week it was Billy’s turn; his incoherent rambling as three prostitutes did their thing was truly cringe-worthy. I also wasn’t expecting Billy to actually perform the surgery correctly; I really like when the writers take what could have been a cheap, expected laugh and give a down-trotted character some dignity. It’s one of the big things that separates The Venture Bros. from other late night cartoons in my book. I’m also insanely glad that in this vampire-focused episode, I heard no references to Twilight; a weaker show would have used that crutch.

The C-story with Hatred babysitting White felt like a throwaway. However, Hatred calling White out for taking his friendship with Billy for granted really worked, especially when coupled with the later scene of Brock trying in vain to convince Billy that White was indeed worried about him.

Next week is “Operation: PROM”, the 1-hour season finale. After this week’s funny, but Venture family-less episode, it will be good to end this strong season with Hank and Dean being their awkward teenage selves (and perhaps we’ll have some closure on the Dr. Girlfriend/Henchmen 21 tryst).

Clacked by Guest Clacker
on Oct 25, 2010 @ 11:39 EST5EDT