The Venture Bros S01E13: Return to Spider-Skull Island Review

The Venture Bros S01E13: Return to Spider-Skull Island Review

Medium: Television

Release date: 10/30/2004

Review date: 9/29/2024

Score: 6/10

A "haha a man is pregnant" episode plot screams 2004, but the show handled it as fine as it could have, I guess. I liked the Monarch doing a Scared Straight bit with other super villains in jail, that was good, though the homophobic stuff ended up being a bit much. The John Woo doves when Brock crashes through the window at the end is fun, and Rusty’s busted up chifforobe aside was funny too. Having the Doc decide to not kill Jonas was surprising for his character, which is some nice dynamism for a generally (at this point in the show) pretty static cast. The punching down overall this episode with the “retarded” comments and the deformity jokes about Jonas was pretty tasteless though. Hank and Dean's dying at the conclusion is funny and a decent season cliffhanger, especially if you know that the show keeps going. Though personally my biggest takeaway from the episode, as someone who wasn’t paying the closest attention back in 2004, is that it’s interesting (?) to see which words the network censors choose to bleep out as “swears” and which words they allow unchanged, like “ass” and “bitch” were too much for the poor, kind, innocent, gentlehearted people of America to hear, but gay slurs were fine; the Bush administration truly was a, uh… time for this stupid country.