4x15 The Silent Partners

Not many laughs and not much narrative excitement to this one, though with the prior three episodes that gave us great looks at Hank, Dean, and Dr. Venture respectively, I suppose the show can be forgiven for effectively taking a breather here.

The main story about Billy Quizboy being kidnapped by Monstroso after seeing The Investors was just kind of there. The twist that he thinks he's going to be turned into a vampire (replete with a nod to Coppola's Dracula), when in reality the "immortality" The Investors were offering was the more figurative kind that comes from performing a heart transplant from a giant ape to a giant human. There were some mild chuckles (Billy lamenting that he always gets kidnapped to perform illegal surgeries), but for the most part there wasn't much to the story, either in terms of narrative momentum or laughs.

Similarly, the SPHINX rescue effort wasn't great. It had some of that old "Brock goes forth and kicks ass" Venture Bros. spirit, and it was nice to get a little more detail about where SPHINX fits in the pantheon of the show, but the plot just didn't work that well. I like Hunter, but a little of him goes a long way, and Shore Leave is a bit hit and miss too. (Not sure how I feel about his "Sphinx!" repetition bit.) There was a mild bit of fun in SPHINX's interactions with the Pirate Captain.

And the C-Story with Sgt. Hatred and Pete White holing up in the Venture Panic Room was good for a couple of laughs here and there, but pretty slight. It was nice to get confirmation that Sgt. Hatred didn't rape Billy...so that's something, I guess. And his song about Princess Tinyfeet was hilariously bad.

But for the most part, this was an episode that seemed to be focusing on the non-Ventures, and that can definitely work on this show (especially if there's a Monarch focus), but here it just felt like leftover scraps without much going for them.