Last week, we provided a general plot recap of everything you need to remember before Adult Swim’s The Venture Bros. sixth season premieres on January 31. Today, we’re breaking it down, character by character.
Let’s check in with eight fan favorites to see what they were up to in the last new episode. There’s betrayal, cloning, hostages, affairs, neck-snapping, buildings being burned to the ground, Flying Cocoons, and robots.
It’s Venture Bros.
Dr. Venture
Jonas Venture, Jr. sacrificed himself to save the passengers of Gargantua-2. (He also had cancer.) Consequently, for the first time since “Every Which Way But Zeus,” when he confessed his true feelings for a distraught and confused Hank, Dr. Venture shows genuine affection for another human being. Fondness turns to devotion when Dr. Venture learns that his brother left him the multi-billion dollar Venture Industries and its headquarters in New York.
Hank and Dean Venture
For most of season five, Dean was a moody scene kid. Can you blame him? He just found out he and his brother Hank are clones, and that they’ve died multiple times. Plus, the girl he’s had a crush on for years, Triana, is dating someone who isn’t him. Things begin to turn around when Dean tells Hank about the secret cloning, and Hank makes a good point: Being a clone is kind of cool. In a sense, they’re immortal! Bullets and broken hearts can’t stop them.
Brock Samson
No longer Hank and Dean’s bodyguard/life coach/father figure, Brock works for the Office of Secret Intelligence with Amber Gold, with whom he also has a sexual relationship. Except by the end of “All This and Gargantua-2,” he appeared to be working for, or at least with, the Ventures again.
The Monarch
The Monarch moves into his childhood home, where he finds Phantom Limb’s plans to penetrate Gargantua-2. On the way there, his ship, which helped burn the Venture Compound down to the ground, is intercepted and lands at the former-headquarters for the Revenge Society, Meteor Majeure. Dr. Henry Killinger reveals there’s a new Council of 13… for everyone except the Monarch. That’s bad news for him. But good news for his partner-in-crime.
Dr. Mrs. the Monarch
Dr. Mrs. the Monarch narrowly survived being gassed to death and a bullet wound. After being taken hostage by the Sovereign, who’s taken the form of David Bowie, she joins the Guild of Calamitous Intent’s new Council.
Master Billy Quizboy
Billy Quizboy’s mom kicked some serious Revenge Society butt. Meanwhile, he and Jonas, Jr. got confused for “little green men,” due to their diminutive size. On the bright side, Billy, rarely seen without his best albino buddy Pete White, yet again out-smarted his arch-nemesis Augustus St. Cloud, who painfully recreated the set of Quizboys, an old game show they appeared on.
Sgt. Hatred
Now that his gynecomastia has been cured, Sgt. Hatred can focus on more important things, like trying to put out a fire before it destroys the Venture Compound. He fails. Life’s a struggle for Brock’s bodyguard replacement: He’s not allowed to be within 50 feet of a “beautiful minor,” a reference to his pedophilic past, and he destroyed the Monarch’s Flying Cocoon. Okay, maybe things aren’t completely terrible. Dr. Venture still won’t pay for his food, though.
H.E.L.P.eR
No Venture Bros. character, man, woman, or otherwise, has suffered more than H.E.L.P.eR. The Venture’s “Helpful Electronic Lab Partner Robot” had a bigger role in the early seasons of the show, but he (it?) still regularly aids his human family in getting out of scrapes. H.E.L.P.eR was turned into a spider-like Walking Eye, then sold to Augustus St. Cloud, before his arch-nemesis, Billy Quizboy, won H.E.L.P.eR back. Last we saw the accommodating automaton, he was being returned to his original body by Dean.
(You can catch up on seasons one through five on Hulu or Adult Swim.)
