| "Red Means Stop" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| The Venture Bros. episode | |||
 | |||
| Episode no. |
Season 6 Episode 8 | ||
| Directed by | Jackson Publick | ||
| Written by | Doc Hammer | ||
| Production code | 608 | ||
| Original air date | March 20th, 2016 | ||
| Episode Chronology | |||
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| List of The Venture Bros. episodes | |||
Red Means Stop is the eighth and final episode of Season 6 and the overall seventy-first episode of The Venture Bros.
Plot
The cold open reveals two men chained to the plumbing fixtures in a restroom with a pile of dead bodies nearby. One of the men has just arrived.
Meanwhile, the O.S.I. and Guild of Calamitous Intent's Council of 13 have agreed to team up to set a trap using the Ventures and Red Death (who holds sub-arching rights on Venture) as bait to catch and assassinate the new Blue Morpho after their attempt to assassinate him in A Party for Tarzan had failed.
The Monarch attempts to do reconnaissance on Red Death but to his surprise he is recognized by the latter. The Monarch is both charmed and terrified by Red Death and determines that killing him is out of the question.
As part of the trap, Hunter Gathers disguises himself as Dr. Venture and Watch and Ward disguise themselves as Hank and Dean (originally in vintage 1970s attire before changing to early-seasons Hank and Dean outfits), with Phineas Phage dressing up as H.E.L.P.eR in his walking eyeball configuration. Shore Leave disguises himself as Brock, but Brock wins a game of rock-scissors-paper claiming that "nothing beats rock" and plays himself in the trap while the still disguised Shore Leave goes out on the town, intending to bring Hank and Dean to his favorite gay nightclub, only to be dismayed to find that it has been converted into a shopping mall.
During the trap, Dr. Venture, Pete White, and Billy Quizboy go to a dinner party at Quizboy's mother's house. Also attending are Colonel Gentleman and The Action Man. Rusty learns from Colonel Gentleman that The Blue Morpho and Jonas Venture Sr. were friends and, embarrassingly, realizes that The Blue Morpho's Kano and Team Venture's Kano were the same person. Colonel Gentleman also engages The Action Man in an obviously decades-old argument on whether or not The Action Man killed a baby, whom The Action Man claims was a werewolf, or an ocelot.
Meanwhile, one of the men in the in the restroom reveals that he has in fact been there "a couple of weeks" and is the supervillain Maestro Wave. The newer arrival is also a supervillian named The Termite. Maestro Wave reveals that he has been subsisting by eating the corpses of the dead men, mostly their buttocks, even though their captor has been providing them with food, which he claims is likely poisoned.
Red Death leaves his house to arch Dr. Venture and arrives at VenTech Tower and begins antagonizing the (mostly fake) Ventures. Brock seizes the opportunity to brawl with Red Death and ultimately, the Blue Morpho never appears. Eventually the ruse is exposed to Red Death and the O.S.I., Guild, and the Ventures have a pool party.
Meanwhile, The Monarch and #21 dress in Guild uniforms and arrive at Red Death's house and tell his wife to gather their child and go to her mother-in-law's house. They then call Red Death using a distorted voice and tell him that they have kidnapped his wife and daughter. Red Death responds by threatening to find and kill them (reciting nearly line for line Liam Neeson's dialogue from the film Taken).
Red Death arrives at Morpho Cave and quickly finds The Monarch and #21 (dressed respectively as The Blue Morpho and Kano) hiding in their costume compartments and recognizes them immediately for who they are. The Monarch pleads for their life and insists that he did not actually kidnap Red Death's wife and daughter informing him they are at his mother-in-law's home telling him to make sure. Once Red Death calls his mother-in-law and confirms this he has a heart to heart with The Monarch about keeping his rage in check, revealing that he had once gone over the edge and killed someone he was arching when he should not have. When #21 asks him about reconciling his pleasant demeanor and his bloodlust, Red Death asks him the same question, as his understanding is that #21 has killed many men himself. At this point #21 reveals the restroom where he had been keeping Maestro Wave, The Termite, and the other supervillians, shocked to find that Maestro Wave had killed and cannibalized all of them (including The Termite). Red Death promises not to tell the Guild about The Monarch and 21's adventures as The Blue Morpho and Kano if he is allowed to satisfy his bloodlust by killing Maestro Wave who screams in agony. As this happens, The Monarch punches 21 in the arm for not telling him that the cave had a restroom after he had been looking for one earlier in the episode.
Episode Cast
- James Urbaniak: Dr. Venture, Phantom Limb
- Patrick Warburton: Brock Samson
- Mike Sinterniklaas: Dean Venture
- Chris McCulloch: Hank Venture, The Monarch, Sgt. Hatred, Hunter Gathers, Action Man, Col. Gentleman, Pete White, Watch, OSI Sniper
- Doc Hammer: Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, Henchman 21, Billy Quizboy, Shoreleave, Red Mantle, Ward, Rose
- Clancy Brown: Red Death
- James Adomian: Phineas Phage, Prisoner 1 (The Termite), Guild Sniper
- Misha Collins: Prisoner 2 (Maestro Wave)
- John K. Hodgman: Snoopy
- Cristin Milioti: Kate
First Appearances
- Agent Kimberly McManus (as "OSI Sniper")
- Guild Stranger S-464 (as "Guild Sniper")
- Kate
- Maestro Wave
- Red Death
- The Termite
Connections to Other Episodes
- Rusty losing his first kidney was referenced in Dia de los Dangerous!
- Dr. Venture still tries to woo Dr. Mrs. The Monarch after having come to believe that her seduction of him as "Charlene" in Mid-Life Chrysalis was genuine.
- The "marionette thing" that The Monarch made for Rusty was seen at the beginning of Self-Medication.
- Pete White is referred to as Billy's boyfriend. This is a callback to numerous instances of Pete being mistaken for gay (often by Shore Leave, as in Any Which Way But Zeus.)
- Pete White is referred to as Billy's boyfriend. In The Devil's Grip, Billy's mother Rose stated she hadn't seen her son in years, believing Billy thought she wouldn't approve of his "lifestyle". The end of the same episode had her meet Pete for the first time, with White initially upset at Billy for not denying to his mother that he and Billy were a couple. Billy, we learned, said nothing because he didn't want to return the China and sideboard his mother had sent them as gifts. White was pacified when Rose appealed to his vanity, proclaiming him as handsome as Billy said he was, to which a flattered White responded "You said I was handsome?"
- Dr. Venture talks about his pet dog Scamp, who was last mentioned in All This and Gargantua-2.
- Billy still believes that Dr. Thaddeus Venture is The Blue Morpho, which he came to believe in Rapacity in Blue.
- The Monarch states it was Henchman 21's idea to disguise themselves, which occurred in Rapacity in Blue.
- Dr. Venture last attempted to woo Dr. Mrs. The Monarch in Tanks for Nuthin'.
- The Blue Morpho's suit has been fixed after being ruined in the previous episode.
- Much ado was made in the previous episode (A Party for Tarzan) about Christopher Lambert, who starred as the protagonist Connor MacLeod in the movie Highlander.
- Clancy Brown, who voices Red Death in this episode, played the antagonist The Kurgan opposite Lambert in Highlander.
- Col. Gentleman, who appears in this episode, was modeled after Sean Connery, who played Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez in the first two Highlander films, dying at The Kurgan‘s hands in the first.
Cultural References
Dune (1984)
- As Red Death approaches, Phantom Limb announces "We have villainsign," referencing "wormsign," evidence of successfully luring a sandworm ('Shai-Hulud') in the Dune series.
- Colonel Gentleman claims that Jonas Venture Sr. slept with Grace Kelly, famed actress and Princess of Monaco.
- Watch states that it is "just like looking into a mirror" in reference to his and Ward's attempt to disguise themselves and Hank and Dean, to which Hank replies, "Yeah, if the members of Grand Funk Railroad were behind us". Grand Funk Railroad are a rock band that were most popular back in the 1970s.
Hentai (Anime/Manga pornography)
- The Monarch confesses to Henchman 21 that his marriage is falling apart and he has been masturbating to hentai out of loneliness as a result.
- When several O.S.I. and Guild snipers respond on the radio at the same time, Guild Stranger S-464 says "Jinx! You owe me a Coke." This is a reference to a popular children's game.
- Red Death tells The Monarch that his daughter, Lila, has become obsessed with wearing yellow rain boots and hasn't taken them off since he read her Paddington Bear.
Saw (2004)
- The subplot of Maestro Wave and The Termite's imprisonment is a reference to the psychological horror movie Saw. The Termite is likely a reference to Ant Man with similar helmet appearance and source of their powers.
Taken (2008)
- Red Death's threat to Blue Morpho/Monarch and Kano/21 is taken almost verbatim from Bryan Mills' threat to antagonists in the movie Taken.
- Shore Leave takes Hank and Dean to The Limelight nightclub only to discover to his dismay that it was now a marketplace (it has since become a fitness club). He then states that they're going to CBGB instead, which was the original punk nightclub in New York's Lower East Side but has since become a clothing store.
Production Notes
- The Animation Direction Supervisor (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For Red Means Stop the credit reads Kimson "Maxilla Palps" Albert.
Trivia
- Red Death becomes the first villain to discover that The Monarch is masquerading as The Blue Morpho, whereas many others believed the vigilante was secretly Dr. Venture.
- The boxer that Jonas owned is most likely Swifty.
| Preceded by: "A Party for Tarzan" |
The Venture Bros. episodes Original Airdate: March 20th, 2016 |
Followed by: "The Venture Bros. & The Curse of the Haunted Problem" |