4x11 Any Which Way But Zeus

7.3/10. Damn you, Venture Bros.! How many times have I watched the first 2/3 of an episode, been kind of underwhelmed, and then watched this show stick the landing in the final third in a way that I find really satisfying? It makes it really hard to judge these episodes as anything other than something holistic.

Take, for instance, the storyline where Sgt. Hatred and the boys join together to make Dr. Venture feel better even though he hasn't been abducted by this "Zeus" who's making all the heroes and villains of the Ventureverse fight each other in a Secret Wars-esque adventure. The premise is fine, but the whole "oh look at how pathetic Dr. Venture is" is a little played out, and his initial whining about it is kind of dull. Then, he's negotiating with a Teddy Ruxpin doll and Sgt. Hatred's transformers mask malfunctions and it's kind of silly fun. Then he tells his "captors" to kill Hank if they have to kill someone and it gets darkly funny. Then Dr. Venture unwittingly tells Hank that the reason he did that is because Dr. Venture sees so much of himself in Hank and feel sorry for him because of that, that it's a product of a unique combination of self-loathing and filial pity. It's actually kind of touching and devastating, especially when Dr. Venture laments that Hank "can't win," and blames it on himself and his DNA.

And that's the sort of thing this show does -- makes you roll your eyes a bit at where it starts, laugh a little as it gets going, laugh a lot when it's firing on all cylinders, and then blindsides you with a brief but impactful moment of emotional truth.

The other two elements of the story don't quite go that far, but they still ramp up considerably from where they start. The whole Zeus battle thing is pretty dull, outside of some entertaining banter between the abductees like Henchman 21 and Billy Quizboy, but thinks get going with White and Quizboy bitching at each other, and with the reveal that "Zeus," is actually a former Monarch henchman (Is he the same Henchman #1 we saw previously?) and that Captain Sunshine's butler is actually the original Captain Sunshine who is something of an activist for sidekicks and henchman. There's some thematic resonance for people who've been forgotten or shunted aside reaching their potential or seeing more of their best selves, but for the most part it's just a solidly enjoyable twist.

The least entertaining part of the episode is the summit of various organizations trying to figure out this situation, even if it does gives us some solid two-headed guild elder bantering and a trademark Brock beat down. Toby Huss's general is a bit too much, and then too little, like Cotton Hill for me, giving the character a weird uncanny valley effect for me.

Still, this is another episode where I'm kind of just along for the ride for much of it and then smiling and laughing and even being a little touched by the end. It's a hell of a trick.