The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart 2023

[8.4/10] The familiar rap on the Venture Bros. is that it’s a show about failure. Dr. Venture is a crappy scientist, a crappy father, and a crappier person. His boys are a pair of dunderheaded dopes. The Monarch is a bumbling lamewad of a supervillain. His top henchman is a geek. His partner, Dr. Girlfriend, is the only competent member of his organization. Nobody quite lives up to the age of Jonas and the original Team Venture, with their World of Tomorrow-esque inventions and four color adventures that all these washed up nobodies are chasing after.

And still, somewhere down the line, they and The Venture Bros. became more than that. Though he remained a bit pathetic and more than a bit venal, Rusty strove to be a little better in all phases of his life. Dean grew up and gained a new perspective on his existence and his future, and Hank developed a kindness that shone through his dopiest phases. The Monarch found new ways to work his way towards arching his nemesis. Gary leveled up. Sheila joined the Guild’s Council of Thirteen. And despite the lingering shadow of the last generation’s accomplishments and not-so-hidden sins, each started to make something for themselves in the here and now.

The appropriate-yet-absurdly titled Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart is the capstone of that transition, from a story about fifty shades of failure, to a story about a dozen or so lovable schmucks who scratched out their own bit of success.

The first and (presumably) final Venture Bros. film finds plenty of narrative hijinks to keep our heroes occupied. Dr. Venture, Billy Quizboy, Pete White, and the Pirate Captain are trying to get Ventech’s latest product on shelves, and end up in a skyscraper floating above the Earth, in an amusingly comic escalation. The Monarch and Sheila are both trying to manage the revelation of shared genetics between Monarch and Dr. Venture, which brings longstanding issues both personal and professional to the fore.

The situation is complicated by the emergence of A.R.C.H., an ostensible rival villain collective doing big strikes without the usual licenses, something that gets the attention of both the Guild and O.S.I., and provides the major fireworks and intrigue of the film. And most importantly, a scorned Hank goes off to find himself by finding his mother, leading to an endearing and loony journey of self discovery. Naturally, a contrite Dean goes off to track down his brother, trying to relieve his guilt and save someone he loves, with Dr. Orpheus and Jefferson Twilight in tow.

All of the elements click and intertwine with the clockwork brilliance fans have come to expect from The Venture Brothers. Mantilla, the super villain who helps Monarch arch Dr. Venture outside the usual Guild protocols, turns out to be responsible for Rusty’s unexpected sky-high peril, a hidden scion to the Guild’s pre-Sovereign leader, Sheila’s stalker, and not for nothing, Hank and Dean’s biological mother. True to form, as freewheeling and wide-ranging as this series is known to be, Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick always find inventive ways to tie it all together.

Even if it didn’t, each story works on its own terms. Dr. Venture’s orbital predicament forces him to work with his arch enemy and decide once and for all whether to merely save his own skin or go out of his way to be a genuine good guy. The Monarch’s efforts to level up himself leave him feeling once again rudderless in the hate that once thrilled him, and the forced partnership with Rusty compels both gents to relate to one another in that weird, heightened reality sort of way the show specializes in.

Sheila’s story not only involves a fun frame job and on-the-run story, but directly addresses the long-running thread that despite her name, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch could do better if she weren’t always tied to these faltering manchildren. The A.R.C.H. intrusion makes room for all the entertaining Guild + O.S.I. hijinks that have helped power the back half of the series.

Hank’s quest is the most endearing. Dean has done a much better job than his brother figuring out his own identity apart from being one of those two kids on the Venture compound over the course of the series. But Hank, for good and for ill, is pretty much the same lovable goofball he was when he started. Focusing the story of Hank working out who he is apart from the original setup is a nice way of balancing that out among the two titular siblings in the show’s final bow, while answering one of the big remaining questions in the process. And Dean once again proves himself the most caring and decent member of the Venture clan, given how devoted he is to his brother despite everything.

Along the way, there’s plenty of the trademark humor that made the show such a riot, and small bits of business for the characters who get less focus. Clancy Brown as Red Death’s neuro emitter-controlled horse, Daisy, is a hoot. Simple bits like Sgt. Hatred exhausting himself in the stairwells while there’s a working elevator earns the chuckles. The likes of our beloved HELPeR, Billy Quizboy and Pete White, the Alchemist, and even Ben the geneticist all have return engagements. And most of all, the loose banter about pop culture ephemera and workaday concerns amid large-than-life danger and theatrical menacings remains gloriously intact.

Amid the patter, the movie answers some of the few big, remaining mysteries that hung around for the show. In true Venture style, there’s plenty of intricate twists involved, with reveals that connect to things fans already know, in a way that dramatically recontextualizes them and adds to the mythos.

The film unveils major details about Hank and Dean’s mother and grandmother. It reveals that Dr. Venture and the Monarch are both clones of the original Rusty a la Hank and Dean (albeit with Malcolm getting a bit of Baboon DNA to account for the differences). The things that have been saved for a rainy day are finally brought out, and true to the show’s past reveals, they are shocking, satisfying, and line up with past clues in novel ways all at once.

And yet, as much as I enjoy those stunning twists and surprising connections that became the stock and trade of the series, it’s not what kept me coming back to The Venture Bros. over the years. Instead, it was the characters and the silly, but occasionally earnest ways they would bounce off one another. Baboon Heart honors that element of the series, injecting the sort of interpersonal humor that was the lifeblood of the show, but also validating the winding paths these characters have taken over the past seven seasons to finally, even movingly, reach a better place.

In the end, The Monarch finds out that he hates himself, after a fashion, but despite everything, with the choice to give the whole supervillain up, he discovers that by god, he still loves doing it. Sheila affirms that she doesn’t need saving, but instead chose this life and owns it. Gary is thrilled to be back in the game as Malcolm’s newly-installed Number Two. Baboon blood or no, the villain crew is back in business and ready, thrilled even, to do this all over again. Not because they have to, but because they want to.

Among the protagonists, despite rolling his eyes for years, it’s Brock who stands up for Dr. Venture and has faith that his would-be boss can save the day. For all his laments of being a “crap brother”, it’s Dean’s remorse and deep care for his sibling that allow him and his allies to find and rescue Hank. Their reconciliation is as sweet as it is characteristically strange.

For his part, Hank decides to finally grow up. With the help and guidance of mentors like Dr. Orpheus and Ben, he resolves to choose his family, this family, with all its complications, because they are what make it valuable. There is sweetness in that too, and an affirmation of the peculiar but oddly heartwarming group of knuckleheads who’ve graced our screens, however intermittently, for the last twenty years.

Which just leaves Dr. Venture himself. After everything, all the selfishness and money-grubbing over the years, when push comes to shove he goes to grand, glorious lengths to save the day. (Even if it once again takes his brother’s tech to do it.) He donates blood and tissue to the erstwhile twin (give or take the primate distinction) who’s been harassing him for years as an act of kindness. He helped two people in need so as to correct a small measure of the terrible injustices his father inflicted on the world. And most of all, he tells his inquisitive son that no matter who his mother is, the person who gave birth to the Venture Bros. loves them.

In the series’ last, incredible twist, that turns out to be him. The reveal of Doc with an artificial womb is not just an affirmation of his love for his sons, but a sign that his kids were not something thrust upon him by indiscretions or circumstances. They were a deliberate choice he went to great lengths to bring into this world.

I don’t know what to tell you. The Venture Bros. is a deeply weird, frequently biting, and often cynical show. But in its final bow, what it leaves us with is triumph, family, and love. Maybe it’s just the sentimentality of saying goodbye. It seems weird to say after a twenty-year run, but the still-great series nevertheless feels cut down before its time. And yet, Baboon Heart is as stirring and satisfying an end to the story as any fan could ask for. Going on out on a note this high eases any frustrations and sends the show off right.

The big questions are answered. Our heroes (and villains) are back where they belong. And the characters we love have come to love one another, in their own, truly bizarre sort of way. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is.

The Venture Bros. is my favorite show. The day I heard it was canceled, I was crushed. The day I heard it was being concluded with a feature film, I swelled with hope, but it was diluted with worry, I'll concede. Far too many shows end unsatisfactorily, and that ends up more or less tainting the whole series. (It's impossible to rewatch Game of Thrones without remembering how it all ends, innit?)

I'll say this: This finale wasn't what I was hoping for. I struggled trying to avoid that sentiment, but that's just what it is.

However, it's not necessarily a disappointment in itself. I know that having to end Venture Bros. this way wasn't what Hammer and McCulloch wanted either, but they had questions they needed to answer and they did what they could to do so.

We ascertain the origins of Hank and Dean's birth, along with the truth of the Monarch's relation to Rusty Venture. But in all honesty, a lot of the plot feels shoehorned in. New characters and events that are related to these mysteries but honestly aren't ultimately all that necessary given how it all concludes, a "villain" that doesn't really matter or go anywhere, whose motivations are sloppy and resolved underwhelmingly, and just fills in to explain a loose end, etc.

On my part, I'd been dreaming of it all ending with Jonas Venture's decapitated head being thawed by the OSI and going rogue, trying to force his way back into an immortalized existence and destroying anyone in his way, hero and villain alike. Cementing him as the ultimate antagonist to the series, as had been otherwise implied as each season progressed. Something to bring Rusty and the Monarch together to stop him and finally push past their traumatic childhoods. I personally feel that that would've been a much more satisfying ending to it all. But c'est la vie.

In spite of a direction I wouldn't have chosen, I can write my own fanfiction about how I would've done it all day, but the series has ended. And I can look at it and feel it's resolved enough, even if I'll always have a handful of loose ends I'll be daydreaming of. And who knows? Maybe down the line, someone somewhere with the means could get the resources to run one more season or something.

In conclusion: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart is an ending if it has to be. I wanted more, the creators wanted more, but they did a good job regardless.

It will remain in my library warmly.

That's my piece.