Love-Bheits
Love-Bheits is the seventh episode in the second season of The Venture Bros.
| "Love-Bheits" |
|---|
Plot
Template:Spoiler Baron Ünderbheit uses an atomic super magnet to force the X-1 to land in Ünderland as the Venture family returns from a costume party. He captures the Venture family, destroys H.E.L.P.eR., and immediately falls in love with Dean, who is costumed as Princess Leia (in the metal bikini from Return of the Jedi). Since there are no holding cells in Ünderland (as explained in "Home Insecurity", every crime is sentenced with capital punishment), Brock, Rusty, and Hank are imprisoned in a pantry. Ünderbheit and Dean share a meal of timberwolf in the dining hall, where the seven heads of Ünderbheit's previous wives are mounted like trophy animals. After the meal, Dean is passed off to two eunuchs to prepare him for the wedding, taking his measurements for a dress and cleaning him up. One of them discovers Dean's true gender when he is disrobed for his bath, but he decides not to mention the matter to Ünderbheit (still bitter over his neutering). As Brock works on formulating a plan to escape from the pantry and rescue Dean, they are rescued from the pantry by the Ünderground, a small resistance cell that spends its time developing plans to prank Ünderbheit. Dissatisfied with the rather pitiful efforts of the resistance, Brock, Hank, and Doc leave the group in an attempt to storm the castle.
After getting directions from a guard who survived Brock's rampage (but received some bad news about a lump in his testicles), the group races to the observatory where the marriage ceremony between Dean and Ünderbheit is commencing. While racing through the halls, bars close down separating Hank from Doctor Venture and Brock. Hank insists on continuing the mission while Brock insists that Hank stays behind. Desperate, Brock begs Doc to talk Hank out of what is likely a suicide charge. Doc tries but after Hank reminds Venture of his efforts to isolate the "gay gene" (which was halted due to massive protests and a lawsuit), Venture allows Hank to run off. Brock remains worried while Venture points out that if Hank dies, he can always make another and that he might surprise them with "his crazy retard strength". That hope is dashed, however, after Hank is audibly taken down (cutting his tongue on his Batman mask) not far away. Brock stops Doctor Venture from swallowing an arsenic-covered tooth when one of the walls opens into the observatory.
There, Baron Ünderbheit announces that it is too late, he and Dean are now married. When he realizes that he does not know his bride's name, Dean (with Hank's help) reveals Dean's true identity. The resistance immediately follows in and Catclops and Girl Hitler have Ünderbheit arrested for same-sex marriage, which Ünderlaw forbids.
Ünderland is declared a democracy and Girl Hitler is immediately elected president (and engaged to Catclops). In order to improve the country's dismal image, they exile Ünderbheit rather than executing him. The Venture family walks through the hole the X-1 made in the bordering wall into Michigan. As a token of thanks, the resistance gives Doctor Venture the highest honor they can award to foreigners: the "Best Group Costume" Medal.
After the credits roll, an annoyed Monarch answers the cocoon's front door, where Ünderbheit asks if he can crash there since he just got "divorced".
Quotes
- Baron Ünderbheit: Ooh, my sweet little Rusty, how many years have I longed for this moment? How many years has it been since... COLLEGE!?!
- Baron Ünderbheit: Say hello to goodbye, Dr. Venture!
- Hank: I'll see you in Heck! (runs screaming down hall)
- Dean: I'm not a woman! (drops robes)
- Thaddeus: Pff, who cares?! We can make another one if he dies.
- Catclops: You mess with the cat, you get the clops!
Girl Hitler: You mess with the girl, you get the Hitler!
Trivia
- The title of this episode is a pun on the common phrase "love bites" that plays on the pronunciation of Ünderbheit's name.
- Several facts about Ünderland emerge for the first time in this episode.
- The opening title of Ünderland is a pun at the opening montages for The Wonderful World of Disney from the early 1950s.
- The Star Wars costumes the Ventures wear are:
- Dean: Princess Leia Organa (first slave Leia then traditional Leia)
- Brock: Chewbacca (later, he can be seen carrying a broken H.E.L.P.eR. similar to how Chewbacca carried C-3PO in The Empire Strikes Back)
- Dr. Venture: Obi-Wan Kenobi
- Hank wears his Batman costume rather than a Star Wars one. Dr. Venture mentions that he has sabotaged the family's efforts to win the Best Group Costumes award for several years now, always by dressing as Batman.
- Early in the episode, Dean mentions that the Impossibles won the costume contest by dressing as The Fantastic Four. The Impossibles are clearly based on the famous super-hero team.
- Brock is shown to have won the best costume prize for his Chewbacca costume, a reference to the South Park Halloween episodes.
- Hank's full name, Henry Allen Venture, is mentioned for the first time.
- Baron Ünderbheit's full name is Baron Werner Ünderbheit IV.
- Ünderbheit's jaw, which has been shown as detachable, also apparently rotates over the top of his head when needed.
- Catclops, Girl Hitler, and Manic 8-Ball reappear in this episode, all three having survived the "tiger-bomb" explosions. Manic 8-Ball is still a prisoner of Ünderbheit, used as a magic mirror. An oblique reference to this was made in the DVD commentary to "Home Insecurity", as Doc Hammer jokingly noted that we never saw the three advisors' bodies. (How they managed to escape the exploding tigers is not explained.)
- The heads of Ünderbheit's former wives hanging on the wall is a possible reference to Sin City.
- The shot of Baron Ünderbheit putting a thorned ring on Dean's finger, causing it to bleed, echoes a similar shot from Billy Idol's 'White Wedding' music video.
- After the credits, the Monarch seems to have recruited more traditional henchmen; this is alluded to in the the previous episode, where the Monarch orders an insurance plan with henchmen.
- The World Leaders Entertainment logo for this episode is a repeat of the Fidel Castro (who was in hospital at the time of the broadcast of this episode) logo from "Powerless in the Face of Death".