TVSquad

(S02E09) Oh, dear. I was waiting for something to kill the hot Venture Bros. streak, and, finally, it has come... in the form of a totally random Abe Lincoln ghost.

I guess I really should have known. A few months ago, Jackson Publick posted in his blog that the ninth episode's script was his least favorite. I see why. It didn't feel like a Venture script. The jokes were relatively dull (and really dated, in some cases), the plot was a little too much like a real boy adventurers' story, and we re-connected with an old character that we really didn't care about (I didn't care for him, anyway).

The story was pretty basic. The Gargantua-I (the Venture space station that first appeared in last season's "Careers In Science") crashed, resulting in Anna "My Face Is So Hideous, It Can't Be Shown on TV" Baldavitch's death. Bud Manstrong, on the other hand, made it out safely and was welcomed home as an American hero. The president (Southern man with Bush's dimwit characteristics plus Clinton's crazy libido) hosted a dinner in honor of Manstrong, and the Ventures tagged along since it was their space station, after all. At the dinner, Manstrong's tipsy mother kept groping Brock, who wasn't responding well at all. Manstrong grew more and more embarrassed but every time he tried telling his mother to back down, she bitched him out. Oh. And Manstrong has a microchip in his neck. A ghostly Abe Lincoln popped through a painting and saw it. Dean saw ghost-Lincoln and freaked out. Oooohkay.

The president later pulled Manstrong aside, asking him to be his runningmate for the upcoming election. Due to his sexual escapades, he needed a squeaky-clean VP (the current one was being indicted) to balance his act. After a few really, really, really dated cigar and intern jokes, the old-fashioned Manstrong flipped out and left in disgust. Sheesh. Just when I thought the blue dress jokes were done. Anyway, Manstrong's mother barked at him some more, demanding that he go back and apologize to the president and take the VP offer. The chip in his neck blinked for a bit and Manstrong seemed to snap to attention. Lincoln was there to see it all. WTF.

Meanwhile, Hank and Dean got into their jammies as a maid prepared to clean their suits with some club soda. Dean, still shaken by what he saw during dinner, was horrified to find ghost-Lincoln by his bed in the middle of the night. After he tried explaining to Hank who Abe Lincoln was, ghost-Lincoln explained to the two of them why he was there. He was well-aware of the fact that Manstrong's mother implanted the microchip to control Manstrong and force him to assassinate the president, but ghost-Lincoln was unable to do anything because he was immaterial. He asked to borrow one of the Venture boys' bodies to possess, just long enough to stop the assassination. During a test run with Dean's hormone-filled body, ghost-Lincoln lost control and tried to kiss Hank. I could hear twincest fan-fiction lovers scream everywhere. Anyway, they found out that ghost-Lincoln had the ability to move items bearing his image, so they collected a bunch of five-dollar bills to tape onto his body instead of going through the whole possession thing again.

Doc Venture was rather busy as well. He attempted to pitch his portable force field to the president, just as the assassination was about to take place. An overeager Secret Service guy ran in and busted up the remote, causing the sound-proof force field to activate. Of course, with a broken remote, they couldn't fix the issue. The Secret Service ended up calling Jonas, Jr. for help, resulting in the one line in the entire episode that actually made me laugh...

Doc: They called my brother?! Could this be any more embarrassing? [waves to Jonas Jr.] Yeah, all right... Hi... I see you... Go to Hell.

After Manstrong's mother hit on Brock some more, she drunkenly passed out, face-down on his crotch. Manstrong, still furious with Brock for banging Anna before he did, saw this and, of course, thought the wrong thing. Just as he and Brock were about to get into a big fight, ghost-Lincoln, covered in five-dollar bills, burst through the force field and jumped on Manstrong, shouting that he was about to assassinate the president. Manstrong's mother came to and shot ghost-Lincoln in the head. Dude, if she had a gun, why didn't she just assassinate the president herself? Anyway, the bullet grazed Manstrong's head and everyone saw the microchip and Doc recognized the microchip and somehow managed to plug it into his watch and it just happened to contain video of the final Gargantua-I moments and everyone saw that Bud wasn't a hero but had just blacked out in the middle of a handjob from Anna and we found out that he's a repressed masturbator and what. The. Fuck. It was such a forced ending. I really, really didn't like it.

So... yeah. Hank and Dean were excited 'cause they saved the president. Despite Jonas, Jr.'s efforts, he failed to open up the force field. However, the maid, from earlier in the episode, managed to open it up with a bit of club soda.

I saw that Ben Edlund was credited with the story, just like in "Careers In Science". Edlund must really like Manstrong. Hm.

Best part of the episode? The new Astrobase Go! thing at the end.