Recap / The Venture Bros S 7 E 9 The Forecast Manufacturer

When New York is hit with a mysterious blizzard, Rusty and Billy head on a Team Venture mission to put a stop to it, while the Monarch and 21 are sent to end the man behind it. Hank braves the blizzard to find Sirena when she doesn't respond to any of his messages.

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• Ambiguously Evil: Scare Bear. He's just as silent and creepy as ever and still carries his knife, but he doesn't do anything to physically harm anyone throughout the episode. When he finds an injured and woozy Hank in the snow, he picks him up and first carries him to a convenience store so Hank can buy a snack. He then takes Hank to Dean's dorm, apparently somehow knowing that Sirena was there cheating on Hank with Dean, but most likely did so because Hank mentioned he wanted to save his girlfriend. He then stands silently at the door, but doesn't do anything more menacing than that.
• Ass Shove: Billy with the thermal regulator, to his chagrin.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States (the only one to serve non-consecutive terms) was a member of the Guild of Calamitous Intent and also had a time machine.
• Big "NO!": Kimberly McManus in The Stinger when she realizes S-464 has lost his memories.
• Big Storm Episode: A manufactured blizzard rages over New York City.
• The Bus Came Back: Scare Bear, the silent, knife-wielding man in the bear suit, who originally just showed up once in "Bright Lights, Dean City" as a potential member of the Revenge Society, finally appears here again when he finds Hank dazed and bleeding in the snow and carries him to safety.
• Call-Back: Mission Creep has Grover Cleveland's presidential time machine in his collection. Alternate versions of Billy and Rusty (who is apparently chummy enough with the Monarch to call him Malcom) stepping out distracts Mission Creep long enough for him to get impaled during Dive Bomb.
• Collector of the Strange: The Creep's front lawn is strewn with Guild technology he's stolen, such as Maybe Man's Indifference Engine, Nat King Cobra's Venomator, Mr. Monday's Calendar of Magic Mondays, Jungle Jim's Greenhouse Ray, Grover Cleveland's Presidential Time Machine, the Monarch's own Butter-Glider, and giant lawn darts that were banned for being safety hazards.
• Continuity Nod: Many of the pieces of Guild tech in Mission Creep's collection belong to previously mentioned or seen Guild members. For example, Mr. Monday was imprisoned along with the Monarch in "Powerless in the Face of Death while Maybe Man was in "Dunwich Asylum". Mission Creep also flies around on the Monarch's own Butter Glider.
• Comically Missing the Point: After the time-traveling Rusty and Billy show up and leave, as well as The Creep being killed by his lawn dart, the Monarch is more annoyed that Rusty referred to him by his real name, Malcolm.
• Could Say It, But...: As a representative of the Guild, Dr. Z cannot advise that The Monarch and 21 assassinate the Creep, but he can bring them close to the Creep's island base, equip them with GPS and prepaid phones, and tell them to act as independent agents. The two remain confused until Dr. Mrs. blurts it out.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Hank about Sirena, getting agitated when she doesn't respond to his numerous texts and phone calls and deciding to go out in the horrible blizzard to find her, despite Hatred warning him against it and counseling him that no woman likes to feel smothered. Unfortunately, he ends up finding out why she wasn't responding...
• Destroy the Evidence: Before the Monarch and Gary go on their mission to kill the Creep, Dr. Z presents them with a chicken tender sculpture of the man, which he then says they have to eat to destroy the evidence. Later, he expresses disgust that the paper that the Guild received a message from OSI on will also have to be eaten to be destroyed.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Monarch and Gary are rather horrified to hear that the Creep once slaughtered a troop of Boy Scouts.
  • Stranger S-464 is the pilot of the stolen Guild weather machine, and reveals he did this to try to get Kimberly McManus's attention, again. Billy rightfully chews him out for his behavior, but then Dr. Venture says that after Teresa Didae hit him with a restraining order he began to talk to her again under a fake Facebook profile. This disgusts Billy and the inflappable S-464, who feels cyber stalking is far worse than giving all of New York City a snow day.
• Foreshadowing: When future versions of Dr. Venture and Billy end up coming out of Grover Cleveland's Presidential Time Machine during the Monarch and Gary's Dive Bomb game against the Creep, Rusty politely addresses the Monarch by his given name Malcolm, suggesting at some point in the near future they've patched things up, not only as arch-nemeses, but as possible half-brothers (which was strongly implied in "Arrears in Science" though ultimately the Monarch was actually reveal to be a clone of Dr. Venture in The Movie).
• General Ripper: The Creep used to be an OSI agent called Mission Creep, until he slaughtered a troop of Boy Scouts for camping near a mountain base he recently captured.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Hank walks in on Dean and Sirena in bed together.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Revealed in The Stinger to have happened to S-464, much to Kimberly McManus's horror.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: The Monarch and 21 decide not to report to the Guild that the Creep was accidentally killed during their game of Dive Bomb.
• Not What It Looks Like: What Sirena tries to claim when Hank finds her and Dean in bed together. Dean, though, admits that it is what it looks like.
• The Reveal: A subdued example with Dr. Mrs. The Monarch having apparently accepted her seat on the Guild Council and stepping away from active villainy alongside her husband, as we see her and Dr. Z relaying mission intel about The Creep to Monarch and 21
• Shout-Out:
  • When Billy says the "purple haze" surrounding the weather machine is silver nitrate, Dr. Venture asks if there's The Wind Cries Mary on the other side of it.
  • When 21 and The Monarch land on the Creep's island, The Monarch says they look like they're from the music video for Cult Of Personality.
  • When the Creep says 21 and the Monarch must survive The Most Dangerous Game, they assume he plans to hunt them for sport.
  • When pretending to play football in the snow, Hank mentions several players by name and number from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
  • The outfits of Future!Rusty and Future!Billy when they step out of the time machine are pieced together from different eras, just like the main characters from Time Bandits.
• Sibling Triangle: The Ship Tease between Dean and Sirena earlier in the season is confirmed to have led to this. Sirena is officially Hank's girlfriend, but Dean sleeps with her here.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Gary tries to enact one of Bruce Lee's lessons from Enter The Dragon with one of the kids at the dojo, but forgets that young children tend to get upset when they're slapped for no reason. The owner of the dojo calls him out on it :
    Sensei Finkelstein: You don't hit the kids!
    Gary: What? It's Karate!
    Sensei Finkelstein: The mothers, they go bananas, and look, she's crying. You made her cry.
  • Also seen when Hank hits his head and rather than recover quickly, he is bleeding with a concussion. He only makes it back safely due to Scare Bear. Furthermore, he is not able to fully process the fact that his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother (though it may also be due to Hank's own biases.) He even ends up collapsing. He does seem to possess enough awareness that he is not fully functional given how he's relieved that Dean and Sirena acknowledge Scare Bear (since Hank was worried he might've been hallucinating the whole thing.)
• Tap on the Head: Accidentally self-inflicted by Hank, who dives into a snowbank and hits his head on a streetlamp pole. Subverted, however, in that he's not immediately fine afterwards as is usually the case with this trope; he's clearly concussed for the rest of the episode, has to be carried around by Scare Bear in order to find his girlfriend, and when he does find her, only manages to stand on his own for a minute or two before collapsing unconscious.
• Time Machine: The Creep has one stolen from President Grover Cleveland, which Rusty and Billy randomly appear out of during the Monarch's and 21's game of Dive Bomb with him, distracting him long enough to get pierced in the head with his own lawn dart.
• Written-In Absence: Pete is mentioned to be home sick with mono, which is why he doesn't appear in this ep to help Billy and Rusty with their mission. Presumably he wouldn't fit in the plot... or maybe it's setup for future plot points.
• You Can See That, Right?: Hank is reassured when Dean and Sirena both react to Scare Bear, having thought it was just a hallucination from his concussion.

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