Episode - Season 4, Episode 7 (Production Code: 4-46)
First Aired - December 6, 2009
The fiery supervillain Torrid is attempting to open a gate to Hell. Nearby, the Order of the Triad plans to try and stop him. However, they are too late, and a Cthulhu-like demon monster emerges from the Hell portal. Torrid tries to command it, but the creature merely grabs him and tosses him into the portal. The Triad attempt to attack the creature, but Jefferson is grabbed in the monster's tentacles and crushed to death. The Alchemist is knocked back and Orpheus' fireball attack is absorbed by the creature, making it larger and more powerful.
Just when all hope seems lost, a mysterious stranger riding a flaming horse emerges from the portal. The stranger banishes the demon and brings Jefferson back to life by merely touching his forehead. As he rides his horse back through the portal, Orpheus reveals that the man is the "Outrider," a former student of Orpheus' and the man that "STOLE MY WIIIIIIIFFFFFEEE!!!"
In the boys' bedroom at the Venture compound, Hank is questioning Dean, who is putting on his best suit. Dean explains that he wants to look nice for Triana, who outside with her father. Hank convinces Dean that he's been friend-zoned by Triana and that he has no shot at dating her.
Jefferson, trying to make up for getting killed earlier, is training with the Alchemist against pop-up cardboard cutouts. Jefferson does well, slaying the monsters but sparing the mother with child. However, Al deducts points for killing a cutout of Matthew Lesko
. Jefferson laments his lack of magical powers and says that the training is pointless, since as soon as someone uses magic, he dies.
In the yard of the Venture compound, Orpheus attempts to create his own gate to Hell using carefully placed camping equipment. The Ventures notice and join him, with Dr. Venture thinking that Orpheus is having a yard sale. Dean tries talking to Triana but their conversation only further confirms to him what Hank said earlier. After Orpheus fails in his attempt to open the portal, he dejectedly goes to visit his Master.
The Master has assumed the form of Orpheus' ex-wife, Tatiana. After spending some time talking down to Orpheus and playing with his new feminine form, the Master suggests that Orpheus kill the Outrider, then complains of having a headache. Orpheus says that he doesn't take any kind of headache medication and The Master becomes miffed at him when he states that he knows of no other way to cure his/her headache.
The Triad return to the original portal to Hell just in time to see Torrid emerge, followed by the Outrider. Torrid, being deeply scarred from having seen Hell, asks Outrider to put him out of his misery. Outrider moves to oblige when Torrid jumps up and speaks an incantation, trapping the Outrider's soul and leaving his body a frozen shell.
Once Torrid is gone, having blinked out after casting the spell on the Outrider, the Triad approaches the body of the Outrider. Orpheus realizes that the Outrider is good and noble, and decides to try to save him. He figures out that the "headache" his Master complained of earlier was a clue, and checks under the Outrider's bandana to find a scar.
Hank is trying to help Dean move on from Triana, so he has taken Dean to a mall in order to meet other girls. The boys, awkward as they are, scare them all off. They later run into Dermott, who is working his job at a big chain store. As Dermott and Hank talk, they see Dean actually talking to a girl successfully.
Back in Orpheus' kitchen, the Triad has enlisted the help of Billy Quizboy to perform brain surgery on the Outrider. In the Outrider's brain, they find an amulet, the "Eye of Osiris," that allowed the Outrider to travel between dimensions at will. Once removed, however, Orpheus and the Alchemist become trapped in the same temporally frozen world as the Outrider. The Outrider is also present there, and declares that they can only leave if they have the aid of someone who is "between worlds." Luckily, Jefferson is discovered to be "between worlds," finally having a magic ability, and allows them to escape. Afterward, they talk in Orpheus' kitchen. The Outrider reveals that he was envious of the power that Orpheus had, but that he saw that Orpheus had to sacrifice too much in order to achieve it, something which drove his wife away. That is why the Outrider used the amulet as a shortcut.
As this is going on, Triana has slipped into the Master's dimension in her closet. As she approaches, she sees the Master, who has taken the form of an aging, balding Dean Venture. He reveals that the two are married and, due to Dean's cloning, will only have extremely malformed children. The Master explains that she can still save herself from this fate, and that she has magical potential herself. He convinces her to go live with her mother in order to train as a sorceress. Triana then goes to speak with her father about this.
The Stinger shows Orpheus and the Triad helping Triana pack up to move in with her mother. Dean approaches Triana about breaking off their "relationship," to which Triana happily agrees and kisses him. After that, Dean says they could try a long distance relationship, but Triana suggests that she couldn't keep him all to herself, sparing Dean's feelings.
Tropes:
- Always Someone Better: Played with between Orpheus and the Outrider. The Outrider has gained an ability Orpheus never has, the ability to travel between worlds, but cheated to get it. However, by cheating instead of working hard, the Outrider has made time for his wife (Dr. Orpheus ex-wife) who left Orpheus because he was a workaholic who never had time for her. In the end, Outrider admits that Orpheus is the better sorcerer, but at too high of a cost.
- Clone Degeneration: Due to being cloned so many times, Dean's genes are apparently worthless for reproduction. Since the clones were all made at once, this must mean the cloning technology has some serious flaws. (Of course, the Master could also have been exaggerating to make a point to Triana.)
- Continuity Nod:
- When Hank sees Dean getting dressed up, he asks "did Uncle Gentleman die again?" This is a reference to when the boys found Col. Gentleman in a diabetic coma in Twenty Years to Midnight, when they thought he died.
- The Master, as "future Dean," is using the "Vacuum Boom Broom" invention Dr. Venture had in Tears of a Sea Cow.
- Did You Just Banish Cthulhu?: Outrider does this to a hell-creature with the appearance of Cthulhu.
- Dumbass Has a Point: When Dermott gives Dean girl advice, Hank marvels that it was actually good.
- Everyone Has Standards: Orpheus loathes how the Outrider is more powerful than him, but still saves him from being trapped in Hell after realizing the Outrider is a good person.
- Genre Blind: Al chides Torrid for doing the "Summon a beast from Hell" cliche, noting how the first thing they always do is turn on their summoner. Torrid doesn't listen, so this is exactly what happens to him.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Zigzagged. The Outrider did appear to surpass Orpheus despite not training as hard, but it turns out he did it taking a shortcut: jamming a magic amulet into his brain.
- Hidden Depths: While the Outrider can be condescending, he does admire Orpheus for achieving what he has through hard work.
- Mercy Kill: Torrid asks for one, and when the Outrider goes to oblige, Torrid jumps him.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The episode trailer focused on a "Hell Beast From Hell," which only appeared for a few seconds in the Cold Open and wasn't even from Hell. Despite physical appearances, it was not on the level of Cthulhu. The rest of the trailer talked about Triana entering a "portal to the Second World." Except it's not a portal to the Second World. Orpheus doesn't have a portal to the Second World. Half the episode centered on Orpheus not having a portal to the Second World.
- Nice Guy: The Outrider, though he can be a bit condescending. (That being one's worst quality really does qualify you as a Nice Guy in the Venture Bros. universe...)
- Power Perversion Potential: The Master uses his Voluntary Shapeshifter ability to become Dr. Orpheus' ex-wife. He mentions jump-roping naked in front of a mirror...
- Shout-Out:
- The creature that emerges from the Hell portal in the beginning is based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu.
- One of the cardboard cutouts used in Jefferson's training is of Matthew Lesko.
Al: Well for one, you killed Matthew Lesko.Jefferson: That was- Well he was wearing punctuation on his suit! That's a total bad guy suit!Al: He helps people get free money from the government! That is a good guy! That's reflected in your score.- Another of the cutouts is the Marvel Comics villain Dormammu, an enemy of Doctor Strange, on whom Dr. Orpheus is heavily based.
- The lingo Hank uses when teaching Dean how to pick up chicks is from VH1's The Pickup Artist, with the Outrider's appearance based on the host of the show, Mystery (Erik von Markovik.)
- When Hank messes up Dean's hair to make him look better, Dean comments that he looks like "Rufio." Hank responds that "you are the Pan." Both references to Hook.
- When they are in Hell, Outrider's nose and ear fall off and Al calls him Brundlefly to Orpheus.
- Trans Equals Gay: Sheltered teen Hank believes Al to be transgender, who corrects him by telling him that although he is gay, he still has a normal "dingus."
