The Morphic Trilogy reaches its stunning conclusion in a decades-spanning tale of friendship, betrayal, and mass murder that overwrites everything we knew about Venture history.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing:
- Jonas Sr.'s grand plan to place his brain in Vendata's body is rendered moot when both he and Vendata are killed.
- The entire Pyramid Wars was nothing more than a trick controlled by the Guild to make the OSI exterminate SPHINX. Brock is justifiably shocked when he finds out.
- Ambiguous Situation: While Blue Morpho/Vendata is seemingly the culprit of the Movie Night massacre, he denies it claiming he doesn't remember doing it.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Monarch not only gets away with pretending to be the Blue Morpho, but he actually takes credit for killing the real Blue Morpho.
- Big Bad: Jonas Sr. certainly sets himself as one for the whole trilogy.
- Big "NO!": Jonas Sr. shouts a terrifying "NO!!!" when the Monarch's presence causes Vendata to recognize him as his long-lost son Malcom, causing Vendata to disconnect from the PROBLEM. It immediately leads to Jonas Sr. trying to forcibly seize Vendata's body for himself.
- Call-Back:
- Back in Past Tense, Orpheus predicted that Action Man was "two years and 17 days" away from having a stroke. Guess what happens to him here. note
- The shrink ray, used in many earlier episodes, is used again to help Old Team Venture escape the building.
- The Cameo: Younger versions of Bud Manstrong and Timothy Treister appear during the flashback.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Vendata from Bot Seeks Bot.
- Continuity Nod:
- Hank brings up his old alter-ego, "Russian Guyovitch" from Showdown at Cremation Creek Pt II and "The Bat" from Venture Libre.
- During Red Death's flashback, an advertisement for 24's blue stanza can be seen on the magazine the villain is reading.
- Cross-Referenced Titles: To Season One's Careers in Science where the PROBLEM light first showed up.
- Dying as Yourself: After decades of being Jonas Sr.'s robotic slave, Vendata dies when Jonas Sr.'s attempt to forcibly seize control of his body leads to them fatally crashing. In the process, Vendata's humanity is restored, and he is briefly reunited with his long-lost son, Malcom (a.k.a. the Monarch), in his last moments.
- Everyone Has Standards: Old Team Venture is suitably uncomfortable with Jonas reviving the old Blue Morpho and turning him into a sentient robot.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Not including flashbacks, the last three episodes have only covered one day through the night, with the stinger of this episode briefly showing the morning after.
- Failed a Spot Check: Back in season one's "Careers in Science", the Venture family "fixed" the blinking "P.R.O.B.L.E.M." light aboard Gargantua-1. Jonas reveals here that he was communicating in Morse code, but one thought to check.
- Framing the Guilty Party: Zigzagged. Upon learning that Vendata, Venturion, and the original Blue Morpho are one and the same person, thus likely making him responsible for the Movie Night Massacre on Gargantua-1 that killed Jonas Venture Sr. and setting off the Pyramid Wars (thanks to the Sovereign impersonating the SPHINX Commander), Brock Samson (representing the OSI) and the Guild's Council of Thirteen agree to take dual custody of Vendata and disassemble him. They also pin both Jonas Sr.'s death and the crimes of the current Blue Morpho (the original Blue Morpho's long-lost son Malcom, aka the Monarch) on him, in order for both the Guild to save face with their members and for OSI to avoid revealing that a costly war on a terrorist organization was built on a lie.
- Given Name Reveal: According to Vendata's identification software, The Monarch's real name is Malcom Fitzcarraldo.
- Go Out with a Smile: How Vendata dies. He sees his son for the first time in decades and smiles before he finally powers out.
- Jerkass: The only reason why the Blue Morpho did Jonas' dirty work was because the latter kept blackmailing him with revealing their scandalous sex tape to the public.
- Karma Houdini: The murders and violation of Guild law the Monarch committed are pinned down on the original Blue Morpho, letting him off the hook.
- Invoked by the Sovereign in Red Death's flashback. Instead of killing the surviving villains for their part in the Movie Night Massacre, he decided to Let No Crisis Go to Waste by starting the Pyramid Wars.
- Karmic Death: Jonas Sr. mistreated his friend, the Blue Morpho, by sleeping with his wife, blackmailing him into doing his dirty work, callously turning into a robotic slave after death, and, decades later, tried to take his body for his own for the second time. He dies when, in his attempt to forcibly seize Morpho/Vendata's body, he ends up flying out the window along with Vendata before crashing, killing them both.
- Kick the Dog:
- Red Death takes no small amount of pleasure in revealing to Brock Samson that SPHINX had been framed for Jonas Venture Sr's death by the Sovereign, setting off the Pyramid Wars (which Brock was recruited by OSI to fight in) under false pretenses and destroying the Guild's only serious competition. Red Mantle gets in some gloating as well.Red Mantle: Oho, look at that. I have never actually seen a man realize his whole life has been a lie.
- Pretty much everything about Jonas and Blue Morpho's relationship, especially with how he blackmailed Blue Morpho using a sex tape to do his dirty work.
- Red Death takes no small amount of pleasure in revealing to Brock Samson that SPHINX had been framed for Jonas Venture Sr's death by the Sovereign, setting off the Pyramid Wars (which Brock was recruited by OSI to fight in) under false pretenses and destroying the Guild's only serious competition. Red Mantle gets in some gloating as well.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: It's heavily implied that Jonas Venture dealt with the Blue Morpho and his wife's problems conceiving a child by impregnating her himself. If this is true, that would make Rusty and The Monarch half-brothers.
- Meaningful Name: The title itself. "Arrears" by definition means "money that is owed and should have been paid earlier." In other words, debts. The episode's plot is about Vendata/Blue Morpho confronting the living remains of Jonas Sr. about personal debts that had been prevalent between the two for a very long time. Eventually, Jonas pays for the debts - with his own life.
- Mood Whiplash: Right after Monarch tearfully says "Daddy?" to Vendata, he quickly turns to the Guild and proudly claims to have killed both the Blue Morpho and Jonas Venture.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- One of Red Death's associates in the 1980s was Mister Fahrenheit, "the Supersonic Man", a Speedster who looks remarkably like Freddie Mercury. The name is taken from the Queen song Don't Stop Me Now. In fact, given all the other rock stars in the Guild, past and present, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that it actually is Freddie Mercury.
- Dr. Z is also shown hanging out with "Scary" Nelson and "Shrill" Spector (based on Harry Nelson and Phil Spector).
- Not Me This Time:
- While Red Death relishes the fact that he's able to tell Brock that he was an Unwitting Pawn in the SPHINX Wars, he also very clearly states that he had nothing to do with the actual massacre that preceded the conflict in spite of being involved with the raid on Gargantua-1.
- The Blue Morpho admits that if he actually caused the massacre as Vendata, he would have been able to remember it.
- Not So Stoic: Kano speaks for the first time since ORB.
- Pet the Dog: For all of Jonas' unspeakable acts throughout this episode, he does refer to Jonas Jr. as his "savior" when the latter uncovered him in the desert; whether he managed to realize he was his other son, or if he was even aware that Rusty absorbed him in the womb, is still up in the air.
- The Reveal: Buckle up, because there are so, so many:
- The death of Jonas Venture Sr. was the result of him being a victim of the Movie Night Massacre of 1987 in Gargantua-1 and Vendata was the one to cause the disaster. Maybe. Also, Jonas is only a head because Kano, Colonel Gentleman, and the Action Man accidentally dropped his frozen corpse on the way to the P.R.O.B.L.E.M. device after tripping on Rusty's toy cowboy that had been stuck in the machine since the 1960s.
- The Pyramid Wars? The Guild framed SPHINX for the Gargantua-1 Movie Night Massacre, kickstarting the war just so the O.S.I. could get rid of their only competitor.
- Gargantua-1's PROBLEM light is actually a P.R.O.B.L.E.M., a PROgressive Biological Life Extension Module that the original Team Venture popped Jonas Sr.'s head into after the Movie Night Massacre, and the blinking seen in "Careers in Science" was Jonas trying to get someone's attention using Morse code. Even worse, Gargantua-1 falling from orbit as seen in Season 2's ninth episode "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner?" was also Jonas Sr.'s fault after he screwed up trying to interface with the station's systems.
- Vendata? He's actually the Monarch's dad and the original Blue Morpho.
- Sequel Episode: Of sorts to both Bot Seeks Bot and more importantly, Careers in Science.
- Sequel Hook: The OSI wants Jonas Sr.'s head for unspecified "experiments and stuff". Given the nature of SCIENCE! in this universe, it's quite possible he'll be back.
- Shown Their Work: The building the Triad considers buying for their new headquarters is the very real First Warsaw Congregation synagogue on Rivington Street
in the Lower East Side (complete with a "Doctor Strange window"). - Shout-Out:
- Red Death's outfit in the 1987 flashback is based heavily on Ghost Rider's.
- '80s supervillain Stab Girl is clearly based on Tank Girl with her physical appearance drawn from Wendy O. Williams of The Plasmatics.
- Spanner in the Works: The Monarch completely ruins Jonas Sr.'s plans to take over Vendata's body just by showing up. The Monarch's presence causes Vendata to recognize the former as his long-lost son Malcom, disconnecting Vendata from the PROBLEM and sending Jonas Sr. into a Villainous Breakdown. In trying to forcibly seize Vendata's body for himself, Jonas Sr. ends up flying out the building with his former friend before crashing to the ground, killing them both.
- The Unreveal: There's still no definitive proof who the culprit of the Movie Night Massacre really was, since the Blue Morpho claims to have no memory of doing so as Vendata and says that he would have remembered otherwise.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Pete White, checking on the hacking of Ventech Tower, identifies the P.R.O.B.L.E.M. as the device interfering with the tower systems, and furiously stomps to the lobby with an axe to destroy it, catastrophically damaging the connection and Jonas' half-regenerated body. Vendata's arrival delays the inevitable, allowing Jonas to take the more drastic step to attempt to convince Rusty and Billy to implant him into Vendata. And then, to complete the doom, the Monarch decides to drop by at that moment, distracting Vendata at the critical moment for Jonas to make a last mad dash for the android body.
- Villainous Breakdown: Jonas Sr. flies into a rage and shouts "NO!!!" when the Monarch's presence causes Vendata to disconnect from the P.R.O.B.L.E.M., and he then attempts to forcibly seize Vendata's body for himself. It turns into a fatal mistake when Jonas Sr. and Vendata end up flying out the building during their scuffle, and they are both killed when they crash.Jonas: Blue bastard! Don't ruin this for me!
- Webcomic Time: Action Man finally has the stroke Dr. Orpheus warned him about back in Past Tense. In the show's timeline, that means 2 years and 17 days have passed. Past Tense aired in 2004 — 14 years prior to this episode. Holy crap...
