5. Self-Medication
I cant even get an erection now unless Im tied to a chair with a time bomb taped to my chest.Aw, yeah. Were having us a man adventure, now. Over a year after the The Family That Slays Together, Stays Together, the fourth season began. Whereas season three was kind of all over the place and missing a strong central thread, season four was even more so. Season four was also where Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer tried to shake it all up. Swapping Brock out with Sergeant Hatred. 21s transformation. Dean and Hank without their clones. One of the great standalone stories of the fourth season, Self-Medication shows Doc Venture in group therapy with various other grown-up boy adventurers. Action Johnny returns, along with Patton Oswalt as an overweight Dick Grayson and Seth Green and John Hodgman as an amalgamation of the Hardy Boys and the Menendez Brothers. A sudden death forces everyone to investigate one more mystery. Meanwhile, Sergeant Hatred, Dean and Hank go and see the final segment of an epic fantasy trilogy, and tiny ageless elves send Sergeant Hatred over the pedophile deep end. The animation is beautiful; Publick and Hammer have really learned to make cartoons by this point. Jokes and gags run aplenty, my favorite being either Jonas Venture acting as young Rustys therapist or the fact that Sargent Hatreds anti-pedophile drug is called NOMOLESTAL. This is a particularly outstanding Doc episode. Making him the straight man in a room full of crazies is great. Also, Self-Medication isnt just a post-modern snickerfest. At the core of it is a story about learning to let go of your past. A great message, slick production and homages galore. Classic Venture Bros.