The same pros and cons come up in the early Hardy Boys books. The cons becoming terrifying in The Hidden Harbor Mystery, in which a racially stereotyped African-American servant leads a secret society, kidnaps a mentally ill man, and has such power that he keeps an ol’ timey Southern feud going. Plus, when the lynch…

I haven’t gotten that vibe, although I see your point on the color scheme. But he might have a crush on his brother’s girlfriend, and if anything can continue the Venture family tradition of botched fratricide, that’s it.

Another outstanding episode. It’s been quite a while since this show has had a bad episode.

Frankly, you should be, and if you’d read whatever book they base their beliefs on, you’d already have known that.

If Willie Nelson had never written and recorded an original song, he’d have been able to make an impressive career based solely on covers. My favorite of his is “Blue Skies”:

The question is whether he’s hot enough that the Blue Jays trade him and can get out of paying for the $12 million they owe him for next year.

Not elaborate, but you’ve got the idea right. In Season 5's “Bot Seeks Bot,” Rusty sees Vendata (actually, Brock in Vendata’s costume) and says, “The metal murder man from my nightmares! He was real!” Nothing past that, however.

It’s a good defense.

The villain for the Venture Brothers pilot was Otaku Senzur, a ninja, not Doctor Z. Doctor Z doesn’t show up until Season 3's “The Buddy System,” I think.

Jonas’s death was never explicitly explained before this season. In Season 3's “Orb,” Kano said he took a vow of silence after killing a “great man.” Since Kano was Jonas’s bodyguard (Blue Morpho hadn’t ever been mentioned), Brock asked if Kano killed Jonas. Kano didn’t reply, perhaps not wanting to go into the actual…

It could be more years, but I don’t think so ...

And it had slipped my mind that we finally found out who the “great man” Kano killed (and took a vow of semi-silence over), from the Season 3 episode “Orb.”

I suppose you’re right — those lines, in an unapologetically comic-book universe like the Venture Brothers are in, means they could come back. But if they do come back another time, I doubt it will have quite the same punch as these unexpected returns.

An interesting episode that I admired more for the way it tied everything together than for what actually happened. It seems a waste to bring back both Jonas and the Blue Morpho, then get rid of them almost immediately. There might not have been anywhere else to go with the pair of them — well, the Blue Morpho /…

The Monarch’s dream with Rusty is probably a buried memory from when they were young. He remembers the conversation but is inserting their present day selves into the scene.

Oooooooh, I hates that hijacker!

Speaking for myself: In mountainous regions, like where I live, antennas are not be a viable option, or it might require a really good antenna to pull in the station that airs Jeopardy! Also, given that it’s the only show that I would watch over the air and I already have Hulu, when I cancel DirecTV, it would be nice…

I only keep trying The Three-Body Problem because everyone (except you) says it’s so good.

I am finally finishing up the slate of Hugo / Nebula nominees; I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 (and hated all 613 pages of it), and I’ll start Ann Leckie’s Provenance tonight. I’m looking forward to it ...

If you have trouble getting into The Three-Body Problem, I’d just let it go; the first 75 or so pages, in the Cultural Revolution, were the most fascinating to me. Later on, the story follows the viewpoint character as he infiltrates the most porous clandestine organization in the world; his main path into this…