The Venture Brothers

Assisted Suicide takes the Ventureverse out of the realm of the subtle Freudian slip and into the overt world of the three-part clinical Freudian explanation of human consciousness. The craftsmanship of this episode is thoroughly marvelous; it successfully inserts Freudian themes into each storyline contained within.

Within the compound, a strange and varied assortment of father-figures attempt to save the day by different means of might and magic. The tension between Brock and Sgt. Hatred is growing thicker, both driven by an affection/attachment for the boys and a desire to wrest some kind of usefulness for their continued presence. Meanwhile, the boys themselves prove ineffective as anchoring totems for Orpheus’ magical efforts; their father’s love for them is apparently not strong enough to allow for psychic entry. The tone of these scenes could be called Oedipal (perhaps swaying more toward the resolution of the Oedipal complex which supposedly results in identification of the child with the same-sexed parent) based on the nature of the fixation of father-figures, but the dynamic is reversed; it is the father-figures competing for the position as responsible party.