The Venture Bros. episode
Perchance to Dean
Season 4
Orig. Airdate	Nov 1, 2009
Writer(s)	Jackson Publick
Director	Jackson Publick
Co-Director	Jon Schnepp
Production #	4-42
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[edit] Overview

Dean finds an aborted clone of his, who attempts to kill him, while Hank (and Dermott) run over his body.

[edit] Rundown

• Episode starts with flashback of Rusty showing his cloning lab to Brock, where he disposes of a deformed clone slug, D-19.
• Present day, Dean is in the shower collecting hair while Hank gets grounded by Rusty for calling him names.
• The next day, Rusty calls Dean to the panic room and gives him his own junior laboratory.
• In an air duct the disposed clone slug from earlier in the episode is now a hunchback, crazy maniac version of Dean, except hellbent on revenge for being ignored for so long.
• Sgt. Hatred shows Rusty some Rusty look-a-like explosive decoys.
• Brown delivery guy delivers packages to the lab where Rusty makes a Shining reference and tells Hank he has many more chores to do and is still grounded.
• Rusty introduces Dean to his muse; progressive rock, in record form.
• Hank runs off with Dermott and is doing donuts in the compound lawn. Hunchback Dean is digging up a Dean corpse but has to abandon it when Hank inadvertently almost runs over Hunchback Dean.
• Hank freaks out because he thinks he just killed Dean. Dermott advices him to go off the grid.
• The Brown delivery guy called the sheriff because he thinks some strange stuff is going down at the compound. Apparently he does have the Shining.
• Rusty remembers about Dean when he comes out of a full body cast. He rushes to Dean and finds him in a Floyd hole. Rusty and Sgt. Hatred dump him in a tub of ice to bring him back.
• Dean needs to science!
• Hunchback Dean, distraught over his plan being ruined by Hank, resolves to kill Dean.
• Dermott tries to dissolve Hank's fingerprints with paper-mâché.
• Dean walks in as Hunchback Dean is opening the oven where Dean had stuffed his wet hair earlier as a result of his sciencing. Hunchback Dean gives chase.
• Outside the compound, local law enforcement decides to storm the compound after finding an open grave full of dead kids and seeing a bunch of Rustys just standing around.
• Hank and Dermott freak out, thinking Rusty called and turned them in. They make their escape in the trolley-train thing, blowing up Rusty decoy bombs as they go and with law enforcement in pursuit.
• Dean and Hunchback Dean fight and cause a fire.
• Rusty and Sgt. Hatred get arrested.
• Dean and Hunchback Dean end up on the compound lawn, fighting. Hunchback Dean suddenly imagines Rusty telling him he loves him just the way he is, and Hunchback Dean goes up to him and hugs him, except it's not really Rusty but a decoy-bomb. *Hunchback Dean blows up.
• After credits, Rusty blames everything on Hank and tells him he'll be grounded forever.

[edit] Synopsis

[edit] Fun Facts

• Hank is heard chanting "Attica! Attica!" early in the episode, a reference to Dog Day Afternoon and Saturday Night Fever.
• Progressive rock albums mentioned or shown by Doctor Venture to Dean include
  • Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
  • In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson
  • The band Asia is named dropped, but no albums are mentioned
  • Fragile by Yes can be seen in the back of Dr. Venture's album collection
• In the final scene, Hank is wearing a lighter colored version of the sombrero he got in Dia de los Dangerous!
• When Hank asks if the delivery man was psychic, Doctor Venture snaps at him that not all black people have the shining, a reference to the titular psychic ability of the Stephen King novel and Stanley Kubrick film The Shining, which features a black psychic.
• The aborted clone Dean's appearance is likely based on traditional depictions of Quasimodo, the deaf and dumb hunchback of Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame. He also lives in the attic of the Venture Compound, likely a reference to Quasimodo's residence in the highest bell-towers of Notre Dame, coveting what he saw below him.
• Dermott claims that in his old neighborhood people used to call him, "The Wolf". This is possibly a reference to Harvey Keitel's role as a cleaner in the movie Pulp Fiction.
• The aborted clone Dean aimed to sew a suit made of Dean's skin, a reference to Jame Gumb, the alias of Buffalo Bill, the villain of The Silence of the Lambs. In the novel and film, Buffalo Bill was sewing a "woman suit" made out of the skin of the women he had killed. The original inspiration for Jame Gumb was Ed Gein, killer and grave robber.
• In the opening scene, a young Dr. Venture is showing the lab to a young Brock Sampson. They seem to be meeting each other for the first time, but they were supposed to go to college together.
• The Episode Title is most likely taken from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. "To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub.", Hamlet (III, i, 65-68). This is part of Hamlet's famous soliloquy which begins "To be or not to be", and it reveals his thoughts of suicide.

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