We survived the election to bring you in-depth analysis of the Season 7 finale of The Venture Bros.. Join us for a look at the season’s themes, “Empire Strikes Back vs Barbarella” (only one of them has Terence Stamp playing Dildano) and a whole lot of Guild of Calamitous Intent ritual borrowed from the Masons. Steven Attwell explains who the fuck is Saphrax (and also who’s Hank & Dean’s mom!) and we get into the twin’s psychology again (Jungian and otherwise).

Fair warning: Elana’s knowledge of the Masons largely comes from watching avante-garde filmmaker Matthew Barney’s Cremaster cycle and we both geek out about Alan Moore’s From Hell (which are probably Hammer and Publick’s sources on The Masons anyway).

Things get Freudian, Jungian and John Carpenter-ian in the penultimate episode of Venture Bros Season 7. Join @Elana_Brooklyn and @StevenAttewell on a journey up the Hudson River to a real life secret island castle and meet the Villian With 1,000 References. We play Myth Busters about such topics as lawn darts and “chelation”.

So listen to the podcast here, on Graphic Policy Radio’s iTunes  or find all of our Venture Bros episodes on this playlist.

Come for the long game Venture Bros. lore, stay for the explanation of Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels. Which far fetched as it sounds, is a real thing.

Our podcast examines the themes of The Venture Bros show and all of its cultural and historical references. In this episode Steven Attewell and Elana Levin draw on their knowledge of NY, pop culture and discuss significant themes this season.

Listen here, or on Graphic Policy Radio’s iTunes  or find all of our Venture Bros episodes on this playlist.

PS Elana is on two panels at NY Comic Con: New York TimesOUT presents LGBTQ in Pop Culture and Old Classic, New Voices: Diverse Creators Rate the Comics Canon both on Saturday Oct 6th.

This week’s episode, “The Unicorn in Captivity” is a perfect illustration of why we do this podcast: it is rich with Christ symbolism and Kubrick references. The episode is named after and significantly features one of a series of High Renaissance unicorn tapestries I just so happen to have studied, set in NY’s none-more-goth museum, The Cloisters.

This is the Venture Bros. podcast for people who want to dig into the narrative parallels between our two unicorns; Rusty Venture and The Monarch as well as the symbolism, the history and philosophical questions raised by the hit Adult Swim cartoon.

Steven Attewell examines the episodes’ commentary on sci-fi genre paradoxes via Warren Ellis and Fantastic Four comics. And OSI is no longer just a spoof of GI Joe, it’s a critique of the military industrial complex.

So join us! Here or on Graphic Policy Radio’s iTunes  or find all of our Venture Bros episodes on this playlist (plus Episode 6 which is here).

And comment or tweet me here https://twitter.com/Elana_Brooklyn if you have thoughts about this week’s format. We went long this week. I promise you it’s worth it.