Where can I get an application to HankCo? Episode 4.12 is a visionary masterpiece. As they have established time and again, Astrobase Go proves unafraid to take their sordid tale of woe into dark and risky places, ultimately providing us with a rich and thought-provoking story.
The opening of the episode seems like well-worn territory; Rusty continues to thrust Dean into his failed super-scientist footsteps with an internship in New York, even going so far as to make his sensitive son don an old suit that he himself wore in his intern days. He sternly lectures Hank about finding a job. Hatred is lovably quirky and befuddled on nighttime jet functions, and adorably excited about tickets to a Broadway production of the Music Man. Cut to a Hank-operated business reminiscent of exploits seen in season 1’s Tag Sale-You’re it! It makes sense, of course, that one of the only ways Hank can think to make money is by selling his father’s possessions; it’s one of the only examples he’s ever been given to follow. Once this comfortable Venture formula has been set up, however, the meat of the episode is revealed: the mystery of Dermott’s parentage, alluded to in past episodes but never fully scrutinized, is about to be investigated by Henry Allen Venture, expert gumshoe, and his girl-Friday, the Alchemist.