The big mystery heading into this installment is the new Blue Morpho that waltzes into the currently Jonas-possessed Venture compound because Blue Morpho is supposed to be dead. Very quickly it’s revealed that it’s Vendata who’s in the Blue Morpho garb and that many of these events were actually set in motion fourth months earlier during the events of season five’s “Bot Seeks Bot” when Brock evidently scrambles his mainframe. This shock to the system essentially reminds Vendata that he is in fact Blue Morpho because the human parts that are inside of him belong to the original Blue Morpho, who’s the father of the Monarch.

“Arrears in Science” examines the families of the Ventures and the Fitzcarraldos (the Blue Morpho’s family), but frames it all through the unbelievable journey that Vendata has gone through. Much of Vendata’s past is explained, a lot of which has been hinted at and explored before through the exploits of the original Team Venture. However, whereas other entries have discarded Vendata when he’s become irrelevant, “Arrears in Science” focuses on those periods of abandonment and attempts to explain his trauma.

It’s confirmed that after the Blue Morpho’s plane crash that Jonas saves parts of his body and turns him into Venturion. However, after the painful events of his life cause him to malfunction, he’s once again deemed expendable. The episode then digs deeper to fill in the details behind how Venturion transitioned into Vendata, as well as Dr. Z’s role in reconfiguring this figure from Jonas’ past into a new villain to use against him.

The episode gets a few good riffs on The Matrix in as Vendata is able to plug himself into Jonas Venture and have a long overdue conversation with him. What’s beautiful here is that this ancient history between Jonas and the Blue Morpho is really what the entire series has been about. These two characters who are relative strangers to the audience interface together as the actual main characters like Rusty and the Monarch are turned into gawking spectators. All of the ancient history that has supposedly defined these characters literally comes back to life to finally settle the score.

More time gets spent on the original Blue Morpho’s history with Jonas Venture and the series finally pulls the trigger on what some fans have started to speculate over the last few seasons. The series throws back to the uncomfortable orgy between the Blue Morpho and Jonas that was set up back in “Rapacity in Blue,” but what follows officially confirms to the audience that Rusty and the Monarch (or Malcolm Fitzcarraldo, which we learn is his real name here) are half-brothers. Jonas is father to both of them.