I don't mind that people actually try to explain the direct/retrograde motions of the faster moving Venus and Mercury in the absence of any academic answer to the questions -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtV0PV9MF88
The significant difference between the slower moving planets as seen from a moving Earth and the faster Mercury and Venus is that the stars themselves change their position incrementally to a central and stationary Sun thereby easing the difficulties associated with the actual loops of the faster moving Mercury but especially Venus -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdFrE7hWj0A
The girl in the first video is right when it comes to typing in 'mercury retrograde' in a google search and encountering the harmless astrological websites en masse but neither is there a single instructional video out there reflecting the accurate direct/retrogrades of the planets closest to the Sun that were first explained here.