4yr-old new-in-box MacBook Air not really working. Ideas to resurrect?

I have a nearly 4 year old 13" Intel MacBook Air (USB-C/ retina) with Catalina installed that was just removed from its factory-sealed Apple product box. So yes, it's a brand new older-model Mac. I know that's true because I originally ordered it. Why didn't I open it years ago? Well, it was stacked with some other empty Mac boxes and I forgot all about it.

Unsurprisingly, the battery was completely drained and it lost its date & time setting (which can make a Mac lose its ****). Only after getting to the system preference panel from the "choose language" first boot screen was I able to slowly get it through initial setup screens. Even still, the laptop is incredibly sloooooooow. I finally managed to get the Activity Monitor app to launch after much rotating beach ball and tediously long pauses waiting for the UI to react to my input while the fan was in full gear. I found that the kernel was running the processor at nearly 1000%. You can't force quit the kernel.

I tried Safe Mode, no change. I tried booting into Recovery Mode, it won't (progress bar eventually hits 100%, then nothing). I tried internet recovery boot, no go (did manage to get it on wifi and ethernet). I tried Option at startup to boot a USB-installer for Ventura, nope. The Ventura installer appears at the option screen, then the screen goes black when I choose it to boot. Same thing with a Monterey USB installer.

It won't be possible to run Disk Utility while booted into Catalina because it is sooooooo slow, and I can't get to it from recovery mode.

I think I've run out of things to do. Any other ideas? (I could/ will eventually try the update command from terminal, but I really doubt that's going to get me anywhere.)