Chuck Vs The Mask

@JoshSchwartz76 Controversial episode of #CHUCK tonight apparently...

Indeed it was, the characters have developed in a way that the crazy shippers have gone … well, crazy about. For the rational minded of us, the episode was certainly quite an emotional rollercoaster.

Certainly the conversation between Chuck and Sarah towards the end of the episode had some emotional bite. If you don’t feel something by the end of it, then you’re either not a regular viewer or some kind of cyborg.

We’re seeing the spy life and the civilian life colliding dangerously, with serious ramifications for both. Emotions run high, ironically none more so in the spy area of Chuck’s life. Sarah reacting to Shaw’s advances both negatively at first and then reciprocating after the life or death situation. Initially she was uncomfortable with his thinly veiled advances, but it seems all it took was impending death to change her mind.

Chuck, conversely, was rather comfortable with Hannah’s advances, which were far quicker and less subtle. By the end of the episode, Sarah and Shaw are ‘together’, or at least starting out on their relationship, and Chuck and Hannah are getting together in the Home Theatre room.

Concerns about Ellie and Morgan finding out about Chuck’s spy life were addressed, and it appeared to them that his secret was that he was dating Hannah, which of course was a blow to Morgan who, as we saw last week, was besotted with her. Despite having bedded Carina, Morgan still somehow sees the situation as Chuck being the one who gets the hot girls on a regular basis.

As expected, with Chuck becoming a real spy, the tone of the show has become darker, so the laugh out loud moments were conspicuous by their absence. Sure there were a few funny moments, but the out and out comedy is taking a backseat so that the drama can go to the darker place it needs to. A lot of people are concerned about the direction the show has been going, but they need to remember the old cliché  - it is always darkest before the dawn. We just need to endure a little more darkness before Chuck steps out into the light.

Right, I'm off to listen to ChuckYouTuesday podcast #20 - if you don't follow Magnus on Twitter yet, please do so - http://twitter.com/ChuckMeMondays and visit his blog http://chuckgasmic.blogspot.com/ - please note that the podcast does contain mature language.

Chuck takes a break for the Winter Olympics, but will be back on March 1^st with Chuck Versus The Fake Name.

Chuck Vs The Nacho Sampler

The three words 'Best Episode Ever' may be seen frequently on the Web in relation to the current season of Chuck.
Monday night had us craving for Mexican food with Chuck Vs The Nacho Sampler, and boy, was it a spicy episode!

Business was anything but usual everywhere, with worlds colliding and starting to crumble.
Chuck got himself an asset in the form of like-minded geek Manoosh. Casey took great pleasure in pointing out how alike they were by ‘accidentally’ having Chuck’s old file up instead of the file on Manoosh. I thought this served a double purpose, both showing how similar they were, but at the same time showing how much Chuck has come on from his old life.
Nothing, however, buried the ‘old’ Chuck than close to the end of the episode, where he not only shoots Manoosh with a tranquilliser gun, but then with a relative amount of ease, ‘burns’ his asset, sending him, for his own protection, to an underground facility, much like that which Chuck tried to avoid going to himself for the first two seasons.
I’m sure that Chuck will try to take out The Ring so that Manoosh can be safe to go back to having a life outside of a government containment facility. It may come back at some point, we’ll just have to see.

So Chuck is growing up and becoming a real spy. Casey is happy with that, and I’m sure that Shaw and Beckman will be thrilled that their asset is showing more potential, but the look on Sarah’s face said it all. She knew the day would come when he would have to burn an asset of his own, I just don’t think she expected it so soon, or for it to be quite so easy for him. That said, he did down his glass of Scotch, which in itself would be an annoyance to Sarah; the fact that he had taken Casey’s advice in how to handle burning an asset and not turned to her.

In the world of the Buy More, Hannah officially started as a Nerd Herd employee, and of course Jeff and Lester immediately went into ‘creepy stalker’ mode. Morgan, however, asked them to use their skills to find out more about her so that he may have a chance to score with her; perhaps his experience with Carina and the fact that Chuck has Sarah, has lead to his belief that he can bag himself a hottie that would ordinarily be out of his league.
But when she accidentally reveals that Chuck was on her flight to Paris, Morgan calls on Jeffster’s stalker talents to try and find out more about the man he believed kept no secrets from him, Chuck.
Later, when he bumps into Ellie struggling to get information from Devon, they team up to try and find out about Chuck, Awesome and their elusive behaviour.
Could this spell disaster for our hero? Who will find out about his spy life? Oooh, the suspense, the tension, the drama!

There were some very funny moments in the episode, not in the least the scene where Chuck has to get the laser pen from Casey’s pocket. I know a number of us loved the way that Sarah said ‘Thank You’ when Casey accepted that Chuck wasn’t ready to handle his own asset, despite the way he initially approached him, which in itself was very funny. Oh, and well done to all the Buy More extras for looking as creepy as possible, intended of course. Now we know why the only hot women that go into the store go in there because of Chuck!

A few little issues which, although they don’t detract from thee enjoyment of the episode, require less a suspension of disbelief, as a total lack of it. How did Chuck manage to get to Weap-Con in Dubai just after starting work at the Buy More, and back before the close of business the same day? Considering it takes 7 hours one way from London, and last time I checked, Burbank was further away, I think something was either missed or missed out.
Second issue was the fact that despite not living with him any more, Ellie was going through Chuck’s luggage. Just one question, why? I can’t really come up with a motive unless she already suspected that he was hiding something from her and was going to the lengths of breaking & entering to find out what was going on, and I somehow doubt that.

On a personal note – how smokingly hot did Yvonne look in that BSG T-shirt? If the words ‘hot’, ‘cute’ or ‘wow’ are not in your answer, please get your eyes tested!

I’m now off to listen to ChuckYouTuesday, and I suggest all of you do the same, unless you’re under 18, in which case read a good blog on this, something like Televisionary's write up.