Chuck Vs The Aisle Of Terror

Prepare to be scared - Black liquorice… Man feet… OTTERS!!!

Photo by: Jordin Althaus/NBC

  The Halloween episode of Chuck was pretty much all you could have hoped for, unless you were hoping to see more of Sarah in that Princess Leia costume!

 It was creepy in places, funny in parts, and had a cracking twist upon twist with Mama B double and triple crossing; lies within truth within lies.

 Of course, a large part of the Bartowski family relationship seems to be about secrets and lies. The interesting thing is that both parents disappeared in order to protect Chuck and Ellie. Steven was Orion, and so left to protect them from his enemies, but in the case of Mary, did she disappear to protect them from her allies, or even protect them from herself?

 Chuck’s desire to believe his mother’s story blinded him to the possibility that she may not have been all she claimed to be. He was aware of this just enough to acknowledge this and tell Sarah, but not enough to stop him from, possibly naively, believing her despite all that she’s done. I would probably have a hard time trusting anyone who shot me!

 In the end, Casey lies to Morgan in order to protect Chuck from the truth. Then he teams up with Sarah to seize Mama B in order to both interrogate her and to protect Chuck from both her and himself.

 This also lead to Chuck having to reveal to Ellie the reason that their mother left all those years ago, and in doing so, he may have revealed to her that he is still a spy.

 Coupled with this story of maternal ambiguity was the often amusing Halloween plot featuring Dr. Stanley Wheelwright, played with zeal by the original Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund. Although this story was downright silly in places, such as the payoff with memories from Jeff’s demented brain saving the day, it was enjoyable fun.

 I did wonder about the scene with the toxin device in Castle though. I assume that Chuck and Sarah thought it may explode if not de-activated; why else release Wheelwright? However, it doesn’t explain why, after the countdown restarted and accelerated on the double booby-trapped device, did Chuck just stand there as the gas was released? Also, wouldn’t Sarah have been exposed to some of the gas as well, since she was standing about 6ft away in an open area for about 20 seconds before Chuck initiated the lockdown?

 After a couple of incidents in Castle involviing chemical agents being released, surely they’d have some sort of airtight blast-proof containers for just this sort of situation. Whoever deals with Inventory needs to get on that!

 It was good to see Morgan still providing comic relief in both the Buy More and spy worlds. Only he would take a paintball gun to an informant meeting, although how he managed to hide it in that jacket without ruining the line of the suit baffles me! I think I also detected a Casey-style grunt from him. Is he taking on things from his mentors? With Big Mike he adopted a (small) fish plaque, with Casey is he adopting a grunt?

 As always, I recommend checking out the latest ChuckYouTuesday podcast – just click the link to the Chuckgasmic blog in the side bar, but please remember it contains strong language.

 Next week: Chuck Vs The First Fight, which guest stars former Bond actor Timothy Dalton and SNL’s Ana Gasteyer.

Chuck Vs The Couch Lock

Weekend at Bernie’s Casey’s!

Photo by: Michael Ansell/NBC

 This week saw a very Casey-centric episode; filling in a little more of his past while having the character grow a little more by the end of it.

 Serious kudos should go to all involved, especially Adam Baldwin who was able to convey so much whilst doing so little. I didn’t think it would be possible to emote whilst paralysed on a couch and wearing a Stormtrooper helmet, but he managed it!

 Who could fail to love Morgan in this episode? There is a real hero beneath that Halo-playing, beardy exterior, and I think that Casey has recognized that.

 Despite having nothing to prove to anyone, he risked his life to save his friends, thus proving his bravery. Well, as the saying goes, he’s either mighty brave or mighty stupid, and sometimes I think it’s a bit of both, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Okay, so maybe part of his selfless act stemmed from the fact that he wanted to help find Casey and was sent packing back to the Buy More, but over all, Morgan has manned-up enormously since the first season.

 The relationship between Alex and Morgan should be interesting to see over the course of the rest of this season, and just how closely Casey keeps tabs on them. Despite giving his blessing (although not without warning) and having warmed to Morgan a little more in this episode, I don't think Casey will let him far out of his sight when it come to dating his daughter.

 Jeff and Lester managed to sink further down into the social gutter. We knew that Jeff has some substance issues, but Lester? I thought he was the one that was supposed to be keeping Jeff as close to the straight and narrow as is possible for someone that messed up.

 As a former player of Magic: The Gathering, I did like the reference, although I'm not sure I'd be up for an evening playing it with Jeffster. Also we had the amusing notion that Casey can detect Jeff and Lester by smell. Either of them are the man your man could smell like, if he’s not careful!

 We had the strongest 'indication' that Chuck’s mother might be playing for the other side. No, not in that way! I mean that she’s working with the bad guys, or at least working for them. The fact that Casey's A-Team flat out told Chuck and Sarah that Frost was their boss and Volkoff's right hand, to which Chuck voices his concern that his mom might be one of the bad guys was a little clichéd but I can't really fault the writing.

 There was also the cliché of Chuck telling Sarah that he was going to stop searching for his mom, followed by the phone call from her. It should be interesting to see what she has to say for herself next week.

 It must be something about the new writers coming in, with one minor exception; all of them have absolutely nailed it. Possibly because they have come in during the shows run, as opposed to those who started with the show, they have the benefit of having an outside perspective. It’s kinda like the best possible fan-fiction making it to the screen, all within the confines of an ongoing plot.

 Lovely pop-culture references sprinkled throughout the episode, including the A-Team shout out, which just had to be done.

 One point I would bring up is that if the vault with the gold had been sealed for 10 years, how come they'd not figured out another way of getting the gold out, other than using Casey's cold dead hand? Just a thought.

  As always, I recommend checking out the latest ChuckYouTuesday podcast – just click the link to the Chuckgasmic blog in the side bar, but please remember it contains strong language.

 Next week: Chuck Vs The Aisle of Terror which guest starts Freddie Krueger himself – Robert Englund. After this weeks’ cliffhanger ending, it should be a good one!

Extra: It has been announced that Chuck has been picked up for a full season with an extra 11 episodes ordered!

Chuck Vs The Coup D'Etat

You say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world.

Photo by: Chris Haston/NBC

 First off, apologies for the lateness of this week’s blog; I haven’t been shot recently, but I have been ill.

 This Monday’s Chuck saw the return of the enthusiastic Generalissimo Goya and our first visit to the wonderful (just see his promotional video) island of Costa Gravas.

 I think many of us were assuming that Awesome and Ellie would feature more heavily in this episode, given the promo pictures of Awesome and his giant statue. As it was, they had some comedy moments, such as Awesome patting his own statue on the ass, but largely they just provided a conduit for the story.

 We had some awkward moments with Chuck and Sarah stemming from their inability to discuss emotional issues properly. They are crap communicators, and it didn’t help the fact that Chuck used Morgan as an excuse to hide behind when trying to bring up the fact that they weren’t communicating on that level. Man up, Bartowski!

 Of course, they weren’t the only couple to have awkward moments. We saw the fledgling relationship between Morgan and Casey’s daughter Alex stumble, but ultimately move forward. It also gave us a great scene between Morgan and Casey, as well as some wonderful dialogue between Morgan and Big Mike.

 All in all, Coup D’Etat was a story about relationships, one starting out, one taking awkward faltering steps to the next level, and one brought back from the brink of collapse. The spy story was very much a secondary consideration.

 Hands up all those who liked the scene with Sarah trying on the bikinis. *counts* That’s a lot of hands!  If that wasn’t used as a promo already, it should have been. Just that scene with a little ‘Chuck, Mon 8/7c on NBC’ at the end would have done well I think, especially during the football.

  As always, I recommend checking out the latest ChuckYouTuesday podcast – just click the link to the Chuckgasmic blog in the side bar, but please remember, it contains strong language.

 Next week: Chuck Vs The Couch Lock which I’m assuming has nothing to do with the common definition of ‘couch lock’ (Google it if you need to) and guest stars Joel David Moore, Eric Roberts and Batista.

Chuck Vs The Cubic Z

Chuck Vs The Ducts – has a ring to it!

Photo by: Greg Gayne/NBC

  This Monday’s episode of Chuck had some themed stunt casting. Not only did we have the return of ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin as Hugo Panzer (S3: Chuck Vs First Class), but we also had another former WWE star in the shapely form of Stacy Keibler as this weeks Greta.

 And if that wasn't enough, Nicole Richie returned as Heather Chandler (S2: Chuck Vs The Cougars) in a story where there were twists of loyalty and some observations that hit close to home.

 With a transfer that was apparently arranged by the mysterious Volkoff, Heather found herself in the same transport as former Ring assassin Hugo Panzer. Presumably the breakdown was arranged, but whether the rerouting to Castle was or not, we shall probably never know.

 Another thing glossed over was how Panzer was able to escape his cell using a rolled up newspaper. Sure, you can kill a person using a rolled up newspaper (although I won’t tell you how) but I doubt it’s possible to get out of a bulletproof detention cell using one. Suspension of disbelief is the key phrase in this situation.

 It seems that crawling through ventilation ducts, a rather expansive labyrinth of them at that, is a learning, growing experience; it certainly was for Sarah. She realised how far she had come since she last encountered Heather, despite her former high school nemesis still being able to get under her skin.

 The spy side of this episode worked better for me than the Buy More side. While the script was generally quite tight, there were few laughs to be had. Perhaps it’s simply a case of new writer Nicholas Wootton not being sure how that world works. Aside from the odd moment, Jeff and Lester lacked that Jeffster spirit; do they help tackle a problem head on to try and stop a riot? No, they’d run and hide as soon as things started looking ugly.

 As to the riot in the Buy More, where were the CIA/NSA staff? They seem to have dropped off the radar except for Greta - and if you look closely, background artists. The undercover agents would have been able to sort out an unruly mob. I suppose it was one way to allow Big Mike to revisit his glory from Chuck Vs The Gravitron and bag him his second single-handed takedown of a stories villain.

 Does it confuse/bug anyone else that if the whole idea of the Buy More is as a cover for a CIA/NSA substation why does it only appear to be staffed by the Buy Morons?

 I enjoyed the fight scenes in this episode, with both Sarah and Chuck having to face off against their old nemeses in the same area but in radically different ways. Then there was the ‘cage match’ between Chuck and Panzer, although I can’t say I found it entirely convincing that a man like Panzer would have just left Chuck in the Cage.

 Then we had the rooftop gunfight where Sarah decided to let Heather help fight off Volkoff’s men. It showed that she was willing to take that risk in order that she and Chuck could get information about his mother and her relationship to Volkoff, which seems to be pointing in the direction that she is more connected to him than just having been captured by him.
 Poor Casey though, shot again! As Sarah pointed out, that's another Purple Heart for him, but let's hope they don't make up the majority of his collection!

 The final scene, which we were informed of every time it cut back to the ring falling through the air ducts, was played beautifully. Rather than it being some kind of sitcom moment in which the characters are in an awkward stunned silence, it was more a realisation by both Chuck and Sarah that this could be a sign. “Call it Fate, call it Luck, call it Karma” to quote Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters.

  As always, I recommend checking out the latest ChuckYouTuesday podcast – just click the link to the Chuckgasmic blog in the side bar, but please remember, it contains strong language.

 Next week: Chuck Vs The Coup d'Etat, which features the return of Armand Assante as Allejandro Goya and Mekenna Melvin as Casey’s daughter Alex.