Chuck Vs The Gobbler

Back in black – is it Sarah Walker or Miranda Lawson?

 

Credit: NBC

 After setting up Sarah’s mission to infiltrate Volkoff Industries last week, no time was wasted in getting straight to it. Of course, since the initial run was supposed to be 13 episodes, the next one would have been the finale. This means that in order to move the story along quickly, certain elements felt a little rushed.

 The reunion in Castle where Sarah reveals her new look felt a little off. We don’t know how much time has passed between the end of last episode and this one, but it seems that Sarah has had time to do a number of rogue missions to attract the attention of Volkoff. As it was, it seemed like Sarah had barely been gone a week, meaning that I wasn’t getting the relationship anxiety that our hero couple were feeling over their separation.

 Talking of missions, the whole part with Sarah breaking Yuri “The Gobbler” out of prison was amusing enough, but is so full of plot-holes that you’d have difficulty telling it apart from Swiss cheese.

 It shows what kind of man Casey still is when Team B are presented with pictures of Yuri’s victims. Both Morgan and Chuck are slightly disgusted by them; Casey’s remark is “impressive.”

 As a whole, the episode was very enjoyable, and certainly a far cry from the light, romantic fare that we had last week. Everything was mapped out in colours during the show; the shadier world of Volkoff was very much in dark colours, best illustrated by the fact Sarah was all in black, even her hair colour, whereas we had the light colours of the Buy More, the apartments, and even the hospital at the end.

 The inclusion of Ellie and Awesome and their indecision over what to name the baby felt a little weak, almost as if it had been shoehorned in to show that a) the writers hadn’t forgotten they were there and b) somehow we needed to be reminded that there was a baby on the way as we haven’t seen them for a while.

 It was nice to see them, and it did give an excuse to work the Buy Morons into the story, because I really don’t think they would have had any part in this episode otherwise.

 I’m also not sure how our favourite ‘employee of the month’ rejects will fit into next weeks not-a-finale finale

* A little side-note – if you want to be as stylish as the Woodcombs, then you can get the Grunka set from Ikea. It may have been one of the most unusual, but subtle product placements in the show, because it does exist. It’s a 4-piece utensil set with a spoon, a ladle, a spatula and a spaghetti server.

 I liked the visual metaphor at the end for how the characters were feeling. Whilst Alex was by Casey’s bedside with Morgan, showing the love that they felt for one another, both Chuck and Sarah were sitting alone, feeling isolated.

 Sarah’s isolation is a choice that she made, but she can’t help feeling lonely without Chuck. I suppose her consolation is that she’ll be with him again once this is all over.

 Chuck, on the other hand, isn’t sure where Sarah’s loyalties lie, now that she appears to have tried to kill Casey. Without Casey to reassure him, and explain that side of the plan, he feels lost and alone.

 It was nice that Morgan and Casey’s discussion about expressing love had a payoff, like a metaphysical “Chekhov’s Gun”.

Next episode: Chuck Vs The Push Mix – and from the promo, it looks like an epic end to the Volkoff storyline. Add to that the fact that the last 10 minutes are “the best 10 minutes of Chuck ever” according to Schwartz & Fedak, and you have NO reason to miss it.

 Oh and finally, Easter egg that everyone got – Chuck’s inmate number – 092980 – which is Zac’s birthday.

 

Chuck Vs The Balcony

I’ll have a bottle of the one with the stork on the cork and the stable on the label, please.

Credit: NBC

 Chuck returned triumphantly last night after what seemed like an age, well, it was several weeks anyway. For me it was a strong episode; just the right amount of funny, goofy, action-packed, heart-warming and heart breaking that is sure to make this one of the season favourites for most.

 Chuck was back to being far more like the Chuck we grew to love in the first couple of seasons. Of course, he was still able to kick ass with style, especially when fighting whilst holding the wine glass.

 Chuck aiming for the perfect proposal was the main plot of this episode and even Casey got to put in his two cents on proposing, words which cut right to the heart of it and put into perspective all of Chuck’s obsessing over the mythical ‘perfect proposal’.

Morgan played quite a big role in this episode, co-ordinating the sub-mission(s) with some amount of efficiency. He has morphed into quite the go-to guy, having had his skills as ‘The Magnet’ used in Phase Three, and now his planning and strategizing (undoubtedly gleaned from his hours of Call of Duty experience) put to use.

 If I were going on a mission, I’d want Morgan to be involved. When he plans for everything, he really does plan for Everything! – Tide to Go sticks?

 I loved the fact that Casey had as much investment in the proposal as Morgan did. Put those two together and fun always happens.

 Actually, it seems you can put Morgan with pretty much any character and it will be a great scene.

 The pace really picked up when Sarah took control of the proposal sub-mission. She knew how important it was to Chuck, and it being important to him, made it important to her. I doubt that she knew, when she said that she would do anything to bring down Volkoff, how quickly General Beckman would put the ‘double agent’ plan into motion.

 I can imagine there were a few moist eyes at the end of the episode when Sarah revealed that she was following in Mama B’s footsteps and had to leave to take down Volkoff from inside his organization. That makes, by my count, 4 attempts that Chuck made to propose, and a grand total of zero actual proposals made.

 Rewinding a bit from that, Sarah used her ingenuity to play the role of ‘silly drunk blonde’ in order to help Casey out of a fix in the wine cellar. It’s nice to see that the writers are more open to giving Yvonne more humourous scenes now that Sarah has grown as a character and let her hair down, so to speak.

 Another highlight of the episode was the first Jeffster performance of the season. After initially not wanting to meet his arranged bride, he quickly changed his tune and tried to impress her with his ‘Saskatchewan Hinjew’ parlour, hastily rigged up in the HTR. When that backfired he had a moment with Ginsana (sp?) that came across as quite sweet and told her he would reveal his true self. Alas, his at times manic and wild eyed, rendition of ‘Is This Love’ by Whitesnake inevitably scared her off. Can we blame her?

Next episode: Chuck Vs The Gobbler – Sarah gets a new look as she infiltrates Volkoff Industries and Ellie and Awesome talk baby names!