Chuck Vs The Push Mix

I’m at my peak, mentally and physically. I’ve been doing yoga. Bring on the lasers!

Photo Credit: Jordin Althaus/NBC

When NBC originally commissioned the fourth season, this episode was meant to be the season finale, if not series finale. However, with the addition of a further 11 episodes, this just became number 13 of 24.

 It had all the feel of a finale; the plot points we’ve been building to were resolved and each of our protagonists got a happy ending. Volkoff was taken down, ending not only his evil empire, but also the separation of the Bartowski family as Mama B finally came home after two decades; Ellie and Awesome now have their own little Awesome, and Chuck finally managed to propose to Sarah.

 However, unlike other season finales, no other elements were brought in. At the end of Season 2 in ‘Chuck vs The Ring’ we had the introduction of The Ring and the cliffhanger of “guys, I know kung-fu!” In ‘Chuck vs The Ring Part II’ we had Orion’s secret base uncovered and the mission to find Mama B was introduced.

As a spy, Chuck has never been more competent or devious than in this episode. Fans will note that the Intersect was barely used the whole time, and when it was used, Chuck was flashing on intel rather than an ability; something we’ve not seen for a while.

In the execution of the plan to bring down Volkoff and rescue his mother, Chuck showed that he was an equal to Sarah. Not only did he do the mission without relying on the Intersect, but also, despite the danger, he was willing to risk everything for the people he loved.

 As Alexei Volkoff, Timothy Dalton has proved himself as the best ‘big bad’ of the series. Fulcrum were a little sporadic, The Ring were a little weak at times, Shaw was ….. well, best not to go there, but Volkoff was both menacing and fun, evil yet entertaining.

 The writers did a spectacular job in creating this character, and Dalton absolutely nailed the performance every single time. Sure, the show is genre spanning, but the scenes between Dalton and Linda Hamilton showed that, when they want it to be, ‘Chuck’ can be a brilliantly compelling a spy drama.

As mentioned at the start, Chuck managed to propose to Sarah. Taking Casey’s advice, he didn’t need a romantic setting, so he proposed to her in that hospital corridor. We didn’t need any dialogue to know how he asked, or what the answer was, as the body language in that scene said it all. Cleverly, the floor buffing machine served two purposes in the scene; firstly to show how unromantic the setting was, and secondly to understate the scene – there was no dialogue, no music, just the sound of the buffer and a slow fade to black as Sarah gives the answer we’ve all been waiting for.

Whoever decided to have the proposal in the background with the buffer drowing out the dialogue is a genius. After having the whole big romantic gesture going on in ‘Chuck vs The Balcony’, the subdued nature of the scene just made it that more powerful for me.

Finally, we got another performance from Jeffster! which recalled classic Jeff and Lester; entirely inappropriate and almost cringe worthy at times. I liked how it seemed to split the ‘audience’ in the hospital, we had those who were shocked and appalled, and those who were actually enjoying the performance and even dancing with the boys! Ellie’s face when she heard them over the intercom was priceless. As well as the choice of song and her general dislike of them, she was no doubt recalling their impromptu performance that ended up ruining her first attempt at a wedding.
Speaking of the creepy duo, I’m hoping that they were out of earshot when Chuck was discussing the CIA undercover protection team for Ellie and Awesome. He wasn’t really speaking in hushed tones and neither Jeff nor Lester seemed to be that far away from the Nerd Herd station!

Hopefully, now that we’ve zipped through 13 episodes, the final 11 will have a bit more breathing space. With a story that most shows would take 2 seasons to tell, everything was building to last night in a very short time. Now they have room to play about a bit, Josh Schwartz said that the next episode will be a “launching pad” for a new story-arc, although where it will go from there is anyone’s guess.

Next episode: Chuck Vs The Seduction Impossible – Team Bartowski travel to Morocco to rescue suave spy Roan Montgomery and Sarah dresses as a belly dancer. Miss it at your peril!