Chuck Vs the First Bank of Evil

Chuck and Sarah get Lost in The Matrix!

Photo Credit: Greg Gayne/NBC

See what I did there? Never mind.

This week we had two transformations: that of Vivian McArthur into Vivian Volkoff and Sarah from indecisive wedding newbie into OTT Bridezilla.

It was the subtle parallel between Chuck and Ellie’s storylines. Both trying to coax someone into being what’s needed, and both ending up creating a monster!

The idea of Chuck inadvertently creating ‘Darth Vivian’ is an interesting one, although I’m not sure how well she’ll be received as a villain when following in the footsteps of Timothy Dalton. We shall have to wait and see if they have an evil father/daughter dénouement in store for us.

I have to admit that I’m more interested in Volkoff’s lawyer, played by Ray Wise. It would be lovely to see some of the smirking, playful villainy that he brought to ‘Reaper’, it would fit more alongside Dalton’s brand of bad guy. As it is, Vivian is still a little bland. I hope they do go down the dark-side route, Darth Vader was always more interesting than Anakin Skywalker.

Sarah’s wedding dress montage was a well-executed parody of others we’ve seen in so many romantic comedies before. The comedy gave way to a lovely emotional scene where she finally realises that she’s getting married.

Minor plot hole this week in the fact that nobody noticed the two bank robbers looked suspiciously like Vivian’s security team from the previous visit.

I loved the whole scene though, as Chuck and Sarah discuss wedding things while holding up the bank. It was reminiscent of the fight scene in the bank during the very first episode in which Alexei Volkoff was introduced.

The start of the bank heist scene was an obvious reference to the lobby fight scene in ‘The Matrix’. In fact, I’ve uploaded a badly done vid of that whole scene with the music from The Matrix over it. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6jKjSmDVNg

There were two ‘Lost’ references that I noticed during the episode. Not only was Volkoff’s bankcard number 4815162342, but also François Chau (Lost’s Dr. Pierre Chang) guest starred as the bank manager.

Morgan’s roommate plotline gave us a few moments of amusement, but over all, it felt slightly like filler. Getting to the point where he knows about Casey’s secret room and using that as leverage (even though he didn’t realise it at first) seemed like an excuse to have Jeff, Lester and to a lesser degree, Big Mike, in the episode.

Next episode: Chuck Vs The A-Team - Chuck and Sarah investigate when they suspect that Casey is carrying out private missions. Meanwhile, Chuck fears that the CIA’s seemingly-perfect new operatives (guest stars Isaiah Mustafa and Stacy Keibler) will render him obsolete. Elsewhere, Morgan settles in with a new roommate, and Awesome panics when Ellie embarks on a potentially dangerous line of research.

Since NBC are re-launching The Event with a 2-hour premiere next week, this episode of Chuck will not air until March 17^th