Chuck Versus the Baby

Anybody Seen My Baby?

Photo Credit: NBC

With last night’s Chuck being written by the wonder-twins Lauren LeFranc and Rafe Judkins, we knew that it was going to be a cracker of an episode. Although the chronology of Sarah’s past has always been a bit of a muddle, there were a couple of errors that I found a little glaring, but they weren’t striking enough to detract from my enjoyment of the episode as a whole.

The episode treaded both familiar and unfamiliar ground, showing Sarah’s journey from loner spy to someone with friends and family who are there for her. As with last season’s Phase Three, we got to see Sarah kicking some ass, some in flashback in a Matrix style, with some stylised gymnastics, but we also got to see her vulnerable side. When handling ‘the package’ she was clearly out of her comfort zone, allowing for a couple of tender scenes with her mother.

After Chuck reverted back to making bad decisions based on family in ‘Versus the Curse’, so it seemed that Sarah became very sloppy around this mission because it was to do with family.

First of all, she never even considered that Ryker would have heard the news about Shaw being recaptured and imprisoned. She also fell for the same trick that she’d pulled on her old handler back in Hungary, having a decoy prop and a recording of a baby, despite the fact that five years had passed and the child would no longer be a baby.

 

Guest star Tim DeKay made a great villain as Ryker and it was easily believable that he could be linked to Shaw, both of them having a sadistic streak.

The fight scene between Ryker and Sarah in the house was one of the most brutal that I think I’ve ever seen her involved in. It certainly was a rather, if you’ll excuse the pun, sharp end for Ryker, being run through with a kitchen knife.

Of course, had she been as single minded as she set out to be and taken the tactical advantage, we’d never have got to see that knockdown fight.

The sub-plot this time was Ellie and Awesome giving Alex and Morgan relationship advice, setting the scene for the eventual reconciliation. Morgan did seem a little surprised when Alex kissed him, considering he’d been edging for them to get back together and dropping all sorts of less than subtle hints earlier.

We had some great comedy moments in the episode including Chuck taking down the waiter and proclaiming that he doesn’t need the Intersect, then finding that it would be very useful when the waiter speaks to them in Hungarian. This was immediately followed by a Pythonesque moment (“My hovercraft is full of eels”) where Casey is trying to use the phrase book and ends up saying, “Were… we weeping… curd cheesecake.”

The scene towards the end with the reunion of Sarah and her mother and adopted sister were very heartwarming. I thinkit was very fitting that the safe-house that Sarah sent them to was Casa Bartowski, making sure that they were with people that she trusts, the friends and family that she’s gained since the last time she saw her mother. It wrapped up the two plots of the episode nicely and gave us a very happy note; they could almost have ended the series on that.

So, Chuck and Sarah are splashing out on a new home, hoping that they can make the down payment now that they’ve vandalised the place by carving their names into a doorframe.

But wait, what is this conveniently forgotten plot point from the beginning of the season? I’m sure that a lot of you are wondering, like I am, where the Volkoff fortune that Chuck and Sarah had before Decker froze their assets went to. Surely the CIA would have allowed them access to their own money?

Right, I mentioned earlier about glaring errors. For me the biggest one(s) came at the end with the flashback to Sarah in Director Graham’s office. Firstly, if this was her assignment to Burbank straight after Chuck had been sent the Intersect, why was there no mention of Bryce; he was supposed to be her partner after all.

Secondly, Graham says to her he thinks it’s time for her to become a handler. Initially, her mission involving Chuck was just to grab the intel from his computer, but she decided to stick around to see if he had a backup anywhere and find out how much he knew. She was never supposed to be his handler; it was only after it became clear that he had the Intersect in his head that she and Casey were assigned to be his handlers.

As a bit of a film reference nerd, I literally laughed out loud at the inclusion of a “Wilhelm scream” in the episode. You can catch it at the point when Ryker pushes the waiter down the stairs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1nuOl3WVc

Next time: Chuck Versus the Kept Man

GERTRUDE VERBANSKI RETURNS WITH A MISSION FOR CHUCK AND A PROPOSITION FOR CASEY — CARRIE-ANNE MOSS GUEST STARS — While Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) contemplate the next step for Carmichael Industries, Casey’s (Adam Baldwin) forbidden love, Gertrude Verbanski (guest star Carrie-Anne Moss, “The Matrix”), walks back into his life with a questionable mission in South Beach. Meanwhile, Jeff’s (Scott Krinsky) enhanced intelligence leads he and Lester (Vik Sahay) to suspect that something unusual may be happening at the Buy More. Joshua Gomez, Ryan McPartlin and Mark Christopher Lawrence also star.

Here’s the trailer, take a look:

Chuck Versus the Santa Suit

The Grinch who (almost) stole Christmas!

Photo Credit: Mike Ansell/NBC

What a Christmas treat we got with last night’s Chuck! This is certainly my favourite episode of the season so far and one of my favourites of the series. It just goes to show how good an episode it was when the colossal spoiler in the promo that NBC aired two weeks ago had little impact on the enjoyment of it.

That being said, there is a bit of a large plot hole, so let’s get it out of the way quickly. Surely the CIA would have de-Intersected Shaw when they took him into custody, knowing how dangerous he and it can be. Since they apparently didn’t, the question arises; how did he survive for two years without a Governor?

Right, gripe out of the way, now I can get to the rest of the episode.

This episode was fantastically done, blending pretty much all of the elements that make for a really good hour of Chuck. It also featured the entire ensemble with Team B, Ellie and Awesome and the Buy Morons all getting to play their part.

For a change, Jeff and Lester proved instrumental in the payoff without it being dumb luck thanks to one of their schemes having wider repercussions. You could say that, for a while, they were an unofficial part of the Carmichael Industries team. Plus it was a great chance to have a Subway promotional plug (one of two – the second being a more subtle one at the CIA Christmas party) with Jeff doing a Big Mike and describing the ingredients of his delicious Subway sandwich.

Adam Baldwin got a little comedy, a little action and a lot of heart with this episode. His reaction to Chuck and Morgan finding out about his present for Alex was brilliant, and the scene where he begins to record his ‘final’ message for her on the bear was very moving. Of course he got to tell Alex in person and, caught up in his ‘lady feelings’, even gave her a nudge in Morgan’s direction – “You know, that.. that Grimes kid, he’s not that bad. You should maybe give him another chance.”

Shaw was unpopular during Season 3, even before he did his heel turn. Quite a bit of it was to do with him getting between Chuck and Sarah, and some of it was to do with the fact that he seemed so wooden. When he returned last night, there was a great desire form the fans to see him get his ass kicked up and down the Buy More. We weren’t disappointed, although I’m sure some of us would have liked to have seen him put down permanently.

After he regressed to the old Chuck last week, it was a relief to see Chuck back on form. He had a plan; he utilized everyone at his disposal, used his nerd skills and his physical training to win the day and save the world from Daniel Shaw.

I have to admit that from last week’s promo, I thought that maybe Chuck got the Intersect back, courtesy of Gen. Beckman. When we found out that Jeff and Lester had cracked the Omen code, I figured that Chuck would use it against Shaw. It was quite amusing and ironic that he used the bluff from Superman II, where Superman makes Zod think he has the upper hand when in fact he’s removed his powers.

I felt that the fight scene in the Buy More this time around was better than when both Shaw and Chuck had the Intersect. This fight was not between two guys with near superpowers, it was between two guys who hated each other. Plus we had Ellie get in on the action by clocking Shaw on the back of the head, bringing the fight to an end!

Now that Shaw is locked away you would have thought that his villainy could no longer affect our heroes, but then you get that final scene between Shaw and Sarah. Oh boy, that is a cliffhanger to ponder over Christmas! Whose baby do you think Shaw is referring to? Post your theories in the comments section.

Of course, now that the vendetta against Chuck has come to a close as far as the CIA are concerned, he should be getting back all of the assets that were frozen by Decker, meaning that Carmichael Industries should be rich once again. Having been offered open positions at the CIA means that there are a few options open to each of them.

Where will the story go after next episode? Few people know, but I am very interested to see how it all plays out.

 

Next time: Chuck Versus the Baby

SARAH’S PAST COMES BACK TO HAUNT HER AND THREATENS THOSE CLOSEST TO HER — CHERYL LADD AND TIM DEKAY GUEST STAR — Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) is forced to confront a secret from her past and feels she must do so alone, while Chuck (Zachary Levi) urges her to let him help. When Sarah encounters her original handler, Kieran Ryker (guest star Tim Dekay, “White Collar”), she fears that he will harm those closest to her, including her mom (guest star Cheryl Ladd, “Las Vegas”). Adam Baldwin, Joshua Gomez, Sarah Lancaster and Ryan McPartlin also star. 

Here’s the trailer, take a look:

Chuck Versus the Curse

Being a spy can be torture. Who wants a martini?

Photo Credit: Byron Cohen/NBC

The Buy Morons got the week off as Devon and Ellie got unwittingly involved in the spy game again in last night’s episode. We could all see that pretending to be spies whilst out on a date using Chuck’s OpenTable account would end up causing trouble.

Both thinking that each other set up ‘Operation Eagle’, they stumbled into what turned out to be a bluff for us fans. Being transported to a safe location on the orders of Beckman, they assumed, as we initially did, that it was the bad guys who had captured them. I have to say I quite liked the ‘tuck and roll’ exit from the car as it slowed down. Obviously the doors we saw locking when they got in weren’t childproof!

Team Awesome did pretty well for themselves. Despite not being real spies, they certainly worked well as a spy team. I mentioned on Twitter that Ellie is both a Bartowski and Mrs Awesome, and both aspects certainly showed in this episode.

In fact, there were a couple of other pairings that worked well together; Casey and Beckman for one, and the other non-spy couple Morgan and Alex.

It was nice to see General Beckman out of the office and involved with Team Bartowski again. Like she said, “It was a bit like old times, wasn’t it?”

It was also nice to have Ellie not playing second fiddle to Sarah in the glamour stakes, even giving her the sexy ‘getting ready’ montage. Since they’ve had Sarah Lancaster in either scrubs or plain looking clothes for a lot of the series, it’s good when someone decides to put her in a slinky dress, such as in ‘Versus the Coup d’Etat’ and remind us how hot she actually is.

This whole episode was very much a showcase of the strong females, Ellie, Sarah, Alex and General Beckman. Each of them was responsible for the success of the respective missions.

Meanwhile, the guys were not being quite so clever. Chuck went back to his old self; having his feelings for his family get in the way of making the right decision, Morgan was ready to attempt something overly complicated and, whilst Awesome came up with some good ideas, he ultimately got into deeper trouble.

I liked the B-plot in this, with Morgan having to complete a mission for Casey and retrieve Chuck’s P.A.N.T.S. It was a good excuse to have him working with Alex and they certainly worked well together.

Do we think that Morgan and Alex will have a reconciliation before the end of the series? I think so; all of the signs are there, just look at her face when she opens his box of personal artifacts.

I note that Morgan said that he and Chuck went through an acronym phase when they were younger. When they were younger? Come on, Morgan is still in that phase, you just have to look at T.I.T.S. (yes, I know! :D)

My one problem with the close of the episode is that the whole storyline with the government hunting Team B was wrapped up in an incredibly easy way. Sure, from the look on Robin Cunnings’ face, she would rather give up everything than get a taste of her own medicine, but it was very much a quick fix.

I understand that there are time constraints, given the fast approaching end of the series, but it just felt a little too neat.

We had Casey being broken out of prison at the end of the last episode, and it seems we've got another happening at the end of this one. Because of the spoilers that we’ve seen, we know that Shaw must be prisoner 1647. So it seems that releasing the Omen virus was just part of the plan in order to facilitate his escape. Essentially, the whole episode was about getting to that part.

Next time: Chuck Versus the Santa Suit

Chuck and Sarah learn who is trying to destroy Carmichael Industries; Ellie's Christmas plans come undone; a computer virus threatens to ruin Christmas at Buy More. Stan Lee guest stars.

Here’s the trailer, take a look:

From his comment to Shaw, it seems like Chuck might be getting the Intersect back! Exciting stuff ahead :)

Chuck Versus the Hack Off

Chuck shows a little Community spirit (and a lot of skin)!

Photo Credit: Matt Kennedy/NBC

This episode marks the third time that Zachary Levi has sat in the director’s chair. It was a little different, thematically, from the previous two – ‘Leftovers’ and ‘Beard’ – which both had bad guys taking hostages at the Buy More and a secret about Chuck revealed.

Well, actually there was a secret revealed in this episode. After five seasons we suddenly found out that Chuck used to be a super-hacker, nicknamed ‘The Piranha’. So it seems that the men-folk of Carmichael Industries are amongst the top in their league; Casey being one of the world’s best snipers and Chuck being one of the world’s best hackers.

I’m sure that few people will complain about the amount of skin on show in the episode, but this being NBC and not HBO, we had the use of pixelization to protect the actors modesty (a little) and eventually the robes although we did get an amusing comeback of the pixelization when Colin’s robe bunched up when Verbanski tranq’d him!

There was an amusing little exchange between Verbanski and Chuck after he and Sarah had stripped off. I noticed that Sarah had a couple of glances down at Chuck’s, ahem, ‘self esteem’, as he and Gertrude were talking about how he had ‘nothing much to see/nothing to be ashamed of’. I wonder how awkward all of that was to film; they certainly wouldn’t have been able to film that outdoors in the UK!

Sans-Intersect, Chuck was a little cocky getting back into his hacker routine which he and Morgan cleverly used to call “The Routine”! A little bit of chardonnay and some fast fingers gave us an incredibly quick hack of the ‘Omen’ code to get the coder’s name, and later, Chuck was able to manipulate The Collective’s security systems allowing Sarah and Verbanski to grab the modified USB drive, put in a temporary kill switch and get free flat screens from Buy More.

Carrie-Anne Moss showed that she has great chemistry with the principal cast, not just with Adam. Her use in this episode was an amusing throwback to the first season when Casey hadn’t warmed to Chuck and was distrustful of Sarah.

Gertrude Verbanski is very much an equal and opposite to Casey. They work well off each other and have similar traits. As Chuck says following her comment about the ‘filthy hippies’, “It’s like Casey never left!”

Nice B-story this week with both Casey and Lester locked up in the same prison. There was a funny role reversal with Casey trying to keep his nose clean and Lester using his Buy More skills to become the big dog in prison.

Casey was prepared to wait it out in prison until Chuck and Sarah could find out what Decker’s angle was. Although he admitted that he was using a lot of restraint to not crush Lester.

Amusingly, his connection to the ‘shorter, feminine version’ of Victoria Beckham paid off when Lester saved him from a gang of thugs by threatening to “pull their plugs”.

There was a nice bit of subversion early on when an inmate told Lester he had the 12 gauge he wanted. Of course, we all thought he was talking about a shotgun, but oh no, this is Lester. It turned out that it was 12 gauge wire that had come in for him and that he was using his tech skills to get free cable and internet for the inmates.

In an attempt to convince Lester to see the error of his ways, Morgan and Jeff showed him his ‘competition’, guest star Danny Pudi. However, he wasn’t the only ‘Community’ star to get in some time at the Buy More. Kudos to NBC for managing to keep Yvette Nicole Brown’s cameo a secret. Usually that kind of stunt casting gets leaked, but it made it even better the fact that it was a complete surprise.

A few weeks ago Ryan McPartlin had a cameo on Community, so there’s a lot of shared love between the casts. Hopefully the cameos will convince any Chuck fan who hasn’t cheeked out Community to do so, and who knows, we might see more Chuck stars guest on Community (as long as NBC doesn’t cancel it!)

The final scenes were rather interesting. Decker had used Chuck to grab the virus so that he could frame him for releasing it. Hopefully he had that footage on him as Verbanski pulled the old lift and switch routine, planting a bomb in Decker’s jacket that turned him, an possibly the goons behind him, into chunky kibble.

Alas with Decker blown to smithereens, there’s a lack of a middleman to hint at who’s behind all of this. If you watch the promo for the next couple of episodes, there might be a clue as an old face makes an unwelcome (for most) comeback.

Next time: Chuck Versus the Curse

A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY GIVES ELLIE AND AWESOME A DATE NIGHT THEY WILL NEVER FORGET — REBECCA ROMIJN GUEST STARS –Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) race against time to take down a dangerous computer virus, pitting them against Robyn Cunnings (guest star Rebecca Romijn), a ruthless spy who will stop at nothing to get what she needs. Meanwhile, Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and Awesome’s (Ryan McPartlin) date night takes a dangerous turn and Morgan (Joshua Gomez) is sent on a special mission to recover Chuck’s P.A.N.T.S. Adam Baldwin also stars.

Here’s the trailer, take a look: