Chuck Vs The Living Dead

Oh, boy – Chuck is Shaw-ly in danger now!

Chuck Vs The Living Dead marked the return of Papa Bartowski, played by guest star Scott Bakula. By that very fact you knew it was going to be an intense episode, and boy, was it ever!

Things are moving quickly towards their thrilling and terrifying conclusion. Nefarious Ring agent Justin, using her to track down her father, has drawn Ellie further into the spy world than she’s comfortable with. Orion has a fix for the Intersect 2.0 that will help regulate it so that Chuck won’t go crazy. Oh, and Shaw isn’t dead, apparently.

We had a good mix of the slow paced plot and the action scenes that were being built up to. There were touching moments between Chuck and both Sarah and his father.

The way that it initially pained Stephen to find out that Chuck had downloaded 2.0, was brilliantly played. It was lovely how quickly, either before or during his short conversation with Ellie, Stephen decided that he was going to help Chuck by building a fix for Intersect 2.0 rather than force chuck to get de-Intersected again. The resolution nearer the end of the episode was a lovely family moment, a little father and son bonding and support of Chuck’s career choice.

It seems that Stephen Bartowski’s oddball act might not be so much of an act after all. If Chuck is going a little crazy because of Intersect2.0, then it’s more than likely that until starting work on ‘The Governor’, Papa B was having similar issues with the prototype Intersect in his head.

With all the drama coming up, will he get to finish his work before it’s too late?

We saw Morgan having several beers and pretty much swooning over Awesome and his awesome romanticism.  Morgan also had that neat little scene in Castle looking for the bulletproof pants, the hiding behind the riot shield when Sarah started to interrogate him!

Then we also had nail-biting moments of tension; I was on the edge of my seat at times, there were the set-ups and feints, and then there were the set-ups and the OMG moments.

Jeffster split, but got back together again – as if it was ever in doubt. Our favourite ‘Indian lesbian’ frontman quit the band in a scene reminiscent of one from Hook – saying, “Don’t try and stop me” a few times to intimate that he wanted to be stopped.

The now solo Jeff, or rather Jeff?, was cringingly bad, cementing his ‘creepy’ reputation by hitting on women using a keyboard, a vocoder and disturbing pickup lines.

Justin has gained Ellie’s trust even further by fuelling her paranoia with regards to Casey. Of course, how could she know that she’s chosen the wrong side to ally with; Justin is convincing, after all, he does work for the CIA, so he’s a good guy, right? Ellie is unaware of the spy world that has been going on around her for the past few years, although she appears to be one of about four major characters left who isn’t aware of Operation Bartowski.

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

Next week, the 2-hour season finale – Chuck Vs The Subway followed by Vs The Ring, Part 2.

If you’ve managed not to watch the promo for this, then well done. I won’t spoil it for you, but as Josh Schwartz himself said – it’s like nothing they’ve ever done before.