Chuck Vs Agent X

There go my primroses! Eat lead ya bastards!

Photo credit: Chris Haston/NBC

I just had to use that line as a topper. I think it was my favourite of the episode!

Anyway, the episode....


The bachelor and bachelorette parties for Chuck and Sarah provided the backdrop to some of this episode, but as it is with the life of spies, work got in the way of both.
Ellie was finally let in on the secret that Chuck is not only still a spy, but also has the Intersect in his head.
The third element was that of the title - finding this mysterious Agent X. I have to say, I had an idea who it might be, but I was still a little surprised when their identity was revealed.

Each of these plots wouldn’t have been enough to fill an entire episode, so they were all mixed together, but Ellie finding out about Chuck and his special abilities felt a little rushed. As much as I like Big Mike and Jeffster, I feel that they were extraneous to the plot. Aside from the comedy montage/product placement, they lent very little to the overall episode.

Whilst Chuck had Casey, Morgan, Awesome, Big Mike and Jeffster to go along to a bachelor party, Sarah is largely friendless. Ellie’s explanation as to where all the people at her party came from was a bit odd to me though. Somehow, as well as women from the hospital, she managed to get ‘a few of the Wienerlicious girls’ along. Now considering that the Wienerlicious hasn’t been in the show since the first season ended, and that the only people we ever saw were Sarah and her boss, it was a bit of a stretch. Maybe she rounded them up from the rest of the franchise outlets?

Things ran less smoothly at the event organised by Awesome in the wonderful Las Vecas (don’t bother – it’s not real!) where Vivian Volkoff’s team tracked down the Orion laptop and tried to extract information from the stoned Jeff.

One question that I had from the start is why the CIA would have something that could track the laptop bundled away in storage in the first place. If, and this is just speculation, they had installed a tracker in it after they’d appropriated it from Ellie, wouldn’t they keep the tracker monitored?

And who can deny the wonderful irony that Casey had Osama bin Laden targets for the party and the episode was broadcast the day after that very man was killed.

With the laptop still in the hands of the good guys, although not quite in working order, it was time to let Ellie in on the secret, which involved taking her into Castle, dishonouring Morgan’s shirt and speaking Japanese. She handled it pretty well, considering.
This led them to the mission to uncover the identity of Agent X, which took them to Somerset, England. Given that we had a spoiler saying that Agent X was someone we had already met, it was a matter of putting 2 and 2 together. It ended up meaning that the connection between the Volkoff and the Bartowski clans is a lot more complicated than I would ever have thought.

I have to say that the idea of an Intersect implanting a cover identity is quite a leap, unless the implantation was done differently, but I’ll go with it, as it’s entirely fictional anyway, so it can be whatever it needs to be!

No doubt Mrs Winterbottom will be high on the list of many peoples favourite one-off characters. She certainly struck a chord with Casey! If it were up to me, being the mother of Alexei Volkoff, she’d make another appearance, even if only to reconnect with her errant son.

It’s nice to see that Alexei will be as important to the end of the season as Vivian. As I said in a recent post, I had feared we’d seen the last of him. With only two more episodes to go, it’s all to play for now.

*Overnight ratings came in as I was writing this, with Chuck rising from a dismal 1.3 to a not so dismal 1.4. We should still be getting better ratings, but a gain is not something to be sniffed at.


Next episode: Chuck Vs The Last Details - Chuck and Sarah’s wedding prep includes one final detail: ensuring that the mother-of-the-groom makes it to the ceremony alive. Meanwhile, Morgan’s responsibilities as Best Man include his most dangerous mission yet, as he faces Vivian Volkoff. Elsewhere, Ellie tends to the last details of the rehearsal dinner and seeks help from an unlikely source.

Take a look:

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

Chuck Vs The Masquerade

There is another Sky….sorry, Volkoff.

Photo Credit: Byron Cohen/NBC

The Valentine's episode of Chuck did not fail to delight. It would have been broadcast on Valentine's Day, but there was that slightly early hiatus. 
This was an amazing and packed episode; we had action, romance, bromance and comedy. Unsurprisingly, Rafe Judkins and Lauren LeFranc, who seem to both know the characters so well and know what the audience wants, wrote it.

Despite all the different sub-plots going on, it never felt as though it was too crowded. Big Mike had some screen time that, while not very long, was perfectly pitched. Jeff and Lester even played a small but crucial role in Ellie and Awesome’s sub-plot.

It was nice to see the Buy Morons back after them being absent for the last couple of episodes, however brief their appearance.

The opening scenes were very funny, with a bemused Chuck and Sarah trying to leave Morgan and Alex to their ‘exchanging of energy’ and Casey walking in and being baffled and looking ready to explode. I loved the rapid cutting between all the players in the last bit of that scene, as Casey looks like he’s stumbled into the madhouse of his nightmares.

We were treated to a great scene between Morgan and Sarah, with the latter obviously outside her comfort zone. Using the word ‘hang’ like a parent trying to be trendy with the kids was brilliant in showing that she’s still growing socially. Just to see Yvonne playing about with the Han and Chewbacca collectibles/toys and making silly dinosaur noises was a delight.

With Morgan doing some serious thinking after that slightly awkward moment and taking Casey’s words to heart. Believing himself to be getting in the way with Chuck and Sarah getting married in a few months, he decided to move out.

There was a subtle comparison with the Han and Chewy action figures. Chuck being Han, the smooth guy who ends up with Leia (remember the faked CIA photo of him and Sarah at Comic Con dressed as Han & Leia?) and Morgan as Chewbacca (although being hairy, he’s not quite tall enough).

The theme I sensed from this episode was that of moving on. Morgan and Alex were moving forward with their relationship, Morgan himself is moving on by even thinking about moving out to give Chuck and Sarah a place of their own. Casey has been given the opportunity to move on with his career, since the talents that he honed during his first years as an agent are being used very little these days (as was brilliantly played by him being bartender on a mission yet again).
Even Ellie and Awesome had a little to do with the theme, taking the step of moving Clara into the nursery, if only so they could get some sleep.

Casey also gave us something unexpectedly meta, referring to Chuck and Sarah as “Charah” – the shippers term for the couple. It did lead to it trending on Twitter for a while – that’s the power of The Home Depot Casey.

We were left with a couple of cliffhanger options at the end. Not only was Casey offered the position behind that enigmatic door in Castle, but we had Vivian finding something important in her father's office. Having been inspired to seek out Volkoff's HQ by an unwitting Chuck, she now has the option of using the resources of her father's evil empire for good, or following in his footsteps. Which will she choose?

Next episode: Chuck Vs the First Bank of Evil - Chuck pushes Vivian McArthur (guest star Lauren Cohan) to get in touch with her inner villain for a mission. Elsewhere, Sarah tries to get in touch with her inner bride as wedding plans ramp up. Meanwhile, Morgan’s search for a new roommate takes an unexpected turn.

Take a look:

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!
 
 

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 Leftovers

Welcome to the party, pal! More turkey?

Photo Credit: NBC

 Proving he doesn’t need an Intersect to have a multitude of skills, Zachary Levi stepped behind the camera again to direct his second episode. There were some slightly avant garde shots, but overall another fine work.
 This episode contains plot elements that bear some resemblance to those in the episode he directed previously, 'Chuck Vs The Beard'. In both, there is an enemy takeover at the Buy More, both looking to break in to Castle. Both have a big reveal; in 'Beard' it was Chuck revealing his spy credentials to Morgan, in this episode, it was Frost revealing to Volkoff that Chuck is her son, and that she has a family. Most importantly for me, both of them feature a Chuck who is unable to flash at the beginning of the episode, and has his kung fu restored by the end.

 Timothy Dalton was brilliant as the menacing, threatening villain, and the lovestruck villain who is apparently great with kids and wanted to meet the family. The menace carried through so that even in the supposedly comfortable setting of the family dinner, there was still that underlying feeling that anything could happen.
 Dalton has, for me, been outshining Linda Hamilton with his passionate performances, first as Tuttle and now as Volkoff. He manages to tap into that balance between serious and silly which is something this show does when it is at it's best. He may be best known for his role as James Bond, but he completely owns the Volkoff character.

  Was it just me, or did you expect someone to shout out ‘License to Kill’ or 'The Living Daylights' during the game of Charades? Well, it was a film, three words - although I have no idea what he was actually trying to mime!

 We had another great homage to Die Hard with Morgan filling the role of John McClane in clothing as well as action, although trust him to tape the gun to his back in such a way that it was unreachable! Yippee ki….oh.

 There was also the African-American computer hacker (with Nerd Machine sticker on his laptop!) and the very subtle inclusion of Dean Martin’s ‘Let It Snow’ when Chuck and Sarah are about to be attacked by Volkoff’s assassins.

 Speaking of which, considering that Chuck was willing to take on three ninjas in Castle just a couple of weeks ago, why was he so insistent that he couldn’t take on even one of those guys without having the Intersect? Is he really that uncertain of his own abilities?

 It turns out that the laptop is a portable Intersect, another curveball for us just as we started to think it wasn’t.

 I’m sure most of the business with the laptop will be quietly forgotten about, given the number of questions it raises. Awesome would need to explain to Ellie where it was, and he couldn’t convincingly lie if his life depended on it. What would have happened if Ellie had put in the correct password meant for Chuck? She knew the phrase ‘Aces, Charles’, having used it in the pilot. Then the business about WHY it was left for both Chuck and Ellie is a little vague at best.

 Ellie had to solve the first problem to unlock it for Chuck so that the Intersect could be restored. Does this mean that Papa B thought that Ellie would be helping Chuck in a professional capacity as well as in a familial one?

 Originally Steven didn’t want Chuck to be involved in the spy world, so I’m guessing that the laptop was programmed after he came to accept that Chuck was going to be a spy.

 I have my own theory as to why it was given to Ellie and then had to be passed on to Chuck. It is possible that, given Ellie’s background in neuroscience, she had to figure out the data storage problem for the Intersect so that she could help Chuck either to restore it, or possibly to come up with a more efficient storage method in the brain, thus enhancing it. She did say that Papa B had been looking at it from an engineering perspective, rather than a neurological one. She made a few adjustments to it, so perhaps this is Intersect 2.1?

 I liked the subtle references to, firstly the pilot, with Chuck falling straight backwards after absorbing the Intersect, and to the end of Season 2 with the line: “Guys, I know Kung Fu. Again.”

 One more thing, there was (I’m assuming) a little fan reference with Casey referring to Frost/Mary Bartowski as ‘Mama B’.

 Next episode: “But, soft! What light from yonder window breaks?” It’s Chuck Vs The Balcony – unfortunately we have to wait until January 17^th for our next fix. :(

In the meantime, here are some things you can do to fill the Chuck-less void.

- Watch Chuck again from the beginning; remind yourself how far they’ve come.

- Rent films like Terminator, Repo Man, Spies Like Us, Cobra, Die Hard and Tron; Chuck has referenced them all.

- Listen to the Chuck podcasts; you may have missed some.

- Go and see Tangled (if you’re in the US, it’s not out until late January in the UK)
- Join a Strip Kick class :) (I'm pretty sure these don't exist!)

- Fight your way across Thailand and earn an unflattering moniker!