Chuck Vs The Last Details

They've got the week off, what could possibly go wrong?

Move it along, Chewie.                         Photo Credit: NBC

I think that this episode is one of my favourites of not just the season, but of the series. References and callbacks were flying in places and the humour and tension were ramped up in all the right places.

Chuck certainly needs to nerd-ucate Sarah after she failed to get any of the Star Wars references, both asking why Chuck called Casey ‘Chewie’ and looking wonderfully bemused as Chuck and Morgan hummed the Imperial March to get the latter into a villainous mindset.

The plan to get into the mine was taken directly from Star Wars, even Casey knew that, as were a couple of lines of dialogue. The scene where we see Mary on the security camera was, I think, very much a reference to Terminator, with her doing Sarah Connor style pull ups in her cell.

It’s very convenient that the Norseman can kill a specific target, even if that target is apparently ‘half way around the world’. I can buy into a lot of things in the context of the show, but I’m not sure I can fully embrace this small but very important detail.

In order to make sure that this super weapon doesn’t fall into the hands of the bad guys, they have to infiltrate a group of buyers. Cue Morgan who is not only the only member of the team that Vivian and Riley don’t know, but he also looks like a recently detained Italian arms dealer. Well, not so much looks like, but has a beard like the guy, so that’s convincing enough!
Bringing Morgan onto the team has allowed for some great storylines, and pairing him up with Casey, his possible future father-in-law, has given us some great moments. This was shown in this episode by the fact that Casey wants to keep Morgan safe because he made a promise to Alex. I think it goes a little deeper than that, but I doubt that Casey would ever admit to caring about Morgan.

Jeff finally had a dream come true; thanks to his Chuck/Sarah montage video, he got a smacker from Ellie. It seems that despite the creepy drug-addled stalker exterior, he’s a romantic at heart, who knew?

It was also a good episode for using the entire cast in a way that made sense, with Jeff, Lester and Big Mike having a role to play in the rehearsal dinner sub-plot. It provided some laughs and, as you’d expect from Jeff and Lester, some slightly disturbing imagery. Strangely enough, despite Jeff’s ‘nips slips… of Chuck’ thing, Lester managed to come out in the lead on the freakiness stakes with his bizarre montage.

Things to be learned from this episode: Casey can snipe using a video feed to target, never ask Lester to make you a video, and never order the house special from a grubby Colombian cafe. 


*Final ratings are in, with Chuck scoring a 1.4. NBC seems to be under-performing in the ratings compared to the other big networks, certainly on a Monday, so it seems a 1.4 is pretty good.

We find out the fate of Chuck with the NBC upfronts on Mon 16^th, the same day as the finale. Fingers crossed people; it’s a big day for both Chuck and the fans.
With the last two season finales being possible series, we’ve grown used to them being big, bold and with a twist at the end setting up a possible next season. Even if next episode does turn out to be the last of the series, it’s still been a helluva ride.


Next episode: Chuck Vs The Cliffhanger – Before he can kiss the bride, Chuck must enlist his wedding party to take down Vivian Volkoff and stop her from destroying the big day. When he turns to Alexei Volkoff for help, the CIA sends its toughest agent, Clyde Decker, to stop them.

Take a look:

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 Wedding Planner

The Intersect who cried 'flash'!

Photo Credit: Mike Ansell/NBC

Last night’s episode of Chuck saw the welcome return of Gary Cole as Sarah’s con-man father Jack Burton.
The main story started off okay, but got silly, even by ‘Chuck’ standards, rather quickly. From Chuck’s fake flash, things spiralled out of control, but alas, they didn’t really have the budget to pull it off. It was sold short by the fact that the entire resources of the CIA, NSA and FBI amounted to eight guys with guns, a van, a couple of cars and a net.
I’m also going to assume that Chuck had no intel on Artur Novakov because, as well as having been busy with wedding planning and the like, it was too recent to be in the Intersect database.
One of the best parts was seeing Sarah try to imitate Chuck’s ‘flash’ face. Then Chuck had to fake a flash based on that, which must have been tricky for Zac since the flash face probably comes naturally for him these days.

Delving into Sarah’s back-story not only helped to give us the schmaltzy payoff at the end, but also drove home a lot of why the character has become who she is. From growing up pulling cons, to working in the CIA, it’s all been about putting on a mask and pretending to be whoever the con/mission requires you to be. Moving from place to place and having adventures whilst never revealing who you are has been part of her life for so long that she has only started to let herself be vulnerable since meeting Chuck.
That accounts for why she was conned, because she’s let her guard down and learned to trust someone, not as a partner in the spy sense, but in the emotional sense. She thought with her heart, rather than her head, which is ultimately what a good con artist hopes for. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

There’s also an interesting point if you consider that Bryce Larkin, being a natural spy, was essentially a younger version of her father. They both lived the life, being other people when they needed to be, so it could have been the case that she felt a connection with him because he reminded her of her father, and that made her feel safe.

It’s also worth pointing out that Matt Bomer who played Bryce then went on to star in White Collar as, you guessed it, a con man. Strangely coincidental, or possibly not.


When the con involving the Zephyr took off, then the episode really hit its stride. Taking over one of Daphne’s cons to perform another con for the good of national security was an interesting idea. The setup also gave us references to previous episodes, whether intentional or not. Of course, we had Jack calling Chuck ‘schnook’ and Casey ‘cop face’ which was a call back to ‘vs The Delorean’, but there was also Chuck performing as the DJ, trying to identify the mark, which reminded me of a similar situation in ‘vs The Cougars’
I’m sure that Yvonne had fun getting to do another accent, something that is undoubtedly going to be popular with some of the fans.
 
The other story, again with the theme of an estranged loved one, was the Casey/Kathleen/Alex storyline. I thought that Casey was going to tell Kathleen that he was alive, and it would be a big shock moment for her because she thought he was dead. What actually happened was that it seems she recognized him at the Buy More, and she questioned Alex about him and was told all about him.
Given these facts, it was natural for her to assume that Casey’s cover was his real life, part-time security guard with a job at the Buy More. Since Alex seems to have told her that Casey was a government agent, she was obviously suspicious, but fate/the writers stepped in and she found out the truth during the stand off in the parking garage.


Next episode: Chuck Vs Agent X - Chuck and Sarah put aside spy work to have a weekend of debauchery, but Awesome’s plans for Chuck’s big night don’t go quite as expected. Meanwhile, Ellie’s investigation into her father’s computer leads to a life-changing discovery.

This episode won’t air until the 2^nd of May; next week we have a repeat of Chuck vs The Honeymooners instead. Yep, another hiatus in the season, so no trailer for the new episode yet, but I’ll upload it here as soon as one appears.

*EDIT 26th April - promo for Chuck VS Agent X - take a look;



*I put off posting this until the ratings came in, but it seems we stayed steady with a series low of 1.3.
While being very not good, we have to take into account that the programmes following it on NBC; The Event and Law & Order: Los Angeles only managed to pull in a 1.1 each.

Staying positive, but ultimately I think that the chances of Chuck being picked up have decreased. Let's hope that the campaign targeting the advertisers has made enough of an impact.

Chuck Vs The Family Volkoff

Family ties and family lies? Cool, or not cool.

Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/NBC

Chuck Vs The Family Volkoff certainly had it’s moments, but a couple of the twists seemed rather obvious. This episode started to move all the pieces towards the endgame, but who will end up facing checkmate?

We had three children caught between their parents: Alex, Ellie and the mention of Sarah having been in that situation as a child.

Alex couldn’t invite Casey to her graduation because her mother believes he is dead, so she’s had to lie about him. After Sarah talked about her experience being in the middle, this didn’t sit well with Casey. Inevitably, Alex wants to tell her mother now, something that Casey is even more reluctant to have happen. Which is the lesser of two evils, or will there be a choice?

Ellie has been working on the Intersect problem at home, as her father wanted her to, but Mary isn’t happy about it. Add to the fact that Gen. Beckman seems to be continuing with Director Bentley’s plan to have Ellie crack the secrets for them, this puts Mama B in an uncomfortable position.
In both cases, it seems that the truth will come out, one, apparently next week, the other, most likely before the end of the season.

There was some nice screen time between Alexei and Vivian, the father trying to make amends with his daughter. Of course, she has fully embraced what it means to be a Volkoff, and has become evil and manipulative.
The only problem with this family reunion was that it showed how much better a villain Timothy Dalton is. He certainly didn’t disappoint in this episode, being both menacing and funny. His apparent act to turn over a new leaf seemed sincere at times, but you couldn’t help but wonder if he really meant it. I was in no doubt at the end of the chess game that he’d lured Team B, and specifically Chuck into a trap, but he really did seem to want to make amends with his daughter. Had Vivian been this seasons main villain, it might have worked, but when you consider that she’s the replacement for her father, it just feels a little flat.

The idea behind it is a good one, a Dark Side parallel of Chuck. He’s an accidental spy from a family of spies, and she’s an accidental second-gen villain. The fact that she seems to have embraced the family business so readily doesn’t really ring true for me. The woman we met in ‘Masquerade’ becoming the vengeful criminal mastermind just seems to have happened very quickly, although I’m not totally sure of the timeline on that.
I’m not sure if it’s the writing or the actress, but Lauren Cohen as Vivian Volkoff just doesn’t have the charisma to be a convincing threat. She certainly doesn’t come off as enjoyable as Dalton, with his moments of ice-cold villainy counter pointed with his fun loving nature. It’s like being fed steak and fine wine, then being switched to a burger and soda.

Unfortunately, it appears that the rest of the season will lean on Vivian being the big bad, assuming that we’ve seen the last of Alexei, with him being wheeled off back to prison.

*Apologies to any fans of Lauren Cohen, but she’s just not doing it for me as a villain.

More fun stuff, with Casey and Morgan turning into a married couple! Their co-habitation seems to have put them in sync with each other. Drinking their orange juice in unison and bickering over mouthfuls of cereal was a joy to see.

It was also nice to see the continuation of Ellie becoming more unwittingly involved in the spy world. She’s now turned the tables a little on her family, lying to her brother and spying on her mother, which is nothing if not returning the favour.

It also managed to tie Ellie to Vivian in a way, with both of them interested in the mysterious Agent X, a person that Mary Bartowski wasn’t even aware of until this episode.

What I took from the overall theme of this episode, is that families keep secrets, families lie, but ultimately, families are a blind spot or a weakness for people, no matter who they are.


Next episode: Chuck Vs the Wedding Planner – When Chuck and Sarah get conned out of their wedding money, there is only one man they can turn to for help — Sarah’s conman father, Jack Burton. Meanwhile, Morgan pressures Casey to face Alex’s mother.

Take a look:

Chuck Vs The Muuurder

Duct and Cover? What's shakin' Bacon?

Photo Credit: NBC

This week saw the inevitable murder mystery episode with Chuck and his team trapped in Castle with Bentley and four new recruits, knowing that someone in their midst was a killer. It had a lot of potential, but to me it felt a bit flat at times, which could be due to the fact that this episode was written by writers who were new to Chuck this season.

The whole thing with Chuck being assigned to lead the Intersect project and given his first leadership role was pretty good. As I tweeted, and no doubt many others have commented, there was the little hat tip to the series ‘Charles in Charge’ which was just one of a couple of pop culture references this week.

With things going from bad to worse, it was up to Chuck to take control and figure out who the killer was. Taking advice from Sarah and Casey helped him to take charge, despite his lack of confidence and he did eventually figure it out. The murder mystery itself wasn’t much of a mystery to me by the time the second bomb went off, I probably watch too many whodunits, but the reason behind it eluded me until Beckman explained the Volkoff connection. I’m half wondering if Damian’s mission was just to blow up Castle, sending Chuck a message, because there had to be easier ways of taking Chuck out of the equation.

This episode, like last week, showed just how unique Chuck is, and why that is a good thing. In the Director Bentley’s world someone would have to die in order to secure the bomb and save the rest. Chuck’s view of the world is a little different and nobody else needs to die. He might do things differently from a ‘real’ spy, but his abilities and nature mean that he is no less impressive in the role.

The Buy More sub-plot had a number of laughs in it, largely due to several ‘Number 2’ jokes, including the Big BM being left on fire on the Buy More’s doorstep. We also had the allusion that retail is like the mafia, with a meeting of the Buy More and Large Mart ‘families’ to negotiate a hostage exchange.

Ellie is starting to get drawn into the spy life again, having received her father’s laptop from Bentley at the end of last episode. She seems to be making headway with the problem, but how long will it be before she figures out that it has something to do with Chuck? Somehow she’s managed not to guess that he’s still in the spy game, but I’ll blame the stress of becoming a parent for at least some of that.

I felt that there was some character growth here for a few players. Chuck became more of a confident leader, showing that he can ultimately deliver, which I think helped to secure his position as the only Intersect. Bentley went from being rather cold and manipulative, to having Chuck’s back and getting along with him. Casey showed that he’s becoming more, well, domesticated, by hanging out at the end of the episode with Chuck and Sarah for some milk and cookies.
But by far the most character growth was Devon. Who knew that Captain Awesome could become such a convincing liar? He was useless not that long ago, but he lied to Chuck about switching the hard drive on the Orion laptop. I’m actually a little surprised he knew how to do that, although he didn’t actually do it.

Any of you familiar with Scottish detective drama Taggart will be familiar with it’s most quoted phrase “There’s been a murder” and that’s what this episode title reminded me of when I first heard it. It’s a common enough phrase, but it was nice to hear it used by the guy with the British accent, although I doubt that was an intentional reference!

I loved the little callback in this episode, with Brody’s ringtone being Journey’s ‘Any Way You Want It’ as Chuck’s was in the pilot (and, I have to admit, mine still is!)
The Agent X Files thing was amusing, a neat reference, and since 4.22 is called Chuck vs. Agent X, I’m wondering if we’re going to see one of Orion’s old partners. I think I recall seeing one of the boxes in the Orion Cave marked Agent X, but we’ll have to wait for a few weeks to find out.

*As I was writing this, the ratings came in, and they don’t look good. Chuck slipped to a series low with a 1.5 in the 18-49 demographic.


Next episode: Chuck Vs the Family Volkoff – Timothy Dalton returns as Alexei Volkoff as it seems daughter Vivian has truly embraced her fathers business. This episode will air on the 11th of April.

Take a look:

Chuck Vs The A-Team

Bomb diffusing? How d’you like them apples?

Photo Credit: NBC

This episode saw Chuck sidelined by the two top Greta’s – the best of the new Intersect candidates. It was good to see them go back to the Greta thread that was introduced earlier this season, and then swept aside by the Volkoff arc. Also picked back up was the whole deal with the Orion laptop, which I’d hoped would be more than just a tool to get the Intersect working again. Seems I’m going to get my wish with Robin Givens shady character returning the laptop to Ellie in an underhanded move.

It also brought back something that we haven’t touched on for a while, that the CIA/NSA are still looking for people other than Chuck to become Intersect spies. I don’t think that’s been mentioned since the start of season 2.

We had an almost paternal moment between Chuck and Casey, with the latter making sure that Chuck could get to his juice box easily, even making sure it was his favourite! The fact that he no longer felt like a third wheel probably helped Casey focus more on his duty, but ultimately he realised that he missed Chuck and Sarah.

Since the introduction of Alex, he’s been becoming more of a family man, softening a little around the edges. Not much, but a little. This is Casey we’re talking about!

The storyline also served to show us how special Chuck is. He may be just one of many people who are capable of housing the Intersect, but he’s one of a kind.

The two agents, Greta and other Greta, or Vicky and Rick, were glad to be de-Intersected, with Rick even referring to Chuck as ‘that poor bastard’ for having to live with the Intersect constantly.

Vicky seemed to let the Intersect take charge, and in doing so killed the man and armed the bomb. Rick wasn’t thinking outside the box, relying too much on all the information he needed being in the Intersect.

Personally, I think the Terminator quip would have been far funnier and more meta if they’d managed to bring back Summer Glau, but Stacy Keibler worked well.

A small issue with the logic of this episode: if the whole idea was to keep the two teams separate, why did they build the second Castle base inside the first?

The non-spy story was pretty good, it didn’t feel as if the Awesome’s had been shoehorned in to give them screen time. As I mentioned previously, it brought the Orion laptop back to Ellie, as I think Papa B had intended.

Jeff and Lester managed an homage to Ghostbusters with the whole ESP test. The amusing thing, of course, is that Jeff does have some degree of psychic power when he really tries, but Lester dismissed it, reading CIA as a name, not as the initials. Idiot.

One final point, regarding the product placement: I thought that Awesome’s extolling the virtues of the Toyota Sienna was less than subtle. With this episode we got not just a product placement, but pretty much a complete commercial for it.

*The ratings came in whist I was writing this – not brilliant news. Chuck hit a low of 1.6, which isn’t great, but it could have been worse, considering that it wasn’t promoted terribly well, and the fact that Daylight Savings always screws with the ratings.

Next episode: Chuck Vs The Muuurder - Chuck is put in charge of a top-priority mission, but his leadership skills are pushed to the limit when there is a murder in Castle. Meanwhile, Awesome takes on a mission of his own when Ellie finds an alarming new hobby. Elsewhere, Morgan’s leadership is also tested when his Buy More troops wage war against Large Mart.

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