Chuck Versus the Frosted Tips

Thank you for pantsing me.

Photo credit: Jordin Althaus/NBC

So, this week had a few twists and turns. We knew from last week that the Intersect was changing Morgan, not for the better either, and him betraying the team to offer his services to Verbanski Corp. was a clear sign that all was not well.

I’d assumed that the Intersect was going haywire in Morgan because his neurological structure couldn’t handle the amount of information and was overwriting parts of his brain.

Of course this week we found out that Beckman did not send Chuck the Intersect glasses. We have to assume, as Team B did, that Decker planted them with the intent that Chuck be uploaded with the Trojan Horse laden programme. Although, what the plan was for Chuck having it isn’t clear to me.

The main theme of the episode seemed to be relationships; namely the ones between Chuck & Morgan and Casey & Verbanski with bits of Morgan & Alex and even Jeff & Lester thrown in.

Chuck’s friendship with Morgan seemed to blind him to why he was becoming such an egotistical ass, having seen that sort of behaviour in him before. It took Sarah talking with both Ellie and Beckman for him to realise that it wasn’t all Morgan, but the Intersect amplifying his egomania.

I did like the little scene between them at Verbanski Corp. Having taken out all the other trainees, Chuck takes on Morgan and, despite not having the Intersect, hold his own (although it was short and tailored not to be a stunt heavy fight to accommodate the actors) before revealing his identity.

Talking of fights and Verbanski, I see what they meant about ‘erotically charged’ when it came to the fight between Casey and Verbanski! I’d say it was probably more overtly sexual than the ‘gun cleaning’ scene between Casey and Alex Forrest in “Versus the Broken Heart”. I had to laugh at Casey’s face when Gertrude reversed the hold and had him bent over the desk; surprise, annoyance and confusion all manifested there. Priceless!

It was nice to see that Casey can be just as hopelessly awkward with a love interest in a non-violent situation as the rest of us. That being said, he used Sarah as his wingman in a non-traditional form, and then planted a bug on Verbanski so that he could monitor her covertly. Jeff would be proud of you Casey!

Of course, Casey’s lack of social smarts when it comes to the opposite sex stem largely from not being used to opening himself up to emotional vulnerability, which is a good thing for a spy; one less thing that can be used against you, one less thing to get in the way of the job. The thing is, Casey is not just a ruthless assassin/spy any more, he’s also a friend and, more importantly, a father.

The scene between Alex and Casey showed that he’s both protective of his daughter and still unused to the role. I don’t think many fathers would suggest ‘working over’ the guy who dumped their daughter!

The B-story this week gave us Awesome left looking after baby Clara and realising that being a stay-at-home dad was not as easy as he thought. He quickly lost himself, taking advice from himself via the Buy More advert, which lead us to the Buy More part of the story.

It seems that whilst Chuck and Morgan are away, the Buy Morons are nowhere to be found. Well, all except Lester, who was taking a nap whilst Jeff was almost killing himself with carbon monoxide poisoning trying to customise his van.

We got a little humour from Lester looking after Clara for the few minutes it took for Awesome to drag Jeff out of the auto shop. That man can barely look after his friend, but since there seemed to be no other staff available, it was a decision made out of necessity.

By the end of the day, despite being on paternity leave, Dr Woodcomb had given check-ups to both Jeff and Morgan (making both of them wear gowns – does he just carry them around?) and dispensed a little advice to both.

It was quite amusing hearing him say to Morgan that he had ‘lost his identity’ becoming a stay-at-home dad. Come on dude, you’d been at it all of one day!

Since their mission for Gen. Beckman has been stolen from under them by Morgan and taken to Verbanski, the team decide to try and reclaim it. At the same time, Chuck decides to try and appeal to Morgan, saving him from himself in essence.

I initially heard the targets name incorrectly. During my first watch of the episode, I was convinced the guy with the whistle-blowing website was called Max Zorin, which is of course the name of the baddie played by Christopher Walken in the James Bond film ‘A View to a Kill’. Turns out that his name is actually Matt Zorn, note the difference and yet how easy it would be to mishear it.

As Morgan goes all mission fixated, Chuck reminds him of his 7^th grade pantsing and the ham & moustache sandwich revenge and gets through to the old Morgan, but not before he shoots a hole in the helicopter fuel tank. It does give us some hero time as Chuck and Casey rescue Morgan and Verbanski from the flames, allowing Casey to get some, ahem, face time, with Gertrude.

It seemed like a pretty easy fix, reminding Morgan of his pantsing incident to cut through ‘the fog’ of the Trojan Intersect. Jeff being cured by Awesome paralleled this; the easy fix of not spending the night sleeping in his van.

Given the 13 episode run, I suppose certain things will have to be quick fixes in order to push the narrative along.

Regarding Morgan’s pantsing; I have to say, kudos to the hairy one for being able to grow a full moustache in the 7^th Grade – I wasn’t even shaving until the equivalent of the early 9^th grade!

Also, is anyone else finding Jeff as a normal functioning human being freakier than him being a burnt out weirdo? How long will this version of the character last and what does this mean for the future of ‘Jeffster!’?

So the tampered with Intersect is being dealt with, but there’s a kill order out on the little bearded one and it goes way above Beckman. Who is behind it and how far does the conspiracy against Chuck stretch?

Next week: Chuck Versus the Business Trip

Chuck and Sarah must stop an assassin after the Intersect at a Buy More convention. Jeff shows a new side to himself.

Here’s the trailer, take a look:

Chuck Versus the Bearded Bandit

Who's Luke Skywalker?

Photo Credit: Danny Feld/NBC

This week was the 80th episode of Chuck! In it, we saw the introduction of Gertrude Verbanski (guest star Carrie-Anne Moss), with whom Casey has a ‘past’ (and he seems to have a 'past' with a number of spies!). We also had Chuck stepping, not entirely successfully, into the role of Morgan’s handler. To be fair he isn’t entirely to blame.

Morgan has been feeling sidelined as an asset, so it makes sense that he wants to prove himself to Chuck as well as to Casey and Sarah that he can be a competent spy. He feels that he should be the essential component in each mission because he is the Intersect now. It’s a clever mirroring of Chuck during the earlier episodes of the series, dealing with having the Intersect for the first time, yet being made to stay in the van/car most of the time. The problem with Morgan, however, is that he’s far more impulsive and enthusiastic, something which Chuck can’t get under control.

The introduction of the rival Verbanski Corp. and of Gertrude Verbanski herself was well done. It felt like a legitimate one-upmanship that paid off later in the episode.

She has been described as being very much the like Casey, although since she was meant to be ex-KGB, so why does she have the photo of Reagan in her office?

Not only does Verbanski and her company pose a threat to the success of Carmichael Industries, the threat is also a more personal one with her trying to recruit Sarah, as a possible ploy to get to Casey. Of course, by the end, the team is facing an even worse problem with Morgan defecting to the dark side (not that he’d get that reference at the moment) and joining the rival team.

Guest star Justin Hartley, known to Smallville fans as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, was hardly on screen at all. It was a role that could have been filled by anyone, but I was hoping that, since he has a bit of experience in action, that we’d get to see some of that. In Smallville, he was often the equivalent of Captain Awesome, with the writers or directors using any excuse to have him shirtless as often as possible. There were no nods thrown in, or any real use of his skills. In my opinion, he was woefully underused.

Seeing Chuck kicking some butt without the Intersect was great. The fight against the guards in Karl Sneijder’s HQ was pretty good, although it bugs me slightly that the stunt double for Josh Gomez, even for the brief glimpses on screen, comes across as being clearly not Gomez, and that spoils it a bit for me. You can include Morgan’s little kung fu ‘wah’ and ‘hi-yah’ noises, but it still feels a little off compared to Chuck’s earlier fight scenes.

The scene where Morgan takes out Wesley Sneijder’s guards at the compound was pretty good. With it being done either in silhouette or off-screen, it made it that little bit more amusing.

I noticed that Morgan’s ‘zoom’ face has become more pronounced this week. To me, it’s a look of concentration/trapped wind. However, he still needs to get a handle on not telling everybody that he just ‘zoomed’. As Chuck said, it’s top secret for a reason!

So, the Intersect is causing a problem with Morgan’s memory and it seems to be affecting his behaviour as well. For any Stargate fans, like myself, we’ve seen something similar to this in the Ancient database.

When Jack O’Neill downloaded it into his brain, it started to overwrite his language centres and reprogrammed his behaviour. It had to be removed or it would have eventually killed him.

I think the Intersect is reprogramming Morgan’s brain, overwriting bits of his memory and altering his behaviour, yet while it may not go as far as killing him, his behaviour could end up getting him killed. He has always been more of the gung-ho type and it seems that his newfound feeling of invulnerability is amplifying that.
I was concerned when Morgan got the Intersect at the end of last season as I thought that only a select few could download it. It seems that it takes a certain kind of brain to handle it without it controlling them. Both Chuck and his father had incredibly special brains to be able to handle having the Intersect without major side-effects

Let’s hope that when all is said and done, the Morgan that we all know and love is restored to his bumbling self!

I enjoyed the goofy Buy More sub-plot, although it seems to be portentious for things to come on that front. Big Mike ends Lester’s audition saying he’s over the Jeffster! thing, to which Lester replies “Me too.” Is this the beginning of the end for our favourite fake band?

As well as the meta reference to Ryan McPartlin’s earlier career as an Abercrombie & Fitch model, it was amusing to see Devon’s Buy More badge in the advert read ‘Captain Awesome’!

The one thing that did bother me slightly was the way a particular line was put.

Big Mike to Devon: “Look around. This is your brother-in-law’s place of business and it’s empty…. but your creamy skin and unusually high cheekbones can change that. And you were taking time off to help your family. Isn’t Chuck your family?”

To me, that came off as if Big Mike knew that Chuck owned the Buy More. I think it’s probably just the way it was phrased, because it’s not common knowledge that he bought the place.

Other points I liked:

* Morgan takes out Sneijder in the Buy More by flying across the main aisle with a yell and knocking him out in one punch… and nobody notices!

* During the attempt to be super-nice to their new client, Casey offers him a muffin, baked freshly that morning. “Please, take a muffin.” It just seems so unlike Casey. Mind you, we also know that he makes quiches.

* When Morgan apologizes for taking out all of the guards, Wesley doesn’t seem that fazed by it. Obviously it’s completely believable to him that a short bearded guy could take out a team of armed guards when 3 trained spies couldn’t.

* Casey ‘sharing’ a little too much in the car with Sarah. “You ever have sex with someone who just tried to kill ya?”

Update: Ratings are in and not looking good. Chuck scored a preliminary 0.8 in the all important 18-49 category. I hope people aren't deserting because they don't like the Morgan as Intersect storyline. Just because it's the last season, doesn't mean ratings don't matter. Let's give it a proper send-off - remember to tell your family and friends to watch LIVE.

Next week: Chuck vs. the Frosted Tips

Chuck worries Morgan is letting the Intersect change his attitude for the worse. Sarah gives Casey relationship advice on Gertrude Verbanski. Captain Awesome discovers shocking news about Jeff and Lester.

Here’s the trailer, take a look:

Chuck Versus the Zoom

Zoom zoom zoom!

Last night saw the return of Chuck for the 5^th and final season. Although we ended the last season on quite a game changer, it appears that the writers had a little re-think on hiatus.

We still have the same team, but ‘Cliffhanger’ left the dynamic changed enormously. Chuck had the Intersect suppressed by Decker, became super rich thanks to Volkoff, now he owns his own company and Morgan has the Intersect.

The season opens with Chuck having ploughed through most of his fortune on start-up costs for ‘Carmichael Industries’; equipment, a private jet, servicing the private jet, and Morgan’s penchant for eating fresh shrimp on said private jet. By the end of the episode, Decker has frozen the teams’ assets, leaving them with only the Buy More as a source of income until they find another spy contract.

This works quite well for me; given millions of dollars, Chuck would effectively have been Bruce Wayne, with a gadget for every occasion, which is not where the show lives. With the money inaccessible, they are being forced to survive on their skills and wit, which can make the show much more dramatic than it may otherwise have been.

Morgan’s entrance as the Intersect was typically Morgan. A ridiculous entrance in the opening gambit showed that despite having gained a supercomputer in his head, he is still the slightly bumbling guy he has always been. The fight scene was pretty good, with Morgan becoming like a bearded Jackie Chan, complete with comedy kung-fu cries. However, in my opinion, that scene also showed that Morgan may be more like the Gretas, in that the Intersect largely dictated his response, not as with Chuck, where he impacts on the Intersect. It didn’t seem to allow Morgan to be Morgan, whereas Chuck still managed to be funny whilst kicking butt.

Of course, as soon as the fight was over, Morgan went back to hilarious ineptitude and broke the vase they were trying to steal. Doh!

The dance scene between Morgan and Sarah also confused me slightly. After ‘zooming’ on dance skills, Morgan seemed to mainly be standing about whilst Sarah did all the work. It could be that Gomez is not that good a dancer and it was choreographed to compensate for that, because, out of all the dance scenes over the course of the series, I think this one involved the least actual dancing.

(Sorry Josh, if you are a good dancer, the scene didn’t allow that to show through!)

I noticed that Morgan doesn’t seem to have a ‘zoom’ face. Whereas Chuck had the whole flickery eyes thing going on when he flashed, brilliantly lampooned by Sarah last season, Morgan has nothing. Minor point, moving on….

With Sarah and Casey still being brilliant spies and Morgan now having the Intersect, this leaves Chuck at a bit of a loss. You can see each time it’s mentioned, how much Chuck misses being the centre of the team. He may be the leader of the group, but he feels he’s lost his usefulness, gone from being Batman to being Alfred.

Morgan having the Intersect worked best whilst showing how out of place Chuck feels without it. We know that Chuck is still brilliant without it, but I think having it for a few years, he’s learned to think of it as part of him, rather than a burden he has to carry.

Chuck’s plan to save his team and get out alive showed the kind of outside-the-box quick thinking that has served them so well, with or without any superpowers. I’m hoping that he gets it back since, as I mentioned in both my ‘Cliffhanger’ post and a little earlier, Chuck’s Intersect was suppressed, not removed.

It seems the Buy More will be playing an integral role this season, being the primary source of income for Carmichael Industries until they get their feet on more solid ground. The thin-as-tissue scene with Jeff and Lester trying to scam money only really served to remind us that, as they are spending so much time being spies, Chuck and Morgan are hardly spending any time in their cover at the Buy More, which is tricky as Morgan is supposed to be the manager.

It was nice to see that Ellie is behind Chuck when it comes to his chosen path. It was quite nice to see a scene between the siblings which would normally have taken place in the house, taking place in the Castle 2.0 room, showing that, whilst not involved in the danger, Ellie is part of the team.

‘Operation Toes In The Sand’, despite it’s awkward acronym, gives us a sensible goal to aim towards for the end of the series. Rather than finding Sarah’s mother, or having another baby Bartowski on the way, it should be setting up a lovely happily ever after payoff for the final episode (although this being Chuck, there may be a twist at the end anyway!)

* I also enjoyed Casey being dismissive of their client as being ‘an ambulance chaser’ and ‘scum of the earth’ until he mentions that Bale stole $2m from Rush Limbaugh, at which point Casey wants to know “everything you know about this animal”. Nice little bit reminding us of the parallels between Casey and Adam Baldwin when it comes to political affiliation!

As you will all know by now, Chuck ended up scoring a series low of 1.0 last night, although it was up against the behemoth that was Game 7 of the World Series. Other channels balked and decided to air repeats rather than get low ratings; NBC stood firm, possibly because they weren’t expecting massive ratings anyway.

 

Next week: Chuck vs. the Bearded Bandit

Take a look at the trailer for the upcoming season:

Chuck Vs The Cliffhanger

Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know - it's serious.

Photo Credit: Mike Ansell/NBC

Last night saw the season finale of Chuck and just like the seasons before, it shook things up, or to use the traditional Chuck finale phrase, it was a game changer. Although the season has had patchy moments, it’s fair to say that these last couple of episodes have been strong.

Despite the fact that I knew they would never kill off Sarah, it had me gripped. What made it such an involving episode were the reactions of everyone else to the threat of her death and the drama that resulted from that.

It was such a compelling episode that I forgot to check in my viewership via the GetGlue app for the first half hour!

With Sarah at death’s door, Chuck was willing to risk everything to save her, with or without the Intersect. This was Chuck’s ‘Phase Three’, going all out, no matter what the cost, to save the woman he loves.

Although he’s been without the Intersect before, he was driven to embrace being a normal spy. Charles Carmichael might be a super-spy with all the powers of the Intersect, but we all know that Chuck Bartowski is more than that. It was a real moment for him when he realised that he could save the day using the skill set that he developed before he opened that email and all he has learned during his time as a spy.

The whole deal with Vivian Volkoff never really struck a chord with me. I’ve said in previous posts that she never seemed like a competent villain, especially following on from Timothy Dalton’s turn as Alexei. In truth, she never seemed like a fully enough realised character for anyone to love or hate. Even in this episode I felt rather indifferent about her, but I was happy that Hartley was reunited with her and that they were both given a second chance.

During the standoff in front of the hospital where all of the Russians parachute in, I was half expecting a Red Dawn reference. Wolverines!

I had discussed on Twitter, knowing the shows love of twists at the end, and the fact that they’d want to keep something back for a possible fifth season, that the wedding may not actually take place and that it was all in Sarah’s fevered mind. Guess I was wrong about that!

For the past couple of seasons, as Chuck has immersed himself further into the spy world, the torch was passed to Morgan. He became the kind of character that Chuck was when the show started, an extension of the viewer, thrown into this crazy world of espionage.

Now, with Morgan being Intersected, the metaphor is complete. Morgan IS the new Chuck.

*Although I thought you had to have a certain kind of ‘special’ brain to handle the Intersect. Obviously they’re more common than we were led to believe!

Of course, there is the possibility that Chuck could regain the Intersect at some point during the next season. Decker stated that the retrofitted sunglasses were a “suppression device”, so it’s not been removed, more locked away. It would certainly make for a great scene having both Chuck and Morgan using Intersect skills to take out an army of bad guys.

This episode could have made a splendid series finale with a lot of things coming pretty much full circle. It was a fairy tale ending; the bad guy was defeated, Flynn Rider Chuck marries his princess and the kingdom Buy More was saved.

But of course, there’s the classic Chuck twist, which leaves the whole thing open to more adventures.

Everything that has happened to Chuck and his family and friends since that fateful day Bryce Larkin sent him the email has been part of a big plan. Someone has been controlling the fates of Team Bartowski and those around them.

*Could the big bad for season 5 be a shady duo collectively known as Schwedak? Well, they have been controlling the lives of Team B from the start!

Now the stage is set for the fifth and final season of Chuck. Knowing it’s the last will allow some form of closure for a TV show that’s been a significant part of our lives for the past few years.

The campaigning will not let up; we have been issued a challenge to get 10 million viewers for Chuck to secure more than the 13 ordered episodes. If there’s anything Chuck fans know how to do, it’s to put everything behind our favourite show and push to get it noticed.

Hopefully the move to Fridays will help and not hinder that movement, despite it being the traditional day to put shows out to pasture.

What would you like to see happen in Season 5? How would you wrap up the characters stories?

Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

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.