Monsters of Television

“I am not letting you shoot a tiger. They are endangered and majestic.”

This has nothing to do with the plot.

Better.

After an episode where Chuck and Sarah act like foolish children, it’s a relief to find them as just regular old romantic idealists. After three years of repression, the compression of their relationship makes sense and their reaction to being unburdened feels right. Last week, they were such idiots that not even a new relationship compounded by the romantic intoxication of Europe could explain how experienced spies could be such rubes. But, in Burbank, Sarah seems much more grounded and Chuck — well, Chuck has been waiting for this not only for the past three years but his enitre life so he’s footloose and fancy-free. Even if last week had some moments where the couple worked in-synch with each other to demonstrate how close they were, it seemed almost surreal, like some saccharine dream Chuck was having. Here, they work as a team and it doesn’t feel cheesy. It’s the coupling as I’d hoped it would be: a continuation of their previous relationship just more comfortable.

Maybe one day they can be as cool a couple as Morgan and Casey.

The theme for this episode is couples as a team: Chuck and Sarah, Morgan and Casey (a more romantic couple I have never seen), Awesome and Ellie (the I Dream of Africa C-Story), and The Turners. The Turners (these parts sadly underusing Fred Willard and Swoosie Kurtz) are a legendary super-spy couple, like the two-headed, monogamous version of Roan Montgomery. General Beckman decides, if Chuck and Sarah “insist” on continuing their romantic aspirations, they might as well learn from a team that’s made it work. Yeah, you have to suspend your disbelief a little bit. I’m starting to think that they don’t actually work for the CIA or the NSA anymore but some clown college off-shoot of Homeland Security. Helps me get through the day.

While Chuck and Sarah have their mission of observing the Turners in action, Casey has his mission of trying to turn Morgan into an adequate spy on penalty of both of them going for training (and retraining) at boot camp. Casey shines here. He gets to do all the stuff to Morgan that Sarah wouldn’t let him do to Chuck and we reap the benefit of getting to vicariously live that nerdy excitement about spy life we missed out on in the first couple of seasons. Morgan’s enthusiasm for espionage is quite a bit different from the “I want a normal life” whining we heard from Chuck at the beginning. Casey bringing the spy training down to real world examples, like asking a girl out, directly hits Morgan’s perceived weaknesses (and sets up some pretty decent comedy). I was hoping Morgan’s “red test” would be Duck Hunt or Call of Duty with a Zapper but watching Morgan fire a gun that has so much power than his tiny-man grip its kickback forces it into the air (“I think your gun just exploded in my hands!”) is pretty good.

The Turner comedy does not fare so well. It turns out the Turners suffer from many of the same issues as most couples after being together for 30 years except their problems are complicated by constant exposure to temptation, excess, and shots of adrenaline. This troubles Chuck since he, at first, he sees them as role models (titular alert!) But, after watching them fall on the ground (she in a prat fall, he with a bad back), he realizes they aren’t who he wants to become. Presumably, he is still idealistic and hopes to be known for something a little more high-brow. Sorry, Chuckles.

Because you probably watched the previews from last week, you know this episode has two things: a double-cross and a tiger. Let’s explore the tiger first.

I can imagine Phil Klemmer thinking he needs a cliffhanger for Act I and pondering, “You know what this script needs? A freaking tiger!” The goal of the mission Chuck, Sarah, and the Turners are on is to retrieve some secret decryption codes that happen to be hidden on the neck of a tiger named Sasha. The comedy for the scene is good enough with both Sarah and Chuck being scared of the thing (and the match of Chuck taking the collar off to Morgan taking the keycard from Big Mike is not bad). They try their best to fit this tiger into the storyline as much as possible but — I had a writing teacher in school that told me about putting animals in your scripts, specifically stageplays. She said that if you put a dog on stage, the play becomes “that one with the dog.” It tends to overshadow everything. I couldn’t get around the tiger. Morgan and Casey run into it later and the tiger is used as a test of Morgan’s bravery/moronitude. The tiger sniffs out the Turners in Chuck’s place. The tiger is essential to the plot but I can’t help thinking, “A freaking tiger?” It’s out. I’m going to let it go.

The double-cross is the other thing you saw in the previews. The Turners turn out to be rogue and steal the collar from Team Chucknsarah. The whole thing is pretty banal. Chuck is disillusioned by the Turners and their betrayal not only to their country but also to each other. Blah blah blah. What bothered me the most: Chuck and Sarah send up an empty room service cart with a note as a distraction so they can sneak in the back of the Turners’ hotel room. On the note: Compliments of the Bartowski’s. It’s misspelled. Bartowskis. There is no indication of possession here. You’re a Stanford man, Chuck. Get it together.

As you can imagine, because this is Chuck and we want to wrap this up quite quickly, the Turners help Chucknsarah out of a bind so Team Chuck speaks on the Turners’ behalf, lying about their double-cross being a triple-cross. Odd numbers being a good thing, Beckman lets them slide. Chuck asks Sarah to move in with him at the top of the episode and, by the end, Sarah is totally into it. I mentioned before that the compression of their relationship makes sense since, we assume, they’ve been thinking about this and sure about their choice for some time now. But I wish they would have allowed some more time to let this kind of drama breathe. Maybe with next week’s episode (which looks pretty interesting — and has Christopher Lloyd), I’ll have forgiven them the sit-com wrap-up in favor of better things to come.

So, what’s left, what’s left. Oh, right! We bless the rains down in Africa.

Awesome and Ellie’s story in DRC would read mostly as a commercial for Doctors Without Borders had it not been for the ending. They arrive in a rain-soaked village, lost and surrounded by men with heavy artillery. Even I felt a slight twinge of danger here. Being in a foreign country (especially one where I don’t speak the language) with a history and current event of violence, even if I’m there in a helpful capacity, does not appeal to me. Ellie has just as tough a time with it, struggling as she is away from home, in a strange land, and not taking to it as quickly as Devon is. They meet a man that saves them from a snake and is, apparently, the head of Doctors Without Borders for their village. He ends up being a confidante for Ellie and he helps her realize what’s important. There are copious shots of the sick and ailing, a lot of talk about making a difference, and a handheld perspective that, I guess, is supposed to make us think this is more “real.” Like I said, it kind of blends together with the charity ads that often play during my Hulu screenings. But, when Devon comes down with malaria-like symptoms and Ellie rides with him out of town, the guy that saved them from the snake pops open his phone. Hey! Remember the Ring? They’re still around! I thought we’d lost you guys forever. Apparently, they’re using Ellie and Devon as mules or moles or something because Ellie “doesn’t suspect a thing.” Oh boy.

Better than last week but hopefully the best of this mini-season is still to come. I’m hoping for more Morgan and Casey next week but they will probably be overshadowed by the Intersect storyline that intrigues me. The effect of the Intersect on Chuck’s psyche is untread ground and I like the idea that the staff psychologist is Doc Brown (or insert your own favorite awesome Christopher Lloyd character here). Last week was such a bust and I’m happy to see this show dip into new territory.

Update: Forgot to mention the opening. Obviously a nod to Hart to Hart with Morgan being the one keeping his eye on them. They’ve been using this as a promo so I wasn’t terribly surprised by that (but, of course, that video has since expired on both Hulu and NBC.com). What struck me about the sequence: the Lost-like extreme close-up on Morgan’s eye upon coming out of the dream. This isn’t the first time Chuck has referenced Lost (remember in season 1 when the doctor first charged with removing the Intersect shows him a series of images that prompts Chuck to say, “Oceanic Flight 815 was shot down …”). Maybe this mini-season, where Chuck gets Sarah and is, more or less, happy, is actually Chuck’s Intersect-afflicted flash-sideways and Morgan is Burbank’s Desmond. How awesome would that be?