Monsters of Television

“You are not getting bullets for a long, long time.”

Watch out for Sarah-gator.

Chuck is the ever-expanding sinkhole that constantly sucks his friends in, collapsing any sense of self-determined purpose within them.

Morgan is the most obvious example of this, especially in the beginning seasons (before they realized that Grimes could stand on his own). His character was forever the lackey no matter how horrible Chuck was to the little bearded man. No matter what Chuck did, Morgan was always there with an undying (and increasingly unjustified) bro-code. Letting Morgan in on the spy game was almost essential. Otherwise, his character would almost be too unbelievable. Who would stick around for that much punishment?

Casey’s heart has also melted a bit under the direct light of the Chuck Effect. His cold, harsh stance on Chuck’s incessant whining and lovesick decision-making turned a corner after years of the Intersect coming through for him. He’s come to appreciate the Sarah and Chuck relationship even if it does kind of make him gag.

But, by far and away, the one most bedraggled by Chuck throughout the series (understandably) is Sarah Walker. She went from being the exalted super-spy to the pretty accessory to Chuck’s antics. Her personality has been so diluted by her time in Burbank that it’s hard to define Sarah without using Chuck as a touchstone. She’s the spy Chuck fell in love with. Though it’s good for the show that her personality has evolved over the seasons (professional and intrigued to semi-professional but willing to surrender to hurt but healing to the current, more complex, lovefool), it’s unfortunate that her power has certainly switched from being mostly on her tough spy training to being the muse to Chuck’s formerly stagnant self.

Fool, I think, is the proper term since she sounds more and more like Chuck, particularly when he has his Brunette of the Season. A focused, emotional, protocol-breaking, on-the-edge persona emerges in this episode. And I love it.

This episode isn’t without its flaws but it was really nice for them to dust the cobwebs off Sarah and remind us that she is supposed to be the CIA’s top agent. With all the help that’s usually necessary from Chuck’s Intersect or Casey’s brute force, it’s easy to place her in a secondary role: important but maybe replaceable if she wasn’t with Chuck. That’s hard for me to even write since I like Sarah as a character and the earlier seasons (think especially to her Bryce backstory) often demonstrated how skilled she was at her job. It was high time for her to move up from the backseat of Team Bartowski.

Sarah fights her best and dirtiest at full saturation.

Sure, they had to couch her emergence in a rescue mission for our eponymous hero but I’m willing to let that slide. Her ruthlessness in this episode, her ability to stretch and break the law, and her ferocity are all welcome. Her scenes with the Thai aide and in the Thai bar remind me that she does this for a living and that she can be more Action than Girlfriend. Her vigilantism, with nods to Rambo and Kickboxer, show that she is (or has the potential to be) a strong if occasionally flawed female character. It shows that when she’s not an ornament on Chuck’s arm, that she’s a little bit batty. And while she is able to throw punches and shove her boots down throats, she also easily (and expertly) vacillates to more tender moments: smelling Chuck’s shirt, freaking out about how Chuck might not know how she really feels, and, of course, the final reunion.

But will it go down as one of those episodes the YouTube montagists pull up for music videos? Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for those scenes throughout Season 2 between her and Chuck set to neo-folk or Huey Lewis. You can often catch me checking out clips of the first date, or the her Chuck-gaze entrance scored by “Do You Believe in Love” or the first time I heard Bon Iver or Roan encouraging a kiss or their truncated love scene on the run (also to Bon Iver). So, in an episode essentially dedicated to how strong Sarah’s bond is to Chuck and how much they mean to each other (a telling line in “I’m different without Chuck and I don’t like it”), did this episode elicit any scenes to the level of those mentioned? I’m not sure that it does and I think it’s particularly marred by this ridiculous marriage proposal thing.

Nevermind that only mere episodes ago, they both decided that neither of them were ready. But here it is, the reason for Sarah to become the crazy hunter we all respect: the possibility of a proposal. If you were to remove everything she or Chuck say about marriage or proposing from this script, the bond would’ve been just as good if not more powerful since it didn’t cross the line into the oversentimental. But she needed a trigger. She needed something to set her off into that direction and, with no information coming out of Chuck’s location, from a screenwriting standpoint, I can’t think of much else to push her over the edge. As treacly as it might have made some scenes that could have been more powerful without them, Morgan spilling the beans gave Sarah all the confidence she needs to fly off the handle. I concede there was little else to be done.

Chuck can cross “living an Annie Lennox song” off his bucket list.

What I can feel good about for this episode is (1) their willingness to address that Chuck feels inferior not on the job but to Sarah without the Intersect (Morgan’s “big fish” analogy fits perfectly), (2) their continuance of an Intersect-less Chuck so they can explore that side of him for a while longer, and (3) their experimentation with surrealism and dream processes. The collapse of Chuck’s mind might have been handled by Michel Gondry a little more expertly but I really do like the exploration of that side of the Intersect. While we go into his mind every week with a flash, treating the Intersect like a Matrix inside his head (something with space and physics) is an intriguing new angle for this show to explore. And while I thought that’s what the mini-season was going to be (everything after Shaw gets pushed off the bridge to be a psychotic delusion of the Intersect), I’m glad to see them walking in that direction, especially if there are any more advancements in the technology. I love to see Chuck toy with different techniques, whether it’s Snorri-Cam or effects like the broken glass that don’t suck like the explosions.

Some other things:

• I don’t like to give credit to actors very often, not because I don’t think they do a great job (and there are many on this show that do) but would rather give due to the industrial process for a character as a whole (writing, directing, acting). That being said, Yvonne Strahovski knocked it out of the park this episode. I think “Emmy” is a little premature despite the #Emmy4Yvonne hashtag on Twitter but she advanced Sarah a bunch this week even with some clunky writing in places.
• Let’s talk about the street fight, specifically the lack of Street Fighter references. First of all, the guy needed an eye-patch if he’s going to be Sagat. Also, there wasn’t enough vocalizing a move before doing it. Was anyone else with me that someone was about to throw out a hadouken any second? Yvonne was flinging herself around like Cammy (who, Noel points out to me, is actually British but Strahovski’s Australian — so close enough) and there were some kao Muay Thai techniques but no Tiger Punches? Disappointing, Chuck. Missed opportunity.
• Hey, Ellie found a new MacGuffin!
• Hey, Awesome and Jeffster found a increasingly uncomfortable sub-A story that kind of focuses on the rising cost of health care to service industry employees!
• They said Chuck’s mind is almost completely wiped by the time Sarah gets there. He seems to be fine, though. Was that some sort of lab coat bluff? Also, the science might have been too oversimplified. I’m willing to suspend my belief for the “rock” scenario but being able to isolate the Intersect that is intertwined with all his memories seems unbelievable even for me. And I still avoid cracks on the street to spare my poor mother’s health.
• With all that said, where I say that moments from this episode might not stand up those in Chucknsarah’s Top Ten, this was an enjoyable episode that, again, makes me wonder WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? Why did I have suffer such an awful series of season-opening episodes?
• The Blonde She-Male thing: was that more of a crack on Thai culture or a crack on Sarah being a strong, determined, butt-kicking woman? I liked that Sarah transformed into a legend as soon as she touched down in Thailand, scaring away men with giant guns, but not sure I like the association that, because she is able to put fear into the hearts of men with her strength and skill, she must be something transcending woman. Maybe it’s a tag on Thailand’s transexual community?
• One of the things I loathe about this show its forced episodic quality. Since the beginning, they’ve wedged in some way for the characters to elicit a lot of backstory that might not have been painfully clear in the Previously On through ham-handed dialogue within the first five minutes. This is made even worse lately as it often occurs between painfully-wedged-in product placements. The show will probably never give it up (especially since it needs new viewers and a dense mythology can push people away) but it’s still painful to watch.
• Sarah and Casey’s almost showdown in the beginning, when Casey reminds Sarah that he didn’t like her before the Bartowski Project because she was renegade, leads to a Morgan sandwich. And I love it.
• I know the doctor trying to get Chuck to flash was trying different combinations of people in Chuck’s life in the dream sequences but I really wanted Lester to be Chuck’s power animal.