Monsters of Television

“Monday night can be a bit of a wasteland.”

This is a movie I would watch.

All they needed was a shot of Shaw sitting in a cave and telling Chuck to slide.

Though it hasn’t been made explicitly clear, I like to think what has expedited Chuck’s condition (if it was inevitable at all) is PTSD from actively shooting a person. Popping caps into Supes so his drugged-out crush object can push him off a bridge into a river can’t be easy to live with, especially for a pansy like Chuck. The fact that this was never addressed in the shiny, happy episode after (“vs The Honeymooners”) and, really, not until this very week, not only seems weird (Chuck in a de facto red test after an entire series of being afraid of guns would probably be something to talk about) but yet another missed opportunity. But it’s here now and they pull it off.

I’m a sucker for episodes of television where reality is distorted by the subconscious or some kind of cranial malady (drug scenes excluded because they are almost always exceptionally lame) in an effort to create surreal, symbolic visions of reality. Some might see it as a crutch but I see it as a chance to expand story. This belongs to the latter. As we press onward to further the connection between Chuck and his father, bolstered by a sub-A story discussing him, the Intersect co-mingling with Chuck’s deep, dark chemical responses adds a new wrinkle to their storytelling, especially if they tie this into the crushing stress Chuck has to feel with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Possibilities abound. Unfortunately, after “vs The Honeymooners,” I’m wary of what they’ll do with it.

I’m no ‘shipper but I really do like Chuck and Sarah together when they aren’t being spies. The kids have chemistry and that I can respect, even if their relationship is becoming more and more compressed in every episode. Have you noticed that every episode some relationshippy thing is brought up (running off, moving in together, saying “I love you”) and, by the end of the episode, it’s all wrapped up? When Sarah said she wanted to move in with Chuck at the end of last week’s episode, I felt it was weird but also understood that their relationship is going to move a little quicker since they know each other so well. To paraphrase a Friends episode, they moved from being friends (although friends with very open sexual tension), skipping over the first date, and going straight to the nineteenth date. But when Chuck said, “I love you” to her at the top of the episode, and Sarah didn’t say it back, I was really happy with the writers understanding that Sarah’s hardened nature and emotional distance wouldn’t allow her to drop L-bombs so lightly. But then she tells him at the end. They didn’t want to stretch that out a little bit? Maybe show a bit of a struggle with her character getting up the guts to let him in? My justification this week is the very real threat on Chuck’s life, both by the Bad Guys du Jour and what might be a crippling neurological disorder, expedited her admission of what she already knew. Also: SHE ALREADY SAID IT ONCE. So why did she feel it was difficult here? Blergh.

The “not saying I love you thing” is quickly overshadowed by Chuck’s first dream of the episode. While the symbolism in the dream was pretty elementary (who has obscure made-up African nation take-out?), the message is clear in that the Intersect can communicate through dreams and can invoke imagery not only from the encoded images but also from memories, touchstones in reality (take out food, sensory landscapes, where Shaw was hit with bullets), and deep-seated emotional trauma. The notion here is also that, with the Intersect’s invasion of the subconscious, there is not way to turn it off. That, eventually, the Intersect might creep into any aspect of his thought process and may, one day, take over his entire being. Chuck might well be on his way to employment as one of those digital oracles in The Minority Report.

Zachary Levi nails a man walking on the line of sanity, but, really, anyone shuffling around in a robe and white jammies looks completely crazy in the coconut. That’s a fashion tip from me to you.

That would be where Doc Brown would send him. Christopher Lloyd guests as the therapist that would have him decommissioned in order to save his life since the stress of his job is exacerbating Chuck’s condition. After a particularly dicey incident, spurred on by an interesting dream where an African man’s weapon of choice for cold-blooded murder is a machete (are we invoking African genocides?), where Chuck slugged the close, personal friend of the president of Zamibia (not a real country, I promise), Doc Brown (I’m sure his character has a name but it’s not as fun as Doc Brown) throws him in an insane asylum made specially for ex-spies. Zachary Levi nails a man walking on the line of sanity, but, really, anyone shuffling around in a robe and white jammies looks completely crazy in the coconut. That’s a fashion tip from me to you.

It turns out Chuck isn’t so crazy since the Intersect was right about the man he slugged (he’s working for the Ring) and that gets wrapped up rather quickly, although Doc Brown warns he will probably get progressively worse. Hopefully that doesn’t get swept under the rug until next season (if there is one), especially when Shaw identifies himself as not dead. In the final dream of the episode, Shaw bears his Superman chest and announces himself to still be roaming around. But maybe that’s just Chuck realizing Shaw’s exit from his life seemed a little too easy and a little too soap opera-esque (“The car flew off the cliff and blew apart into a million pieces but we never found the body!”). Expect Supes to show back up.

With Chuck’s crazy spell and Sarah’s brief dip into intimacy issues wrapped up tight, we do have one thread that continues. Justin, the chief doctor in the Doctors Without Borders program Ellie and Awesome were in while surviving in Africa, the doctor who also identified himself as Ring, tracks Ellie down and poses as an on-the-straight-and-narrow CIA agent trying to protect her father. Justin tells Ellie that John Casey is dangerous (which he is, just not to her) and sets up a beautiful string of lies to rupture Ellie’s perception of reality. Casey’s natural eccentricity (another favorite thing of mine on this series: Casey’s difficulty with communicating like an average human) is enough to convince Ellie that Casey’s after her and her family so she concedes that she has her father’s contact info. Get ready for some Scott Bakula.

This episode felt more in the groove with the best of the rest of this season (that is, all the stuff excepting the first few episodes and that dreadful “vs The Honeymooners”), walking a line of something dark like Alias and something light like I Spy (1965). That’s what makes Chuck an engaging show to watch and quality television to comment upon. It’s one of the best shows on TV no one is watching. This episode in particular is emotional, funny, and creatively-visioned. It’s still a little rough around the edges (difficult to say when the show’s in its 3rd season — maybe the “roughness” is part of the show’s fabric) but programming worth watching live.

Other things:

• Although I didn’t mention it, this was the return of Anna Wu. Morgan’s preoccupation with the spy story makes him just aloof enough to win her over at the end, even if he doesn’t really mean to (or actually want to) win her back. It was nice to see her friendly face, even if she was relegated to brief interactions with Jeff and Lester and making faces at Morgan. They kind of need her, though. I mean, with Ellie getting hip to the spy game now, who else is left for Chuck to eventually implicate?
• God, I love Jeff and Lester. “That leaves me with home appliances … just how I like them.” I’m hoping they have the cash to do some Jeffster road tour webisodes over the summer. Dear WB/NBC, if you got ’em, flaunt ’em.
• I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for Merlin to be worked in to a future storyline.