Monsters of Television

Jeff: “Did you take her to Poundtown?”
Lester: “Can I get an address on that?”

Writers of Chuck, I am pleased. This is exactly where I’d hoped the season would start heading and Chuck is starting to feel less like a lead-in to a bigger show and more like something that can stand alone. It’s keeping its comic lilt while delving into deeper, more complicated terrain and we’re finally starting to see our protagonist develop. We’re starting to see the life he was thrown into take a toll and force him to grow up, for better or worse. And there’s no better way to see this progression than by juxtaposing it with the past.

Awww. He’s bashful.

The episode starts three years ago when Sarah first walks into the Buy More, Morgan alerting a half-listening to Chuck to her presence, and Chuck scratching out the tune that gets stuck in my head: “Vicki Vale — Vick-vah-Vicki Vale — Vickity-Vickity-Vicki Vale, Vick-vah-Vicki Vale” and the phone drops. Morgan, in present day, reminds Chuck of that moment in order to compare it to when Hannah walks into the picture. Oooooh. See, last week I thought Hannah was going to be there for Chuck’s drama but she’s (at least starting out) going to be around for Morgan’s. Hannah. Anna. How did I not see that? He’s enamored by her and tries to complete the analogy Chuck:Sarah :: Morgan:Hannah. Hannah walks in with the same liberal take on dress code if not the same attitude as Morgan’s former flame. But Morgan’s not ready to actually speak to her so he scurries away as Chuck lays down some warnings for a sister: everyone else but him is a wild animal looking to hump. On cue, Jeff and Lester show up. Chuck leads her away from the Jeffster Danger Zone.

Important thing to take from this funny scene comes when Hannah brings up Chuck going to Paris. Chuck tells her to keep it on the low-low but doesn’t get a lot of time to solidify the lie before Casey comes over for “yogurt time.” Despite having to make excuses to leave the store and go to the yogurt shop for two years (three if you count Sarah’s brief stint with wieners), he still doesn’t come up with a good response for Hannah to understand why going to yogurt right away makes any sense.

Shaw’s “off grid” on a covert op so Team Chuck is going after The Ring sans Supes today. The mission is to make an asset out of a kid named Manoosh, an MIT drop-out (Casey: “Classic geek tragedy”) that The Ring is very interested in. Chuck thinks it’s a piece of cake. Sarah’s maternal instincts flare up again and she knows he’s not ready, hinting at a theme of this episode: endearing yourself to a person knowing full well that one day you might have to burn him/her. Casey’s willing to give the kid a whirl and he flubs up royally. I mean, it’s awkward to watch Chuck screw it up so bad, turning what should be a casual encounter into a quasi-homoerotic one-sided flirt fest. Oh, Chuck.

Meanwhile, back at the Devon and Ellie’s, Awesome is suffering from some uncharacteristic skittishness after his brush with the spy world (most notably “Chuck vs Operation Awesome”) and moves with a clumsiness that is unsettling coming from Devon. He also lies with the same awkwardness when Ellie finds Chuck’s claim ticket for Charles de Gaulle Airport in his luggage (what was she doing rooting around in Chuck’s luggage?) and wants to know why no one told her he went to Paris. Awesome barely stumbles out of the discussion and Ellie is left with a “what is up with Chuck” hangover, as is usually the case with poor Ellie. But that’s about to change. Later.

Chuckles is about to take Hannah on the oft-promised Bartowski Tour de Store but is interrupted again by “yogurt time.” Chuck puts Morgan in charge of protecting Hannah from Jeff and Lester but Morgan just puts them on stalker duty for his sake so he can get information to win Hannah over. Sadly, outside of Casey and Sarah, there are no two people better suited for the job.

During their “yogurt time,” Sarah instructs Chuck on how to flip an asset. “You never want to seem like you’re making advances. You always want the other person to feel like they’re in control.” Although, let’s be honest, Sarah’s line in “Pilot” where she says her phone must be broken because Chuck hadn’t called yet was pretty strong. Right? Or am I just so passive-aggressive that that sounds like a come on? Anyway, the point is that they’re trying to draw parallel’s between Chuck turning this asset and Sarah turning Chuck. The parallel gives Chuck and Sarah a moment to reflect on their beginnings which Sarah ends with a “I liked you. That made it much harder.” Curious. Though more curious: I wonder what Casey does whenever Chuck and Sarah are having those obvious moments. It’s kind of like when I wonder what the other people in Scrubs do when JD is having a moment. Except I don’t think Turk imagines using artillery to shake him out of it. Maybe he does.

What kind of bartender just leaves all the dead soldiers on the bar? Seems lazy. It’s like she wanted everyone to know how long they’ve been ther–oh. OH.

The problem with Chuck’s last attempt to turn the asset was that he was a little too Bartowski and not enough Carmichael. So they give Chuck another go and a prop (a Y: The Last Man graphic novel) as they wait for Manoosh at his favorite bar. Though Chuck aloof is still a little creepy, the two become besties pretty quickly (Casey: “Great. Two geeks in a pod.”) and Manoosh is eager to talk about what he’s working on (it’s in weapons). But Chuck can’t work fast enough; The Ring is about to approach to whisk him away. They send in the Closer: Sarah in a tiny shirt bearing the words “Frak Off.” That, too me, is a little strong. A girl like Sarah arriving alone wearing secret BSG code? If I were dealing with spies all the time and she walked in, wanting to instantly make out, I think my spidey sense would tingle a little bit. Ah, who am I kidding? I probably get tranq’d, too.

They rush the sleeping Manoosh back to Castle (Casey: “Good job, Walker. Another geek bites the dust.”) where they have a bedroom setup (there’s always another convenient room around the corner at ol’ Castle). Sarah tries to convince Manoosh he pleasured her all night long but he offers no information in return, just some handsly hands. Casey tranqs him. Sarah leaves the room and Team Chuck watches from behind a one-way mirror as Manoosh frantically searches for his briefcase that contains his “life’s work.” Manoosh calls his wingman Chuck to see if he has it. Chuck does and arranges a meeting to pick it up at the Buy More. But not until Team Chuck searches it and finds a contraption on which Chuck does not flash.

Meanwhile, the report is in: Hannah is way too good for Morgan. She’s into foreign films, classical music, and sushi without the rice (something which Morgan, a former Benihana chef, should not be flummoxed over but seems the most exasperated by). It all seems so hopeless for poor Morgan.

Awesome meets Chuck at the Buy More and he’s freaking out about Ellie’s discovery of the claim ticket. Ellie rushes in, Devon ducks down behind some DVD racks, and Chuck begins to lie like a pro, saying his trip to Paris was for work and that it was going to translate into some Euro time for her and Awesome. Ellie, as we know, is easily distracted and gets excited about the possibility of another honeymoon. Awesome is more upset that Chuck just bald-faced lied to Ellie with no remorse. Sarah’s not terrible pleased with the situation either.

Yes, he even kicks this guy in the face from that awkward position. Apparently Manoosh invokes the Zohan.

Manoosh comes in and Chuck gives him the briefcase and now it’s Manoosh’s turn to flip that guy love switch. He swears that, upon his return, he will be rich and will take care of Chuck with his millions. Manoosh is about to leave when Chuck offers to get him some yogurt (what?) before he goes so he stays (really? that worked?) and Chuck goes to Castle to see if he can’t get the device they took from the briefcase so The Ring doesn’t kill him. Casey is busy testing to see what it is in a safe box when the thing squirts a foam all over the inside. Before Chuck and Sarah decide to hit the showers, Casey determines that it’s shaving cream. The device is a decoy. Inside the store, Manoosh tries to run away from his would-be Ringian captors. When cornered, though, he puts on a pair of sunglasses, we see a familiar flash-tastic sequence, and Manoosh kicks everyone in the face. Dude built his own Intersect.

So, if you were a precocious MIT drop-out with the world’s greatest weapon on your hands, where would you go to sell your creation to the highest bidder? Dubai! For WEAP-CON! Casey: “Looks like I get to write this year’s off as a business trip.”

And he turns her away, like so many of those foreign movies he has never seen but pretended to know in order to get into Lana’s skirt.

But, let’s take a breather for a moment and get some culture. In an effort to win Hannah, Morgan in a smoking jacket (of course) decks out his storage closet office with movie posters and some of the finer things in life. He calls her into his chateau of love and attempts to woo her with things he’s learned from Wikipedia. Hannah almost has a chance to fall for it until they talk for a couple seconds and she spills about Chuck’s recent trip to Paris. Suddenly, wooing the fair maiden means nothing in the face of Chuck doing big things without telling him. Hannah gets left behind a lot in this episode.

To the tune of “Rock the Casbah,” we are whisked to Dubai and a weapons convention that looks less realistic than the budget comic book convention from Chasing Amy. Casey is like a kid in a candy store and immediately goes for the fancy Japanese laser pens and mobile interrogation unit (Sarah: “No shopping!”). But off on stage right, Manoosh’s demonstration is about to begin. He does his thing, kicks some more people in the face, announces the bidding to start in 5 minutes at $50M. Backstage, Casey prepares to tranq him but Chuck insists that he’s his asset and his problem. “I can control him,” he says. Words Sarah lives by. So Chuck tries to convince Manoosh to do the right thing but Chuck’s betrayal (faking a friendship) is enough to convince him otherwise. And, before Manoosh or Chuck can do anything about it, The Ring shows up to crash the party and locks Team Chuck up, handcuffing them to metal chairs. Happily, Casey’s only allegiance is to his country.

Chuck doing his best Popeye.

The laser pen is in his shirt pocket. After Chuck stumbles around and takes the laser with his mouth (ha!), he frees Casey and Casey frees everyone. Showdown backstage between Team Chuck, The Ring, and a defenseless Manoosh (he crushes the Intersect glasses to add value to his life). Chuck gets a pen from the same booth Casey does in order to add his own value to the situation. Turns out it’s just a pen knife (Casey: “Just like Bartowski: bringing a knife to a gunfight.”). What’s weird is, Chuck looks at the knife and can’t flash but looks at some ninja stars nearby and suddenly knows how to throw a knife. I get it, the pen knife is not necessarily in the Intersect vault of useable weapons. But when he needs to toss something, he looks at a nearby plate of nachos and immediately knows how to throw it like a — a — weapon frisbee? I don’t know what that would be. But nachos equal flash? Bizarre. Anyway, Team Chuck prevails.

And here is where Chuck is put on a decision. Manoosh, knowing what he knows about the Intersect, has to be put into lockdown. So Chuck can either follow protocol or, using his weepy little heart, find a way to let Manoosh escape. He chooses the latter. Casey thinks he’s gone soft until Chuck thinks better, finds a tranq-gun demo and takes Manoosh down. Casey beams proudly. Sarah doesn’t like it.

Sarah is even more put off by Chuck’s ability to burn his asset. Manoosh’s pleas to not be locked down, that he didn’t do anything wrong, all the things Chuck insisted were reasons why he shouldn’t be isolated, bounce off him uselessly. Finally, Chuck is a little more Carmichael than Bartowski. Casey: “Only one way to deal with burning an asset: Johnny Walker. Black.”

A tender moment.

Chuck goes back to work where Hannah passively-aggressively deals with being ignored on her first day at the store, one for which she traveled around the world in order to work with him. Then Morgan passive-aggressively tries to get him to feel guilty about not telling him about Paris. Chuck doesn’t really fall for either. But Morgan, now suspicious (finally after three years), sics his stalker patrol on his best friend. Intrigue! Then, to complicate matters, after Awesome insists that he and Ellie can’t go to Paris (an opportunity Chuck arranged in order to bolster the lie) since he believes there have to be spy strings attached, Ellie and Morgan band together in order to get a handle on what is going on with Chuck. Finally! They are sentient humans and not mindless “give Chuck the benefit of the doubt” drones!

Meanwhile, at home, Chuck gulps down some scotch and tries to ease the pain of essentially burning himself. Casey and Sarah look on from Castle. Casey is proud of that his little boy is all growns up. Sarah is not so sure. And we end with the moments we didn’t see before the “Vicky Vale” scene from three years ago, where Sarah gets the intel on Chuck she needs to endear herself to him. “Piece of cake,” she says.

Ah, and our tables, if not fully turned, are at least 150 degrees there. We can see Sarah’s emotions being what gets in the way as Chuck hardens a bit. Only good stuff (for us) can come of this.