Monsters of Television

Devon: “Nothing against married life but I could use some real excitement.”
Chuck: “Devon, you’re an adventure sports cardiologist.”
Devon: “Whatever, man! I could do that in my sleep!”

We start off promising. The year is 2000 and, instead of checking out gross cadavers on the first day of medical school, Awesome and Ellie are learning how their bodies work in a broom closet. Uncharacteristic of Ellie (and she notes it) to make out with a stranger when she should feel obligated to do something else, the fact that Devon can pull her away is already a sign of something different for her.

I know what you're thinking. No, this isn't some early soft-core work for Sarah Lancaster. Sorry to disappoint.

And it appears like it might be something different for us: we see a different side of Ellie and it takes 90 whole seconds before Chuck is even mentioned. Even when Chuck does show up, the focus is still on Ellie and Awesome so it seems like, possibly maybe, we might see Ellie do something other than whine about Chuck (since the wedding’s over with). Nah. Now she just whines about how the passion has already left her marriage of six or seven months (give or take).

There are always a few weak characters in an ensemble cast (especially one as large and diverse as this one) but the writers really seem to be missing an opportunity with Sarah Lancaster. If you watch her, she makes the best out of her part on the show and has some of the most natural dialogue execution in the cast. Maybe the writers think of her as “Gift Shop Girl” from Scrubs, not “Madison” from Everwood, and don’t feel she can handle a meatier part. Maybe they’re setting her up for a larger role. I hoping more the latter than the former. Because Ellie is dangerously close to being more nagging neighbor than essential part of Chuck’s life.

Anyway, so Devon is in the know about Chuck’s extracurricular spy career (see Season 2, “Chuck vs The Colonel”) and his interest of late is escalating. Chuck keeps blowing him off but his chance to help out is coming. Just as Chuck is called to the Castle, Awesome is called to the ER and their jobs are to be intertwined. Team Chuck’s mission is to protect the premier of a small Communist country (Costa Gravas) who is being treated for heart trouble in Los Angeles (guess who his doctor is). Casey is particularly irked (more than usual) by the nature of the mission since he, personally, had been sent to kill the man several times in the ’80s. But now, on the eve of democratic elections, the man the people of Costa Gravas call “Angel de la Muerte” has to protect a man he once had to assassinate.

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Morgan: “Look, all I’m saying is there has to be, what, 2 million ladies
in the City of Angels? They can’t all say no to us.”

My girlfriend has a giant crush on Jess Mariano. Every time he shows up on re-runs of Gilmore Girls (appearances far and few between now that ABC Family’s syndication is into the later seasons), she all but swoons for the leather-jacketed rebel of Stars Hollow. But she refuses to watch Heroes and is disgusted when she reads about him in Us Weekly (especially when he’s dating the considerably younger Hayden Panettiere). Her crush is on the character alone which works out for me since he’s fictional and can’t show up with Distillers tickets to whisk her away.

Sarah Walker does roughly the same for me (minus the near swoon — I keep my swoons to myself) and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. But never have I been so willing to watch a crush (in real life or television life) get with another dude.

“Not in front of the guys, love. I just shot a bloke in the face! Let me have my moment!”

“Chuck vs the Three Words” starts off with a Vinnie Jones that I didn’t even recognize until the middle of the episode (unrecognizable, as Noel says, with hair and a smile) smoking some dude for carrying a garish gold brief case (obviously the new Anonymous Object of Importance). He also gets all gushy with someone on the phone, playing that “me-too-don’t-make-me-say-I-love-you-in-front-of-the-guys” game. Cut to that night when our old friend Carina (Mini Anden) is having drinks with Sarah at “the club.” Carina wants to talk about Chuck. Sarah does not want to talk about Chuck, especially since she’s broken the “cardinal rule of spying” (as elicited by Roan Montgomery in Season 2: “never fall in love”). Meanwhile, Chuck and Morgan decide to leave their sparse bachelor pad to go out to the club (the exact same club Sarah and Carina are at — what are the odds?). Suddenly, Vinnie comes out of nowhere and starts fondling Carina (with his hands and with squishy pet names). Chuck flashes on Vinnie and tries to warn everyone that he’s a bad arms dealer man. Relax, Chuck. That’s just Carina’s fake fiancee and mark. And thus begins our mission.

The mission is to get the gold case during Carina and Vinnie’s engagement party from a highly secure area with lasers and opportunities for Chuck to use Intersect 2.0. But he can’t. Because he’s too emotional. So let the inopportune whining begin.

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So here we are. Chuck in a white room. Dead Bryce. New faction of ruthless killers. And suddenly, Chuck is able to smack the religion out of everyone in the room*. Even ends with the line to amp up expectations: “I know kung-fu.”

And that’s not all Season 2 left us on. Morgan cowboyed-up and took his lady with him to chase his dream (of being a Benihana chef), the Buy More is under new management, neither Chuck nor Morgan nor Casey actually work for the place anymore, Ellie and Awesome were married, Chuck and Sarah’s star-cross’d relationship seemed to be less star-cross’d. Come to think of it, the only thing that hadn’t changed at the end of Season 2 is Jeffster. What magic would we see? What wonders did Chuck have in store for us?

I just don’t get it. Belt is on the cable, seems strong enough to hold me, I could just leap off — just flash! Flash!

We start off kind of cool. Six months later, Chuck’s (seemingly) on his own mission against some dangerous-looking fellows. He has the option to shoot them but doesn’t (good commitment to the character, writers) and instead pistol whips everyone in the room. General Beckman is giving him orders directly into his earpiece. He escapes with the Anonymous Object of Importance (the “case”), heads to the roof, and can escape if only he could flash on the zip-line. But wait — he needs to flash to figure out how to use a zip-line? He already has the belt out, across the cable connecting the buildings. What more do you need to do? Apparently, stress suppresses Intersect 2.0. General Beckman comes out and shuts what turns out to be a fake scenario since Chuck wusses out of sliding down. And, subsequently, because he’s a whiner, hands him the titular Pink Slip.

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Note: This is a retrospective of a television season in preparation for an upcoming season premiere, like one of those “previously seen on” sequences before the show starts (maybe with a bit more snark), basically a reminder to those that have already watched. I warn you: there are spoilers below. If you want to catch up naturally, now is your time to leave and pick up the recorded media of your choice and catch up. Then come back later.

With Season 3 of Chuck coming our way Sunday, January 10, I thought it would be nice to post a nice Season 1 and 2 (heavy on the 2) retrospective. Now: when you read this, know that I do this out of love. I love Chuck, with all its will-they-or-won’t-they, tough-shell-exterior-grunting, whiny-non-spy-but-kind-of-sort-of-a-spy-at-heart stuff. So I don’t make fun from a place of disdain. I make fun out of love. With that in mind, here are few things you might need to know.

Season 1

Chuck is a dude that works at the Buy More (a green-colored version of Best Buy) at the Nerd Herd desk (think Geek Squad) trying to get his life in order. He’s carved out a simple life for himself with his buddy Morgan and ostensibly still lives with is “parents” Ellie and Devin “Captain Awesome” Woodcomb (his mom ran out years ago as did his father so he and his sister, Ellie, raised each other). One day, and old friend/old nemesis Bryce Larkin sends him an email with ALL THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE WORLD encoded into a video of horrific and adorable imagery (usually not horrific and adorable at the same time). They call this the Intersect (also the name of the computer that is able to crunch all this data which Bryce ‘splodes in the first ten minutes of the first episode). Chuck watches the video and is suddenly able to recall the images when seen and understand the meaning behind them (sees a terrorist at the store, suddenly “flashes” with images of the bomb the terrorist is setting up). The NSA sends their top agent (John Casey) to retrieve the Intersect. CIA does the same (Sarah Walker). They end up becoming his handlers (to protect the Intersect Person until a new Intersect Computer can be built) and Team Chuck is born. They get into all kinds of whacky situations where this “normal” guy is leaned upon to do extraordinary things (for which he occasionally has a natural aptitude). He crushes on Sarah (but it’s Yvonne Strahovski so, gay or straight, who wouldn’t?) and Sarah sends him some vibes back but they don’t do anything about it due to it being “unprofessional” (making their cover of being in a relationship that much more complicated — and horribly frustrating). All Chuck wants to do (besides whine about how his life sucks since he is no longer mediocre) is get the Intersect out of his head and run to the suburbs to have puppies with the out-of-his-league Sarah but the new Intersect needs to be completed for that to happen.

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