Monsters of Television

At least no one dropped “Smokin’!” during the episode.

Although there was a lot of smoke to be had. A lot of conversations to be had, too. The episode focused a lot on relationships rather than on Chuck’s being able to stand against The Ring. And, in this age of a more mature, more progressed Chuck, the stakes are a little higher and the web a little more entangled. Yes, this is a storyline they’ve fallen on before (Chuck hooking up with a sassy brunette) but this time Sarah gets an chance at some action, too. And, let’s face it: it’s high time. She’s been holding out for three years while “training” Chuck, staying (more or less) true to him while simultaneously avoiding physical romantic entanglement (though that can be debated). Bryce, Chuck, Cole. By now her hormones are so charged up that they’re probably standing next to her, six feet tall wearing pink sweatpants and waiting to breakdance.

Yes, that’s from The State. Sadly, I couldn’t find a clip.

So hookups all around as the phantom of “Chuck vs The Three Words” seems to fade away. The team prepares Chuck for a big move (that I’m not quite sure where they’re going to go with) and we get that Chuck and Sarah moment we’re used to seeing by the Fountain take place in the sterile Castle environment, fitting for the conversation. There are some things on the horizon, some big things, that, really, the Olympics are just impeding. Freaking snow.

Also, how bad a friend can Chuck be to Morgan? I mean, outside of constantly lying to him, neglecting him, and implicating him into a constant barrage of danger, now this, too? As much as Chuck whines about Morgan being his best friend and his family being important to him, dude really only looks out for number 1. No love for the bearded man. But how funny is it to watch Ellie and Morgan have some scenes together? It’s great to see that relationship grow a little bit. I mean, these are people that have known each other for years. And, even though Ellie has been grossed out by him, he’s still like a little brother. It’s good to see Chuck explore some of the other relationships that have been neglected.

Lastly, when people stand in front of the shadowy Ring Council, does anyone else get reminded of Mork from Ork?

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.

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First of all, someone seems to have a glut of Casey one-liners burning a hole in his pocket because the first half-hour of this show had so many looped lines I thought Casey was going to break into full-on voiceover.

Chuck does it again this week, making up for its weak start and opening the story to a great many possibilities. Everything from Chuck’s secret leaking to the family he’s been whining to protect to Chuck actually getting good as his job to Chuck possibly losing his non-spy luster to Sarah. There might even be an unexpected triangle coming about between Chuck, Morgan, and Hannah (Hannah, Anna — how did I not see that before?).

Although there were some things that were magically divined throughout the episode (lucky Japanese pen laser!), they were discovered well enough that I wasn’t thrown out of the story. This season is opening up the way I wanted this show to be: still comedic but a little more grounded, a little more complicated, a lot more at stake. I’m almost excited for that things yet to be determined: how long will it take for the asset Chuck burns to come back for him; is Hannah actually a civilian; what will be the point that Chuck’s humanity bottoms out (where Carmichael takes over Bartowski) before Sarah reins him back in; what will the family do now that they’ve wised up (aka, become sentient humans); who will Hannah choose; and for the love all things that are good, how long do we have to wait until the return of Jeffster? This season is looking to be impressive.

Casey: “You know, you give me five minutes running this popsicle stand and we’d be ready.”
Morgan: “Ready for what?”
Chuck: “The Russians.”

This episode is refreshing, invigorating even. I’m not terribly fond of how this season started (maybe except for completely destroying Chuck and Sarah’s relationship so they can rebuild it) but “Chuck vs First Class” starts the build to what we (and by we, I really mean me — but I think you’ll agree) want to see from this show’s progression. It’s all starting to come together.

“Kneel before Zod!”

For Morgan, however, it’s all starting to come apart. Everyone in Buymoria is unhappy with his rise to power, fallout from disbanding the fight club ring from last week. Lester has resorted to the silent treatment while everyone else attempts to pull pranks on him. Nothing works, however, because Morgan is the one that taught them all how to prank and goof off. The only one able to pull one over on his The Silent One and Morgan knows it’s all downhill from there.

Meanwhile, Casey fills Chuck in on the ramifications of Shaw being in charge of Chuck Squad: he is obligated to do a review of the operation. Chuck, already reeling from Casey telling him Shaw is more special than him, immediately wonders who they could be talking about when discussing the operation based around him. Chuck: somehow whiny and selfless when it comes to family members but completely vane involving anything else.

Shaw is indeed starting his review talking about Chuck with his most ardent supporter, Sarah. She insists that Chuck is a real spy though Shaw, upon reading the reports, feels that Bartowski’s performance is sometimes Bond, sometimes Jerry Lewis (basically the premise of the show). Is Chuck a liability?

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See, that was a good episode. Chuck was, more or less, confident if a little clumsy and not terribly whiny (notice that the Intersect worked a lot better). The story capitalized on an opportunity: Sarah and Casey have coddled Chuck for too long. They’ve told him so many times to stay in the car that now they can’t get away from it, despite the fact he’s had rigorous training and a growing desire to get in the game. Shaw evoked a little less Superman this time (except when he was evoking Clark Kent) and some layers were added to the story. Even the B-Story with Morgan and Casey (though I’d hoped for some one-on-one training) was not bad (if a little weird). Good script, Fedak.

Adding Lana Lang (or Chun-Li if you prefer) to the story will also bring some complications although I’m hoping it’s more than what Lou brought. Maybe the third agent Serena referred to? Also, do you notice that every woman brought in to compete for Chuck’s affection has been brunette? Is that Chuck’s type or do the casting people just want to make it very clear that this new person is not Sarah?

Josh Schwartz said that last week’s ep (“Chuck vs Operation Awesome”) was the best so far. I think he missed it by a week. This episode is probably the most solid of the season thus far.

Devon: “Is that your spy training?”
Chuck: “Duck Hunt. Nintendo.”

Angie Harmon can tip me over the side of the building anytime. Unless she really intends to drop me. That would be a real mixed blessing.

My initial reaction to this episode was relatively harsh compared to the other reviews I’m reading. And maybe they have a point. I tend to be a little harder on Chuck but only out of love. The cast, the situations, the chemistry could make this show a flaming diaster but the combinations are all right and the show works, even deigning to attain emotional peaks some shows can only hope for. Just look at how dedicated the fanbase is and imagine if it was on a network people actually watched. However, it needs to continue and even aim higher. Seth Meyers might have been joking about the pressure on Chuck, but, since NBC is run by crazed carnie junkies who will slash and hack at their schedule with reckless and self-destructive abandon, the show can’t wander. I want to see Chuck persevere.

So let’s give this thing another shot.

Captain Awesome is strapped to an office chair on the top of a tall building. Angie Harmon is there (going by the name Sydney) in a little black number tipping him precariously off the edge trying to get him to say — I don’t know. Maybe admit that he’s a spy? But Devon is not a spy, even if hot girls tell him otherwise.

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Josh Schwartz über producer tweeted that, in his humble opinion, this episode is the best episode to date. A tall order given a series with a lot of pretty decent episodes. And this episode taught me many things.

One of them is that Josh Schwartz cannot be trusted.

While some information was revealed, like Brandon Routh as the Zippo-obsessed guy that was sitting on Beckman’s desk (Schaub? Shaw? Shoal?), there was also a lot of messy dialogue and the plot didn’t really do anything but demonstrate that The Ring has some really fancy equipment and the Chuck has not missed a step on the whining. Seriously, terrorist organizations need to stop targeting Chuck’s family members or they need to get Chuck in some Pampers.

Now, it wasn’t all bad. On a superficial level, it did have Angie Harmon and she’s a stone cold fox. And there’s always the Yvonne Strahovski factor. In spite of his “it’s my family” temper tantrums, Chuck grew up a lot to protect Devon. And we did see how Chuck is a loose cannon and how dangerous he can be given focus. And Buy More Fight Club was cool. Finally, they’re starting to build Morgan’s character a little bit beyond the man-child lackey to Charles Bartowski.

But, come on, Schwartz. Be a responsible producer. Don’t overhype shows. There wasn’t even any Bon Iver.

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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