Writers: Matt Miller & Scott Rosenbaum
Director: Jason Ensler
Cast: Zachary Levi (Chuck), Joshua Gomez (Morgan), Yvonne Strahovski (Sarah), Adam Baldwin (Casey), Bonita Friedericy (General Beckman), Julia Ling (Anna Wu), Vik Sahay (Lester), Scott Krinsky (Jeff), Merritt Yohnka (Bomb Squad Captain), Theodore Zouboulidis (Stavros Demitrios), John Kapelos (Yari Demitrios), Rachel Bilson (Lou Palone), Mo Anouti (Bodyguard #1), John Bobek (Nerdy Technician), David E. Brown (Thug), Dmitri Boudrine (Bodyguard #2) & Anthony Ruivivar (Tommy)
Director: Jason Ensler
Cast: Zachary Levi (Chuck), Joshua Gomez (Morgan), Yvonne Strahovski (Sarah), Adam Baldwin (Casey), Bonita Friedericy (General Beckman), Julia Ling (Anna Wu), Vik Sahay (Lester), Scott Krinsky (Jeff), Merritt Yohnka (Bomb Squad Captain), Theodore Zouboulidis (Stavros Demitrios), John Kapelos (Yari Demitrios), Rachel Bilson (Lou Palone), Mo Anouti (Bodyguard #1), John Bobek (Nerdy Technician), David E. Brown (Thug), Dmitri Boudrine (Bodyguard #2) & Anthony Ruivivar (Tommy)
Chuck starts dating Lou, who may be involved in illegal activities with her ex-boyfriend...Casey: You want us to help? We could
cut her power, smoke her out...
Chuck: Oh, that's very romantic. Why not
just club her over the head and drag her out by the foot?
cut her power, smoke her out...
Chuck: Oh, that's very romantic. Why not
just club her over the head and drag her out by the foot?
I'm glad to see Chuck's finding some form as it approaches season's end. The writers have realized it works best when focusing on the characters, as the espionage side of things is still a little undercooked. To that end, this episode spends a good chunk of time simply rolling with the idea that Chuck (Zachary Levi) has found a reciprocal girlfriend, Lou (Rachel Bilson), and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) is secretly jealous. The Buy More characters, especially Morgan (Joshua Gomez) also benefit from this, as it's easier for them to bounce off Chuck's non-secretive storylines...
Here, Morgan, Lester (Vik Sahay) and Jeff (Scott Krinsky) simply can't believe Chuck has seriously decided to dump red-hot Sarah, but are even more astonished when he immediately starts dating sexy sandwich-maker Lou. These events inspire Lester to approach Sarah at the Wienerlicious, hoping to woo her on the rebound, only for his confident swagger to turn to jelly when Sarah has fun teasing him -- by hugging him provocatively around the waist with her legs.
Morgan is also struck by self-confidence after seeing best-friend Chuck move from babe to babe, so starts a ham-fisted attempt to court co-worker Anna (Julia Ling) -- with mixed results.
For Chuck, his relationship with Lou seems to be perfect, until he "flashes" on the name of her ex-boyfriend Stavros Demitrios (Theodore Zouboulidis), who might be involved in the illegal importing of goods from Finland. Once again, Chuck's personal and private lives collide, as Sarah and Casey (Adam Baldwin) insist Chuck use his relationship with Lou to meet her ex and snoop on Demitrios' business meeting with Yari Demitrios (John Kapelos) at a nightclub. And could Lou be involved, too? Does she have ulterior motives for dating our hero nerd, perhaps?
This was a good, solid episode, but it did have problems. While it's great the show has realized its strength lies with the inter-relationships, it still needs a decent storyline to provide an engine for them. The illegal importing plot just wasn't that interesting, although I'm glad Chuck is becoming more proactive as an "agent" in his own right – even if Sarah, albeit fuelled by jealously, insists on leaping to his aide when situations get tricky.
Also nice to see Casey actually praising Chuck's efforts, whilst maintaining his grouchiness and continuing to make jibes at his expense. The Chuck/Casey relationship isn't something you tend to focus on, but it's actually provided more comedy than many other pairings on the show. And it just pleased me to see Chuck improving at this secret agent game, and earning some admiration.
It was disappointing to see the Chuck/Lou storyline come to an end, as that seems incredibly premature. I know the season was cut short by the writers' strike, but I think there was more to achieve with their relationship before bringing it to a close. Rachel Bilson isn't a particularly good comic actress, but she might have improved. Still, there's a chance she might resurface next season, as she wasn't unmasked as a villain, and still works at the local deli.
Of course, the big talking point is the return of Bryce (Matthew Bomer), who was revealed as the occupant of the bomb-shaped capsule the Demitrios' had imported. I hope the writers have a good explanation for his miraculous survival – as he was pretty much incinerated in the Pilot, before downloading all the US government's secrets into Chuck's brain. Still, the recent episode (... Versus The Alma Mater) proved that Bryce was a character who deserved a role on the show, as his chemistry with Chuck surpassed Morgan's. The inevitable Chuck/Bryce/Sarah love-triangle (he was her ex-boyfriend) should be entertaining to see play out, too. But I was intrigued to see next week's preview treat him as an enemy for Chuck, as the Alma Mater episode ended up vindicating Bryce as a bad-guy.
Overall, this was entertaining and generally worked well, although the closure for Lou/Chuck seems like a waste opportunity, Sarah came across as quite irritating in her actions, and the Demitrios storyline was pretty thin – even for a light-hearted comedy-drama like Chuck. Still, I found myself giggling at the Buy More characters a lot more (loved that Lester/Sarah scene) and it was fun to see Morgan hook up with Anna while watching a nature documentary on wolves. All said; the improvement between this and early season 1 episodes is clear.
2 June 2008
Virgin1, 10.00 pm
