As the title would suggest, it's Christmas Eve, and the Burbank branch of Buy More are preparing for their annual 15% price-hike for last-minute shoppers, with half the staff dressed as elves and Big Mike (Mark Christopher Lawrence) as Santa Claus himself. Distracted by news footage of a live police chase down the city freeway, everyone's surprised when the chase ends with the felon crashing his car into the Buy More and taking everyone hostage.
In what's broadly-speaking a "bottle show", the episode takes shape as a hostage crisis, with Chuck's (Zachary Levi) friends and family held at gunpoint by the surprisingly amenable villain Nathan "Ned" Ryerson* (Jed Rees), while Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and Casey (Adam Baldwin) are ordered to rescue "the asset" from danger. Outside, the area is surrounded by cops led by hostage negotiator Lt. Mauser** (Michael Rooker) and backed-up by Big Mike's LAPD cousin Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson, reprising his role from Die Hard.)To be blunt, while it was a fun setup and a decent way to save the budget while bringing all the characters together, "Chuck Versus Santa Claus" soon lost my interest because the villain was so acquiescent and unthreatening. But then, as if sensing my disappointment, writer Scott Rosenbaum's script performed a 180-degree turn and the whole episode buzzed to life –- mainly by revealing that hostage negotiation Mauser and dopey Ned are actually Fulcrum agents (who have realized Sarah and Casey are protecting Chuc), then by forcing Chuck to reveal he's the Intersect they're after.
Second of Strahotness: she's got your number; courtesy Strahotski.com
While once again riddled with plot-holes (why does Ned let his hostages wander around to cook-up ways to defeat him? Why have the Fulcrum agents created such a difficult situation in which to capture Chuck?), the episode rolled along very nicely after the first twenty-minutes -- helped enormously by Levi and Strahovski, who share some tender scenes together. Indeed, both actors are so fun and adorable together in any romantic scene that I sometimes wish everything else would just melt away. Yvonne Strahovski is particularly brilliant, as you can see from the scene where Chuck gived her a treasure family bracelet, or when everyone's allowed to make a phone-call to a loved-one and she realizes she has nobody to call, but then brightens when Chuck rings her.
For a festive episode, albeit with overtones of Dog Day Afternoon and Die Hard, it all leads to a surprisingly emotional and effective climax – with Sarah chasing down Mauser in a Christmas tree plot to rescue the kidnapped Chuck, before realizing the only way to stop Mauser disseminating the intel he has about the Intersect is by shooting him dead at close range. Unaware that Chuck's witnessed the shocking scene, Sarah later pretends to Chuck that Mauser has been detained for the rest of his life. These are some great scenes –- we understand why Sarah did what she did (it was the only way to guarantee Chuck's secret and keep his life relatively normal), but we also understand Chuck's alarm that his beautiful "dreamgirl" can be so cold and is, lest we forget, a trained killer.Overall, "Chuck Versus Santa Claus" overcame its weak start to become one of season 2's more enjoyable episodes. I'm still a little immune to Chuck's brand of comedy, while elicits wry smiles from me but rarely a belly-laugh (and I struggle to find much funny about the Buy More troupe, generally), but I really enjoy it when its stories develop in a surprising way and the show finds a more dramatic heartbeat.
18 August 2009
Virgin1, 10pm
written by: Scott Rosenbaum directed by: Robert Duncan McNeill starring: Zachary Levi (Chuck), Yvonne Strahovski (Sarah), Adam Baldwin (Casey), Joshua Gomez (Morgan), Scott Krinsky (Jeff), Vik Sahay (Lester), Bonita Friedericy (General Beckman), Julia Ling (Anna Wu), Ryan McPartlin (Captain Awesome), Sarah Lancaster (Ellie), Tony Hale (Emmett Milbarge), Michael Rooker (Mauser), Jed Rees (Nathan "Ned" Ryerson) & Tina Huang (Maureen Mitsubishi)
* Recognize the name? Yes, Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day. Bing!
** Another namecheck; it's Mauser from Police Academy 2 & 3, later seen getting into a Harris Ambulance (as in Captain Harris from the same franchise.)
