WRITERS: Matt Miller & Phil Klemmer (story by Max Denby)[SPOILERS] Originally intended to be season 3's penultimate episode, "Chuck Versus The American Hero" had the requisite big moments and exciting developments you'd expect, all converging into an enthralling final act that setup next week's erstwhile finale. As is common for Chuck, it was messy and unconvincing in certain areas, but I generally can't hate episodes that are as fast-paced and involving as this one became...
DIRECTOR: Jeremiah Chechik
GUEST CAST: Brandon Routh, Bonita Friedericy, Mark Sheppard & Pepper Binkley
This week, Chuck (Zachary Levi) was in Washington D.C to meet with General Beckman (Bonita Friedericy) in person, to be given details of his assignment in Rome. However, after voicing his concerns about such a momentous lifestyle change (and what's his cover with his sister going to be?), Beckman agrees to give Chuck a week's leave to get his head straight. This means Chuck has seven days to make all his dreams come true, by winning Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) back so they can become a Mr & Mrs Smith-style duo, or otherwise quit the spy game. But it's not going to be easy, as he quickly realizes Sarah's lost her ardor for him -- because she believes he killed a man as part of his "Red Test" (when in reality it was Casey who fired the lethal shot from afar, and has sworn Chuck to secrecy.)Fortunately, Casey (Adam Baldwin), Morgan (Joshua Gomez) and Devon (Ryan McPartlin) all have reasons to help Chuck get the girl, so they put a plan into action to help Chuck convince Sarah he loves her, which involved making sure her boyfriend Shaw (Brandon Routh) was distracted during a dinner date so Chuck could lay his cards on the table. Unfortunately, Ring agents have been circling Shaw with the intention of kidnapping him, and their plans became entangled with Chuck's.
It's something of a miracle that "... Versus The American Hero" worked as well as it did, as it was being held together by the glue of audience interest in the Chuck/Sarah relationship, which has been bent, strained and pushed in so many directions over the course of three seasons. It's a testament to Levi and Strahovski that it hasn't become so tedious, although I keep wondering how far Chuck can last before it'll have no option but to get those characters together, engaged and married. Would the show work with a married spy couple at the centre of it all? Anyway, for now there are obstacles forever being thrown into the path of true love, and having Sarah believe Chuck's tarnished his soul by murdering someone was -- well, hypocritical -- but also an interesting angle. Although it never made sense to me why Casey didn't just confide in Sarah that he made the kill from the start.
What made this episode was its final act, with Shaw kidnapped by the enemy and delivered to Ring's HQ to meet The Director (Mark Sheppard), who reveals that his wife wasn't killed by a Ring operative, as he's always believed, but that she was the victim of Sarah's "Red Test" (seen in flashback last week). Yes, Shaw's new girlfriend killed his beloved wife (who must have been a double-agent), and his vendetta against the Ring has been misplaced. A fine twist, if something we should have predicted in retrospect, but Shaw's barely mentioned his wife so that lynchpin of his character wasn't foremost in most people's minds.
It was great seeing Chuck go solo to rescue Shaw, after realizing how much Sarah cares about him, but even better when the rescued Shaw awoke in hospital after an explosion had destroyed the Ring's HQ and made a beeline for Sarah to whisk her away under false pretenses, for some payback I'd assume. And for 'shippers, Chuck had finally made his feelings for Sarah abundantly clear ("I love you") and it looked like she was packing to go with him after Casey confessed he shot the mole, before Shaw interrupted things.
Overall, this episode was crammed full of incident in its last 20 minutes, and packed a twist I didn't see coming, which made it the perfect lead-in for next week's unofficial finale before an additional six episodes. The only irritation with Chuck in general is that it's very unlikely to ever evolve into a new form, so you just know we'll end up with Sarah, Chuck and Casey back in the Castle going on missions together. The show can stretch boundaries, change relationships and reveal secrets, but it's essentially going to adhere to the format established in season 1. So there'll be no international adventures of Mr & Mrs Bartowski or Team Chuck working in Italy. To be honest, that's probably very wise, as the best episodes of season 3 have been the ones that more closely resembled earlier seasons ("First Class, "The Beard", "Tic Tac"), but the trick has always been keeping things familiar with a sense of plausible evolution.
Asides
- Shaw; quite a misfire for season 3, despite some early promise, no? It wasn't entirely Routh's fault, it was just that the character was either a gooseberry, a spare part, or uninteresting. Hopefully, now that he's turned into a vengeful widower, his arc will end with a bang.
- Ellie. Oh, I can't even find the strength to write about Ellie. Just send her to Africa, pronto. Sarah Lancaster deserves better than being thrown plot scraps.
- I could understand Casey wanting to help Chuck win Sarah's heart, so Chuck wouldn't quit being a spy and could get him rehired, but it was a little strange that Morgan seemed to think he could become part of Chuck's handpicked team in Rome!
- Roger Cross (playing the lead Ring agent) is best known for playing Curtis Manning in many seasons of 24, so perhaps the presence of a General Bauer in Beckman's office was an intentional nod to that show?
- The vending machine secret entrance to the Ring HQ was straight out of Spies Like Us, a regular go-to for '80s references.
- Look, I like Mark Sheppard, but whenever his name appears on the credits you just know he'll be playing the week's bad guy. It's getting old. Does he embrace typecasting?
- This episode was also a minor Middleman reunion, with guest stars Mary Pat Gleason and Mark Sheppard having both appeared on that show.
- I'd love to see more of General Beckman's world, as the good guys are actually more mysterious than the bad guys on this show. It was fun seeing the desks full of uniformed receptionists (all women, how sexist) and Beckman's office, too. Can't we have a proper CIA base in L.A for the characters to report to sometimes? I get bored of the Castle and its viewscreen.
