Chuck 5×04 “Chuck Versus the Business Trip”

Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) go for a dip on "Chuck"

First of all: Nobody has the Intersect in this episode… and it’s weird, and it bugs me. As if you couldn’t already tell, I don’t like it.

Second of all: A Buy More Convention? For the employees? I just don’t buy it. Not one little bit. Sorry.

So the Intersect is out of Morgan (and he’s somewhat back to normal. He has some memory loss, which delights Casey who messes with him the entire episode), and Beckmann orders all the hits the Decker put on him to be called off, but there is just one problem. One of the hit men can’t be reached once he’s been given an assignment. Cue the competition to see who gets to go to the Buy More Convention being rigged so that Morgan can go in order to draw said hit man out. Much to Lester’s chagrin, he had been scheming to go by rigging the sales numbers in his favor. Oh and Jeff is still all normal and stuff. Again, I don’t like it.

Anyway, Chuck poses as Morgan at the BMC and takes Sarah along with him. At the convention we run into an eclectic mix of Buy More associates including Bob and Jane. Bob’s a cool, crazy friendly dude whom Chuck immediately takes too, the same can be said for Jane w/ Sarah, although Jane is a little to nice and friendly and perfect as a girlfriend for Sarah that you’re kind of suspicious of her right from the start.

Moving on… Chuck gets figures out that it’s the bartender and he is brought back to Castle where the gang quickly realizes that it was all a clever ruse to make sure that the real assassin has the real Morgan. Guess what, it’s Jane! Are you shocked? (I wasn’t.) Jane shows up at the Buy More looking for Morgan who just happens to be in the building trying to make amends with Alex. Cue an adorable scene between the two where Morgan is trying to protect her (later my shipper heart is crushed when Alex says that they are not getting back together but can remain friends. Booooo!!!!) Anyway, Decker tells Jane that the hit is indeed off, but Jane is super pissed. She does not like leaving loose ends and plans to kill everyone involved. Casey has Jane under surveillance after her release and overhears this. Cue Casey killing Jane and all of her cronies.

Later, Awesome, Ellie, Chuck, Morgan, Casey, Sarah are all celebrating when Awesome he is going to go back to work and Ellie’s going to stay home and raise baby Clara (Ellie and Awesome were both going a little bit crazy in the opposite roles). There’s a knock at the door and it’s Decker, who arrests Casey for the murder of Jane and Jane’s cronies. Uh oh.

On the Jeff/Lester front. Lester had been trying to turn Jeff back to… normal? Anyway, he did this buy pumping carbon monoxide into the break room and as a result, he almost kills Bike Mike. Jeff, still being all healthy and sound of mind (and it’s still weird) has Lester arrested for attempted murder. Whoops!

Quotes:

Beckmann: “So shocked you people are running out of money.” Chuck: “Missile Command is part of our process.”

Morgan: “I miss knowing kung fu.”

Chuck: “The force is strong in this one.” Morgan: “Hmm… I have no idea what that means, but I am pumped!”

Casey: “Watch ‘Phantom Menace’ first. You’ll love that one.” (this made me burst out laughing… couldn’t help it.)

Overall Grade: B-/C+. There were some interesting parts to the episode. I like the fact that Casey is no longer protected by the CIA/NSA whenever he kills someone now and is being held responsible for his actions. What bothered me most about the episode was, and maybe this was just  me, I figured out who it was way too early and it was extremely obvious. I also don’t like normal Jeff (in case you couldn’t tell). The Jeff/Lester dynamic brought such comedy to the show and I think without it the whole episode just went downhill. I also don’t like that Morgan/Alex are broken up and I really hope that the two make up before the series finale. (I was able to interview Mekenna Melvin at Comikaze Expo a few weeks back, but everything that she told me happened in the very next episode that aired so I didn’t put the interview online. I have video of it though, so if you just want to see Mekenna being adorable, I can put it up. Let me know!)

What did you think of “Chuck Versus the Business Trip?” Hit the comments!

Next new episode of “Chuck” airs Friday December 9^th at 8pm EST on NBC.

-Casey (@SecretAgentNerd)

Chuck 5×03 “Chuck Versus the Frosted Tips”

Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski), Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Casey (Adam Baldwin) break into Verbanski Headquarters on "Chuck"

“We are not friends!”

We begin with Casey trying to ask out Gertrude… again. It doesn’t go very well at all but he does manage to place a bug on her… which I’m not convinced is just to spy on the competition. Just saying. While watching the footage from the bug, the team discovers that Morgan has gone into business with Verbanski, uh oh. That little traitor.

Beckman is back!!! Squee!! I missed Beckman. She asks Carmichael Industries to capture Matt Zorn who is threatening to release information that would put US agents in danger. She gives Chuck a USB drive with all the information about Matt Zorn that the CIA has. Morgan then zooms (see what I did there?) the USB drive from the gang and gives the information to Verbanski.

The Carmichael gang breaks into Verbanski headquarters to steal that USB drive back. They pose as Verbanski agents. Casey breaks into Gertrude’s office and gets the drive, however Gertrude catches him in the process and the two have a struggle… and it’s the hottest struggle I have ever seen. The chemistry between the two of them is palpable and I love it.

Morgan breaks up with Alex… WHAT THE HELL?! He says he can do better. Casey is pissed.

Meanwhile, Chuck and Morgan spar and in the process Morgan declares that the two of them aren’t friends. NO! Is this the end of the bromance? (answer: no) Chuck has a conversation with Beckman where he lets in known that Morgan has the Intersect. Beckman is baffled. How does Morgan have it? Chuck tells her that the sunglasses containing the Intersect were (remember the sunglasses from the season finale, or course you do) accidently put on by Morgan. Beckman again is confused… she didn’t leave any sunglasses for Morgan… uh oh. Turns out the Intersect that is in Morgan’s head is altered to destroy memories and character. No wonder Morgan is acting all weird. I don’t like this… I don’t like this at all…

Carmichael Industries comes up with a plan to capture Zorn. Ya, well, Verbanski has the same idea and the two tussle on the roof of a building trying to capture Zorn. In the end the two teams decide to split the money and go in on a joint capture. Chuck talks to Morgan and gets him to remember a story from their childhood… the old Morgan is back! Oh and Casey grabs Verbanski and the two have a make out session.

Casey kicks Morgan out (turns out he still pissed about the whole Alex thing, even though technically it wasn’t his fault) and Morgan moves back in with Sarah and Chuck (yay! The gang is back!). Chuck gets a text from Beckman to meet her. She shows Chuck a file with a Termination order for Morgan. Turns out the CIA doesn’t like that Morgan went around telling everyone about the Intersect. Oh and the whole defective Intersect may be a plot by Decker, the head of the CIA. He wanted Chuck to have it inserted into his head so he would be destroyed slowly. Meep.

Oh and there is a whole subplot where Awesome is a stay at home father and he gets bored really easily so he goes down to the Buy More where he finds Jeff passed out under a car after inhaling the fumes. Awesome checks him out and writes him a prescription… and Jeff is a whole new man, responsible and carefully dressed… and it’s creeping me out… wonder how long that’s going to last.

Quotes:

Chuck: “Perving out on Gertrude. Weird move, Casey.”

Verbanski: “Is that a zip drive in your pocket or are you just excited to see me?”

Chuck: “You can keep the Intersect, Gollum.”

Zorn: “Please take me to jail. You’re all a bunch of maniacs.”

Overall Grade: A. THIS is the Chuck that I missed. I loved this episode so much. There were some major developments and turns, and I was shocked that the Intersect wasn’t actually sent by Beckman. I did NOT see that coming. And I’m loving the Gertrude/Casey storyline. I think it’s brilliant.

What did you think of “Chuck Versus the Frosted Tips?” Hit the Comments!

Next new episode of “Chuck” airs November 18^th at 8pm EST on NBC.

-Casey (@SecretAgentNerd)

Chuck 5×02 “Chuck Versus the Bearded Bandit”

The Carmichael Industries Gang surveys a compound on "Chuck"

WTF Morgan?

So the Carmichael Industries gang is doing a presentation to win new clients at some sort of summit when boom! Upstaged by an old nemesis of Casey’s, Gertrude Verbanski (played by awesome guest star Carrie-Anne Moss!)

Cut to the Buy More where it’s completely dead and deserted. A tumbleweed rolls through the store (just like my town… that’s sad isn’t it?). They have added a Home and Garden section to the store in order to boost business but it doesn’t seem to be working all that well. BTW: why are they selling tumbleweeds? Take a trip out to the desert, we have plenty and you’re more than welcome to them… one less to hit with our cars.. anyway…

Big Mike is back! Returning from his honeymoon w/ Morgan’s mom (anyone else kind of bummed that we didn’t see that wedding? That would have been entertaining as hell). Mike suggests running a commercial to boost business and pulls up an old commercial from the 70’s that he himself stars in…. and it’s groovy baby. But Morgan and Chuck think that they need one that is more with the times.

Enter an international business man (played by Jeff Fahey (LOST!!! Oh I miss you…)) and Morgan zooms on him. Cue Morgan tackling him to the ground. Yeah, turns out that he wants to hire Carmichael Industries to get his brother Wesley (played by Justin Hartley (Smallville…. I miss that show too. Loving the guest stars this season) who has been kidnapped. The businessman, Karl, show the gang a finger that has been sent to him that belongs to Wesley. The group decides to go rescue him for a sum of $200,000.

Morgan is a bit out of control with the Intersect in his head so Casey and Sarah decide that he needs a handler, and who better than Chuck?

Casey stakes out the compound where Wesley is being held… and gets caught. But it’s ok, he’s masquerading as a duck hunter, so no harm, no foul.

Sarah has a meeting with Verbanski… ya, it turns out that Verbanski actually wants to hire Sarah to come work for them. Verbanski seems to really just want Casey and she actually has a gun on display that she took from Casey by force. Wow, really?

Chuck and Morgan discuss the possibility of Chuck becoming Morgan’s handler. Unfortunately the conversation is cut short when an armed man decides to rob the store. Morgan zooms, takes them out and the clerk then thinks that Morgan is trying to rob the store. Cops come, the two bolt.

Chuck, Sarah and Casey enter the compound to rescue Wesley via cliff. Morgan bitterly waits in the van. The threesome makes their way into the compound and find him. Ya, well it turns out that Wesley hasn’t been kidnapped at all. In fact he hired guards and hid so that his brother couldn’t find him. That finger? Karl cut it off during the last conversation that the two had had. Wesley is testifying against his brother for his shady business. The guards are coming… Morgan takes them out. Way to go. Karl calls, says hes coming to get his brother and Chuck tells him that they were paid to rescue Wesley and that’s exactly what they are going to do. Rescue him from his brother.

Karl demands that Wesley be delivered to him w/in four hours or bad things are going to happen… very, very bad things. Morgan is all determined to go after him but it’s too dangerous. Morgan gets pissed and the gang sends him and Chuck out for food to cool off. Ya, Morgan doesn’t handle being told what to do very well and instead the two are off Karl’s mansion to take him down before Karl can take them down… with Chuck all worried and fuming. Morgan runs in leaving Chuck behind. Chuck calls Sarah and Casey to let them know the situation and now they’re all off… and they’re all pissed at Morgan. Why is Morgan behaving like such an idiot?!

Inside the mansion, Morgan has taken down 5 of Karl’s men with his spiffy Intersect abilities. Chuck begs him to leave, Morgan says no. More men enter and the two of them take them all down. Chuck: “Good job Indy!” Morgan doesn’t know who Indy is… um… what? What is happening to Morgan?!?!?!?!?!?

Casey and Sarah arrive just in time to see the building being put into lockdown. What the hell are they going to do. Call Verbanski of course. Nothing like hiring your rivals to save one of your people. Verbanski and company bash in the windows and rescue them all, much to Morgan’s chagrin. Morgan stomps off all pissy… what is up with Morgan?! I do not like this new Morgan… he’s worrying me.

Oh, and the commercial that the Buy More wanted to make to gain more business? They hire Awesome (awesome) to star in it. I will buy whatever they are selling. Just saying.

Later, back at the apartment complex, Chuck tries to apologize to Morgan for everything that had happened. Morgan is still pissy. Chuck is trying to play nice by asking what trilogy he wants to watch, Star Wars or Die Hard? Morgan claims that’s more of a “Chuck Thing” and I am scared. I don’t like this at all.

Cut to Casey who is calling Verbanski to ask her out on a date, but hangs up when she picks up. Verbanski goes back to talking to the person who she was talking to before the phone rang: Morgan. WHAT?! Morgan is offering  his services to Verbanski, and tells her that he has the Intersect. MORGAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!

Quotes:

Casey: “You ever have sex with someone who just tried to kill you? It’s incredible.”

Big Mike: “The Buy More seems empty. Are we observing International Pancake Day?”

Casey: “It made a nasty scar right over one of my favorite scars.”

Awesome: “Sure I did some modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch back in college, but I hung up those cargo pants a long time ago.”

Overall Grade: B. I still don’t feel that Chuck has hit its stride yet. It’s not that it was a bad episode at all, it just wasn’t one of the best ones that I’ve ever seen. Although I am very excited about the addition of Carrie-Anne Moss.

What did you think of “Chuck Versus the Bearded Bandit?” Hit the comments!

Next new episode of “Chuck” airs November 11^th at 8pm EST on NBC.

-Casey (@SecretAgentNerd)

Chuck 5×01 “Chuck Versus The Zoom”

Chuck (Zachary Levi) explains the next mission to Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and Casey (Adam Baldwin) on "Chuck"

Chuck is back!!!!!

Where we left off: Sarah, almost died but is rescued at the last minute by Chuck who no longer has the intersect. The CIA fired the team. Volkoff is not really Volkoff but a British scientist named Hartley Winterbottom (horrible name). Hartley gave all of the Volkoff assets to Chuck and Sarah as a wedding present. They use the money to buy the Buy More and Castle. General Beckmann left sunglasses that were meant for Chuck but Morgan put them on instead and the intersect is now uploaded into HIS brain.

Alright, we all caught up? Let’s do this!

So Chuck and Sarah are on a new freelance spy mission where they’re trying to steal a vase from a mega bad guy named Jean Claude (Mark Hamill!!). It’s not going so well seeing as how we start off the episode with them being captured. They say that they have a secret weapon… turns out there secret weapon is Casey, who has also been captured. Sarah presses a button which signals new Intersect Morgan to come to their rescue and it is AWESOME to see Morgan kicking some ass. Unfortunately Morgan breaks the vase (worth $6 million dollars).

Cut to Castle which is the home base of Carmicheal Industries where Morgan is super gluing the vase back together. We find out that the person who wanted the vase was actually after an encrypted drive that was in the vase; the vase was supposed to be the teams reward for getting the chip. Whoops! It turns out its really easy to spend millions of dollars when you are putting together your own freelance spy team and Carmichael Industries hasn’t exactly been raking in the dough since they started. You know, you have to buy equipment, and bullets, jets… shrimp…

Enter a new client, a lawyer, who offers the team a reward if they recover the money that was stolen from his clients in a Ponzi Scheme to a guy named Roger Bale. Casey isn’t too keen on helping the guy until he hears that Rush Limbaugh lost $2 million dollars from this scam. (Oh Casey… I have missed you and you’re awesome love of government and Regan… and Limbaugh apparently). They track down Bale at some kind of resort and Morgan zooms (flashes… I don’t like zoom) on Bale’s bag, learning that he plays squash at some exclusive club. They need to steal Bale’s phone to get their names on a list for a party that Bale is throwing. This way they can get into his building.

Cut to Castle where Ellie and Chuck are discussing whether or not the sunglasses that downloaded the Intersect into Morgan’s brain can be fixed in order to be used again. According to Ellie it won’t work again (for now… the “Chuck” fans like having Chuck with the Intersect in HIS brain too much for the show to keep going with it in Morgan’s forever). Upstairs in the Buy More, Lester puts up a banner that reads “Save Jeff Barnes!” Ya, we find out later that Jeff and Lester are running a scheme in order to get money from unsuspecting customers by having Jeff claim that he got trampled by a bunch of middle aged woman after a Justin Bieber doll (I can totally see this happening). It’s going great until Jeff is spotted getting up out of the wheelchair that he’s in.

At the country club, Morgan zooms (zooms just does not roll off of your tongue… I don’t like it, please go back to flash) on how to play squash and uses his skills to get invited to the party that Bale is hosting. There’s also this whole scene with Chuck as a masseuse trying to keep Bale’s actual squash opponent busy. Things go badly, and Casey has to come in and save his ass. I don’t like inept Chuck, I really need him to have the Intersect back in his brain sooner rather than later.

Anyway, cut to the party where Chuck is keeping guard in the van while Morgan, Sarah and Casey all go in to try and recover the information. Morgan and Sarah distract Bale by showing off their skills on the dance floor (damn Morgan can dance! I really need my own Intersect) so Casey can go transfer the money that was stolen. Back in the van, Chuck is keeping guard when all the equipment fails to work and that douchey CIA head tells Chuck that they are using Chuck’s operation in order to freeze the money from the accounts. Sarah, Morgan and Casey are discovered and captured.

Downstairs in the computer room, Sarah, Casey and Morgan are lead away and Bale calls a computer tech guy… enter Chuck. He grabs a hold of a bunch of wires and threatens to pull them all out unless Bale lets the rest of the team go. Bale agrees and Chuck is yelling over his earpiece to leave him here. Sarah, Morgan and Casey hop in the van where Chuck left a video “PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE! I HAVE A PLAN!” He tells Morgan to push a button which shuts off all the power to the building so Chuck can pull the wires out and run. He tells them that there’s only one escape and it’s a window. The team places the van underneath the window in order for Chuck to jump out of it and land on the top.

Cut to Castle where it turns out that the CIA didn’t only freeze Bale’s accounts but Carmichael Industries accounts. The team no has NO money. They realize that they’re going to have make the Buy More profitable and use the money from that.

There is also a whole subplot where Chuck is trying to find the perfect house for Sarah. It’s called Operation Toes in the Sand…. Or Operation T.I.T.S. for short. (wow). Sarah tells Chuck about the perfect house, white with a red door surrounded by a picket fence. Chuck finds it but is unable to purchase it because the CIA froze there money. He says he will do whatever he has to do so that Sarah can have her dream home. Chuck is seriously one of the sweetest guys EVER… I need my own Chuck… really bad.

The final shot is of a meeting room in the CIA where the douchey CIA guy (Decker) saying that Chuck is important and they have to take him down. Uh oh…

Quotes:

Casey: “Do you actually play non-video game sports?”

Morgan: “Premature zoom? Really? Crap!”

Ellie: “The Intersect didn’t make you a hero, it just gave you the opportunity.”

Overall grade: B. While I am ecstatic that the show is finally back, the premiere lacked the punch that I had been hoping for. Don’t get me wrong, there were some awesome sequences, and watching Morgan actually get the chance to be the hero was great. However, I don’t like Chuck without the Intersect. I don’t like watching him be relegated to the van while everyone else is out being the spies. Also, no Big Mike, no Beckmann, and no Awesome? What’s up with that? I waited a long time to see the whole gang back together and not getting to see everyone kind of bummed me out. Oh, and watching Chuck and Sarah call each other sweetie and honey just seemed weird…  Overall it was a good episode, but it definitely could have been picked up a notch. I am really excited to see what the CIA has in store for the team though. If it’s anything like the Volkoff story line, it’s going to be good.

What did you think of “Chuck Versus the Zoom?” Hit the Comments!

Next new episode of “Chuck” airs November 4^th at 8pm EST on NBC.

-Casey (@SecretAgentNerd)