Posted by Janie Logan Sep 28, 2010, 13:37 GMT
On a mission to Milan during fashion week, Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) throws down on the runway with an enemy spy (Victoria Secret model Karolina Kurkova). Male viewers everywhere rejoice. Photo courtesy of NBC.
A catfight on the catwalk—it has all the makings of a cliché, but on Chuck, it’s AWESOME.
This week’s episode was another great one, and it didn’t even seem to matter that we made little progress in the Mama Bartowski storyline. Not that it was ignored—Chuck understands that this new Russian bad guy, Volkoff, is probably the key to finding his mother, and Ellie’s impending motherhood is making her long for her own mother.
Allowing Chuck and Sarah to become a couple has opened the show to a new realm of funny and emotional stories (if only other showrunners would take note…). Chuck has always been a heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy, but we are getting to see so much more of the nuances in Yvonne Strahovski's performance.
She nailed the glaring looks as Chuck became a rambling mess over the hot Volkoff operative, Sophia (guest-star Karolina Kurkova), and a big “Hell yeah!” moment when she delivered her line, with a bullet: “Put some clothes on.”
She’s just as wonderful when she opens up in those heartfelt scenes, like the one where Sarah finally unpacks her suitcase. She’s been technically living with Chuck for 8 months, but never put her stuff in the closet because she always wanted to be ready when duty called.
The episode drew a solid comparison between Casey and Sarah. They're the perfect spies--able to shut off their emotions, eager for the next mission, moving from place to place without putting down roots. But things have changed.
As Sarah so sweetly tells Chuck at the end of the episode, he's her home. And as much as Casey would hesitate to admit it, he too is starting to feel comfortable with the people in his life--Alex, Chuck, Sarah, and funnily enough, Morgan (whom he gruffly refers to as "that little pipsqueak").
As for Jeffster, I guess Matt Foley, Saturday Night Live's motivational speaker, could’ve seen it coming--they were living in a van down by the river. Thankfully, they were documenting their time as fugitives for posterity’s sake, and I can only HOPE we get to see more of that at some point, maybe as a DVD extra: “Jeff has a pet rock named Bruce. When I asked him why Bruce, he said, ‘Because when I hit it, it doesn’t bruce…”
As I guessed, Jeff and Lester and the rest of the Buy More losers get their jobs back to keep the store from being full of efficient, helpful employees who are so obviously spies. Morgan may be clueless in many things, but he convinces General Beckman that the new Buy More is "too right that it's wrong."
That storyline tied in nicely with Captain Awesome as overprotective, super-dad who was going above and beyond to make sure that Ellie and his future child were comfortable and awesome. He went to the Buy More to get her multiple noise machines to help her sleep and noticed something amiss: “Everyone there was super attractive and highly skilled. It was like I worked there. But why would I work at the Buy More?”
He knew how important it was to Ellie that Chuck was safe, and if she even suspected that he was still a spy, she would be worried.
Employees rush and somersault in to fix every object out of place. A little boy looks up at Isaiah Mustafa's "Greta" in admiration, telling his mom he wants to work at the Buy More when he grows up. Morgan does such a good job of restoring the CIA's cover with Jeffster and Co. that General Beckman makes him store manager and walks out.
Perhaps she understands the necessity of having incompetent idiots around but she wouldn't be able to deal with them herself. I imagine she'd last about 15 minutes trying to boss Jeff around before she broke down and shot him/put him in an NSA holding facility.
One thing I’m particularly pleased about is how well the writers keep Chuck grounded, despite his impressive work with the Intersect 2.0. They let him grow as a character and a spy, without losing sight of his humble, nerdy beginnings. He’s still not the smooth secret agent he thinks he is (e.g. saying “I got this” to Sarah before walking up to Sophia and just reaching for her purse, instead grabbing her butt), and he still wants to do things like have a Spiderman kiss when he’s hanging upside down about to break into a hotel room.
And while Sarah has come a long way with Chuck, he had to have known that his “marriage and kids” comment might freak her out a little bit. This is clearly going to be an ongoing point of contention between them, but given the way things have been handled up until now, I’m sure it will move their relationship forward in a way that’s funny, romantic, and exciting.
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