Posted by Janie Logan Jan 19, 2011, 11:09 GMT
Chuck faces every possible obstacle to a perfect proposal for Sarah in "Chuck vs. the Balcony." Photo courtesy of NBC.
Watching Chuck try to plan the perfect proposal for Sarah in “Chuck vs. the Balcony,” I don’t know how he (or we, the viewers) could have expected it to be so easy. It took three seasons for them to get together in the first place! Plus, this is television! They fooled us, though, and delivered a nail-biting cliffhanger.
At first, the obstacles Chuck faced were amusing. Just as he was about to pop the question in a lovely restaurant--with champagne, string quartet, horse-drawn carriage, and a balloon-carrying Morgan waiting in the wings—Sarah tells him of her parents’ proposal-gone-awry and how it was the beginning of the end of their relationship. Hand shaking as he clutched the ring box under the table, Chuck knew this was not the right moment.
Their mission to France would be perfect. A nanochip with valuable secrets had been injected into a bottle of wine. Chuck and Sarah were to attend a wine-tasting to retrieve the chip, with Casey as their disgruntled manservant hilariously complaining about the French. Morgan scoped out the villa beforehand to help Chuck choose the best place to set his grand proposal. Alas, it was not to be, due to an interruption from Casey, and Chuck ended up back in L.A. stressing over his missed opportunity.
Then a stroke of luck! General Beckman sends the lovebirds back to France posing as rogue operatives betraying the CIA to sell the nanochip. Sarah could tell something was up and intimidated Morgan into telling her everything (again).
This ended up being the most genuine aspect of "Chuck vs. the Balcony," for me--that Sarah would pull a reverse on the typical notion of a proposal to make things perfect for Chuck without letting him know. Even though she doesn't need all the romantic buildup to the question she has already said yes to in her heart--and to a barely conscious Chuck in "vs. Phase Three"--he does need it because that's what he thinks he's supposed to do.
So back in France with Morgan on the sidelines helping Chuck (but really helping Sarah help Chuck), the mission went off without a hitch (which should have been our first red alert), and Chuck knew this was it. He told Sarah how every time he looks at her, it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Such an emotional moment to see him articulate so sweetly what it feels like for him to have won a girl beyond his wildest dreams--Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski really nailed it.
The glorious question was on the tip of his tongue when—WAIT! Something’s gone wrong! A CIA team busts in to arrest Sarah for being double agent.
Who woulda thought Casey would be the one to give Chuck the advice he needed to stop stressing and just ask the damn question already. Chuck is confident that there has just been some sort of misunderstanding, unaware that Sarah set this up herself. “I’m leaving,” she says. Because she loves Chuck and wants to be with him forever, she does the one thing she knows will show him that—she goes undercover to bring down Volkoff so that Chuck can have his mother back.
Now, I don't know how sound her reasoning is. She just experienced the pain of losing Chuck when the Belgian (Richard Chamberlain) was holding him prisoner, and now she is in effect putting Chuck through the same thing. When all is said and done, hopefully they'll both feel like Sarah's risk (and the extreme worry Chuck is sure to feel) have been worth it.
But one can't help but draw the parallel to Mama Bartowski--Chuck lost her when he was a child because she put herself in the same situation. Giving Mary the benefit of the doubt, she stayed undercover with Volkoff to protect her family and serve her country.
Chuck has done a good job of showing us that this is the hard choice that spies must make--what are they willing to sacrifice for the job? We know that Casey gave up his fiancee and, unknowingly, his daughter to be the best agent he could be. Little by little, his heart has warmed and he's come to value his friends and family. For Sarah, Chuck brought her back from super-spydom to humanity. Maybe the same will be possible for Mama B.
The previews for next week's episode, "Chuck vs. the Gobbler," look pretty intense, with Chuck going on a mission inside a prison and Sarah doing all manner of badass things to earn Volkoff's trust, but according to executive producer Josh Schwartz, episode 13 is the one we should really be looking forward to. He's not being shy about the hype--he calls the last 5 minutes of "Chuck vs. the Push Mix" the best in series so far. I'm going to hold him to that promise.
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