Posted by Janie Logan Jan 25, 2011, 14:20 GMT
Complete with a sexy "evil" look, Sarah (Yvonne Strahovki) goes undercover with Volkoff to save Mama Bartowski in "Chuck vs. the Gobbler." Photo courtesy of NBC.
“Distance.” That’s the advice Mama B gives Sarah on how to survive an undercover op and make the tough choices that are required. And that’s exactly what we get in “Chuck vs. the Gobbler”—a Sarah distant from the one we know and love.
It’s easy to say that she’s doing this for the right reasons and that, looking back, it will all have been for the best. But that doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking to see Sarah almost kill Casey, or walk away from an unconscious Chuck and ignore his attempt to contact her.
He starts out the episode so hopeful, so convinced that Sarah will accomplish her mission in no time and return home to him the same woman she was when she left. At the end, he stands by Casey’s hospital bed not understanding how Sarah could have done this.
Volkoff calls it the turning point, when an agent stops pretending and actually does something that pushes her to the other side. When did that point occur with “Frost”? And how do you come back from it, with so much to explain to your family and friends and the government?
There were some nice little moments in “Chuck vs. the Gobbler”—Ellie tricking Awesome into approving the name Clara for their baby; Morgan not caring that Alex might ruin his limited edition Back to the Future t-shirt because she looked so cute in it (and then babbling to Casey that they were having a “shirt party”); Chuck’s line after kissing the catsuit-clad Sarah: “It feels like I’m cheating on you with you.”
Still, this episode was all build up and no payoff—that’s being saved for next week’s “Chuck vs. the Push Mix.” It’s one of those times when you can see the effect of having a 24-episode season, with a storyline that feels stretched too thin until you get the satisfying conclusion and can see why the characters were put through the difficult trials.
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