Chuck 3x17 Review
May. 26th, 2010 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaChuck vs The Living Zombie
• Chuck’s lying has really begun to irritate me, especially in the last episode, but it was so pervasive in this one – both him doing it and people talking about it – that I’m thinking now that it’s all on purpose.
Early in the episode we get both – “Yes, I realise that honest is important in a relationship. Who do you think I am?” to Morgan re: Sarah and then – “You know me, I wouldn’t lie.” to his father.
Morgan, Sarah and Stephen all bring up honesty to him with Sarah saying straight out to him – “You have to be honest with the people you love and that includes me too.” – and we know that in the next episode he’ll be learning that it was his lies to his sister that have put her in so much danger.
He learns in this episode how continued lying doesn’t work – he lies to Sarah about his Shaw dream and gets caught, and then he lies to his dad three times and still in the end the truth comes out. So to what purpose I’m not sure – him having to learn the hard way to not lie to his loved ones perhaps – but it feels now like there is purpose and it makes it all a bit less irritating. Or I could be wrong but I am really hoping not. I want there to be a reason for all the lying, or consequences and Chuck actually learning something from it all.
• So that ending was kind of ominous. If this was a different show I would be pretty sure that TPTB were going to be killing off a main character. As soon as they brought up Shaw’s spy will I found myself immediately thinking of Chuck and how since he is now a true spy whether he had one yet, and if not why Sarah or Casey hadn’t set him to it. I found that whole end scene worked for me really well and I loved Chuck’s voiceover writing of his will. “I don’t know what will end up killing me but I’ve chosen to be a spy and there are consequences to that.” Hmm, ominous indeed.
Speaking of the end – Shaw alive and a Ring Intersect! Awesome. I cannot wait for a Chuck/Shaw face off. I am a bit surprised though since I never thought Shaw was evil just driven by grief and revenge. I guess Chuck shooting him pushed him all the way over to the Ring’s side? It still seems a risk for the Ring to take to make him an Intersect. Wouldn’t they have a more loyal operative?
• When the Ring agent broke into Shaw’s apartment and Sarah and Chuck hid why did they stay hiding until caught? To all appearances it appeared as if they were totally willing to allow the Ring agent to leave with the briefcase which makes no sense to me. They’re spies – shouldn’t they have attacked him when he was removing the briefcase from the safe? That would have been the best time since they would have caught him a) by surprise and b) with his hands full, plus they had him outgunned outnumbered. It just doesn’t make sense that they would stand there waiting. Then when Chuck didn’t make the jump between buildings why didn’t he flash again about a way to save himself? Are we really supposed to think he’d have died if his father wasn’t there? I don’t buy it (which makes it two times in one episode).
• So on one hand, the whole sequence of Sarah rushing in and saving Chuck by throwing an axe that hits the knife thrown at him was pretty awesome and the exchange between Chuck and his dad afterwards – “Does she have the intersect too?” / “No, dad, that’s all her.” – was also awesome. But on the other hand, it was really stupid and annoyed me. Not twenty minutes earlier (in the very same episode!) Stephen threw a knife at his son’s head in order to ascertain that Chuck was the Intersect and Chuck caught it – caught it with far less time and space then there was when the bad guy throws a knife at Chuck later in the same episode. So it makes no sense for Chuck to just stand there when we know that he can just catch the knife. It just played really stupid.
• The sequence where Casey was going over Sarah’s relationship with Shaw and Chuck silently, and not so silently (“Objection – relevance?!” – hee), amused me and Casey was taking way too much enjoyment out of it.
• Morgan slowly falling for Devon while hearing him explain a typical day in the Woodcomb household was really amusing. I loved his “If he’d have me I’d let him.” to Casey. Hee.
• Casey was once again mainly regulated to a B story with Morgan but I loved how seriously he took his promise to Chuck to watch over Ellie.
• I feel so horrible for Ellie who feels so alone and so scared and none of this is necessary if only her stupid family would tell her the truth! Seriously, it’s like watching a train wreck you can see happening from a mile away and know could have been prevented. But at least she didn’t shoot Casey for which I am very thankful. When I saw Ellie being escorted into the Ring’s faux CIA offices I was thinking that they were going to brainwash Ellie into being a sleeper agent but it appears not (though that could always be used as an option later.)
• I had forgotten Stephen had an Intersect in his head, and actually also his behaviour which seemed a lot worse in this episode. Are we to assume than that this... degeneration is caused by the Intersect and is what will happen to Chuck too? Should we add bad thought processes on that as well? I was pretty much on Chuck’s side on the whole throwing a knife at him situation. “You threw a knife at my face! ... What if you were wrong?” / “I’m never wrong!” Yikes.
Ack, spoiled myself on wiki. Again. This time I couldn’t remember Chuck’s dad’s name and went and looked, didn’t find him listed under reoccurring guest and decided to look in Chuck’s entry and in his right box it was right there – name (deceased). I know better than this! Hell, I’m pretty sure I did the exact same thing before – looking for a forgotten name, looking in wiki and in the detail box, got spoiled – and it just makes me irritated with myself.
• Chuck’s lying has really begun to irritate me, especially in the last episode, but it was so pervasive in this one – both him doing it and people talking about it – that I’m thinking now that it’s all on purpose.
Early in the episode we get both – “Yes, I realise that honest is important in a relationship. Who do you think I am?” to Morgan re: Sarah and then – “You know me, I wouldn’t lie.” to his father.
Morgan, Sarah and Stephen all bring up honesty to him with Sarah saying straight out to him – “You have to be honest with the people you love and that includes me too.” – and we know that in the next episode he’ll be learning that it was his lies to his sister that have put her in so much danger.
He learns in this episode how continued lying doesn’t work – he lies to Sarah about his Shaw dream and gets caught, and then he lies to his dad three times and still in the end the truth comes out. So to what purpose I’m not sure – him having to learn the hard way to not lie to his loved ones perhaps – but it feels now like there is purpose and it makes it all a bit less irritating. Or I could be wrong but I am really hoping not. I want there to be a reason for all the lying, or consequences and Chuck actually learning something from it all.
• So that ending was kind of ominous. If this was a different show I would be pretty sure that TPTB were going to be killing off a main character. As soon as they brought up Shaw’s spy will I found myself immediately thinking of Chuck and how since he is now a true spy whether he had one yet, and if not why Sarah or Casey hadn’t set him to it. I found that whole end scene worked for me really well and I loved Chuck’s voiceover writing of his will. “I don’t know what will end up killing me but I’ve chosen to be a spy and there are consequences to that.” Hmm, ominous indeed.
Speaking of the end – Shaw alive and a Ring Intersect! Awesome. I cannot wait for a Chuck/Shaw face off. I am a bit surprised though since I never thought Shaw was evil just driven by grief and revenge. I guess Chuck shooting him pushed him all the way over to the Ring’s side? It still seems a risk for the Ring to take to make him an Intersect. Wouldn’t they have a more loyal operative?
• When the Ring agent broke into Shaw’s apartment and Sarah and Chuck hid why did they stay hiding until caught? To all appearances it appeared as if they were totally willing to allow the Ring agent to leave with the briefcase which makes no sense to me. They’re spies – shouldn’t they have attacked him when he was removing the briefcase from the safe? That would have been the best time since they would have caught him a) by surprise and b) with his hands full, plus they had him outgunned outnumbered. It just doesn’t make sense that they would stand there waiting. Then when Chuck didn’t make the jump between buildings why didn’t he flash again about a way to save himself? Are we really supposed to think he’d have died if his father wasn’t there? I don’t buy it (which makes it two times in one episode).
• So on one hand, the whole sequence of Sarah rushing in and saving Chuck by throwing an axe that hits the knife thrown at him was pretty awesome and the exchange between Chuck and his dad afterwards – “Does she have the intersect too?” / “No, dad, that’s all her.” – was also awesome. But on the other hand, it was really stupid and annoyed me. Not twenty minutes earlier (in the very same episode!) Stephen threw a knife at his son’s head in order to ascertain that Chuck was the Intersect and Chuck caught it – caught it with far less time and space then there was when the bad guy throws a knife at Chuck later in the same episode. So it makes no sense for Chuck to just stand there when we know that he can just catch the knife. It just played really stupid.
• The sequence where Casey was going over Sarah’s relationship with Shaw and Chuck silently, and not so silently (“Objection – relevance?!” – hee), amused me and Casey was taking way too much enjoyment out of it.
• Morgan slowly falling for Devon while hearing him explain a typical day in the Woodcomb household was really amusing. I loved his “If he’d have me I’d let him.” to Casey. Hee.
• Casey was once again mainly regulated to a B story with Morgan but I loved how seriously he took his promise to Chuck to watch over Ellie.
• I feel so horrible for Ellie who feels so alone and so scared and none of this is necessary if only her stupid family would tell her the truth! Seriously, it’s like watching a train wreck you can see happening from a mile away and know could have been prevented. But at least she didn’t shoot Casey for which I am very thankful. When I saw Ellie being escorted into the Ring’s faux CIA offices I was thinking that they were going to brainwash Ellie into being a sleeper agent but it appears not (though that could always be used as an option later.)
• I had forgotten Stephen had an Intersect in his head, and actually also his behaviour which seemed a lot worse in this episode. Are we to assume than that this... degeneration is caused by the Intersect and is what will happen to Chuck too? Should we add bad thought processes on that as well? I was pretty much on Chuck’s side on the whole throwing a knife at him situation. “You threw a knife at my face! ... What if you were wrong?” / “I’m never wrong!” Yikes.
Ack, spoiled myself on wiki. Again. This time I couldn’t remember Chuck’s dad’s name and went and looked, didn’t find him listed under reoccurring guest and decided to look in Chuck’s entry and in his right box it was right there – name (deceased). I know better than this! Hell, I’m pretty sure I did the exact same thing before – looking for a forgotten name, looking in wiki and in the detail box, got spoiled – and it just makes me irritated with myself.
