This week on “Chuck,” our hero has been captured and the rest of Team Bartowski are desperate to find their wayward favorite. Sarah goes rogue, Casey gets locked up, and Morgan gets a gun as the team heads to Thailand. Lots of ridiculousness ensues.
How was it? Find out after the jump.
Synopsis: When a shadowy international spy named the Belgian inches closer to the truth of the Intersect, Team Bartowski slips deep into the jungles of Southeast Asia to thwart him, and Sarah sets forth on a rogue mission.
What’d I Think: For an episode that was mostly Chuck free from the plot (Chuck is stuck in a Eternal Sunshine style maze of his own mind), this episode kicked a lot of ass. Most of the reason that happened is thanks to Yvonne Strahvoski, who carried the episode with a lot of badassery (see: the scene where she goes into a little bar in Thailand and calls out the toughest of the tough in Thai) and a lot of heart (her final scene with Chuck). Throughout the series, Strahvoski has been given chances to be badass, be hot, and occasionally have heartfelt discussions with Chuck, but never really a focus episode quite like this. She shined throughout, and it was a really excellent episode if only because of her.
Chuck’s Eternal Sunshine is also very well acted, as Zachary Levi’s crumbling reality as the doctor begins taking away his memories is legitimately tense and scary. You can see the panic all over him as he struggles to hold onto what is dear to him, and watching the lights turn off on every important until – thankfully – Sarah comes in and saves the day and his memories is an extremely exciting moment for the show. Levi and Strahvoski are the de facto leads of the show, and they both get a ton to work with, and they do it really well.
I love that the showrunners made an episode like this. In a lot of ways, it feels like an episode that is completely unlike anything else we’ve seen from Chuck. Team Bartowski struggling to get around the world to their namesake as he is in mortal danger is something fresh for the show (or at least the execution felt so), and when you throw in the story of Awesome trying to fix Chuck’s dad’s laptop (and the cliffhanger that ties to it), you’ve got a fantastic episode of plot that is filled to the brim with entertainment.
I want to throw in also, as far as supporting acting is concerned, Adam Baldwin and Joshua Gomez threw down their A game as well. Whether it was Baldwin explaining about how Sarah shouldn’t be where she is (right as a woman comes up and asks if he wants his usual) or Gomez talking to Sarah about Chuck’s proposal plan, they both had moments to shine.
I’m really enjoying this current stretch of episodes, and I for one can’t wait to see where we go next. It looks like Linda Hamilton and Timothy Dalton are back next week, and I for one am pumped for that. We’re hitting the approach to the end of the season (unless they pick up 9 more episodes), and here’s hoping they end with a bang (and maybe a wedding?).
