Review: Chuck versus the Gobbler

“I love a good suicide mission.”

I’ve written elsewhere about how little I like the proleptic cold open* in which we see the inexplicable—Dark Sarah beating up Casey!—and then rewind to find out how on God’s green and verdant earth such a thing could have happened. It’s a device designed to ratchet up the tension, which often means that the plot, in chronological order, wouldn’t be too scintillating without some narrative trickery. And, indeed, this week’s entry felt blah, and I didn’t laugh once.

I know that Chuck isn’t about deftly plotted spy games—it’s not a John Le Carré novel, and I don’t expect it to be. So I won’t address the questions of how Sarah managed to pull off enough wacky Euro-heists to make her way to Volkoff in just a couple of days, or how in the two days the show gave her, she managed to fly from LA to Moscow and back approximately three bazillion times without looking remotely dehydrated or sniffly.

But I will mention the illogic of Volkoff having a network of information called Hydra that exists in only one place, a fake eyeball hidden inside an imprisoned cannibal. This network is vital to his organization, but he has been without it since the Gobbler was imprisoned, and does not seem to have told his “right hand” Mama B about it until just now.

I will also mention the illogic of Sarah needing Chuck, Morgan, and Casey to help her with the Great Gobbler Escape. We know from past episodes that there are, in fact, many other CIA agents out there—why not use some of them? The miniscule staging of most of this episode has me worried: it was something I started noticing in the middle of Season Three of Heroes, in which it seemed like the heroes were the only people in the world, often without even extras in the background to add depth. I started to feel like it showed some desperation on the part of the writers, that they were unwilling to develop plots logically for fear that logic would take our attention away from the awesome centrality of our characters to the continued existence of the universe.

But most of all, I will mention the emotional illogic. Sarah has a history of running from commitment—we know that. But Chuck doesn’t mind that, at a vital moment in their relationship, she chose to accept a mission that her predecessor (Mama B) has been working on for about 20 years. Such an emotionally nuanced and long-simmering problem is simply not on the table. Instead, this episode hands us a new emotional tension on a platter: will Sarah go dark? That’s not a real risk, though, which is why the proleptic opening didn’t create actual tension. It just asserted it.

The structure of many Chuck episodes can be explained in terms of Chuck’s kung fu flashes: whenever he’s about to fight, he has to re-access his kung-fu knowledge bank. He doesn’t really carry that information around and accessible (the way I have my address memorized); he has to look it up every time (the way I can’t ever remember my mother’s address). On a larger scale, each episode of this season has to re-access the emotional drama by creating a new “problem” for the characters to overcome. Because most of these problems are solvable in 45 minutes (although this one might take another episode), they don’t feel real or lasting or important. They feel fluffy, like perpetual deferment.

There was some good in this episode, though: I thought the Grönka thing was rather funny, although it might have gone on too long. I absolutely love Timothy Dalton vamping his way through his evil, evil, evil role, and even thought the arbitrary accent switching added some nice color.

Most of all, though, I’m touched by Casey’s sacrifice. He’s not the type to tell someone he loves them. He’s the type to build shelves of love, and I hope his daughter understands that. I also really, really hope that Casey is okay. Many people have been alluding to 4.13 (the next episode) as something hugely important, but I’ve worked pretty hard to remain unspoiled. If he dies I’ll be horribly sad.

I haven’t lost all of my faith in Chuck. But it’s not the highlight of my week. It’s not even the highlight of my Monday.

Bytes:

• Chuck: “The CIA developed a tonal language for us that only we can understand….Right now, [Sarah] is saying she loves me. Or, she’s planning on buying a Buick. I can’t tell. It’s a very confusing language.”

• Mama B: “There’s one square meter of land in this entire compound that isn’t under surveillance.”

• Morgan: “Wow, Sarah, you look evocative.”

And Pieces:

• Volkoff painting a puppy. Aww.

• I think Sarah has lost weight. She’s lovely either way, of course, but I liked her better with a few more curves.

• The Armenian serial killer joke might not have been funny to the rest of America, but in the context of Burbank’s large Armenian population, it’s actually quite appropriate.

Thank you all for your patience with this review. I got the flu this week, and whenever I sat down to start writing I wound up falling asleep and having terrible fever dreams. Away, flaming elephant, away with you!

Last week, you all had some really great comments (all of which were so nice, too—thank you!). I look forward to hearing more from the best reviewers—the chucktv.net community—out there. I’ll also let you rate this one:

How many Grönkas out of four?

*I really don’t think it’s in media res, but I understand that I am likely alone in this opinion.

(If you’re willing to risk contracting the flu, you might want to check out my highly contagious reviews of Chuck, Fringe, and the Vampire Diaries at billiedoux.com)