She Said: Chuck 4.15, Chuck vs the CAT Squad

How fitting that on Valentine’s Day, this week’s theme seemed to be relationships (with a secondary theme of trust). We saw Sarah struggle with rekindling a relationship from her past lost due to lack of trust while building trust in her relationship with Ellie. Morgan continued in his realization that Alex is “the one” while fending off Carina’s advances. Meanwhile, Chuck and Sarah struggled with Chuck’s constant need to try to fix things, assuming that Sarah wants everything that is important to him in terms of friends and family.

I am excited that we finally got some great Sarah-Ellie scenes! It looks like we’ll be seeing more of these two together if this episode is any indication, which should make many fans happy. Ellie has long seemed like the obvious one for Sarah to talk to when she doesn’t want to talk to Chuck about something and it was great to see Sarah confide in her just a bit about her family at the end of the episode. While Chuck has lots of people to talk to about his feelings, Sarah’s long been emotionally isolated. It’s been almost a year since Ellie found out the truth about Sarah, yet it took this long to finally get to the point that seemed inevitable – Ellie as Sarah’s confidant and friend. I think it is yet another demonstration of how far Sarah has come in her transition towards more of a normal life since she met Chuck.

The CAT squad was a great peek into Sarah’s former life. We knew that Carina and Sarah went way back, but it was fun to get some more details on their pasts. The addition of Amy and Zondra added some interesting dynamics. Anyone who thought that last week’s female villain was just played for laughs should have appreciated Amy as this week’s villain – evil and dead serious, but hiding her true self beneath a perky innocent veneer for years while watching her team and supposed friends literally come to blows accusing each other of being the traitor. One of my favorite lines of the whole episode is when Zondra and Sarah realize that she was the traitor a few minutes too late and confront her and her response is “yeah…well I paid for it…wearing stupid sexed-up costumes to fight world crime”.

This brings me to one of the things that I love most about Chuck – it’s delightfully self-awareness. Even as the show gleefully delves into many classic cultural and entertainment stereotypes (hot leggy blonds, socially inept computer nerds, gratuitous cat fights, scantily clad babes), it also loves to switch it up (Chuck is the sensitive one, Sara the rational one, the geeks get the hot girls, although Chuck always tries to be the hero, Sarah often is the one doing the saving) as well as directly comment on the ridiculousness of it all sometimes. Witness Amy’s comment about wearing the “sexed-up” costumes and Chuck’s comment last week about how unprofessional it is to have personal conversations during missions even as he constantly does it. It’s these small in-jokes that help make Chuck so much fun and allow me to suspend my disbelief when necessary.

Speaking of humor, Morgan and Carina together in this episode was comedic genius. It was so much fun to watch Morgan get so hot under the collar trying to fend off her advances when the last two times they met, he was doing everything he could to make advances at her. There are few actors that can pull off bumbling discomfort like Josh Gomez. These scenes also begged another question – were flannel shirts on sale at Underpants, Etc. this week?

Although I really liked that Zondra ended up bringing Amy down with the cord from a straightening iron at the end (way to be resourceful!), I have to say that I kind of wished that Chuck would have gotten his chance to prove what makes him so special to Sarah (and all of us fans) to Carina and Zondra. He used Buy More props expertly to overpower Gaez, but then in the end let Amy get the best of him and had to be rescued. Yes, Chuck is a gentlemen, but it seems like he should make exceptions when a woman with a loaded gun tells him that she’d have fun hurting him.

The writers did redeem themselves to me in the end, though. I can’t think of a better way to wrap up the episode, after Chuck’s plans had all backfired publicly and Sarah had told Chuck off for screwing things up, than the poignant scene between Chuck and Sarah before the engagement party. For a couple that tends to not communicate very well, this brief conversation communicated a lot more than the mere words: “No Chuck, please, don’t ever stop helping me”. Awwwww…

Some of my favorite lines:
“Here’s her phone, email, and facebook alias….we’re friends… Restricted… I can’t post on her wall or view her pictures”
“Carina was the mellow one”
“John, she desires my… physical person” “And I’m hunting unicorns…”
“Is anyone really that perky?” – Apparently only evil girls…
“I’m helping…look at all the bad guys I tranqued”

And other fun bits:
Morgan thinking the helicopter was a UFO
Sarah hungover and disheveled – that was quite a bachelorette party (with Gorbachev!?)
Morgan waking up with Carina in his bed
The fiery death of Sarah’s car – time to get something less conspicuous (how did no one ever wonder how a girl working at the Weinerlicious or Orange Orange drove a Porshe?)
Knock-out face powder

Sorry, got a little verbose today – I’m blaming the holiday. ;)  Time for me to go now, though – I have a sudden overwhelming desire to sign up for some kick-boxing lessons! Now it’s your turn – what did you think of the episode?