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“Chuck vs. The Living Dead” opens with a pronounced focus on Orion sharpening an axe with a whet stone in his cabin hideaway. To what purpose? It serves as a controlling metaphor for an episode in which Orion clearly has an axe to grind with the espionage life in general and the CIA in particular, given the separation & endangerment they have caused his family.
Seeing Eve Shaw’s spy will in Castle, Orion laments, “For every spy, there’s…somebody who has to open that box, read that message, and mourn their loss. This is a bad business, and I don’t want my family having any part of it.”
After tricking Chuck into revealing himself as the Intersect 2.0, Orion flees, claiming, “I can’t just stay here and watch my son die.” In a twist of irony, though, Orion observes just how invaluable spies can be when Chuck and Sarah use their skills to save him from a Ring ambush. In fact, Sarah pointedly uses the very same axe to deflect a deadly knife, saving Chuck.
By episode’s end, Orion sings another tune: “You downloaded the 2.0 for the same reason I created the original: to help people…I’m going to do everything I can to…help you be the man you want to be.”
Chucktoids come to us from G. Walter Bush, author of Unpacking Chuck: The TV Series Interpreted and Unpacking Chuck 2.0: The Conversation Continues, both available via Amazon.
