My First "Chuck" Review!

As I write this, the action/comedy series "Chuck" on NBC has two more episodes left in its second season, after which it faces an uncertain future as to whether it will get renewed for a third season. It hasn't been the easiest road, either: its first season was cut short by the writer's strike - a momentum-killing problem that has offed many shows this season - and its timeslot, Mondays at 8pm, puts it in direct contention with "Dancing With the Stars", "House", "Gossip Girl", and awesome CBS comedies.

And yet, more and more people tell me that they watch "Chuck", and love it.

Last night's ep, "Chuck Versus the First Kill", featured expected and unexpected guest stars, all to great effect. For the uninitiated, Chuck is a normal guy who is head of the Nerd Herd at the local Buy More store (switch Buy More with Best Buy, and Nerd Herd with Geek Squad, and you get the idea). His old college roommate - now a CIA agent - sent Chuck this supercomputer, the Intersect, via email: The Intersect contains all of the government's secrets, which promptly embedded itself into Chuck's brain once he opened said email. Since then, he's been protected by his handlers - Sarah, and Casey - all while keeping a new life of danger and spy stuff secret from his best friend Morgan, his sister Ellie, and everyone else in his life.

As anyone would imagine, having all sorts of government intelligence forced into your brain is kind of a downer, and Chuck has recently worked to get it removed somehow. He discovered that the creator of the Intersect is actually his long-lost father (and Scott Bakula of "Quantum Leap" and "Enterprise" fame), and had tracked him down in an effort to reconnect.

Unfortunately, the reason why the Intersect was sent to Chuck in the first place was to keep it out of the hands of a rogue faction in the government, named Fulcrum. They have kept Chuck, Sarah, and Casey very busy, and the heroes have tried to prevent Fulcrum from either stealing the Intersect (Chuck himself), or creating one of their own. This week's episode found Chuck's father abducted by Fulcrum, and Chuck willing to risk everything to get him back.

Simply put, last night's "Chuck" was one of the best of the entire series, and the show itself has outdone itself with each and every episode of the last half of the season. With the legit CIA wanting Chuck to stay protected and to use him to root out rogue CIA peeps, Chuck wants to find his father and eventually get rid of the Intersect. With these two conflicting goals, Chuck had to wonder if he could really trust Sarah and Casey, who have showed affection and grudging respect toward Chuck, respectively.

Desperate to find his father, Chuck went to a prison facility to find a Fulcrum agent he had previously captured - his ex-girlfriend, Jill. After convincing her to help, Jill said that her Uncle Bernie was the one who recruited her into Fulcrum, and only allowed himself to be seen in public for family gatherings.

Imagine my delight when Chuck and Jill decide to throw a fake engagement party at her parents' house to lure Bernie out, only to discover that it's none other than the big fat dude from Borat! Chuck's Intersect knowledge "flashes" to show that not only is Bernie a deadly, ruthless agent, but that he once ate a 96-oz steak and is associated with Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf."

Bernie suspects the scam - he knew Jill was imprisoned - and chases Jill and Chuck up the stairs while "Hungry Like the Wolf" plays...utterly classic. Also classic was Chuck's distress call to Sarah and Casey: "I don't know if he's going to kill me or eat me!"

Lo and behold, once finally cornered, Chuck assumes "the Morgan" - a pose that Morgan came up with in high school while being beat up by girls. Miraculously, Bernie dies of a heart attack at that moment, after having chased them up multiple flights of stairs. Is that Chuck's first kill that was referenced in the title? Maybe.

As part of the deal with Jill, Chuck and the others would free her if she helped them locate his father, and she told them of a secret Fulcrum base where he might be held. After infiltrating the offices while posing as new recruits, Chuck and Casey get railroaded into an "auditing session", which not only sounds like a Scientology foothold but looks like fascist American propaganda, Chuck hilariously refuses to let Casey copy off of his test, even though that's not at all what they were there for.

Unfortunately, Fulcrum identifies who they really are, and they are separated to be shot or interrogated. Jill and Sarah jump to the rescue as Casey goes all chop-socky on Fulcrum agents, and that's where the second amazing 80's song of the ep plays - "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister. Sarah proceeded to take out at least a dozen agents by herself, even kicking through a cubicle to beat on a guy at one point.

Chuck finds himself cornered by two agents, until Casey, somehow, lowers a window-washing scaffold outside the glass walls, dressed as a washer guy, pulling out a shotgun and muttering something about how Fulcrum flunked him on his auditing test. Genius!

We also see the "first kill", as Chuck assumes "the Morgan", his would-be killer slips on the broken glass left by Casey's shotgun blasts, trips over Chuck's leg, falls out the broken windows, and Chuck's hold on him slips. Jill arrives to keep Chuck from falling, helping prove that she still cares for Chuck, even if she did break up with him, turn evil, and had Chuck imprison her.

This is where a central theme of the episode resurfaced - who can Chuck trust? He lets Jill go, because he knows that no matter how much she helped them, they lied about her going free; she would just be thrown back in jail. He lets her escape before Sarah and Casey return, and that's when things got crazy.

The CIA orders Sarah and Casey to find Chuck, lie to him and say his father has been found, bring Chuck back to their base, tranquilize him, and send him to a government facility where he'd never be found again. Casey reluctantly agrees because it is where Chuck will be safest, but when Sarah goes to lie to Chuck, and he wholeheartedly believes her, she makes a fateful decision: she can't betray Chuck, and therefore she and Chuck must go on the run to find his father, even while running from the government. They have effectively committed treason, and after almost two seasons of a "will they, won't they" dynamic, Chuck and Sarah might actually express their long-simmering feelings for each other.

Other subplots of the episode included Jill and Chuck at the engagement party, acting out a scene that could have been true if the CIA and espionage hadn't interfered; Morgan helping the awful assistant manager of Buy More get promoted out of their store, only to find that he was gunning for head manager of the Buy More after all. Big Mike, the real manager, is demoted, and actually kisses Morgan, Godfather 2-style. Since Big Mike is dating Morgan's mother, it'll be interesting to see if Morgan can redeem himself and get the conniving, awful Emmett Milbarge out of the Buy More once and for all.

With such a loaded episode, what's going to happen? Is Casey going to support Chuck and Sarah, or will he turn them in to the CIA once he finds them? Are they going to find Chuck's father? What will happen with Chuck's sister Ellie, and her fiance Devon, aka Captain Awesome, with their upcoming wedding? I hear their wedding, and one other, will be in the season finale. Who else is gettin' hitched? Could be Big Mike and Morgan's mama, Chuck and Jill continuing their engagement ruse for some reason, or even - and this would be awesome - Chuck and Sarah.

Why would this make sense? First, Sarah is meant to protect Chuck no matter what. She knows him better than anyone. For most of the entire show, they have posed as boyfriend and girlfriend to justify Sarah's sudden appearance in Chuck's life. However, their government work has prevented them from actually dating, even prompting Chuck to nix the decision for him and Sarah to move in together. It's never been the right time or place for them to become much more. But I mean, if you're an average, well-meaning guy, and this supermodel of a CIA agent is assigned to protect you, even going so far as to be a "cover girlfriend" for protection purposes, wouldn't you feel the lines get blurred a little bit along the way?

Getting married would give Chuck 24/7 protection, would resolve their feelings for each other, allow Sarah a piece of normalcy that her spy life has never allowed her, and would provide all sorts of comic material for the show for years to come. I'm not sure where the awesome Jon Casey fits into that possible family, except maybe as a grumpy, hilarious uncle.

I've gone on waaay too far with this one, but it's a testament to how good a show this is. I don't watch much TV, but I will be very saddened if "Chuck" is canceled. Maybe writing reviews seems pointless if there are only two eps left in the season, and possibly the series - but hey, no matter how long something good lasts, there's nothing wrong appreciating it while it's around.

Watch eps on hulu.com and nbc.com, tell your friends, and Save Chuck!


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