Chuck - "Chuck Vs. the Curse"

Season 5, Episode 6

“Who’s after us, Sarah?”

“It was a bit like old times, wasn’t it?”

Those are two important questions that got raised tonight, aren’t they? So far in this final season, Chuck has been stringing viewers along both in terms of where this season was going, and (perhaps more importantly) whether the show would be able to deliver on that the-end-is-nigh-induced uptick in quality that we’ve come to expect in this day and age of television. And to these two important questions, tonight’s episode gives us the respective answers of “I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out”, and “well…”

One of the problems that has developed over Chuck’s run is that as the show has become more and serialized, it’s been harder and harder to find ways to integrate those that aren’t part of Team Bartowski into the episode in a believable way. This isn’t so much a question of a declining quality in the show’s writing/storytelling, but rather that a shift in tone which has made it very hard for the show to hang on to its old elements. Somewhere during its lifespan, Chuck went from being a comedy series with some spy elements to a spy series with some comedy elements, and though that was a transformation that was for the better (at least in terms of its dramatic impact), this transformation also turned the show into a series that seemed to drag more often than before, because of this change. We expect comedy series to be a bit looser with their story structures, and this brings with it lowered expectations. Spy series, by contrast, tend to have the expectation that they be more streamlined, and this means that anything that doesn’t further the overall plot or tell us anything new about the characters automatically feels lesser than.

As such, I was really worried when tonight’s episode introduced what appeared to be a subplot involving Awesome and Ellie, which have been among the show’s weakest in the past few seasons, usually ranking well below whatever they come up with for the Buy More employees. While other series, both comedic and dramatic, can make more mundane things like raising a baby work, Chuck is at the place where it can’t make these things interesting no matter how hard it tries. (Well, unless Clara somehow became a vital part of a mission, but that’s just stupid.) Seeing Awesome and Ellie out on a date (and ever worse, pretending to be spies) is on the same level as baby raising, so I think I can be excused if rolled my eyes some at the top of the hour.

But I was wrong. Just so, so wrong. One of the reasons that I think that the Ellie and Awesome subplots irritate me so is that they waste not only the solid talents of the actors, but also the perfectly good characters they inhabit. Ellie may just be a “big sister” type, but she’s always been a very strong female character, and it bothers me that this show – a spy show, remember – hasn’t taken advantage of that fact. (Sure, they have Sarah, but it’s not like a show can ever have too many kickass female characters on its roster, right?) Or, to put this another way: Remember how stoked we all were when Awesome was made privy to Chuck’s secret spy life back at the end of season two? (And hey, remember when Chuck’s spy life was a secret?) And remember how even more excited we got when we learned that the show was going to incorporate Devon into the action for season three? Or was that just me? Either way, the show has done a lot to bury all the potential it had built up with Chuck’s kin.

So putting them in the middle of a real, honest-to-goodness spy caper seems to make up for that, at least as much as a show that’s in the middle of its short-order last season can make up for marginalizing characters over several seasons. I’ll admit that there was maybe a bit too much plot contrivance that had to take place in order for this story to get going (Ellie dropping her maiden name at the hostess desk, the pair deciding they suddenly want to pretend at playing spies, the fact that they just went with Robin because she said she was there on Chuck’s behalf, etc.), but I like that it ended up in a place where the two of them were both smart enough to figure out what Robin was up to, and that they weren’t afraid to do some of the more dangerous aspects of the spy trade as well. Tonight provided some proud moment for the Woodcombs, and actually made me interested in them in a way that I haven’t been for years.

And while this sudden sense of agency for these two characters could be considered a fluke (and there’s a very real possibility this is the case), I’m heartened to know that they weren’t the only ones receiving the treatment tonight. I supposed I had never really thought about it until tonight, but Alex hasn’t really been that well drawn out of character considering the amount of screen time that she’s gotten. Now, to return to that comedy/spy series dialectic, the show has had characters in the past that we don’t really require evolution/depth (like most of the Buy More staff), but Alex came into the show through the emotional/spy stuff, so her character automatically carries a bigger, more realistic set of expectations. I think why her thin characterization hasn’t been as noticeable up until now is that her two roles – daughter and girlfriend – tell us enough about characters we love to keep up distracted, and Mekenna Melvin can emote enough as well so that her character doesn’t appear entirely one dimensional.

But seeing this new side of her – this strong, take-charge side that plays into the fact that she’s Casey’s daughter – suddenly ripped down this illusion right in front of me, and it was a breath of fresh air. All of a sudden Alex became like a whole other person, no longer existing just in relation to the core group of characters. More importantly, she became fun. (It’s not that I didn’t like her presence before, but…you know what I mean.) Now, I’m not blind to the fact that she was around so that the show can start her and Morgan on the road back to a romantic relationship, because Chuck is just one of those shows where people always end up with the ones there meant to be with. And so while it’s very possible that Alex, much like Ellie and Awesome, could go back to being less proactive, but I would like to posit that Morgan reunites with this new, more personable version of Alex. Because wouldn’t that be fun to watch?

But we need to return to the other half of that Ellie and Awesome plot, both because it’s a major part of the episode that I have yet to discuss, and because it’s likewise important for understanding where this show stands at this late hour. Another major problem that the show has expressed over the years, and one I’ve addressed several times before, it Chuck’s ability (or lack thereof) to put aside his emotions in order to execute a successful mission. Now, much like with last week’s episode, Chuck worrying about the “Bartowski Curse” was a solid idea/motivation for his action, and the show’s once again kept itself from overplaying it.

However, that unfortunately wasn’t the only emotion at play here. To turn to that genre dialectic for a third and final time, in its earlier comedy days, Chuck was a show that was allowed to wear its heart on its sleeve a bit more, not just per the established standard of TV comedies, but because Chuck was the kind of loveable, bumbling fool who would do that sort of thing. However, when it became a spy series (and thus adopted that genre’s basic agreed-upon conventions), which also saw the rise of a supposedly refined and capable Chuck, the show lost its license to do so. And thus things like Chuck putting himself (and really, worldwide online security) at risk for the sake of his sister and brother-in-law began to make less sense by the show’s universe. So tonight’s episode featured a lot of head-shakingly stupid actions that Chuck should know better than not to do at this point in the run, and it sort of ruined what was shaping up to be a really fun episode.

And yet it’s hard for me to hate too much on a plot that finally, finally, finally sets the action in motion. I’ve spent a good deal of time in these reviews this season discussing how the show seems to be straddling that line between being a serialized show or a procedural, and while I was eventually happy with the show going for the procedural route, as I felt it actually could free up the show from getting too bogged down in plots that ended up going nowhere, as happened several times last year, the show has seemed to found it’s confidence telling serialized arcs again, and when those arcs can be as fun as they were tonight, and have as awesome guest casting as they did with Rebecca Romijn, well then I’m all in.

All this invariably circles back around to the questions that I raised at the top of this post. We still don’t know who exactly is after Chuck nor why, but, apart from last week’s awkward dispensing of Decker, the show now seems to be in the position where is can roll out this mythology slowly and methodically until the finale, at a pace that keeps us interested. And that’s all I really want from the show’s serialized arc anyway, at least at this point.

But as to that “like old times” question, well that’s a bit trickier, because the answer is both yes and no, and the answers are inverse to what Beckman wanted when she asked it, in that ‘yes’ is not a good thing, but ‘no’ is. (It also doesn’t help that the when to which “old times” is referring to is open to interpretation, but just work with me here.) Chuck may still be like the old times in that the characters can’t control their emotions, but it’s also not in the fact that the characters have more agency and the serialized plot is stronger than ever, and in this case, I think the good outweighs the bad. Wouldn’t you agree?

Next Week: An old enemy returns. And thanks to the teaser, we now know who that somebody is. Thanks a lot NBC. Oh, and there’ll probably be something Christmas-y as well.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

Shouldn’t Morgan, as an employee of the Buy More and all around geek, know what a zetabyte is?

Also, considering how long he’s been a spy, he should really learn how to open and close doors more quietly.

“Sorry we’re late.” “Somebody needed a sandwich. And then somebody needed a fruit cup.”

“Well, Chuck’s neurotic, and I was generally afraid of my house burning down since, you know, my house burned down.”

“This is where we go in our darkest hours – Iran/Contra, Nicaragua, the Clinton years.”

“Really? That’s ‘The Toy’? I don’t think children should be involved with that in any way, shape or form.”