Chuck - "Chuck Vs. Bo"

Season 5, Episode 10

“Never say 'One last mission.'” 

Last week, I posited my two main worries about the home stretch of Chuck. One, that the last few episodes weren't really going to give us a coherent narrative because two, the show was so concerned with making sure that everybody got the happy ending that the show thinks that they deserve. “Chuck Vs. Bo”, while still dabbling in the latter problem – to successful end, I would argue – also managed to solve the former.

If you'll indulge me in one other left over criticism from last week, I also mentioned, as had for the past couple of weeks, actually, that their was a surprising lack of Morgan-centric storylines. Sure, he was getting culture on the fringes of episodes, but considering it was merely a resolution to his and Alex's relationship – something that was inevitable – it didn't really feel like the show was giving the character his due. Tonight however seemed to reverse that trend, as the A-story was about Morgan in two important ways.

The first, and the most notable, was how it flashed back to Morgan's Frosted Tips Era. Now, given how insufferable he was during the beginning of the season, this probably should have been a bad thing for the episode. However what this episode did right was exactly what all of those other episodes got wrong: for the first time we got to see a more nuanced side to the intersected version of Morgan, one that was thankfully less douchey than previous iterations, and that helped to ease the pain of douchey Morgan earlier this season. Now, I'll grant that there was probably a good deal of retconning going on in order to make Intersected Morgan a softer, more relatable version of himself.

But it's a move that needed to be done, for a variety of reasons. Though it's too late for me to forgive the show for the deafness with which they handled Morgan's arc at the top of the season, this depiction of him illustrates that the show is at least aware of the mistake that it made in the early run, and possibly proves the theory that the first half of the season felt so half-baked because so many plot elements needed to be covered in order to make the back half work as well as it has.

The second aspect plays into the first, as we say an iteration of the Morgan-Alex reconciliation that worked better than past versions. Now, I've been generally happy with the path that these two took – apart from how quickly it moved, but that was an understandable consequence of the shortened episode order – but what this episode did was heal the largest scar still left over from their breakup – the dickish way in which Morgan broke up with her. Now, as the audience we've been asked to be on Morgan's side since our omnipresent view has helped us to realize that those actions weren't really Morgan's fault. But coupling the guilt of his past actions, both remembered and non, with the jealousy he felt over her acting out after the breakup, helped to both humanize Morgan on yet another level, and evened the playing field between he and Alex. 

Yet as important as all of this was on the character level, I doubt that's what anybody's going to want to talk about when it comes to this episode as a whole. No, instead it shall be the closing minutes that dominate the conversation, and that's a little sad really, because as much as I enjoyed the action here, I found the Morgan stuff to be much stronger. And in a fair world, it would be the strongest material that would dominate the conversation.

But this isn't a fair world, so let's have at it, shall we? Two things bug me about this plotline. First, while I get that the show was trying to build proper tension to the closing minutes with how many times they brought up the “never say one last mission” rule, I think that they overplayed their hand, and that I wanted to see the jinx that Sarah brought on the team not out of curiosity or anticipation, but just so they would stop repeating that damn rule. The second was that Nicolas Quinn somehow being the security firm for all of Chuck's past enemies feels just a bit too forced, as if the show is reaching in order to have some sort of all-inclusive, cumulative Big Bad about whom I don't give two shits.

However, these are relatively minor complaints, and I will concede that the final moments, where Sarah knowingly downloads the faulty Intersect into her head in order to save Chuck was simultaneously awesome and scary. Awesome, because Sarah's kickass abilities got pumped up another notch, in an episode ending display that rivaled that time she became known and The Giant Blonde Shemale of Thailand.

But scary because...well, for a whole host of reasons, and here we have to once again cut the show a little slack for the Bad Morgan arc that started the season. While I originally derided it for how pointless it all seemed, it now appears as if it did in fact serve a purpose, as without knowing the exact problem with the Intersect, Sarah's sacrifice wouldn't have seemed like a sacrifice at all, and we would have been robbed of that dramatic tension.

And one more problem was also answered tonight thanks to this nerve-wracking twist – we have that final arc that we seemed to be missing for so long. While the past few episodes have felt so plotless as the show dealt out character moment after character moment, the arrival Quinn has given the show that last final push to get us through the finish line. And while both this final arc and the culmination of the broken Intersect probably could have done with better development throughout the season, it's made this last stretch very exciting, and it looks like Chuck will get the finale it truly deserves.

Quotes and Other Thoughts:

I don't have much to say about the C-plot with Jeff and Lester that carried over from last week. It was funny, sure, especially the repeated stagings of the same car crash in an attempt to get them to forget, but it also felt a bit like a cop out where they ask to be drugged a final time in order to forget the violence they witnessed at the Vail Buy More. That, and the fact that Casey and Morgan made the same mistakes in setting scene three times over felt just a little too easy, and I wished their was a little bit more difficulty in wrapping up this storyline.

Man, Bo Derek's still got it.

And by the way, that makes the second time that a real-life personality has been revealed to be a in-show spy, after Stan Lee's appearance back in “Chuck Vs. the Santa Suit”.

All right, what are the odds that in order to save Sarah, Chuck will have to download the Intersect into his own brain once again? I'm going with 83-17.

“Yeah, parents can't be shooting the paper boy.”

“Where do I fit in? Chief Google-r?”

“Ah, the frosted tips phase. It made it really hard not to smack you.”

“Please tell me he means finger painting, because I can't even figure out how that would work physically.”

“You're the guy who made out with Bo Derek, so act like it.”

“I hate Twitter.”