Chuck – Episode 2-1 Review

Shows, Top Story

After just over eight months, it’s good to see Chuck back on the air. As a season premiere, “Chuck versus the First Date,” did a great job setting up the second season. As an episode though, it was only good.

One of the major plot points of this episode was, of course, the NSA ordering the termination of Chuck. Unfortunately, last season’s the strike-rushed makeshift finale kind of undercut the NSA’s decision. As you may recall, in the season finale, Chuck’s identity was in danger of being compromised by a Fulcrum agent. Rather than risk Chuck falling into enemy hands, the NSA and CIA decided it was time to bring Chuck in to protective custody, where he would be staying for the rest of his life. So given that they were planning to bring a new intersect online, why would they not simply take Chuck into custody once more (at the very least, do so until they could ascertain the effectiveness of the new intersect). They acknowledged that Chuck did a great service for his country so you think they’d do him the courtesy of not killing him, even if it did mean Chuck had to spend the rest of his life in an underground facility.

It is hard to get invested in the development of a new intersect. As long as Chuck is still on the air, it’s never going to happen. Sooner or later, the CIA/NSA will construct a functional intersect but it will end up being fundamentally inferior to Chuck. Thus, the government will decide to keep using Chuck as the Intersect (as an added bonus, it’ll give them a reason to keep Chuck’s intersect up to date. The longer the show goes, the less likely Chuck’s information is going to be accurate or reliable).

Colt’s introduction was probably the night’s biggest development (I’m not sure if we will see Colt again (though Michael Clarke Duncan was awesome), but we’ll certainly see the people he was working for). While Chuck identified the organization Colt worked for, Chuck never actually shared that information with the audience. The most logical assumption is that Colt was working for Fulcrum, but if that were the case, surely Chuck would have mentioned it.

From the message that appeared on the monitor just before the explosion (“Fulcrum thanks you.”) it’s pretty clear that Fulcrum was the one that sabotaged the new Intersect. The question is whether or not the cipher was sabotaged even before Colt stole it. Did Colt and his men allowed themselves to be captured just so they could “give up” the booby-trapped device? Or was Colt unaware of the trap? Is there is actually a second rogue agency after the Intersect now (though admittedly one that was out-played by Fulcrum).

While it’s good to see the Buy More gang added to the opening credits, the stuff at the store was kind of a miss tonight. The whole Chuck’s finally going to be free of the Buy More thing failed on a couple levels. First of all, there was no way that Chuck’s time as the Intersect was coming to an end, so there was never any chance that his vague plans for a future would come to fruition. Secondly, what is keeping Chuck at the Buy More? Sure he’s still stuck working for the CIA and the NSA, but it’s not like he HAS to keep working at the Buy More. If he really wanted another job, he could still go get one (though admittedly some of the better jobs would be off-limits due to his frequent need to cut out of work for the latest threat to national security). So, it was hard to either get invested in Chuck’s plans for the future or to empathize with him when those plans fell apart.

The Assistant Manager storyline was also hard to care about. We’ve already done the Assistant Manager goes on a power trip storyline last season with Harry Tang. Do we really need a reprise of it this season?

While the drama may have been a bit lacking there were some great comedy bits in the season premiere. Did anyone else expect a “Would you believe?” line from Chuck when he was trying to convince Colt that Chuck had a team surrounding the building? Chuck’s line detailing the various troops surrounding the building had to be an intentional homage to Get Smart so it was surprising they didn’t use the pay off line (though, in retrospect, it’s understandable as Chuck had to make Colt believe him for plot-related reasons. Also, does Chuck do an impressive bluff or what?).

Tonight’s episode of Chuck did a good job of setting up season two, but at the same time, not a lot happened character-wise. Chuck’s still stuck at the Buy More; Chuck and Sarah are still in their eternal “Will they or won’t they,” and Casey’s still got his own “Will he or won’t he?” in relation to whether he’s willing to kill Chuck when ordered to do so. Still, I’m curious to see what’s next so a successful effort, overall.

Trevor MacKay is the sci-fi/horror/fantasy/cheesy/random geeky stuff guy. If something is geeky and/or unbelievably cheesy, he’s there.

Sir Linksalot: Chuck