For most shows, Christmas episodes are light-hearted, fluffy affairs. And even the ones that stick with a more serious approach generally tend to end on a heart-warming and/or uplifting moment. Chuck is a light-hearted show chockfull of uplifting moments. It would only be natural for one to assume that a Chuck Christmas episode, one called “Chuck vs. Santa Claus” no less, would be a light-hearted and uplifting romp. But one would be very, very wrong.
It certainly seemed like “Chuck vs. Santa Claus” would be just a fun filler episode. There was a goofy, incompetent, and largely sympathetic hostage taker, Chuck was being all “spy guy,” Casey was accidentally shot in the toe, Anna was bitching about Morgan being a coward, Big Mike’s cousin, Big Al, was the police officer in charge, and both Sarah and Casey were freed as signs of good faith on Ned’s part. Yep, right up until Chuck flashed on Lt. Mauser’s watched, it was all light and fluffy stuff.
The twists worked brilliantly in this episode. I thought we were going to see an episode where Chuck being the Intersect played no direct role in the proceedings. I had zero suspicions about Mauser before they revealed he was Fulcrum. And even once Mauser’s Fulcrum status was revealed, I still thought Ned was just a random civilian right up until Sarah and Casey learned that Ned didn’t have a wife. The only shock that wasn’t really a shock was when Chuck came back in time to see Sarah kill Mauser.
Speaking of Ned and Mauser, I thought their plan was quite brilliant. It quickly became clear that Chuck was the guy they were interested. Ned develops a bond with Chuck and refuses to talk with Mauser. Thus, Mauser is also able to develop a relationship with Chuck and win over his trust. Then Ned “accidentally” shoots Casey. So once Mauser gets Ned to agree to a hostage exchange, he naturally selects the injured civilian, who he and Ned happen to know is actually an NSA agent. Then Ned decides to reward Chuck by letting his girlfriend, the CIA agent go. It was a great way to get them both out of the store without drawing suspicion (either on Chuck/Sarah/Casey’s part or the audience’s).
Mauser was much less brilliant once Sarah captured him. Obviously they wanted to make it clear that the only reason Sarah was willing to kill an unarmed Mauser was to protect Chuck. If Sarah had just shot Mauser, without Mauser first explaining that Fulcrum would find out what he knew, then the audience might not catch what Sarah’s motivation was. But Mauser still came off like an idiot in that exchange. If he was truly confident that Fulcrum would rescue him eventually, he should have kept his mouth shut once Sarah captured him. Instead, he continually bragged about how there was nothing Sarah could do; sooner or later, Mauser would get a chance to ruin Chuck’s life. He practically forced Sarah to pull the trigger.
It was still a powerful scene though. Sarah proved that she’s willing to go to some pretty extreme lengths to protect Chuck, while Chuck managed to only catch the murdering an unarmed man part. The follow-up scene was quite poignant as well, with Sarah happy and relieved that Chuck will be safe, and Chuck doing a poor job at masking the sense of horror he was feeling about Sarah executing a defenceless man for seemingly no reason.
When Chuck gave Sarah her present early, I remember thinking about how that people normally only give sentimental gifts early when the gift-giver or the gift-receiver is going to end up seriously injured, captured, or dead in the near future. I was pretty sure none of those things were going to happen to Chuck or Sarah (particularly since that was still during the light and happy part of the episode). But it turns out that the early gift for later angst also works quite well in the event the giver is horrified and disgusted by something the receiver did.
While “Chuck vs. Santa Claus” was far darker than I was expecting, it was still an excellent episode. It will be interesting to see what kind of repercussions this episode has on Chuck and Sarah’s relationship in future episodes.
Trevor MacKay is the sci-fi/horror/fantasy/cheesy/random geeky stuff guy. If something is geeky and/or unbelievably cheesy, he’s there.
