Overnights note that Chuck did a 2.1 – the same as last week. But what was bad last week (because Chuck was up against repeats) is good this week because the West Coast feed was up against the last part of the Duke/Butler game. Yes, I did watch that and yes, I was in a “not just for entertainment purposes” NCAA pool. I finished third, which essentially gives me a freeroll into a fourth fantasy football league.
Yes, I’m in four fantasy football leagues. But this probably does not interest you, seeing as this is a recap of Chuck and all. So let’s do it.
First off, Awesome and Ellie are MIA, as I they’ve gone off to Africa for Doctors Without Borders. Jeffster! gets a token appearance with Casey, but nothing to write home about. And Big Mike gets a couple of scenes with Morgan, because they’re family and all. Um, did I miss an episode where Big Mike and Morgan’s mom tied the knot?
So continuing from last episode, Shaw is driving Sarah to the Middle of Nowhere to capture the Ring Director, but it’s actually just an empty warehouse playing his wife’s death at the hands of Sarah. Sarah then realizes that the target of her final exam kill was Shaw’s wife… and Shaw forgives her, because he’s a professional.
Not so professional? That’s right, Chuck, who ends up looking like a fool calling in just about everyone he can to take down the possibly rogue Shaw. Because of Chuck’s (implied) waste of taxpayer money, he’s back with Shaw`s team. BUT we get the interlude we’ve been waiting about 3 seasons for, where Sarah admits that she loves Chuck. So now of course the writers must come up with a convoluted way to separate them.
But first, the team heads to the REAL location of the Director, to capture the Director. This goes awry in a comical sequence with Ring workers continually entering the elevator that Chuck and Sarah have caught the director. Unfortunately the whole thing is a trap, But Wait! Shaw has come to save the day with pinpoint shooting and the death of the Director. Or not. You see, Shaw has actually turned heel and is WORKING with The Ring in order to gain revenge on Sarah. And to help them build their own Intersect. The whole thing was a ruse to gain the trust of everyone. So… yeah. A wee bit convoluted.
More convoluted is the fact that this trap somehow causes Beckman to ground Chuck in Burbank while Sarah and Shaw head to Paris for something or other. I have no idea why they decided to portray Beckman as stupid in this episode when she’s been shown as rather competent in most other episodes, but it fits the story, I suppose. So Chuck then spends some time in Castle showing Morgan video of some Shaw-Fu. How he actually got said footage is unimportant, because Morgan (who believes he’s actually a spy, but more of an Admin Assistant for Team Bartowski) immediately declares it as choreographed. So Chuck decides to wake Beckman and let her know, but makes the critical mistake of letting Morgan talk.
All of this means that Chuck needs to recruit Casey on an off-the-books flight to Paris, where Shaw goes all Bond villain by injecting Sarah with a neurotoxin and exposits his upcoming dastardly deed (he must kill Sarah to show the CIA what a mistake they made. Mind you, if the CIA had no problem with offing his wife, I’m pretty sure that they won’t care about losing Sarah.) He also gives the Intersect secrets (but not the biggest one about Chuck BEING the Intersect) to the Director. And then Chuck and Casey stage their rescue in their own unique ways – Casey captures the Director using guns and such, and Chuck fails to rescue Sarah.
All of this leads to the dramatic moment where Chuck, having no other options, shoots Shaw to save Sarah. And it’s for real, because we see spatter.
And then, everything wraps itself up in a nice, neat bow. Shaw’s dead, Sarah and Chuck are together, Casey is reinstated (and gets a new Crown Victoria to boot) and Morgan is made an official member of Team Bartowski in something of a Harry Soo fashion.
So yeah, clearly this episode was set up as the season/series finale before NBC ordered 6 more episodes. The problem was that they didn’t know this at the time, and so we get about 2 hours of story in a 1 hour show, which is either good or bad depending on how you look at it. Personally I feel that if they had let the Shaw turn simmer for a bit longer we’d have more time to care about it, but then I doubt Brandon Routh can do more than be the wooden character he was throughout.
So with six episodes left, the question is – what do they do now? Have Chuck make out with a girl at a Copy Center?
