Between the "holy hell!"ishness of last night's Chuck and the fact that Heathers was on over the weekend, there was really no other title I could come up with for this post. (And yes, I realize that basically no one who reads this blog will recognize that quote, but I don't care.) (Heh--it just reminded me how Nicole Ricci's character on Chuck was named Heather Chandler... nice, unintentional connections all around.)
Anyway, I just had a lengthy discussion about Chuck with Bob (geez, could this sound more like a 1950's sitcom? Where are Bill and Tom and Betty Sue?) and had to share my thoughts here as well...
No matter where you fall on certain issues, I think we all can agree that the (often very big) changes this season have come down the line pretty fast. Bob seems to be more irked by the breakneck pace of late than I am, but that's likely because I'm thoroughly accustomed to the usual speed of a Josh Swartz production. Having seen three lifetimes worth of crazy doled out in just a few short seasons of The O.C. and Gossip Girl (which I've basically lost all faith in--what can I say? I'm bored), skipping from plot point to plot point just doesn't jar me as it probably should. I will admit that the current pace of Chuck hasn't been working perfectly, but the show doesn't really have the viewership to allow for a more belabored narrative approach. Once again, they are on the knife's edge and they have to keep the excitement a-comin'. I'm going to make my official prediction and say that Chuck will get picked up for next season. Its numbers aren't very good, but for NBC, it's second only to Parenthood in terms of key demos. I'm going to wager that those are the only two scripted shows NBC keeps. God help me if they pick up Heroes again... You know you're in trouble when even the most hardcore of fans is begging for a merciful death. It kind of feels like the late days of Buffy... Well past its prime, even the diehard fans knew it was time to let it go...
**SPOILER ALERT** (If you haven't seen last night's Chuck, read no further!)
So, what are those plot twists and changes that Bob and I argued about? Where do I begin? I'll let Bob start off this blog vicariously...
Bob wants to know, "Why does Sarah hate Chuck for the same reasons she loves Shaw? Shaw kills people all the time, and that's totally fine, but the thought of Chuck killing someone, and she hates him for it. That doesn't make any sense..."
Doesn't it, Bob? Doesn't it? I will admit that that exact same line of questioning ran through my head over the past couple of episodes as well, but in the end, I think it makes sense and is in line with Sarah's character. As has been discussed before on this blog, Chuck represents the life Sarah wishes she could have. She's been living the crazy-ass, mixed-up, life-and-death, duplicitous, dangerous life of a spy for years and found herself yearning for a more normal existence. Then she met Chuck. The embodiment of normal to her in oh-so-many ways. Chuck wasn't a super-spy or a badass or an international playboy, and that's what she loved about him. He was nerdy and sweet and thoroughly average in most ways. It is Chuck's humanity that makes him him. It's the same reason viewers fell in love with the adorable geek themselves. He's not the insanely hot covert operative (I miss Bryce, in case you couldn't tell... sigh) and that's what makes him so special to Sarah. And to us. We can all relate to Chuck and absolutely love him for it. Now comes the wrench in the works. After two seasons of Chuck desperately wanting the intersect out of his head and pleading with Sarah to run away with him to lead an average life, he gets and upgrade and decides he wants to be James Bond. I've already expressed my annoyance with Chuck over this move (it just seems counterintuitive to what he's been wanting for so long--although I can see where an insecure dork such as himself could be seduced by a more glamorous life), so I won't belabor the point, but his rejection of Sarah marked a turning point that would dictate her actions for the next dozen episodes, so it can't be undervalued.
Sarah took a chance on normal, took a chance on Chuck, and got clobbered for it. Aside from being completely heartbreaking for her, it must be absolutely mortifying as well. Seriously, she puts her heart on her sleeve, lets her guard down, and then basically gets dumped by a self-proclaimed loser? Ouch. That's gotta sting. I think it was at that point that Sarah decided to embrace the spy life, the unemotional, largely detatched life that she knows so well. She took a leap and it blew up in her face. What else would someone do other than retreat into familiar territory? I think that's where Shaw comes in. He represents the familiar to her. He's a spy, she's a spy, they've both lost people they loved, they have both suffered the slings and arrows of the job, and unsurpsingly to me, ultimately found each other.
So why is it that it's okay for her to love Shaw (who kills people all the time), but she suddenly shuns Chuck (whom she thought had killed someone)? Because she loves them for different reasons. For Shaw to kill someone, it's a part of the job, a necessary evil that he (and Sarah for that matter) take in stride. For Chuck to kill someone? Especially with a gun? Well, that's just completely different. She loved Chuck for his warmth and humanity and normalness. Killing someone in cold blood, as an order from on high, is the direct antithesis to everything she ever knew and loved about Chuck. It's the opposite of normal. It's most certainly not something he has ever been comfortable with before and never would have even considered... unless he had changed fundamentally as a person. If he had been able to kill that guy, he would have had to have been a different guy than the one Sarah (and the audience) fell in love with. Now, the audience had the almost immediate luxury of finding out that their suspicions were correct (Casey had actually killed the guy), but Sarah is not privy to this knowledge and really believes the sweet computer geek she adores shot a man dead. We may wonder why she is making such a big deal of this, but we have knowledge she doesn't. Imagine, if you will, that Chuck actually had killed the guy... Okay, wow, that would have been a HUGE game-changer for the show and the audience. I can just see the forum posts now... "They've ruined Chuck! How could they have him kill someone?!" It would have marked a change for Chuck and the show on a pretty earth-shattering narrative level. It's for this reason that I can understand Sarah's actions here. She had been afraid he was tumbling down the rabbit hole for weeks and killing a man would have been the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended...).
Anyway, moving on...
Chuck has been on my nerves for the better part of this season thanks to his sudden I-want-to-play-cowboys-and-Indians! approach to spying, but he's only one piece of the puzzle. As I've mentioned before, Sarah and Casey really haven't had as much to do this season (Sarah has had a particularly thankless role having to keep Chuck's emotions in check and Casey, well, Casey has all but been defanged lately) and the Buy More players are proving less and less necessary and are making less and less sense narratively speaking. Add to that Ellie and Awesome having basically nothing to do (with the exception of Awesome's foray into spydom, which rocked) and the basic fabric of the show has been unraveling. Looking at all the areas in which the show is spinning its wheels, I'm continually amazed at how much I still love the show. In spite of its short-comings and game-changers, it's still a quality show that's thoroughly entertaining. That said, I think next week's episode will mark a turning point in the series and will hopefully get the weaker links back on track or eliminate them completely because after last night's episode, I think we can all see that some serious changes are around one hell of an awesomely effed up corner.
So yeah... Sarah killed Shaw's wife during her Red Test. Say whaaa?! I may be a dunce and a dullard for not seeing that one coming, but I'm the first to admit that I was totally surprised. Nice twist, show. Very nice. They way they incorporated Sarah's flashback to her Red Test in a way that didn't make it seem like a huge, monumental, holy-shit-that's-important! kind of way was very impressive. I honestly thought of it solely in terms of Sarah's psychological profile and Chuck's progression and didn't consider it in grander terms. I had a feeling the details of his wife's death would play into the show in a more prominent way eventually, but that was an angle I hadn't even considered. In my defense, Chuck is a show I don't put a whole lot of thought into... If you think too hard about the show, you get all head-shakey and that's just no good (I'm sorry, how exactly did the intersect have the combination to the...uh... vending machine(?) again...? Yeah...). Anyway, it was a very nice twist that will lead to a whole lotta storylines being resolved and, I believe, a new start for the show.
So yeah, last night left us on Shaw very pissedly taking Sarah into the desert to "settle the score." To which I had to ask, "So wait, why is Shaw taking the fact that Sarah killed his wife so personally?" I know that sounds like a stupid question, but seriously. He already knows the details behind his wife's murder. Sarah told him all about her Red Test. He knows it was an order, he knows she didn't want to go through with it, but thought Eve was pulling a gun, and he knows it was the worst day of her life. It's not like she woke up one day and decided off Superman's wife. It was an order. An order she didn't particularly want to follow. I guess I've just never had a spouse murdered so I can't really understand, but I would think Shaw would be mad at the powers that be, not Sarah specifically... We don't know what's going to happen next week, so it's hard to tell for sure what Shaw's motives are, but based on the previews (which are admittedly misleading a lot of the time), things don't look like they're going to go very well for Sarah... However things end up, I think this spells an end to Shaw's run on the show and a real reboot for the characters.
Which brings me to my last point (finally, right?). I know all you Shuckers out there have been bitching and moaning for months over the roadblocks between Sarah and Chuck, but now I hope it will have been worth the wait for you. I've never been a huge fan of the pairing, even less so this season than ever, but in seeing where this storyline is headed, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. The writers have really raised the stakes on this relationship. Chuck won't win back the girl with a mopey testimonial about how much he wuvs her, he'll have to seriously man-up and save her life before he even has a chance. I think that gives everything a lot more weight and some much needed gravity. At this point in Chuck's progression, I wouldn't be averse to seeing him get the girl and am kind of hoping that the next chapter in the Chuck saga will involve the pair of them working together as (sort of) equals. I'm not saying the show should go full-on Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but I think it'll be a nice dynamic to explore the kind of relationship Sarah had with Bryce with someone like Chuck. Can he really be a superspy and the same lovable dork he used to be? Hopefully we'll get a season 4 in order to find out...
This season hasn't been perfect, to say the least (anyone want to go throw bricks at Subway with me?), but it still has me on the edge of my seat and I honestly think even more badassery is to come. Hang in there, Chuck fans! The fate of the show may very well depend on it...
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