Chuck Goes Up

Ironically, Chuck found its footing this week by taking it away from its hero, sending our favorite nerd/spy out of the nest and up into the air for his first solo mission. There is no Awesome or Ellie this week (thank holy christ), and the setup is simple and effective: Mystery agent man Shaw (Brandon Routh) decides it is time for Chuck to test his mettle and prove whether he’s a real spy or just a bumbling schlub flying by the seat of his pants. We all know he’s the latter and that’s where the charm of his character comes from, but spies aren’t paid to be endearing; they’re paid to get tough jobs done with the utmost efficiency. Against protests from Casey and especially Sarah, Shaw assigns Chuck his first mission: get a MacGuffin—er, ah, a key—back from an agent of the dastardly—but impossibly indeterminate and nebulous—bad guy group known as The Ring.

Shaw tells Chuck that the mission will take place in Paris, but it actually occurs on the flight to Paris. Shaw knew this the whole time. Why didn’t he tell Chuck the truth? So that the audience would be surprised—along with Chuck—when the bad guy was revealed to be on the flight. Wait a minute! How could a fictional character act a certain way in order to serve the plot and manipulate the non-diegetic audience? It’s simple: transparent writing. But my complaints are minimal this week because I actually enjoyed this episode for the simple reason that it was focused and funny and pushed the characters—especially Chuck—into new territory.

Chuck has never truly been in any real danger before because Sarah and Casey have always been around to protect him. Sure, he’s had some tough scrapes, but we always knew one of those two would rescue him if push came to shove. Isolating Chuck on a plane with Sarah and Casey six thousand miles away means that Chuck is now completely without a safety net. If he fails he will die. That’s the level of stakes that the show is usually missing. Chuck is eager to prove to Shaw that he’s up to the task, but I suspect that who he really wants to impress is Sarah…though paradoxically, the reason that Sarah loves Chuck is exactly because he’s about as far from being a spy as Orlando Bloom and Zac Efron are from being real men.

She begs Chuck not to go and it’s sweet to see how badly she can’t hide how much she feels for him. But Shaw—who curiously outranks both Sarah and Casey even though Brandon Routh still looks like he’s twelve years old—overrules her, insisting that Chuck hasn’t been allowed to evolve as an agent for the last two years because Sarah and Casey have been coddling him. So, after Shaw hooks Chuck up with a KGB-issue tranquilizer pen a la Q, Chuck packs his carry-on luggage and ships out. His signature item: a set of nunchucks. Chuck explains that he doesn’t like guns but thought it would be wise to carry an offensive weapon of some sort. The look on Chuck’s face when he was showing off his nunchucks and how excited he was at the prospect of getting to use them was hilarious. I felt so close to him at that moment. I love nunchuks. I might get a pair and carry them with me when I’m on set.

Chuck is equally excited that he gets to fly first class. On board, he meets a beauty named Hannah—because every woman who flies first class is an elegant dame. He doesn’t get much time to schmooze her up before he flashes on his target: a big blockhead named Hugo Panzer (Steve Austin, taking a break from grappling with sweaty men and trying to kill the invincible Sylvester Stallone in The Expendables). Chuck grabs his handy sleepy pen and goes to work. He’s ultimately successful in a Chuck kind of way, but as always, things go awry in the aftermath. He doesn’t get to use his nunchucks, but, facing death, he finds a sword in a Yale Fencing Team bag in the cargo hold and flashes on how to use it. From there we get a pretty fun swordfight between Chuck and Panzer.

I like the idea that Chuck has this new and improved Intersect in his head and consequently knows all of these cool fighting skills now. As opposed to the first two seasons when all Chuck wanted to do was get the Intersect out of his head and get his life back to normal, now he wants to keep the Intersect and be a spy for real. That’s a good change that opens up a lot of story possibilities for the character. My one concern though is that by having Chuck download these skills into his head automatically (just like in The Matrix when Trinity learns how to fly a helicopter in two seconds, or come to think of it, when Neo learns his fighting skills the same way) and then execute them perfectly…sure it’s entertaining, but it doesn’t offer the possibility of getting emotionally involved with the character.

The concept basically puts Chuck on autopilot and makes it impossible for him to fail, because he is fighting as a machine and not a man. Eventually I hope they’ll have a scenario in which Chuck has to fight to save himself—and hopefully Sarah—and the Intersect fails. Then Chuck becomes a complete underdog who has to fight armed only with will, and that’s compelling. That’s human. That’s why characters like John McClane and Rocky Balboa are so absorbing to watch. They get the crap beat out of them until blood is pouring out of their body, but they keep fighting out of sheer spirit and force of will until they persevere. I don’t think Chuck Bartowski can ever join their ranks as one of the singular great characters in film or television, but I definitely think there are possibilities for him to grow and for us (or at least me) to get more invested in him.

There’s a minor twist involving another sleeper agent being aboard the plane and some nifty technological voodoo. In fact, the plot of Chuck this week is somewhat similar to that of Fox’s new Human Target show last week, which also took place on a plane and involved the hero battling a bad guy and a hidden sleeper agent. The main difference between the two is really budget-related. Target clearly had a higher budget that allowed for a lot of effects shots, more extras, and more intricate fights, whereas Chuck—which, to be renewed for a third season had to slash its budget a bit—didn’t. The plane on Chuck was obviously a very economical set, but it doesn’t matter. Target and Chuck are very different shows and Chuck doesn’t call for really intricate fights and effects. Just interesting to note.

Chuck also gets to have some nice interactions with Hannah, similar in tone and content to Up In The Air, and it looks like she will be returning to the show and becoming possibly a romantic rival for Sarah. They tried the love triangle thing once with what’s her face—Jordana Brewster—last season. I’m not going to fault them; the love triangle is a classic conflict facilitator that will never go away. We also learn one interesting tidbit about Shaw (if a bit hackneyed) that shows us that he and Sarah aren’t actually all that different. I don’t like Shaw, I don’t like the guy playing him, but I’m appreciative that the writers are at least trying to develop the character.

The B storyline is also funny this week. Yes, it is back at the Buy More, but it works because it focuses on Morgan and Casey becoming unlikely allies in the power struggle between Morgan and the rest of the Buy More underlings, chiefly Lester. Let’s just say that Casey gets to use some of his scary agent mind tricks on Lester to pretty hilarious results. Separately, Casey and Morgan each are usually good for solid comic relief, but putting them together is a great notion because they’re such divergent characters.

I would never say that Chuck is great television, but this week was quite enjoyable and if they can do more episodes like this I will be happy to keep watching.

Season 3, Episode 5: Chuck vs First Class (originally aired January 15, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Adam Taylor