Chuck Versus The Desperate Out of Work Actors!

Angie Harmon and Brandon Routh guest starred on Monday night’s Chuck, trying to make the most out of amorphous, contextless roles. It seems almost superfluous that they were given character names; they should have just been billed as Nefarious Sultry Athletic Superspook Babe and Rugged Secret Agent Boy. I guess they needed the work, with Angie’s Women’s Murder Club show getting canned and Routh’s failure to become the Silver Screen’s new Superman in Superman Returns (though to be fair, Bryan Singer shares in that failure quite extensively).

If you’ll recall, last week ended with Captain Metrosexual Gigolo…er, ah, I mean Captain Awesome…getting kidnapped. I forget who kidnapped him and why. That may have something to do with the fact that the writers never knew in the first place. So naturally, this week is all about getting him back before Chuck’s insipid sister Ellie calls the Whambulance. Chuck feels guilty because Angie Harmon’s baddie kidnapped Awesome and planted an explosive device on Awesome’s ear that she will detonate if he disobeys, all because she thought Awesome was Chuck. Personally, I think Chuck getting Awesome kidnapped (and possibly, hopefully killed) was the most selfless thing he has ever done. Imagine all the suffering that could be eliminated with that moron’s death. The world’s collective IQ would skyrocket based on his demise alone.

Alas, Chuck feels differently about the matter, so he implores Sarah and Casey to help him swing into action to save Awesome. Of course they want to help him (maybe just Sarah), but they also see the situation as an opportunity to learn who Harmon really is and who she works for and what they want (then they can tell the writers!). Routh’s mysterious spy Shaw comes into the fold, having been a target that Harmon wanted Awesome to eliminate. Turns out he knows all about The Ring (glad somebody does). But mostly, all Routh does is furrow his eyebrows, look pretty and try to pretend that he really has been visited by the Tooth Fairy. His character seems to be basically Bryce Larkin 2.0. Maybe the showrunners regretted killing him off last season so they essentially cloned him. Hey, maybe Shaw and his smoldering good looks can come between Chuck and Sarah to provide some conflict!

The spy stuff is pretty standard—breaking into secret building penthouses, fake deaths, code words. No car chases, but Chuck does get trigger-happy with a tranquilizer gun thanks to his new Intersect skills. There was even a point where Chuck tranquilized a few guards by dropping to the floor and shooting between Awesome’s legs. I’m going to be polite and call that moment not theft but an homage to action master John Woo, who had Christian Slater do the exact same thing on top of a speeding train in the third act of Broken Arrow.

The Buy More shenanigans are typically pointless. Morgan becomes the new assistant manager, which creates friction amongst the underlings. There was a moment that made me laugh though. Lester is preventing Chuck from talking to Sarah in the Buy More. He wants Chuck’s opinion on a topical, ideologically complex and hefty query: who would win in a fight: Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal. Lester starts trying to simulate martial arts moves and Chuck’s Intersect skills take over and Chuck kicks Lester in the face. Pretty awesome. (By the way, if we’re talking about both men in their prime engaging in unarmed combat, it’s a tough call and one that I’ve considered many a time over the years, but I think Seagal would win). That’s all for this week.

Season 3, Episode 4: Chuck vs Operation Awesome (originally aired January 18, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Chris Haston.