Chuck (2/21/11): "Chuck vs the Masquerade"

Odd that the Valentine’s Day episode is a week late. The mid-season return of the show wasn’t delayed so far as I know.

This one fell a little flat for me. The comedy bits were great: Morgan & Alex’s bizarre love ritual, Sarah’s Valentine’s surprise for Chuck, Ellie & Awesome’s newborn travails. The action bits, though, were a little too by-the-numbers. I could predict every plot development coming from a mile off, including the location of Volkoff’s key. The continuation of the Volkoff storyline means, however, that we could see the return of Timothy Dalton, which is a good thing.

And I want a singing teddy bear in a Jeffster! shirt, to lull me to sleep. Anyone know what song that was?

The song was Send me on my way by Rusted Root. Youtube link.

This episode addressed something that has bugged me about the show. The fact that Casey seems underutilised in the team’s missions. Casey’s the Worf of the series. The one getting his ass handed to him to show how serious the situation is. They let him be a true badass in this episode, which I liked.

I was yelling at the TV that the key was in the necklace.

I liked it that all the snipers waited thier turn to be killed by Casey - not one of them even attempted a shot as he shot the others.

Under utilized? I don’t think so - he always was the muscle - he was never the schmoozer/spy.

Totally lusting for Vivian. Not sure I can watch this show and keep my heart rate at an acceptable level with her, Sarah, and Ellie. Zoinks!

One guy shot and missed.

I guess you could fanwank this away by saying that Casey was a much better shot than they were, so he could shoot them before they got close enough to be able to shoot him. But really, since he was shooting from a crouch without much aiming, One of those other guys should have been able to shoot him from a resting position.

But really, it’s just a variant on the martial arts trope where the hero is surrounded by bad guys, and wins because they take turns coming at him one at a time. had that scene been realistic, those guys would all have been on their bellies shooting prone, all at the same time, and Casey wouldn’t have had a chance.

But Chuck just isn’t a show you can nitpick like that. It’s part farce, so you have to just go with it. Or else i could also point out that the tree branch Chuck swung around was so think his hands didn’t even curl around it, so there’s no way a human could have hung on - and the scene was the most obvious CGI I’ve seen on the show.

I do wish they’d work a little harder on the plots. I don’t need the show to be super realistic, but the plot shouldn’t be so thin that it’s just a formality used to hang together the comedy bits. Please make it just a little more surprising and well thought out.

Mr. Stone -

I was mainly commenting on the trope, not really meaning to nitpick it as a Chuck moment - I just really don’t see Casey as being ‘Worfed’ overall or as this being his ‘ultimate bad ass’ moment.

Sorry if that was lost in translation - I shoulda included a :slight_smile: or something.

I found it refreshing to see that Vivian really, honestly turned out to have no idea about her father. I kept waiting for her to crack a sly smile, having done whatever she was supposed to do to advance the Grand Evil Plot, but it never happened. And I really liked that one of the people who was killed in the opening was “Peggy,” the wretched customer service rep from the Discover commercials.

I didn’t really like the incompetent please-shoot-me sniper squad at the end.

It won’t go down in Chuck history as either one of the best nor worst episodes. But it had its moments.

QFT.

And this, after the CAT Squad episode? “Watch Chuck, Mondays on NBC, for all your hot-babe needs!”

heightwise, chuck should have chewy and and morgan, han. it makes more sense to me that way. oh, and the babes were babealicious.

In other news, I was recently watching one of the first episodes of Human Target, and the bad guy’s name was Alexey Volkoff. I guess a Chuck writer is a fan.

And you’ve just given me a reason to go re-watch the first season of Human Target.

Morgan’s reasoning for moving out falls pretty flat once he reveals he’s moving back in with his mom.