Captain Awesome did something uncharacteristically unawesome. Sarah’s party was much, much cooler than Chuck’s.
I knew we’d see Volkoff’s lawyer again. Ray Wise is just too good to waste on a single appearance. As expected, he’s grooming Vivian to take over the Volkoff empire. Ellie finding out the full truth about Chuck also took place as expected.
What was unexpected to me, however, was the identity of Agent X. Looks like we have the story arc of the next season, if we ever get one.
Funny, I saw it coming. I loved Volkhoff’s mom. She was a badass.
Jeffster and Big Mike can never appear in another episode and I don’t think I’d miss them.
I briefly considered Volkoff as Agent X, then dismissed the idea, so when the reveal occurred, it was still kind of a surprise to me.
Same. Even now it doesn’t make much sense.
Very nerdy of me, but I was impressed by the composited Somerset backgrounds.
Yeah, Volhoff’s mom was a hilarious (and comically dangerous) character. Casey sure liked her, didn’t he?
“She’s like the Mom I never had.”
Yeah, I loved that line!
Fun episode. And a fairly effective use of all the characters on the roster, for a change.
Casey: They’re all dead.
Awesome: Then why did you have us make these spears?
Casey: To get you out of my way!
Does anybody else think it might be wise to hook Vivian up with her dear old Grandma?
I always thought it was quite a stretch how quickly she turned evil. But if we can buy that, we can buy that she’ll reconsider if she hears the truth, especially from a blood relative.
The truth about the CIA ruining her fathers life? i don’t think that might go over as well as you think.
Funny, I saw it coming. New Jersey Escorts I loved Volkhoff’s mom. She was a New Jersey Asian Escort badass.
Jeffster New Jersey Escort and Big Mike can never appear in another New Jersey Asian Escorts episode and I don’t think I’d miss them.
Conservation of characters didn’t leave many other options for Agent X other than Volkoff, so I saw it coming. I mean, who else could it have been? Jeff? Big Mike?
Strange that Agent X’s files were on 3.5" floppies if he went under in 1980. The first computer to use them didn’t come until 82. (Oh boy, I’m nitpicking floppies on Chuck again, what IS my problem, lol)
I think it would have been cool if Agent X had been Morgan’s bio dad. Do we know anything about him? Morgan and Chuck would be best friends just like their dads! Plus it would have given Morgan some spy cred.
The absolute LAST thing this show needs is to start pulling out more relatives and revealing that they’re all gasp spies! At this rate, 90% of US citizens will turn out to be undercover CIA.
It’ll be interesting to see how they deal with Volkoff being "Agent X"in the next season. I mean, the show normally keeps things pretty light, but there are some really interesting ethical issues here, if they choose to go that route.
As I understand it, Agent X was “programmed” with the Volkoff personality, which (accidentally) entirely erased the old one. Everything we’ve seen in the show suggests that Volkoff is entirely unaware of this - he believes that he is, and has always been, Alex Volkoff, and he takes tremendous pride in this. (Remember how he psyched himself up in the last episode? The rant about how he’s Volkoff, destroyer of nations, etc etc?)
So: What if Volkoff does not wish to be “fixed?” At this point, he’s every bit as real and sentient a personality as the “Agent X” persona - and it may even have lived longer than the old one. I imagine that in this show, Volkoff would simply be “fixed” against his will, and this will be portrayed as a happy ending - but that seems an awful lot like murder to me. (Perhaps Volkoff does deserve to die - he’s killed many times. But that’s what trials are for.)
I hate, hate, hate the Vivian Volkoff character and associated plotlines. I’m not even enthusiastic about watching the show right now, because of it. I mean, it’s singularly unbelievable that an ordinary, not-evil person would transform themselves into a remorseless killer of innocents as Vivian appears to have done. But then compounding it is the fact that this person, who previously had no particularly lethal leanings, turns out to be an ultra-competent SuperBadAssBadGuyTM - with no intervening development, training, etc.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, and it looks even stupider every time they build her up as this dangerous nemesis… who two weeks ago was a total naif tending horses in England. In reality - or even in the “reality” of the show - Casey would just, you know, go kill her. The end.
Lame.
Oh, I don’t know. The timeframe is a bit accelerated, I’ll grant - but Vivian had never really had any opportunities to be evil before, had she? Not, at least, without the same consequences that any rich person would face - which are still pretty onerous. I mean, she’d have top-notch lawyers, but she’d still be facing jail time. She could have been pretty damned callous, but just never acted on it.
Now, though, she does have a criminal empire - and she’s free to indulge whatever evil urges she wishes. Heck, Stalin was a soft-spoken poet before he got involved with the Communist Party. People change.
Remember how Alexei was pretending to be a goofball in the first episode he was in? Maybe Vivian was only pretending to be a naïf. Maybe Alexei Volkhoff had some of Orion’s old tech laying around his lair and they used it to implant Vivian with a new personality. Ray Wise is actually running the show and he’s forcing Vivian to do these things.
I’m totally with you on the Vivian hate. It’s not a love to hate either. She’s easily the worst villain in Chuck history.
Given this particular show, we’re probably lucky the files weren’t on octagon-shaped floppies.
As opposed to, say, the believability of being able to download terabytes of data into a human brain in a few seconds? Or the believability of that data being able to impart physical skills to the body that holds that brain?
Just sayin’, to me you’re drawing your line between what is and isn’t “believable” in a rather odd place, given the premise of the entire show.