Chuck 503 Review- Frost Yourself

Morgan- "Just admit that you cannot handle the fact that I'm the badass operative, with the badass tips, and you're the dorky sidekick!"

I have a feeling "Chuck Versus the Frosted Tips" is going to be very divisive. There were so many things to enjoy, yet so many issues with the episode that even I both loved it and hated it all at the same time. Divisive, I say.

Before the conclusion, where it surprisingly became clear that Morgan was going to return to normal, I had many a worry for fans of the Bearded Bandit. Personally, I found his new egomaniacal state to be hilarious, but I could definitely hear the roars of fanboys complaining that this wasn't the Morgan we learned to love back in the beginning.

My problem wasn't with his transition to the Luke Skywalker-forgetting, personal assistant-needing, dumping-by-text-message Morgan we watched for most of the episode, but rather, the ease in which he turned off the cocky switch.

I loved that Chuck was able to talk Morgan down from his king of the world persona, and regain his best friend, but that's it? That's all it took for Morgan to stop acting like this, a chat with Chuck that got him to remember his past? I really thought this was a bigger issue. In the final five minutes or so he was acting completely normal, and I was assuming it would take removing the intersect from his brain to get any of the old Morgan back in our lives. It was just a bit too easy.

To read the rest of my review of last night's Chuck, head over to TV Fanatic.

Chuck 503 - "Chuck vs. the Frosted Tips"
Review
Recap
Quotes

Chuck 502 Review- Who's Luke Skywalker?

Big Mike- "So listen Devon. Have you ever given any thought to do something that involves less doctoring and more making a commercial for the Buy More?"

Last week's season premiere introduced us all to Morgan Grimes with the intersect, making us all wonder whether or not this was the correct path for the show to take. "Chuck vs. the Bearded Bandit" expanded on that theme in a number of ways, both for good and for bad.

Intersect Morgan is all riled up and ready to take on all bad guys all the time. This can be good, as it proved to be hilarious when he named himself the Bearded Bandit and started talking in weird, deep voices. It also provided a ton of great action sequences because our Bearded friend wanted to fight anyone and anything that was in the way.

This was also bad, though, because he continued to get the gang into trouble. Whether it was getting his picture in the paper for being a terrible vigilante after the convenient store fiasco, or taking no regard for anyone else's ideas in running into Schneider's house all alone, Morgan forced Carmichael Industries to make a number of difficult decisions this week.

Worst of all is what the intersect seems to be doing to Morgan's brain. Throughout the episode I thought nothing of the bearded boys' actions, pointing towards intersect mood swings when trying to understand why he was so aggressive and forgetting clearly recognizable Indiana Jones references, but the final scene made it seem much more dangerous than that.

To read the rest of my review of last night's Chuck, head over to TV Fanatic.

Chuck 502 - "Chuck vs. the Bearded Bandit"
Review
Recap
Quotes

Chuck 501 Review- Zoom Goes The Dynamite

Morgan (to Chuck): You're great even without the intersect.

There were many questions regarding the intersect heading into this final season of Chuck. How would Morgan fare as the new vessel? Would Chuck be okay without the intersect helping his spy game? Would any new intersects arise in the near future?

While "Chuck vs. The Zoom" began to answer at least a couple of those, who knew the most important question we should have been asking - well, the funniest anyway - was this: what will Morgan call it when he uses the intersect? That's right, in a very Morgan Grimes fashion, the bearded wonder has renamed Chuck's intersect flash to the Zoom!

The only thing that made Morgan's new ridiculous name for flashing funnier was the fact that Casey seemed to roll with it in stride. He uttered Morgan will zoom on squash with such calm and ease that it was almost as if he was doing it to purposefully bug Chuck.

That is what is so great about this action comedy. Chuck never takes itself seriously, which is why we will begin the fifth and final season premiere Chuck Triple Threat rundown with what else made us laugh during the hour:

To read the rest of my review of last night's Chuck season premiere, head over to TV Fanatic.

Chuck 501 - "Chuck vs. the Zoom"
Review
Recap
Quotes

The Titus Pullo Award- Supporting Character Action

Named For: Titus Pullo played by Ray Stevenson in Rome
Awarded To: The best supporting character in an action series from June 1, 2009 - May 31, 2010
Last Year's Winner: Tony Almeida- 24

Place. Character (Show) Points (My Vote)

10. Arthur Mitchell (Dexter) 0 points

9. 'Chibs' Telford (Sons of Anarchy) 2 points

8. 'Opie' Winston (Sons of Anarchy) 4 points

7. Kimball Cho (The Mentalist) 5 points (5th)

6. Eric Northman (True Blood) 6 points

5. Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad) 16 points (4th)

4. Devon Woodcomb (Chuck) 17 points

3. Morgan Grimes (Chuck) 29 points (1st)

Runner-Up
2. Benjamin Linus (Lost) 31 points (2nd)

and the Poolie goes to...
1. Desmond Hume (Lost)
41 points (3rd)

Here with his thoughts on Desmond Hume is Poolie voter, Jaydon...

Is there a LOST fan alive that doesn’t love them some Desmond? I’m sure there must be, there are no limits to human lameness. For the rest of us, Desmond was one of the greatest studs to grace not just LOST, but the medium of television.

Think back to the season two premiere. The inaugural season concluded with the first of LOST’s routinely excellent season finale cliffhangers. The hatch was blown open by dynamite. Locke and Jack peered into the abyss. We had no inkling of what would happen next. We could only assume by the ominous numbers emblazoned on the hatch that this was a Pandora’s Box situation. Season two picked up curiously.

We open on a computer screen with a flickering, beeping command prompt. A man gets out of bed, slides over to the computer and enters some unknown data. When he hits “execute”, we hear a shuffling sound. He chooses a record, Mama Cass’s “Make Your Own Kind of Music”, the soundtrack to his routine. He does dishes and laundry. Works out and showers. He makes a fruit shake. All this time, we never see his face. He injects himself with a mysterious solution and is interrupted by an explosion over head. He quickly dresses and arms himself, turns the lights out and investigates the disturbance with a scope rigged to a chain of mirrors. That chain flows all the way to… the bottom of the hatch. Minds were blown. This was perhaps the coolest introduction for a new character that LOST ever did. Immediately after this scene, Des played antagonist to our castaways. He quickly transitioned into a fan favorite and critical darling.

I think Desmond is beloved for many reasons:

1. He’s got a great personality. He’s good-hearted and brave but flawed, a time tested recipe for a likable hero. That awesome accent and his “brutha” catchphrase add to his likability.

2. His relationship with Penny stood out as arguably the most emotionally potent romantic pairing of the series. For me, only Sawyer and Juliet can be mentioned in the same breath as the Humes.

3. He had the best episodes. There were many characters that had strong eps. Desmond trounced them all. “The Constant” alone bests most other characters entire back stories.

4. Desmond was of vital importance to the mythos of LOST.

This last one deserves greater attention. No other character was as deeply enmeshed in LOST lore. The starting point alone is incomparable. Desmond caused the crash of flight 815 and brought the castaways to the island. Beyond that, he was responsible for the button in the hatch and used the numbers. He saw visions of the future and predicted Charlie’s death and was the recipient of the “Not Penny’s Boat” message. He was entangled with Charles Widmore, Eloise Hawking and Daniel Faraday. His consciousness traveled through time, a precursor to an entire season of time travel. He was thought of as special by everyone, including Widmore and the Man in Black. He was responsible for unplugging the energy at the source which led to the martyrdom of Jack, the vanquishing of MIB and the survivors final escape from The Island. He was used as the plot device that connected the earthly and ethereal realities.

Desmond essentially began, ended and reconciled LOST.

This award should be renamed the Desmond Hume Award for Best Supporting Actor in an Action Series. No offense to the lovable brute, Titus Pullo of Rome, but this change would honor subsequent winners in exponentially greater terms. Congrats, Des. See ya in anotha life brutha.

by Jonathan Stuart

Chuck- Last Action Beardo

Morgan Grimes- "Reach for the sky dirt bags!"

In one of many moments of this two hour finale where Josh Gomez made his case for renaming the show "Morgan", the bearded wonder screamed this as he wildly waved his machine gun around attempting to capture the Elder leaders of the Ring.

When the show began it was about Chuck as a nerdy guy who helped out a couple of CIA and NSA agents. Sure he had a mega-computer implanted in his brain, but he also helped out by using his geek knowledge and sometimes simply by accident.

That's exactly the role Morgan has taken on since Chuck has become a real spy. Like Casey said, "Don't know when it happened, but our boy became a man." And as Chuck became a man, Morgan became a CIA boy. He's helped out the team immensely. Probably better than Chuck in his first year with the company.

And Morgan definitely is more inclined to make things dramatic as he claims, "No plan? Never stopped me before." Obviously Awesome shuts him down immediately. But the two work together to save the day, if only by arbitrarily pushing buttons a la the guy in the background of Goldmember.

His love for action hasn't stopped him from yukking it up as the crew embarks on their mission to take down the Ring. Chuck pondered stoically stated "the only ones who could pull it off would have to be the best spies in the world." To which Morgan squeamishly accepted the compliment with "Chuck...you're embarrassing me."

With the final bit of Morgan love, I'll just say that it was sweet how much props he gives John Casey on multiple occasions during the episode. First to Ellie and then to Casey's daughter Alex. The student to mentor love is awesome. It was great foreshadowing for when Morgan valiantly accepted Casey's order to break his own thumbs in order to escape from handcuffs. Great partnership there.

(Buy) More Thoughts

- I love that everyone close to Chuck now knows about his spy life. It was a necessary step to make sure the series stays fresh. Ellie has always been the most important person in Chuck's life. If she can accept it than everything will be fine. Woops, she doesn't accept it.

- Speaking of Ellie not accepting Chuck's spy life. Can he really just give it all up because his sister wants him to? Does the CIA allow that sort of thing? Doesn't he have to be killed or go into hiding at least?

- Shaw is alive (I dislike this, but I'll go with it because he's such a fantastic villain). He killed Papa Bartowski which makes him even more of an evil monster.

- So many epic Chuck episodes have been graced by a Jeffster performance. This season's finale had the honor of showcasing the first ever music video by the talented duo.

- So Chuck downloaded a mini-intersect when he was a kid? I'm sure we'll get answers to this next season, but what kind of info did he get from that? And did he ever flash?

- As Chuck doesn't have the ability to murder Shaw with his bare hands the villain claims, "That's what makes you weak" Sarah, like the rest of us, explain "No. That's what makes you great."

- So I guess Schwartz and Fedak didn't think they were getting canceled, because that was quite the little cliffhanger they had there at the end. Papa Bartowski had been looking for Chuck's mom for a long time and now Chuck himself is going to start searching for her? Since he promised Ellie he wouldn't work for the CIA, he'll be doing this all rogue I assume.

Chuck- What the M Stands For

Captain Awesome- "Babe, this didn't happen by accident."

The last time we all watched Chuck, we were reveling in the moment of Chuck saving the day and getting the girl. We come back after a short hiatus to Chuck Season 3.1 and we are exactly where we left off. That is, with Chuck and Sarah simply enjoying each others' company without the worries of the spy world they're planning on leaving behind.

When there is a major change in the main relationship of a show, you can sometimes run into problems. Because these two have been in a fake relationship for so long, this real one doesn't make the series feel all that different. We still got all the silliness, suspense and action we come to expect from an episode of Chuck.

Other than Sarah's act of continually disrobing, Morgan was the star of this week's ep. He has proven to be as good if not better than Chuck was as the spy helper with nerdy knowledge. The way he showed Casey what was what in Castle was fantastic. The CIA needs M Grimes. After all, who else was gonna know that Chuck wasn't gonna leave without picking up the latest Justice League comic book?

We also got a good bit of Ellie and Awesome in our Chuck return. Ellie was just getting hammered and Awesome had the great line, "Babe, this didn't happen by accident" when Ellie ponders why he packed dumbbells in his luggage.

Since the season 3.0 semi-finale was too action packed to fit in an appearance by Jeffster, we were treated to a fantastic performance this week. As Lester said, "Tonight Jeffster goes unplugged" and chugged a bottle of limejuice, I got excited. I don't know what was better, the actual performance of Leaving on a Jetplane, or the glasses Jeff was wearing during it.

Very nice return, and happy that the show seems to work no matter what the different situations the characters find themselves in.