Chuck 505 Review- Hammered Hacking

Chuck- "Do you remember why we started Carmichael Industries to begin with?"

Morgan- "The corporate discount on the pinball machine right?"

In "Chuck Versus the Hack Off" two characters felt like they were getting sucked back into something they had tried desperately to get away from in the first place. Chuckles didn't like getting back into the business of working for manipulative CIA head honchos, and Radzinsky* was deathly afraid of getting back into the evil tech device game.

*The character played by Eric Lange was not important enough to be referred to by anything but Radzinsky...the actor's character on Lost.

Thankfully, it looks like neither character will have to deal with such issues ever again. Radzinsky will likely head back to his naked yoga cult in the woods, while Chuck will never have to take another order from the likes of Decker...unless technology advances to the point that a man can get blown back together by a reverse bomb.

Stepping back to the here and now, "The Hack Off" was a great hour on its own, but was an even better example of how Chuck is killing it to start its final season. Fedak, Schwartz and company have weaved the long-running arcs of these characters' end games with funny, action-packed, interesting episodic stories pretty darn perfectly over the first five episodes.

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

Chuck 505 - "Chuck vs. the Hack Off"
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"
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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

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- I Can't Kill It

Big Mike- "You have the hips of a six year old girl."

This marks the second week in a row where I've had a problem with a storyline in Chuck. Last episode it was all of the dream stuff and this time around it was Daniel Shaw still being alive. We never actually got to see his face, so if we find out next week that it is an impostor, I will be relieved. But if Shaw is still alive that will be disappointing and Heroes-esque. When you have an epic, heroic moment like Chuck did when he saved Sarah and killed Shaw, it's time to move on to the next stage. Don't bring him back just because you liked the job the actor was doing. This is just another example of why it wasn't a smart move to give Schwartz and Fedak six more episodes. What can you do with six episodes? Come up with silly ideas like bringing Shaw back to life apparently.

On the other hand, we got the return of Chuck's dad. Scott Bakula doesn't really bring much to the table in this role, but it was nice to see him getting all gung ho about making Chuck a governor 2.0 to keep his brain under control and out of dementia.

One of Chuck's best attributes is the way they cut from a semi-serious moment to something completely ridiculous that parallels the previous conversation. We got two of these great moments this week. The first was when Morgan is specifically told to not touch anything when he gets to hide out in Castle and then we cut to Morgan trying on bullet proof vests and playing with the guns. The second was when Chuck was lying to his dad via a serious convo about not being a spy anymore, and then they cut to him struggling with climbing up the face of a building. Brilliant work.

Finally, my favorite moment of the night was the convo between Awesome and Morgan in the kitchen. I can't figure out which was better, Awesome rambling about all of the ridiculously awesome stuff he does for Ellie, or the trance that Morgan gets in listening to the whole thing.

Let's hope that the end of this six episode season 3.1 ends with some sort of cliff hanger now that we know we're getting a fourth season next year.

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.