TV Review: Chuck Versus The Tic-Tac – Season 3 Episode 10
After last week’s game changer with a certain friend finding out Chuck’s secret, I was wondering how the show would return this week and build upon the revelation, instead of focusing on that element of Morgan in the know, the tone and story shifted to Casey.
I was happy that it did because Casey is the only team member that has sort of been in the wings this season, sort “Mr. backup” or always in the van. Last season we found out that one of Casey’s former mentors and sensei was brought to the dark side to work for Fulcrum, in this episode we find out who turned the sensei and why? Robert Patrick guest stars and Casey goes rogue culminating into some new information on his past while leading to a new fate for his character that breaks up a beloved character of Team Bartowski.
What was great about this episode is that it accomplished a lot without damaging anything laid out before it this season. The writers have been taking risks all season to ensure the show doesn’t “run out of new, workable ideas”. I never expected the series to go all these different directions such as exposing Chuck’s secret to friends, the killing off of a member of the Buy More, massive emotional drama leading to tension rather than affection and really setting Chuck up as a true spy.
Earlier this year SLANT Magazine bemoaned Season 3′s reinstatement of Chuck and Sarah’s relationship, saying “as it stands the situation with Chuck and Sarah is worn down, tired, and typical,” though they added “with a show as genuinely enjoyable as Chuck, status quo is far from a death sentence.”
Well I got news for you – they have gone far beyond status quo. Chuck and Sarah’s relationship hit an interesting point in this episode as the possibility of her leaving the team especially after Team Bartowski, was broken with Col. Casey getting excommunicated from spy life. The group is hanging by a thread and this whole season has been building to that, Chuck as a spy means people get hurt, Casey is an example to Chuck of how choices he could make may doom him from a life that will better suit him.
Now here is the kicker and I highlighted it last week. Devin and Ellie seemed poised to leave, Morgan knows, what does all this mean? I think that it means the writers are setting themselves for closure if the show doesn’t make it to another season. The layers that have been built are there but after this season you have to ask the same question will they run out of workable ideas?
While thinking of that, I say that this episode like last week’s was another game changer and is edging us closer to Chuck eventually facing a choice – friends and family and the woman he loves or being a spy. The first two seasons were all about having something he never asked for, this season he asked for it, but is that the best choice?
9 episodes left mean there is a lot more to come and next week’s promo for Chuck versus The Final Exam, he is going to have to kill someone, double-O style. He learns that his latest solo mission will be a final test to see if he is ready to be a spy and needs to put everything he has learned into action to avoid going back to his old life while Sarah and Shaw observe his every move.
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