19 November, 2011

CHUCK Vs. the Business Trip - 5.04: Stay at Home, Woman


In this latest episode of CHUCK we discovered that strong women just want to have babies and stay at home while their husbands save lives. Also, there are only three Indiana Jones movies. And apparently the Star Wars prequels suck. Oh and Carmichael Industries is made up of the dumbest spies ever. More after the jump?

The story goes that Morgan is the target of a Decker-ordered assassination because he is the Intersect. So, Morgan gets de-intersected, but not before catching some throwing stars. But ruhroh, the assassination order is still alive with at least one dangerous killer! So, Morgan is benched and Chuck takes his place. Chuck and Sarah go to a Buy More thingy and stuff happens.

Look, when I really don't like an episode, I don't feel very motivated to write about it, so let me just bullet point this shit.

What I liked:
  • When Chuck and Sarah almost had their sexy time, Chuck said "Here we go" right before they were interrupted. Best delivery of the entire episode and it was most likely ADR.
  • Sarah looked hot.
  • Casey was badass at the end.
  • They actually faked us out by putting a well known actor in the episode and then not making him the obvious bad guy.
  • That baby is so adorable!
  • Big Mike's "pineapple" was one of the best subtle callbacks ever.

What I didn't like:
  • Most of the convention scenes were trite, stiltedly written like George Lucas dialogue, with acting that felt tired at best, lazy at worst.
  • This super spy team has no risk management skills. They let dumb things happen under their noses all the time. In this episode they let Morgan out of their sight right after his brain nearly fried and he went evil, so Chuck had to save him from being blowns up. Then, after they THOUGHT they had caught the assassin, who was totally inept at taking out his mostly untrained target, they let their guard down AGAIN without first putting everything on lock-down until he could be interrogated/verified. Not to mention that super spy Sarah got conned by and fell in friendsy love with the one person she was trying to find.
  • Ellie deciding she had to be home with the baby while Devon, the big man, went back to work seemed totally unrealistic and tacked on just to take one of the actors out of the equation for a few episodes.
  • Super aware Jeff, much funnier in the previous episode, once extended beyond a scene felt badly out of place and didn't add anything of substance, unless you count Lester going to jail for attempted murder substance. That's just dark, kids. I mean, he actually DID attempt murder. What will the writers be trying to say when he eventually gets out of it? It's OK to try to murder your friends when they change?
  • Sarah needing a friend when she already has Casey, Morgan, Ellie, (Alex?) and those two chicks from the cat squad. With fair weather friends like Sarah....
  • Another chauvinistic moment, when Casey took out the assassin team, even though it is also one of the coolest moments in the episode, is just another piece of evidence that the writers think Sarah is a girl who just needs a friend, a house, a man, most likely babies, and for a big strong conservative male to fight her battles for her.
  • The Alex and Morgan breakup that I have been pining for since they got together, seemed totally anemic and tacked on just to take one of the actors out of the equation for a few episodes.
  • When did Casey become such a Star Wars fan? Is Wookieepedia his start-up page?
  • Either the writer or Zac didn't know the proper Star Wars quote is "The Force is strong WITH this one" not "the Force is strong IN this one" and that should have earned this episode a 25 out of 100.

Speaking of... if I had to rate this episode, I'd give it:

75 out of 100.

I like sappy stuff. But not when it is poorly executed. Not when it is poorly written. Not when it is just there to be there to set up something in five episodes. If this show has any history at all, it is in poor setups to sappy stuff and to story arc payoffs, though they seem to do payoffs to sappy stuff and setups to story arcs well. This episode felt like it was a fan-fic and I am sure fan-fic writers everywhere love this shit, because they love what they write, and what they write sucks, like most of this episode. And professional wrestling.

Sure, I am nitpicking some things that I probably would have let pass if the episode was executed better. But it was just too cheesy, lazy, and lame for me to ignore the gaps in logic, or general suckage. I haven't even mentioned the pacing, or the plodding through the lie detector sequence. Ugh.

This was an episode written to stroke the shippers but it missed on every beat that a great episode like Honeymooners nailed. It reminded me a lot of season 4's Muuurder, that to this day I can't think about without wanting to stab someone.

I actually think I am too generous with that score. Anyway, what did you think? Comment below.