Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Stegall
Chuck
“Chuck vs. the Leftovers”
Mondays, NBC, 8/7c PM
Written by Henry Alonzo Myers
Directed by Zachary Levi
Warning: this review contains some spoilers. If you’d rather not know what the episode is going to include, bookmark this page and read it after viewing.
“We always expect the best from the ones we love, and rarely get it.” —Alexei Volkoff
Sometimes I imagine the writers’ room for Chuck, with the writers competing to see how many references to geek culture they can shove into an episode. This one must surely take some kind of prize, from Linda Hamilton once again playing a mother protecting her son from the future, to Timothy Dalton playing a psychopathic version of James Bond, to Josh Gomez channeling Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Yippi-ki-yay, already. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the geek references, but I like them as spice for the whole, not as the main course. Yet that was pretty much what we got served up in this warmed-over Holiday Special, directed by series star Zach Levi.
“Guys! I know kung fu! Again.” —Chuck
As noted, much of this very thrifty show now seems to be recycling earlier episodes of the series. Tonight Chuck is once again forced to negotiate the release of a loved one taken hostage. He is once again re-united with and then loses his mother (talk about your separation anxiety). And once again he regains the Intersect, which he seems to lose and find with monotonous regularity. Since the Intersect in Chuck’s head is the premise of the show, it does not take a genius to foresee that he would get a reboot. But instead of the tight plotting and fast pace, leavened with regularly delivered zingers that we’ve come to expect, this episode plodded along like a sleepy elephant. By the time the half-hour mark rolled around, I could have quoted the dialog before it was spoken, and told you almost to the minute when Chuck would regain the Intersect.
“Mom! Seriously? You’re betraying me again?” —Chuck
I thought Chuck was over his mom. Chuck thought he was over his mom. That’s the trouble with TV land; writers won’t let anything die. For the millionth time, Chuck’s mom comes to save him, or betray him, or pretend to do either while doing the other. Whatever. I am so bored with the character of Mama Bartowski, and with Linda Hamilton’s wooden, baritone-flavored acting, that I am ready for Alexei to either kill her or whisk her off for a permanent honeymoon in Havana. Maybe I’m supposed to be intrigued by her constant role reversal, and I might be if it weren’t so heavy-handed. I actually had to remind myself during Mama Bartowski’s scenes that this is supposed to be a comedy. Maybe director Zachary Levi should have reminded Ms. Hamilton that this is supposed to be a funny show.
“I’d rather she died than have to live without me.” —Alexei
Timothy Dalton can definitely do comedy. The problem is that nobody gave him any funny lines in this episode. He does his best to be both creepy and avuncular, and mostly pulls it off. His charades in the Awesomes’ living room were amusing, (I think he was miming License to Kill) but I kept expecting Dr. Jekyll to pop out at any moment. His funniest moment was actually his “hostage negotiation” with Chuck, as it slowly dawns on Sarah that Alexei is in love with “Frost”. His tender regard for Mama B was so much the anti-Bond that it constituted a lively comment on that whole genre. Laurels for this episode’s acting undoubtedly go to Dalton, who swung between ice-cold threats and squishy love whispers, between goofball and goombah, without batting an eye, or rendering his character unbelievable. But then, one expects no less from the co-star of Flash Gordon.
Morgan: Strip kick. It mixes the self-defense of Krav Maga with the intense core workout of pole dancing.
Chuck: Casey can never know about this.
A good rule of thumb in comedy is that if the one-liners or the setup aren’t working, go for physical comedy. It almost never fails. The scenes where Chuck and Morgan are working out in a room full of stripper poles and lithe stripper bodies is one of the better scenes this year. I wish there had been even more of the Die Hard homage with Morgan, but what we got was dead on. His little can’t-reach-the-gun dance was the funniest moment on the show.
But in the end, not even the physical comedy could spur this beast across a finish line. Despite the fact that this is the last episode before a month-long hiatus, the writers could find no better ending for the standoff between Mama Bartowski, Chuck, and Volkoff than… walking away? That’s right. After taking hostages, issuing threats, insinuating himself into Thanksgiving leftover dinner, and nearly killing Jeff and Lester, our bad guy just shrugs and walks away. Talk about a wet firecracker of an ending. It was so bland and pointless an ending that even Dalton’s charm could not make it work. Nor did having Linda Hamilton say, “Come with me if you want to live” prove to be anywhere near as thrilling as the writers probably expected; in fact, I had grown impatient for this more or less inevitable moment weeks ago. In short, there was too little originality, too many moments we have seen before, and an excruciatingly slow pace in this episode. Just having Chuck reboot is not enough to tide me over till January. Here’s hoping the writers come back with better material next year, material more like last week’s episode and less like this week’s.
My Thanksgiving wish was granted by seeing Chuck get higher numbers this week. It pulled in a season high 6.1 million viewers, for a 1.9 rating in the 18-49 age demo. This is considerably better than it has done in a while, which in a way is a shame. I doubt this episode garnered any new long-term fans, whereas these numbers last week, during Yvonne Strahovski’s outstanding performance, might have permanently upped the audience numbers. I’ll take what I can get, however, since our next Chuck is in 2011. Till then, load up the microwave with the leftovers…