Written by Alex Katsnelson & Kristen Newman
Directed by Alan Kroeker
It is a true measure of affection for these characters that a small scene between Chuck, Sarah, and Casey decompressing together after their latest mission makes wading through a filler episode like this one still rewarding.A bottle - meaning the episode was confined to standing sets such as the Castle, BuyMore etc - and filler episode; this one ran on three tracks. The A storyline had Chuck in charge of the Intersect Project which quickly became a locked Castle aka room mystery. The B storyline had the BuyMore battling it out with the LargeMart over stolen mascots. The C storyline had Ellie digging deeper into PapaB's Intersect Research on the laptop.
The most intriguing and engaging storyline of the three for me was the C storyline, so you can use that as a barometer for the relative merits of the rest of the episode.
Ignoring Devon's flip flopping on Ellie's involvement in the spy world – and in the scheme of character irregularities in the ChuckVerse, Devon's is the least egregious to date – the most likely candidate for the identity of the mysterious Agent X on the laptop is Chuck. What triggered the scan of the laptop at the end of the episode is most intriguing. Is it a security measure designed by PapaB to activate once Ellie reaches a certain breakthrough point? Or is it some long distance hacking by Vivian Volkoff as she seeks out all possible avenues of apparent revenge against Chuck? The ominous music suggests the latter but the more rewarding story possibilities lie with the former.
Most importantly is how will this all land for Ellie? And Chuck? Will Ellie finally be allowed to have the blinders removed from her and step through the story closet door into the light? The disappointment from Ellie's deflection from the truth back during the Chuck de-Intersecting arc earlier in the season still stings deeply. So to say I am being cautiously anticipatory about the show finally taking this story line to the next step demonstrates that 'Hope' does indeed survive.
Episode 'Flashes': Add your own in the comments.
- Ellie in the zone with her dad's research
- Chuck In Charge aka The Search for Chucks
- 'Good Lord, four more Chucks!'
- Another 'Rush' shoutout!
- Intersect candidate evaluation scenes
- 'I hate being a nemesis!'
- Journey ringtone!
- Prank Detente
- cute little Kevin Bacon
- swarthy, bearded guys = the new butler did it?
- Ellie figures out what her dad was going. Now will she figure how it was done to?
- Where is Kevin Bacon? In the ducts, of course!
- Chuck demonstrates the value of pocket protectors
- Devon has become a good liar!?!?! vis a vis Ellie and the laptop to Chuck??
- Chuck's respite from being a Nemesis short-lived. Vivian Volkoff lays down the gauntlet.
- Ellie and Agent X. Any relation? Hmmm....
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| "Pigs CAN fly! |
The last few episodes have pushed the product placement barriers more and more. Last week's Toyota show-vertisement seems sublime to Big Mike's near episode long Subway sandwich one. That Kevin Bacon piglet sure was cute though and he got to tour the now famous Castle duct work which turned into an explosive form of the Castle Slide.
The A storyline was nifty in concept but underwhelming in execution. Part of that is because the Castle has been compromised so many times the past two seasons you wonder why they bother to clean it up any more. Sifting through the storytelling debris there were some good beats. It was gratifying to see Casey and Sarah backing Chuck as the leader. It was also good to see the show not take the Given's character down an obvious path and have her see Chuck's worth in action instead. As for Chuck the oscillations between his fears and talents swung more than a tad too much for my sensibilities but what, at one time or another in their life proud plastic packeted and pocketed nerd, could not help but let out a fist pump when Chuck showed the multi-faceted purposes of a pocket protector to override the door lock on the Intersect Command Center?
Was it just me or did the potential female Intersect agent Chuck chose look a lot like Jill? Nah, probably just a coincidence....
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