Review: “Chuck vs. the Wookie”, are you a Fett to someone’s Solo?

For the 4th episode of season 1 we’re continuing our ever-changing blog format, this time choosing one Ace worthy moment from each of our traditional categories and expanding upon it, instead of speaking of all the elements in the episode.  In hindsight I really wish we had chosen this format for “vs. the Tango”, which easily delivered Ace moments throughout.  While “vs. The Wookie” was a good episode it didn’t match the range of quality that “vs. The Tango” delivered and remained focused on spy life developments, with a strong “Star Wars” motif running through the entire episode. With that being said, here are my Aces for the week. 

Comedy

 

“Isn’t there a nicer establishment where beautiful people can shop?”  Lester’s quote stands out in the comedy category this week.  It’s such a smart line from a character who is usually not smart and oblivious to what’s actually going on around him. It’s also one of the few Buy More moments of an episode that suffered slightly from the absence of the Buy Morians in favor of a deeper delving into Karina, Chuck and Sarah and the spy life.  When Lester delivers this line he’s drawing attention to an aspect of the show that we, the viewers, are very aware of, but one that the characters rarely make such obvious commentary on.  That being the unrealistic nature of the situations “Chuck” creates in the life of its characters.  Lester is right, people like Sarah don’t hit on “nerd herders” like Chuck in real life, and beautiful people like Karina and Sarah don’t hang out in electronics stores discussing the important things in their life. Usually our favorite employees would just stand around and provide crude commentary on the pretty girls, but not this time. This time Lester points out the obvious, and the unexpectedly meta commentary struck me as hilarious. It also made me think back to the initial trailers for “Chuck” that caught my eye and brought me to watch the pilot.  Those trailers led me to believe that “Chuck” looked like a fun spy spoof, a genre I have not inconsiderable interest in, and would probably be entertaining enough to watch. I think the spoof idea was one of the founding concepts of the show, and while it does get away from that a little more as the seasons go on this kind of line really hits the mark for me. There is a lot of comedy to be found in exploiting the spy genre, especially with the kinds of unaware characters “Chuck” has populated its world with, and perhaps they don’t go to that well quite often enough. 

Action/scenery/special effects

I’m going to go ahead and comment on something that I rarely do in this show: scenery. It’s typically one of those things that I don’t pay much attention to unless it’s very obviously bad and catches my eye that way. However, since we’re looking for Ace quality pieces from this episode I’ll put my vote out there for the beach related scenes. The pilot used a beach setting to great effect, and in a show that can sometimes struggle (for obvious and forgivable reasons in a lot of situations) with its non-standard sets the beach setting used in “vs. The Wookie” was exemplary. From the feel the sand and water provided to the mission through Casey’s jeep and Karina’s jet ski everything went smoothly and delivered a pivotal scene in the episode flawlessly. 

Story/suspense

“It was complicated.”  Aren’t they always?  Sometimes the stories Chuck pushes feel forced, (for example, see my thoughts from the trust issue broached in “vs. The Helicopter”) and I think the Sarah and Bryce connection is another plot line that could have fallen into that trap but didn’t, and for that reason it’s a story standout in this episode. The suspense associated with it is real, and I felt for Chuck when he realized that even from the “grave” Bryce Larkin could continue to betray him and twist his life in directions that he decidedly didn’t want it to go. It was a nice payoff for the build that had been put into place from the Stanford stories of Chuck’s history in the previous three episodes, and created a viable wedge for Chuck and Sarah instead of a completely contrived separation issue that would become common later.  Karina’s presence in the episode created a very heavy emphasis on the lack of trust that had to exist for anyone who make’s their living as a spy, and that primary focus lent itself nicely to the slightly more subtle emotional impact that Chuck faced in this episode. The spy trust issues would not have hit home for him without the more personal, emotional trust breakdown that Bryce’s connection with Sarah showed him.  The emotions of a growing romance were used to great effect with the story development in this episode, and even though “Chuck” gave us another strong hint towards Chuck and Sarah’s will-they-won’t-they with Karina’s comment to close the episode, I thought the stronger remark was made in the hotel room with another sparkling Chuck and Sarah moment, a moment where she shows she would like to open up but can’t or won’t. Sowing those seeds of doubt are much more effective in prolonging the romance, and in creating emotionally charged scenes that this reviewer, at least, greatly admires and enjoys. 

Romance 

I realize that I’ve just spent a few sentences talking about it, but the moments in the hotel room between Chuck and Sarah were clearly my standout romance moments of the episode, even though it was more of a negative romance than a positive one. My selection of this scene has much less to do with the advancement of their relationship and much more to do with the fact that it was just a devastatingly effective scene. Levi and Strahovski crackle in up-close, personal moments like this, as I commented on in the pilot, and they continue to deliver. Sarah doesn’t even say anything, and the anguish on both sides of that conversation is palpable.  We’ve all felt that emotional twist and pull at some point in our lives and the actors tap into it in a powerful way here, making the dialogue, or lack thereof, electric.  Any scene that pulls me into the emotion like that is a standout, regardless.