CHUCK Recap: Chuck vs. the Tango

I hope you all are enjoying CHUCK as much as SB and I are. I thought last night’s episode was funny stuff, and you know I like the funny. I’m all caught up on the screeners from NBC so next week is the first new episode for me in quite some time, and I can’t wait.

What’s your take on CHUCK? Are you loving it or ready to “chuck” it out the window (bad, I know). Remember, for only one comment per post you can save the life of a GMMR recapper.

Episode: “Chuck vs. The Tango”
Original Airdate: 10.08.07
GMMR Recapper: SB

You all will be so happy to know that I had my Mexican food and made it back in time for the beginning of Chuck this week! SB, you say, do you eat Mexican food EVERY Monday? No, but close. Anyway, I was really glad I made it back because Chuck got new opening credits this week! Very cool, kind of animated almost James Bond-esque graphics. Loved that.

I’ll go ahead and recount the plot for you real quick, but I have to just go ahead and say that I have realized that the plot is always going to be a distant second for me with this show, and that it’s more of a vehicle for the funny and awesome character moments than really important by itself. But just in case you missed it …

Sarah and Casey throw down some pictures of dead people and Chuck has the flashes that tell him that they were murdered by La Ciudad, an arms dealer wanted in several countries. (Also, why does this person have a name that translates to “The City”?) La Ciudad will be at an art auction to sell a painting with an explosive device in the frame, but no one who has seen him (who actually turns out to be a her) and lived, so they don’t know what “he” looks like. They decide to take Chuck to the art auction as Sarah’s date (Casey will be bartending), hoping that he’ll see something that triggers a flash. Chuck ends up tangoing (the girl part, thanks to Captain Awesome’s lessons) with La Ciudad who then takes him to her room, ties him to a chair (not as fun as it sounds), performs the wimpiest torture on him you can imagine to get info, and is about to kill him when Sarah and Casey come in and save the day. Unfortunately, he drops his Buy More employee ID so they vow to come back and kill him, and of course they don’t. Also, there is a little side plot going on with one of Chuck’s old Stanford classmates who sold his software business but who also has some shady money deals going on and is paranoid that he’s been caught.

Man, I’m glad we got that out of the way because now I can just throw caution and chronology to the wind. I don’t think I have a very chronological brain—maybe I’d be good as a human computer storing government secrets. Just kidding! Don’t send me any messages with attachments, I will not open them.

This was a great episode, definitely my favorite so far, and I am thrilled that I already love this show and it just seems to be getting better every week. I think this show does well when there are a lot of different subplots happening, so that you don’t get too caught up on the ridiculousness of any one thing, and this was a very successful example. And I liked how we learned why Chuck was kicked out of Stanford (in case you missed it, Bryce found stolen tests under Chuck’s bed and turned him in, even though they weren’t Chuck’s), which I really don’t think we’ve heard the last of. This show is already doing a bang-up job of setting up story lines for the future.

The Nerd Herd subplot also KILLED me. (Hello, “bang-up” and “killed” in consecutive sentences? This show is getting in my head!) They were supposed to be fixing a room full of old computers to help Chuck get the assistant manager position. Can I just say … what is taking so long to decide who is the assistant manager? I think this guy is just dragging it out to get Chuck and Harry to do his bitchwork. I’ve had one or two managers like that. Anyway. The Nerd Herd was going to help Chuck out so that he could go on his date, but Harry came in at the last minute with some computers he’d been holding back and the Nerd Herd decided to leave. But Morgan, who doesn’t know how to fix computers and who is, in fact, afraid of old computers, sticks around to make sure they get it done, by putting visions in their head of what life would be like working for Harry. And he somehow gets locked in a storage cage. (And by the end, no, they had still not hired Chuck as assistant manager.)

SERIOUSLY, though. I love The Nerd Herd. And I love no Nerd Herder more than Jeff, the crazy Willy Wonka-looking dude. When they were looking for a less gender-specific term than “guys”, Jeff was there with “Chuck’s Stable of Hoes”. When Jeff didn’t want to stay late, it was because he was “off by 8:00, hammered by 8:05”. I say it every week, but … MORE JEFF! Girl Nerd cracked me up with her “speak for yourselves” in response to none of them having had intercourse with a beautiful woman, and although it’s not technically Nerd Herd-related … Harry TANG? Seriously? That’s like the grossest name in the history of television. And I love it.

You guys, this show has really brought out what a true geek I am. While I was watching this, I was sitting there thinking of all kinds of things to say and then just thinking about how no one would think they were funny or interesting bits because I am TOO MUCH OF A NERD. For example, “Nerd Herder” is very hard for me to say. I keep wanting to say “Nerfherder”. You know, from Star Wars. I tried to tell Billy this and was met with a blank stare. The one thing that has a possibly better shot with this crowd is that I was going to comment on the rumors going around of another Serenity movie. Man, I would love that, since this show has really whet my whistle for more Jayne (as I’m sure you all know). If they could work out the filming schedules and then release it to DVD (because that’s what they’re saying) in the summer, I could get my Adam Baldwin fix YEAR-ROUND. And you know I would eat him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And that is my perfect segue into The Hotness Paragraph. First of all, could Sarah possibly look any more like Portia di Rossi (Lindsey from Arrested Development) than she did in that red dress and red lipstick? It’s really amazing to me because I don’t think they look that much alike, but then sometimes it’ll knock your socks off. Secondly, when La Ciudad was on the roof with that big gun and those little black shorts, did anyone notice how amazingly hot her butt was? I would KILL for that butt. So hot! I know other people think Chuck is the hottest thing this side of the equator, so I will throw in a little shout out to his hotness (t-shirts! shaggy hair! tuxedo!), but you know the one who really does it for me is Casey. Girls, am I alone here? I kid you not, when he was running around in his little red bartender vest, carrying his gun, it was like the hottest thing ever! Maybe I have princess complex where I want to be rescued all the time (trust me, you will never see me roundhouse kicking another woman in the face on top of a roof), but he can be my Prince Charming any day. I’m just a little confused … I know why the boys would love Sarah. She’s hot and bad ass. And I know the girls love Chuck because he’s cute and accessible. But when did it become so bizarre to love the broad-shouldered, gun-wielding, bonsai trimming (hee!), microwave throwing secret agent?

So now you KNOW I’m throwing chronology to the wind because I would like to go back to one of my favorite parts, in the beginning, where like five different people were shot because the painting they were passing on was crap. I mean, normally, I think that people who laugh at violence in entertainment are sociopaths, but I could not help myself here, because let me tell you—I spent one single year in art school, and on some days, a quick gun shot wound would have been way kinder than what I wanted to do to those people. Although I bet the murders would have been way more brutal if they’d had to listen to the “artist” wax obnoxious about the symbolism of their own work. I just thought it was a really funny, completely unnecessary little section.

And, oh right, back to the end where it looked like Sarah and Chuck might kiss outside in the middle of Melrose Place. Swoon swoon! Not. Swoon at Casey staring at them between his blinds like a total weirdo!

Join us next week when Chuck sees some stuff, Sarah kicks some people, and Casey shows up with a gun!

SB has many interests, including photography, her pets, entertainment, traveling and writing. She does have a day job, but that mostly amounts to her being a sarcastic young woman with a lot of time on her hands, which is why she appreciates the opportunity to recap.