CHUCK Recap: ‘Chuck vs. The Hack Off’

THE MISSION – As the episode opens, we find Chuck and Sarah visiting Casey in prison. They want to break him out, but Casey declines their offer. At the next table, Jeff and Morgan try to convince Lester to promise he will never poison Jeff again. Like Casey, Lester declines, preferring to remain in prison. Shortly afterward Casey is rescued from an ambush by Gertrude Verbanski and then avails himself of the right to a conjugal visit. Afterwards, he convinces Verbanski to keep Chuck out of trouble by joining the team in his absence.

Decker (the C.I.A. agent you love to hate) needs Chuck’s help to track down a super computer virus called “The Omen Virus.” Chuck and Sarah agree to deliver the virus to Decker in return for Casey’s freedom. Chuck gets into hacker mode (and the Chardonnay) and we learn that he is none other than the famed Piranha, and the movie SWORDFISH was based on him. He easily cracks the code and learns the identity of the Omen Virus creator, Colin Davis.

Sarah and Chuck track Davis to a cult compound, and with Verbanski as back up, they infiltrate what they think is an elite military group only to find it’s a nudist camp. Despite being less than appropriately dressed for a mission, they manage to capture Davis who swallows the drive with the virus on it. Verbanski uses a tranq gun on Davis and they lug him away to Castle.

Back in Prison, Casey has to fight what looks like the entire contents of gen pop. As he’s going down for the count, the orange sea of convicts parts to reveal Lester, who threatening to unplug everyone, wields an amazing power over the other prisoners. He tells Casey that he’s become the “shot caller” by providing everyone with cable and internet.

Through the use of some nasty jellybeans (“Harry Potter,” anyone?) Team Bartowski recovers the drive and Davis tells them they need a device to plug the drive into that can only be found in a collective of the best hackers in the world. Chuck infiltrates them while Sarah and Verbanski find the device. As the women sneak through the building en route to the servers, they have a girl talk session about Verbanski’s feelings for Casey. Meanwhile the bodies fly in an epic display of female multi-tasking.

Chuck has some fun toying with the collective’s best hacker in a hack off, but has to leave in a hurry as the team exits the building, device in hand. They meet Decker in that useful parking garage on the Warner’s lot only to learn they’ve been setup and Decker has no intention of honoring his agreement to free Casey. In fact, he intends to release the virus and blame Chuck. “Pretty soon people will be hunting Chuck the way they hunted Bin Laden,” he gleefully tells them. His amusement turns to shock when Verbanski relieves him of the virus device and subsequently explodes his plan (along with Decker himself).

Verbanski visits Casey in prison to tell him about the set up, informing him that she’ll have to disappear for a while. Not too long we hope!

MISSION ANALYSIS – Chuck is debating leaving the spy life behind, turning Carmicheal Industries into a tech company, something that doesn’t sit well with Sarah. “What would my job be?” she asks. Yvonne Strahovski has some excellent chances to show her acting expertise through reactions to comments and situations. Her look of love for Chuck in hacker mode is one example of the things she does so well, conveying a look or thought with just the expression on her face. Watching her produce so much with so little is one of the things I will miss the most when the show ends. She won’t be out of work for long, I’ll bet.

It was fun to see COMMUNITY’s Danny Pudi hamming it up with the replacement Lester bit. Nice bit of casting.

I was caught by surprise with the untimely demise of Agent Decker. I actually liked how disgustingly over the top rotten he was. Richard Burgi did a superlative job with the Decker character. My surprise vanished only to be replaced with horror when they went to the previews after the episode was over. You knew HE wasn’t dead, didn’t you? At least this time he won’t be a love interest. (PLEASE?)

Another strong effort from the cast and crew.

POINTS TO PONDER –

• “The guy at Kinko’s thought I was crazy.” – Chuck
• I’m not taking orders from Ward and June Cleaver” – Verbanski
• “Strip! Now!” – Sarah
• “Wrap up the Phish concert! Make a move!” – Verbanski
• Verbanski doing the Casey grunt
• “I don’t think I got the job” – Chuck
• Jeff dispensing more Tony Robbins relationship advice
• “I missed you, big guy!” – Morgan

YOUR INPUT – What did you think of this episode?