CHUCK Recap: Chuck vs. The Sizzling Shrimp

Episode: “Chuck vs. The Sizzling Shrimp”
Original Air Date: 10.22.07
Recapper: SB

Alright, y’all, I don’t know what my problem was last night, but it was like my brain wasn’t working or something. Which was rough, because I’m not that into the whole Asian/kung fu movie thing, so I just could not figure out what was happening. I kept having to ask Billy at commercial breaks what was happening, and I know it annoys him when I can’t follow plots, but he held it in and took pity on me because I’ve been so tired lately. And actually, that segues perfectly into how I was pretty stressed out during this episode because I was relating ENTIRELY too much with how much stuff Chuck had to do and how many directions he was being pulled.

So anyway. Since Chuck hasn’t been around much, which was blamed mostly on how in love with Sarah he is, he was supposed to have A Night of Morgan one night and then Mother’s Day in October with Ellie the next night, which we don’t find out until later is because their mom left them and that’s the day they learned to take care of themselves. Meanwhile, maybe my mom should have left me and made me learn to take care of myself, because my nails REALLY need trimmed. They’re making it hard to type. Of course spy business gets in the way but also of course, they eventually work it out.

So anyway, Chuck goes into the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant and sees a waitress with a tattoo, which makes him think that she’s with the Chinese mafia and trying to kill an old guy in a wheelchair. Who, by the way, is a TOTAL “Who Is That Guy?” I looked him up on IMDB and I’m sure I’ve seen him in all kinds of stuff but nothing specifically stood out. Anyway, turns out Chuck was wrong and the old guy was the mobster, and he had the waitress/spy’s brother shoved into the trunk of his limo. Chuck wanted to rescue him since it was his fault that waitress/spy didn’t get to assassinate the old dude, but Casey and Sarah tell him it’s not in their job description and to forget about it, which he can’t, because WS (Waitress/Spy, can’t remember her name—told you my brain was defective last night) calls him at the Buy More and intimidates him. Chuck asks if Sarah and Casey will help him if they get WS to defect (which means to tell spy secrets, which I did not know), and they said they would. Of course, once they found out she called him, they were all over it anyway. They stake out the place where the brother is being kept, make Chuck wait in the van, and then go in. They get caught and Casey tells Chuck to go home and not say anything to anyone ever, but Chuck can’t let them go so he comes to their rescue by sneaking back into the kitchen at the Chinese restaurant where it all started and letting them out of the freezer. The girl gets her brother back and they all live happily ever after.

Okay, so. Like I said, I’m not into the whole kung fu thing at all really, but I do see where it’s one of those necessary spy plots that just has to be done, so I’m sort of glad we got it over with early. During some of the fight scenes in the restaurant kitchen, there was some weird stop-motion effect that I think was supposed to reference kung fu movies, and maybe it did (I wouldn’t know), but I wish it was more dramatic so I didn’t just think the DVD was glitching. I have like the world’s crappiest DVD player EVER, I got it for Christmas right when they came out and I definitely curse the name Mintek pretty much every day, and so when I saw the jerking on the TV, I could feel the vein in my forehead start to pulsate.

There was a lot of Morgan again this week, but it was okay because he seemed like much more of a person and much less of a wacky sidekick. I really felt for the guy when he was doing so badly in the sales contest and then told the girl to get a present for her sick nephew at the Large Mart because it was on sale. And his bonding scenes with Ellie over them missing Chuck were pretty great too. I guess that’s why there was no Captain Awesome, but couldn’t he have at least made it for dinner? I need a little Awesome in my week, especially on a Monday.

I think that this show is doing a good job of making us more emotionally invested in the characters and the larger story. I want to know more about Chuck’s past, and Morgan really grew on me this week, and Sarah obviously is a mystery that everyone wants to solve. And I also love Casey (not news there) and how he is subtly shown to care about Chuck a little more each week, kind of like an annoying little brother, and I think it’s going to be a good story when it comes time for him to kill Chuck. What I would really like to see happen is for this show to really knock it out of the park every week with the elements of spy story, Buy More story, relationships, and humor. So far, it doesn’t always succeed but it’s been alright because it usually really succeeds on at least one front, and I’ll totally take that because there are other shows that are totally hit or miss, and this isn’t one of them. Even when it’s not pee-my-pants awesome, it’s still pretty good.

I feel like I’ve been a little down on this show for the past couple episodes, and I’m not really—I just loved Chuck vs. The Tango so much that I think it’s been kind of hard to come back from that. If anyone has been following the Heroes discussions around the internet, but there has been a lot of complaining about how boring it is. Meanwhile, I’m not a huge Heroes fan, but I do watch it and I’ve been entertained. That makes me feel like a lot of the problem is an expectations situation, where people build something up so much in their minds that it will never really be satisfactory. Generally speaking, I’m good about accepting TV as is and tempering my expectations, but I am kind of hard on Chuck because I really like it and I really want it to stick around and be good for a long time. I think we’ve definitely tasted the greatness, and I’m kind of looking toward the show really hitting its stride, mostly in writing, because the acting is truly fantastic. Chuck isn’t my favorite character on TV or even on this show, but Zachary Levi is really great with the role, not overdoing and yet managing to take me to the perfect emotional place. And he’s not my TV boyfriend, so no bias there. But yeah, there’s a balance to be found with this show, and I have the patience and faith that it’ll get there. In the meantime, it’s a fun and entertaining show, and I like it.

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.