Chuck #5.11 “Chuck Vs. The Bullet Train” Recap & Review

We’ve had Chuck trapped on a plane, a boat, and a train, so why not…another train?  In any case, “Chuck vs. The Bullet Train” sent us flying towards next week’s finale just as fast as that titular hi-tech Japanese bullet train.  Does it keep up with the momentum we got from “Chuck vs. Bo”?  Or do the high speeds rip it apart?

Recap:

Nicholas Quinn has Chuck trapped on a Japanese bullet train so he can be used to repair the defective Intersect.  Sarah, equipped with the Intersect, sneaks on with Casey, and they actually rescue Chuck very quickly.  Things can’t go wrong from there, right?  Meanwhile, Ellie studies Morgan to figure out how the Intersect affected him, in order to make sure the Intersect in Sarah’s brain will stay stable long enough to be suppressed without doing damage.  Just as things are calm, Quinn’s men (one played by former Power Ranger Erin Cahill, by the way) abduct Alex, forcing the gang to obey Quinn’s commands.  Sarah uses her Intersect skills to take him out—but not before showing she’s lost control of it and it’s seriously hurting her.  Ellie realizes that Sarah’s intense number of flashes in such a short time period has caused her brain to short out already, and she’s starting to forget things.  Back at the Buy More, Morgan and Devon try to rescue Alex, but fail miserably.  However, Jeff and Lester come upon the situation.  They get in contact with Casey via an earpiece, and with no one else to turn to, Casey fills them in on the situation and they save everyone with a flamethrower.  Quinn returns again and escapes again having kidnapped someone again.  This time, though, it’s Sarah.  He uses “flashcards” (very punny) to perform selective amnesia on her, erasing all her memories of Chuck and her friends and reverting her back to an emotionless spy.  Finally, he commands her to kill Chuck.

Review:

Well that was something.  I thought “Chuck vs. Bo” was a packed episode, but this one…wow.  I’ll say right off the bat that I think I prefer “Bo” better because of its solid balance of fun and comedy amongst the action and drama.  Admittedly, there was one very funny moment here, where Chuck uttered “We have something better than the Buy More. We have a train full of Japanese people.”  I laughed out loud at that.   But besides that awesome line, this episode was full-on tension.  While that tension did work surprisingly well, the minimal comedy really makes this particular episode seem lacking, even if just a bit.

That being said, I was the edge of my seat the whole time—which is odd for Chuck.  It’s not usually a terribly tense show, but I was fearing for the characters’ lives this time around.  There was definitely a “storm before the calm” feeling once Chuck was rescued; as soon as he and Sarah undressed, you knew something big was going to go down.  The show’s approaching its end, so it could afford to pull a big death a la Stephen Bartowski in season 3.  Was Alex not going to make it out alive?  Would Devon or Jeff go out during the rescue?  Could someone have been waiting to get Ellie the whole time?  We didn’t get that this time, and to be honest, I’m glad; Chuck doesn’t need big deaths to make it great.  We’ve still got two more episodes…but I hope they don’t pull that.   Regardless, that didn’t stop me from wondering, and that’s what kept this episode suspenseful.

Well, at least until the last 10 or so minutes.  As soon as that door separated Sarah from Chuck, it was obvious what was coming—she’d be kidnapped, memory wiped, and she’d work for the bad guy.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s actually a very cool development and an interesting way to go into a finale.  There just wasn’t much suspense considering, by that point, it was fairly predictable.  But, that was probably unavoidable.  I do think it might have been better to not taper out that portion for so long. Since we knew what was coming, having it take that long to reveal that Sarah doesn’t remember Chuck kind of took away from the moment.  Although, I will say it was a cool throwback to see her old apartment again.  In any case, I expect Sarah will be back to her old self by the end of the first hour of next week’s finale so we can see her really kick ass in whatever the final battle may be.  But until then, it’s sure to be quite a ride.

The alternate opening was kind of random—it wasn’t referencing a specific movie from what I could tell, just saying, “hey, we’re doing something cool and different for no reason, here it is!”  But these are the kinds of things I don’t question.  It was a bit silly, but fun enough that it didn’t matter.  And honestly, that’s why I love Chuck in the first place.

The core trifecta went through a torturous ride this week.  I was astounded by Adam Baldwin’s performance, actually; it’s extremely hard to portray the kind of subtle emotion he had to.  He had to be stoic John Casey, but still be FREAKING OUT about his daughter.  He didn’t go into a violent rage about it; he was very quiet and obviously scared.  But through his slightly looser and more twitchy movements, his shaky voice, and especially his eyes, Baldwin sold it.  He wanted to simultaneously cry and kill at the same time.

All of the Chuck and Sarah moments were well-handled, too.  It must come naturally to portray their relationship after five years, but it’s still worth noting how much chemistry they still have together.  Of course, that means it’s truly heart wrenching when they see one another in danger.  Zachary Levi was great in the scene with the train detaching.  Sarah, on the other hand, has taken quite the beating this season, what with “Chuck vs. the Santa Suit” and “Chuck vs. the Baby” behind us.  But for what it’s worth to Yvonne Strahovski, all her bloodcurdling screaming this week was great.  It has to take effort to keep that up.

I also have to take note of the scene with the flashcards.  I know I complained about the last portion of the episode being less tense and a little predictable, but I was definitely getting emotional at the memories of Chuck and Sarah being erased.  I loved that it was handled with subtlety, with only very brief clips being shown instead of some drawn-out memory erasure montage.

Any episode where every character gets something to do is great, of course.  Well, except for Big Mike…poor Mark Christopher Lawrence hasn’t been given anything to do since, what, season 3?  Everybody else was used wonderfully, though.  I really, really dig Ellie as the team’s Intersect analyst/ground control kind of person.  If only they’d used her back in season 4…but oh well, she’s great here.  Morgan’s “pizza combos” line was cute, and his determination to save Alex was endearing.  And even though Devon didn’t get to be Awesome, he still had a role in the action, minimal as it was.  Even the Crown Vic made another appearance!

The real heroes, of course, were Jeff and Lester.  I’m confused as to why their story seemingly got concluded last week, only to have it resurface again here.  Despite last week’s fun, it feels a bit too much like it was padded out now.  But hey, we saw Jeff with a flamethrower.  That was awesome.  If they had to be integrated into the spy world, this was the way to do it.  They were phenomenally funny, especially Lester with the cigar.  I think I’ll go out on a limb and say even without a Jeffster! performance, this might have been their best season of all.

Angus Macfayden as Nicholas Quinn has been okay.  He’s not annoying or anything; in fact, I like his quirky sense of humor, or the fact that he still does things like bow to a train full of Japanese passengers.  But at the same time, 97% of his dialogue is made up of villain clichés.  This might have been a villain worth introducing earlier in the season and developing, because as it stands he’s very forgettable.  Macfayden seems like he’s having fun in the role, but it sucks that we don’t get to see more of him.  Ted Roark was Chevy Chase-d up, Shaw owned the vengeful and insane mustache-twirling school of villainy, and Volkoff was charming and awkward but extremely entertaining.  Quinn?  I don’t know—he tries to borrow elements from Shaw and Volkoff, and instead just feels like a guest villain-of-the-week, at best.  He’s definitely the most forgettable of the show’s big bads.  It’s sad, because it seems like I could have liked him if we got the time to know him.

It’s been interesting to sort of see see what the Intersect did to Hartley Winterbottom (aka Volkoff) through Morgan and now Sarah, in a way.  Since Chuck’s flashes affected his brain at the tail end of season 3, the show has been building more and more about how freaking bad the Intersect can be.  I’m intrigued to see how the show feels about it when it ends—will they end the project all together because of the danger, or will Chuck perhaps upload it one last time to use it for good?  There’s only one way to tell.

Hard to believe this is it, isn’t it?  Thankfully, despite a few slip-ups here and there, this final season has been very strong, so I have faith the finale will be on par with Chuck‘s previous finales: lots of emotion, spies kicking ass, Chuck and Sarah cuteness, some Intersect action, a few fun comedic moments, and a sweet, fulfilling ending for all of our characters.

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