Chuck season 3 episode 14 review

3.14 Chuck Versus The Honeymooners

When I first read the title of this Chuck I wondered if it would involve the late Jackie Gleason, perchance, but it’s actually about Sarah and Chuck pretending to be newlyweds. Given the obvious chemistry there, that’s not exactly a difficult act, is it?

But more importantly, this story takes us into the uncharted territory where they become an ‘official’ couple (exclusive, even) and then try to deal with how that might impact on their career choices.

Most of it takes place on a train that they take from Paris to Zurich, stopping off in a Californian movie backlot for a good part of that journey. It’s supposed to be the Orient Express, although they don’t actually use that term, probably for legal reasons. It’s an old train with very high service values that you get in Europe, apparently.

As I’m a fully paid up Geek (got the t-shirt, badge, unbreakable pencils and the golden underoos), I should mention that the Orient Express last ran between these two locations in 1962, and that, these days, people take the TGV, which makes this rolling stock, and most American trains, look like suitable source material for a steam-powered time experiment. But back to Chuck!

What they’ve attempted here is a nice pastiche of classic train/spy adventures much in the style of The Lady Vanishes, where Sarah and Chuck are trying to run away from their spy lives only to run smack into them again.

While on the train they spot a man who is a known terrorist, and decide to do one last mission. Except they’ve entirely misread the situation, and they disable the Interpol agents escorting him, which allows his former associates to catch up with him.

Into this mix they pour both Casey and Morgan, deployed by Beckman to find the couple and bring them back to LA. There was a decent amount of humour, the odd reference (Chuck called himself ‘Charles Charles’. Is that a Pushing Daisies one?), and some really good fight sequences. Early in the story Sarah and Chuck are handcuffed together and separated by a door, and on her side she’s in a full-on brawl while he’s in the corridor.

That was fun, but the one much later where they double-team with handcuffs on again (there’s a bondage overtone here, I’m sure) was even better. They won’t be asked into that coffee shop again, I suspect.

There virtually wasn’t any BuyMore, but what we did get was Jeffster inviting themselves to the Awesomes’ leaving party, and their own very special rendition of Leaving On A Jet Plane… masterful.

Overall, this Chuck had exactly the right mix of humour and action, in appropriate ratio, and got us finally over the will-they-won’t-they hill. Mission accomplished!

I guess the message is that they can have a relationship and still keep the show going, thankfully. Next week, Chuck and Sarah get to meet the Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who are the CIA’s equivalent to the Awesomes….

Check out our review of episode 13 here.