Chuck season 3 episode 2 review

3.2 Chuck Versus The Three Words

Maybe it’s me. But I’ve had a relationship where we kept saying to each other ‘we must talk’, and it ended very badly, indeed. Therefore, when the characters in Chuck say that to each other, and they do in almost every scene, I get a sinking feeling like I’d left a large value banknote in the pocket of some laundry item which is now at maximum spin speed.

But actually, much of what happens in this story continues the fixing that the Chuck universe needed from the season 2 finale, and further repairs are made with the reappearance of Big Mike, and ultimately the reformation of ‘Team Bartowski’.

Early on we’re introduced to the nemesis who is none other than British hard man Vinnie Jones, playing the Bond villain copied named Karl Stromberg. I’m sorry (and I will be if I ever meet him, I’m sure), but Vinnie can’t act for toffee even if he can look quite menacing.

The stunning Mini Anden also turns up as the hard-as-nails DEA agent, Carina, who first appeared in a season one episode called Chuck Versus the Wookiee (ep.4). She’s a great beauty to look at, but her character makes Casey’s seem relatively soft and fluffy in comparison.

All the best scenes in this story, with the exception of a salute to the movie Entrapment, are those that involve Joshua Gomez as the boundlessly optimistic Morgan Grimes. His single minded approach to date Carina, despite the fact she keeps calling him ‘Martin’ is priceless, as is his the dressing down he delivers to people he thinks are party gate crashers, but who are actually gun runners and killers. Gomez is superb, and probably deserves his own show or spinoff.

In the end, his earnest hard work actually pays off for once, which surprised me almost as much as the death of Emmett in the opening story. Bad things have happened to Morgan, so to remain buoyant, I guess something must go right at some point for him. I wonder, will this bring his cooking mojo back?

But for the second time this season (in just two episodes) I was disappointed by how underused the majority of Buy More characters are. In many ways Lester and Jeff were the cornerstone of season two, and yet here they’re so far given almost nothing to do. The writing team needs to unleash the Jeffster, and deploy Big Mike’s big fish at the first opportunity. With the Buy More team now down two from six (not including Chuck), is this a trend which might see them disappear entirely from the show? Surely not.

Instead of pushing the comic button, they chose to rotate most of what happens in the episode around the emotional frailty of Sarah and Chuck, and how it’s stopping him from using the Intersect V2 appropriately.

What The Three Words is really all about is Chuck admitting to himself and Sarah that he loves her (not exactly insider trading material) and in the final scene Sarah admitting, at least to herself, that she feels the same way. Ah…I almost cried, but not really.

Now that’s finally out of the way, if it is, then maybe in episode three we can get down to some classic spy based insanity that only this show can deliver.

In the next story Chuck decides to take Captain Awesome along on a mission, as he’s the only civilian that knows Chuck’s secret. Without knowing anything else about that story I want to see it right now, as the Captain Awesome story in season 2 was quite brilliant. I won’t have to wait long, because Chuck takes on The Angel Angel De La Muerte just one day after the first two episodes screen. Time for some true Chuck awesomeness, I say!

Check out our review of the third season opener here.