Chuck season 4 episode 19 review: Chuck Versus The Muuurder

This review may contain spoilers.

4.19 Chuck Versus The Muuurder

One of the issues the writers of Chuck have wrestled with is that the best episodes and funniest scenes almost exclusively take place at the Buy More, with its collection of unique characters and retail insanity.

Season 4 hasn’t been kind to those who wear green, but in Chuck Versus The Muuurder (that word spoken in a Bronx accent, presumably, by the late Lionel Stander), the Buymoreans are turned loose, and I loved every minute of their insurrection.

What I was less than inspired by was the murder mystery that was acted out in Castle, because they used the oversubscribed plot where the first person to survive being killed is actually the killer. It did have a few amusing moments, but paled in comparison to the abduction of Big Mike by those from their competitor Large Mart.

Mike and his big BM outfit are bundled away in a white van after Jeff and Lester can’t resist stealing Kevin Bacon from Large Mart. It’s worth pointing out to those that haven’t watched this that the Kevin Bacon featured here isn’t the star performer of Footloose and Mystic River, but an impossibly cute pot bellied pig that Large Mart use as a mascot.

Okay, so this exercise does get used to insert plenty of product placement for Subway, as Mike munches his way through his confinement, but it’s also an excuse to get David H Lawrence XVII on the show as the Large Mart manager Marvin (he was Doyle in Heroes). I knew from the very point that Kevin appeared that eventually pigs would fly, and I wasn’t disappointed.

My assertion last week that Ellie might have an Intersect turned out to be premature, but still not entirely discounted. She’s now got her own secrets, as she’s convinced Devon to fool Chuck into thinking that her father’s computer is disabled. Stephen Bartowski left some secrets on the computer that Ellie is deciphering, but will she become Agent X?

The answers to this, and the fate of Kevin Bacon, will be a while coming, unfortunately, because Chuck doesn’t return now until April 11th, when he’s pitted against the Family Volkoff.I’ll predict a wedding in the final story, episode 24, which should air in May.

The Chuck muuurder mystery fell a little flat in places, but it did prove that Buymoreans are the very heart and soul of this show, and I rejoice at the time they got on screen.

As the season concludes, they’ve got to be in there. Jeffster needs to provide the soundtrack, and we should all pay homage to this cathedral of consumerism.

Without the Buymore, Chuck would be adrift. It anchors him to the reality we all cling, and it gives Morgan somewhere to keep out of the rain.

I’m starting to miss Chuck already, and there are still four more episodes to go.

Read our review of episode 18, Chuck Versus The A-Team, here.

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