You know, as weird as this sounds, I feel like Sarah Walker is barely in Chuck. She's obviously played a central part in many of the past plots, but tonight was the first time I saw her, I dunno, be silly, try on goofy accents, laugh, sit and listen to music like a normal person, make lots of decisions, not be a spy. Get bored—I saw her get bored, an emotion the character rarely goes to, and it was nice. All of it was. How strange that this person has been around the show for so long, and it's like I'm seeing her for the first time.
There was a lot of rediscovery on "Chuck Vs. The Honeymooners" because, as you surely recall, Chuck and Sarah are finally together, and have decided to run away with each other and learn all there is to know about the other person who's been working right alongside them, but never gotten to fully be themselves. So, of course, they hop on a train and doink a lot (presumably), with plenty of time to bond. And in a development that was a bit surprising to me but maybe not to others, Sarah and Chuck have very little to talk about, nor do they have much of anything in common. I'd never really thought about it until Chuck and Sarah were lying there, next to each other—one in glorious lingerie and one dressed like he's on his way to the dorm cafeteria—in uncomfortable silence, lamenting the loss of their spy lives. I was certainly rooting for Chuck and Sarah to get together, but after the thrill of the hunt is gone, what's left?
There's not much time to find out, because as soon as the pair get any down time, they fill it by taking down a criminal boss they find on the train. Chuck-style, it turns out the whole mission was for naught, as the guy was actually in the custody of Interpol agents on his way to testify against the enemy. Also in typical Chuck fashion, the rest of the team—Casey and now Morgan—arrive and get dragged into the whole mess. As they wait for backup Interpol agents to arrive, Casey and Sarah talk about this new life on the lam she's about to face, and Morgan tries to convince Chuck that leaving his spyhood behind might not be the best idea. Sarah and Chuck rush off, realize that, in fact, both of them have only been escaping because they think it's what the other person wants, they rush back just in time to save Casey and Morgan from the real enemies, cleverly disguised as Canadian Tina Feys.
It was frustrating how standard the shell of this episode was, especially given how many new factors were at play, but thankfully the latter dominated the former. In only a handful of episodes, Morgan's involvement with the spy side has proven the writers are mining the good from their Chuck experience and avoiding the bad. Beckman folds him into the action right away, and Morgan's "skill set" shines as he effortlessly tracks down Chuck based on skin care cream and a propensity for certain comic books—and some pretty darn powerful camera zoomage—and his naivete and eagerness to join conversations makes for some hilarious off-the-cuff banter. ("They are having intercourse." "Ah, say no more.") Chuck is now much more comfortable with the Intersect in his head, and even though none of the skills are really his own, you'd never know by Zachary Levi's breezy performance. The Buy More team, even more second fiddle to the plot, are becoming way more comfortable with a role of pure comic relief—we got another solid Jeffster performance tonight, kicked off by Lester's bold proclamation of an acoustic set, followed by the chugging of much lime juice. And as much as I found it silly that Sarah didn't know anything about music, it was still sweet to see her lying there at the end of the episode, happy to just be in a world so different than the one she grew up in. Perhaps she's going to be seeing herself for the first time, too.
Stray observations:
- "…whatever your last name is."
- "Oddly codependent."
- Morgan's logic about needing to be awake because he believes the plane will go down unless he's rooting for it…rang so oddly familiar to me.