With Morgan as the Intersect for a second episode, Chuck continues to explore how annoying the little bearded man can get as his pride (Morgan has pride!?) and newfound powers go to his head. There is some spy work to be done, the Buy More makes an appearance, as does Carrie-Anne Moss as competition to Carmichael Industries, but the focus remains on dealing with this new side of Morgan, for better or worse.
Buy (Slightly) More
Like last week, the writers of Chuck are continuing to try and figure out more ways to keep the Buy More relevant to the show since it is a necessary element as Carmichael Industry’s main source of funding. Though I have always been a fan of these subplots, the Buy More is now no longer taking a back seat to the spy life, but is stuffed in the trunk. But at least Big Mike is back, just in time to notice that the crickets chirping in the store don’t need the home stereo systems to be heard across the expanse of aisles. Bringing up some footage of his snazzy afro days, Big Mike gets the idea to film a new commercial to bring back business to the store. After a minuscule montage of the Buy More rejects, something Awesome walks through their front doors. Killing two birds with one stone, not only does the episode fulfill the minimum requirements for store screen time, but we are reminded that family is a big deal in the Chuck-verse by including Awesome this week. And with that, all of the feel good moments of this episode have been covered.
Handling the Bearded Bandit
As any nerd would do, Morgan continues to geek out about his cool new Spider-man responsibilities to fight crime and protect the innocent citizens of the world. Because of this eagerness, Chuck gets forced into the role of Morgan’s handler, but unfortunately for Chuck, being handled is the farthest thing from Morgan’s mind. Making up for missing out on a Halloween episode last week, Chuck and Morgan find themselves surrounded by some festive decorations when a gunman walks into the store to make off with the cash register holdings. With his orange, striped sweater and a black mask, Morgan becomes The Bearded Bandit, for one final shot of Morgan being his old self. Though this acts as a light example of the challenges of keeping the new Intersect leashed, this is far from the bottom of the depth to which Morgan will sink during this episode.
“Et tu, Brute?”
As the comments from last week’s recap would suggest, I am not alone in wishing that Chuck would get the Intersect back. I miss the role he played within the 3-man team, but more noticeable is how much I miss the old Morgan. He was the fun and awkward sidekick to Casey in the field in many cases, but now he has become a more integral part of the team. And an annoying and snarky one at that.
Like the first sighting of The Bearded Bandit, Morgan continues to be impossible to control as the Intersect goes to his head. Not only that, but he is starting to present more hubris than any of the characters of Greek tragedies. Feeling stifled in the van that the team tries to keep him in, he disobeys their orders as Chuck used to do. Unfortunately it wasn't because he caught a glimpse of Smallville’s Green Arrow (Justin Hartley), but instead because of his pride and arrogance, which again gets the better of him as he decides to take a side trip on a food run to take on the baddy of the episode without half of the team.
I was really hoping for some fun moments as Chuck and Morgan fight crime together, and Chuck actually gets to fight some guys with some retained kicking skills. Unfortunately Morgan quickly rains on the parade when an Indiana Jones reference goes right over his head. At this point I was already far too annoyed with Morgan and thinking about just how upset I was getting with the show, and then Morgan shows up in Verbanski’s office because he feels that his services will be better put to use here. He even tells her that he is the Intersect! What a traitor! Ok, the actual choice of words coming from my mouth was “that d-bag!” but you get the gist.
Thankfully all is not lost. Moments later Morgan asks who Luke Skywalker is, making it clear that he isn’t just PMSing, but something is seriously going wrong as Morgan’s personality has completely changed. Chuck’s dad said it takes a certain mind to handle the Intersect, so as Morgan gets lost to the computer, chances are they are going to need to find another pair of those suppression glasses that Decker used on Chuck. I can say that how the plot is thickening does intrigue me, I just hope that the show doesn’t lose too much of the comedic elements and friendship between these two that has made Chuck what it was prior to this final season.
Verbanski Corp.
Speaking of Morgan pimping himself out to Verbanski, Carrie-Anne Moss makes her first appearance on the show for her multiple episode arc. Nothing too crazy has happened with her character yet, but she will continue to work her way into the stories in weeks to come following this set up. For starters, she is the head of the largest competition that Carmichael Industries will face in the private security business. At first she calls Sarah in to attempt to steal her away from her team (though Sarah thinks this is actually more so to get to Casey than to herself), but now that Verbanski has Morgan on her team the competition has just become ridiculously personal.
However, this is not as personal as the relationship potential between Verbanski and Casey. Some time while she was working as a KGB spy, she and Casey ran into each other. Whatever exactly happened between the two, what we know is that she has Casey’s gun displayed in her office like a trophy, and she and Casey had some crazy “we were just trying to kill each other” sex. Luckily enough Sarah cuts him off before he gets too deep into the details on that front, but it is clear that for once Casey is ridiculously flustered by this woman. In other words, as Morgan becomes more of a jerk-face, Casey becomes more of a shy, little man as he calls her to ask her out to eat and quickly hangs up as soon as he hears her say “hello?” Now that I think about it, with this moment, the waterfowl joke, and the bran muffins that Casey made, he was probably the highlight of the show tonight, and I am far more interested in seeing more of this side of Casey than the new side of Morgan.
Final Thoughts
Even though Chuck got to do some fighting and some high-tech lock picking, it is still a possibility that we are going to see more of him being stuck on the sidelines, such as he does tonight when he holds the line for Sarah as she does some Mission Impossible / Prince of Persia rock climbing. However, I really do believe that before the show’s end we will see Chuck as the Intersect once more. I don’t care if he has to go all Rogue on Morgan and steal the powers back, he needs to make it happen; especially because Intersect Morgan equals annoying Morgan. With that said, I am intrigued by how the Intersect is changing who he is, but I still hope to see some true dual Batman fighting with the two in a full blown bromantic relationship once more before the show is done.
So what did you guys think of tonight’s episode? Are you a fan of how much of the show Morgan is taking up? Ready to pass around a petition to get them to stop saying “zoom”? Do you think they should just call it a day and blow up the Buy More for good so they can stop forcing it into the show? Glad that Carrie Anne Moss is here? Sad that Morgan isn’t going to make any Luke Skywalker jokes when Mark Hamill makes his guest appearance? Let me know in the comment section below!
