Episode Report Card Chuck: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Life is but a ream
By Chuck | Season 5 | Episode 3 | Aired on 01.19.2002
Flashback to an Asian guy getting the shit kicked out of him. Now he's looking fetching in orange and listening to McManus express skepticism about his requested return to Em City, as, during his previous stay, he constantly threatened the lives of Morales and the other Latinos. Plus, Cyril O'Reily's there. Cyril? Oh, so this guy got beaten up by Cyril. All Zen-like (because he's Asian, yo), he says that getting hit by Cyril was the best day of his life, because he saw clearly all that he had done and, if he survived, all that he could do. Yeah, right. If McManus buys this, then he may be more gullible than Leo, since this guy clearly has something up his sleeve. After some more existential jabber -- "Whether or not you bring me back to Em City is irrelevant. And yet I am drawn there. Why? I don't know." It is the love of Mulan, surely -- McManus, perhaps simply to shut him up, agrees to the return. Of course.
Time for Sister Pete to facilitate another pointless interaction, with Ryan, Cyril, and the newly-returned Asian. Cyril apologizes; Pete asks why he hit Kenmin; because he was hitting Ryan; and why was Kenmin hitting Ryan? More Zen Master hooey about showing off after a day in the cage. He was feeling "feisty." Ryan thinks Kenmin is full of crap, as do I, and shows it by interrupting and swearing, both of which are against Sister Pete's rules, so she yells at him. Kenmin accepts responsibility for his actions, and wants to make peace. Over Ryan's protests, Cyril gets up ("I want to make peace too," he says) as does Kenmin, after receiving encouragement from Pete. Cyril and Kenmin hug, Ryan looks disgusted, and I am left to wonder yet again about the incredible naivete of the entire staff, who fall for this shit over and over again. Because, as Cyril cries (cries!) in Kenmin's arms, a close-up of a tattoo on Kenmin's hand and some jangly, Asian-influenced music confirm that Kenmin is evil, evil, evil.
Unbearable Asian pop music swells as a guy and girl make out next to a Cadillac and a convertible Mustang stops in front of the Burger-Rama drive-through window. A guy with terrible skin -- the driver of the Mustang -- spies the macking couple and jumps out of the car, gun in hand. He strides across the parking lot, gun held sideways (so we know he means bidness), shooting all the way, hitting the couple and two or three innocent bystanders. Very thorough. According to Hill, his name's Li Chen, and he was convicted last Monday of four counts of attempted murder. Thirty-two years, up for parole in twenty. Li Chen's bunking with Kenmin, probably because they're the only Asians in the whole joint. I hope they have sex. They converse in the strange tongue of their people, which I don't understand, but it must be about the O'Reilys, because they're onscreen. And it must be bad, because Li and Kenmin look menacing.