Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Chuck Star!
By DeAnn Welker | Season 2 | Episode 12 | Aired on 02.02.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Chuck is back, and it's as good as it ever was. Better, even, thanks to one Dominic Monaghan playing the rock star that perhaps Charlie used to be before ending up on that damn island. The 3D is mildly enjoyable, but it's really Charlie who steals the episode. I still say this episode deserved the post-Super Bowl spot, because The Office doesn't really need the audience boost or the exposure, whereas Chuck does. But I digress. Back to the episode...
Chuck's still acting all weird because he saw Sarah kill that unarmed Fulcrum agent at Christmas. He's having nightmares and everything, in which she tries to kill him with a great big chef's knife. He could really use a day, or several, off. Unfortunately, that's not about to happen anytime soon, because he spots a guy with a grenade at the Buy More while a bunch of people are standing in line to buy tickets to a Tyler Martin concert. Tyler Martin is Charlie, and he's channeling awesome Toby from Rock Star: Supernova, a show I never would have imagined that I would reference in any context in my life ever, but oh well. Besides, Toby's totally worth referencing again, even if the show should be forgettable.
Chuck, Sarah and Casey quickly find out -- through conversations with Agent Redhead and Chuck's flashes -- that Charlie is the target, and they eventually figure out that the reason is that he has multiple tattoos that mean bad things about foreign countries. Charlie thinks they're all meaningful, and are about the charity work he doesn't actually care about. But they're actually about nuclear reactors, thus causing people to want to kill him for some reason. I'm not totally clear on it, and maybe I will be when I rewatch the episode again to weecap, or maybe not. But that's not all that important anyway.
What matters is that Charlie is hilarious. He is a total rock star caricature, poking fun at the egos, good humanitarian deeds, and basically everything else that's stereotypical celebrity/rock star. And he totally grows to love Chuck, because ... well, who doesn't? He takes him out partying, they almost hook up with some evil weapons hotties, but Chuck manages to get Charlie out of there and then escape by hanging on the outside of an elevator. Casey keeps shooting Charlie with tranquilizers, but the rock star is totally immune and just finds them to be a totally amazing high. So then Charlie's concert comes and Charlie and Chuck body-surf their way to safety from the bad guy. And then Sarah and Casey swoop in and basically break every bone in the guy's body
Charlie leaves, but not before saying goodbye to Chuck and being awesome for a little bit longer (can he come back soon, please?). And then Chuck tells Sarah what's been bugging him: He saw her shoot the agent. She feels bad that he saw it, but stands by it, since she did it to protect him and his family. He knows, but he's just not used to this world. She then gives him as much time off as needs, then she and Casey start to leave for a mission. But Chuck, realizing now that she knows he doesn't need time off, joins them.
In Buy More land, Morgan, Lester, Jeff, and Jerome Bettis compete in a series of backroom competitions/product placement setups to get backstage passes to Tyler Martin's show. Bettis loses, but they give them to him out of pity. He sells them for $8,000 and leaves, never to be seen again, surely. Oh, and Buster Bluth totally says, "No touching!"
Want more? The full recap starts right below!After a long break -- just long enough for the world to forget this show -- we're back. Joshua Gomez tells us all to please put on our 3D glasses. Before anyone asks, yes, I watched the episode in 3D before writing the recaplet. And, no, I'm not going to weecap in 3D. I think that would probably kill my eyes. And my marriage, since my husband already discovered, during the first viewing of the episode, that I am even geekier than he realized. I don't know why he thought that, though. It couldn't have been that I kept pointing out the 3D portions, stopping to rewind, asking him to put on my 3D glasses, and then playing it for him. No, not that. Anyway, one more thing: Sobe should stick to beverages, because their 3D glasses suck. I thought they were dirty and kept trying to clean them, but nope: They just sucked. At least they look cool. Right?
We open with Chuck having a nightmare about Sarah shooting the Fulcrum agent at Christmas. Then he wakes up, only it's the still-in-the-dream waking up that happens all the time on TV, but never in my real life. He looks up and a sexy, lingerie-clad Sarah is trying to seduce him. He apologizes to her for not having more respect for women, which he usually does, even in his dreams. Ha. Only Chuck would apologize for not respecting a woman in a sexy dream.
He tells her he saw her shoot the agent, and that he needs to have this conversation in real life, not in a dream. She's all, "This isn't a dream, Chuck." Then ... wait for it. "It's a nightmare." And she wields a sharp kitchen knife and thrusts it toward him, all scary movie style. This should have been one of those cool 3D moments, but this is no Journey to the Center of the Earth so the knife didn't come out of my TV toward me at all. What a letdown. The next morning, Ellie and Awesome tease Chuck about screaming in his sleep. "Like a little girl." They pry, as usual, but Chuck won't tell them what's up. As usual. Though they do put the bug in his ear that he needs a day off, and he totally wants one.
When Chuck shows up at the Buy More, there's a huge line of crazed fans waiting for someone named Tyler Martin, whom we will call Charlie, because he is Charlie from Lost -- you know, from the band Driveshaft (yes, I know it's actually Dominic Monaghan, an actor who has been in other things; but he will be Charlie in this weecap). Morgan explains to Chuck that Charlie is some crazy rock star, and that he's coming to the Buy More, so they essentially have the day off. Morgan's never actually heard Charlie play, but he knows that Large Mart pulled the plug on his promotional appearance because of a sex tape.