Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Freedom!
By DeAnn Welker | Season 2 | Episode 21 | Aired on 04.20.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.I am not even remotely kidding when I say that if Chuck ends now, I will totally join in any ridiculous save-the-show campaign that exists (I'll even send Nerds.) I love this show so much, and it just keeps getting better and better. To wit:
We pick up where we left off last week, with Chuck and Sarah on the lam, looking for Chuck's dad. Turns out, Chuck's dad's also looking for Chuck. He's, you know, super smart with crazy hidden cameras and the like, so he's watching his son and sending him clues along the way. Chuck and Sarah have a tender moment in a hotel room, but Casey catches up with them soon enough, and takes them back to Castle. He's quickly promoted to colonel for his efforts. However, when Ellie puts Awesome on "Find Chuck" duty as the wedding approaches, he is led by the Buy More gang to scope out Casey, who they think is a totally obsessed Chuck stalker. Heh. Sort of, right? So, Awesome gets trapped in Casey's apartment, which is some sort of little mini-prison. Casey sees it happen, and has to leave the prisoners alone at Castle.
Unfortunately for Casey, Jester! are still trying to get back at Morgan and Buster for running the store (Buster makes Morgan his assistant manager, or "ass man"). They knock out the power in the Buy More (and a large portion of Burbank judging by the sky shot), which frees Sarah and Chuck -- just as they're starting to kiss AGAIN. But after two years of wanting them to move forward as a couple, I'm totally declaring two kisses in an episode a huge victory. Chuck and Sarah see Awesome trapped in Casey's prison and head over there. Casey and Awesome are starting to fight, and Awesome totally holds his own. Luckily, Sarah and Chuck break in, save Awesome, and then Chuck spills every little detail (except about his dad) to Awesome. He asks Awesome to "be Awesome" for him, and handle Ellie. Awesome heads home and completely freaks out, which Ellie thinks is wedding-day jitters, so she thinks nothing of him not being able to answer any of the questions about Chuck.
Thanks to his dad's secret "12 AM TRON" message, Chuck knows where Bakula's being held. He and Sarah go there. Casey and General Redhead know, too, though, and the general's having the place bombed. She tells Casey there's no time to save Chuck's dad. But Casey gave his word, so he heads to the site to help, under one condition: that Chuck stays in the car. Casey and Sarah go inside just as Roark's about to create an army out of the new intersect Bakula's created. Chuck eventually gets out to stop Roark, and the whole gang ends up in the projector room, where Bakula tells Chuck to watch the screening. Here's the thing: Bakula set that all up for Chuck to get the Intersect out of his brain. Then the airstrike starts, so Chuck, Sarah, Casey, and Bakula head out. Back at Castle, Casey tells General Redhead that Sarah pretended to go AWOL to get Fulcrum to reveal themselves. Chuck helps build the lie. Then General Redhead says the mission is over, and Chuck is free to go. As he tries to thank her for everything, she shuts herself off, because, well, Chuck can sort of ramble.
Just as Chuck's life's changing, Morgan stands up to Buster and quits his job, then asks Anna to go to Hawaii with him so he can follow his dream of being a Benihana sushi chef. I actually believe they're writing the Buy More stuff and Morgan out of the show because the next steps are going to be bigger and better (if there are next steps, please please please, NBC). But we'll see. Hopefully.
Finally, Awesome becomes Awesome and comforts Ellie since Chuck isn't there for the rehearsal dinner. He tells her how bad Chuck took their dad leaving again. Just as she comes to terms with it, Chuck walks in. She scolds him, and he says he's sorry, but he was getting her wedding present. In walks Bakula, all cleaned up in a suit. There is hugging, and possibly some tears. Chuck invites Casey to the rehearsal dinner and, after a fake-out, he takes him up on it. Sarah comes too, and she says that everything is real. It's all lovely and could totally be a finale, except ... back out in the desert, Roark survived the explosion and is hitchhiking. He gets a ride with a truck driver, and ominously tells him he has a wedding to go to in Burbank.
Next week: Season finale of weddings and more game-changing. And Josh Schwartz says that Chris Fedak says that, after the finale, we will burn our living rooms if the show's not renewed. Great, so it gets even more infuriating? Well, let's hope the people who make those decisions love this show as much as I do.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Chuck found out his dad was Bakula, and Orion! Chevy Chase was a bad guy named Roark. Jill told Chuck where his dad was being taken. General Redhead shut down "Operation Moron," and Sarah committed treason to help Chuck find his dad instead of sending him underground forever.
Now: We're in Barstow, California, where Black Rock is presumed to be. From our view, it looks like a tiny town in the middle of Utah or Arizona. But what do I know? We get a close-up of an old drive-in sign, and then we're looking over it, where Sarah and Chuck are getting out of a car. There's nothing there, though, so Sarah thinks maybe Chuck's flash on Black Rock was wrong, but he sees cigarette butts and beer cans, so thinks his father was just moved. He'd like to go back and figure it out, but Sarah reminds him (and helpfully exposits for us) that if they go back, she goes to jail and he goes to underground lockup, so there really is no going "back." As Chuck looks at the mess of trash and cigarette butts on the ground, we see a little red light flashing inside a cigarette pack. It's a camera, and we get the camera's eye view, and see Bakula watching it. He says, "Don't give up, Charles." Roark comes in and says Sarah and Chuck are a cute couple. Bakula tells Roark not to hurt them, or else ... he'll lunge threateningly toward him but be stopped by the chain around his ankle. Roark assures him that as long as the new Intersect's ready by tomorrow night, Chuck and Sarah will be fine.
At Casey's apartment, General Redhead is telling Casey that Chuck's safety is no longer her main concern. She'd like him to hunt down Sarah and Chuck and bring them back dead or alive. She tells him that, after the mission's over, he'll have his pick of assignments. Then she calls him "Colonel Casey," and thanks him on behalf of his country.
Then Casey's rifling through Chuck's dresser drawers when Awesome walks in and asks him what's up. Casey says Chuck hasn't been showing up to work, so he was hoping to find some clues. Ellie walks in sporting some newly dyed hair and says Chuck just left her a voicemail, not five minutes ago. She gets complainy about Chuck going out of town with her wedding this weekend. Casey calls himself a "nervous Nellie" and leaves the window. Awesome suggests they get a lock for it. Back at his apartment, Casey's tracking the number that called Ellie's phone five minutes ago.