Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Desolation. Frostbite. Must be Russia.
By DeAnn Welker | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.20.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.When we pick up, we've jumped ahead in time far enough for Chuck to fill Morgan in on what Bakula was up to in his secret basement. Chuck and Morgan begin the hunt for Chuck's mom. It takes them all over the world, and puts them $43,000 in debt, but they finally find her safe house. Unfortunately, there's no sign of her, and the safe in the room is totally empty. All they find is a menu for a dumpling place called Imperial Dragons. Meanwhile, Sarah and Casey are on their latest mission, which leads them back to the new and improved Castle with a secret case that Chuck flashes on. He flashes on the word Volkoff, and notices the Volkoff emblem on the case matches the Imperial Dragons menu. In other words: It's all connected. The CIA's also rebuilt the Buy More, and so far General Redhead (who's in the opening credits, y'all!) seems to be in charge, and everyone's a spy. It's like a big, giant CIA base, which could be pretty cool. (But then how will we get Big Mike? And Jeffster!?)
Chuck and Morgan's mission takes them to Russia to seek out his mom, and Sarah and Casey also conveniently end up there. Sarah and Casey end up captured by Dolph Lundgren, who has not aged well. After some brief sexting with Morgan (you'll have to wait for the weecap), Sarah gets through to Chuck that they need help. Chuck hasn't used his kung-fu Intersect in months, but he tries it out on Dolph's men -- and turns out he's still got it. He rescues his girlfriend and John Casey, and they all head back to his secret basement, where he fills them in. Casey's a little hurt they were left out of this for all this time, but now they're in. And Chuck and Morgan are back in the CIA. However, they're not going to tell General Redhead quite yet. Chuck does know he has to tell the one person he promised he wouldn't be a spy: Ellie. When he shows up at the apartment to tell her, though, she shares her news first: Ellie's pregnant! She hasn't even told Awesome yet, but we're guessing that will happen next week, when he'll hopefully be in the episode.
In the end, Chuck's mom, who apparently works for Volkoff, finds out from Dolph & Co. that her family is looking for her. She asks if he's told Volkoff, and since he hasn't, she takes the opportunity to kung-fu and kill all of the men in the room. When Dolph pleads with her, "I have a family," her response, "So do I," followed by a fatal gunshot. Could be we have another Bakula-level guest star in our midst, judging by that episode-ending kick-ass spy-mama moment.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!We open in Encino, California, 1994, where Linda Hamilton's reading our nerd-in-the-making a story about a Frost Queen and a prince, whom she compares to "my little Chuck." He sadly asks if she's going away again, and she says for a few days, but then right back to him and Ellie. They tell each other how much they love each other, and then Chuck's voice starts: "My mom was a spy." He goes on that he and Ellie always thought she walked away, but it turns out they were wrong. Then we cut to the secret lair he found beneath his dad's house as he says, "I need your help. I need your help to find my mom." It all sounds very serious and official, then Morgan walks out from between some shelves and raves about how cool it is this is under his house, with the lasers! And gadgets! And neatly organized files! Morgan wonders why Casey and Sarah aren't helping, but Chuck says they'd ruin it, and Morgan can't tell anyone, especially Ellie. Morgan exposits that he gets it, since Chuck promised Ellie he was out of the spy game. But Morgan is so in with this rogue spy team, "outside of the government, secret to the spy world, team of two, army of one, highway to the danger zone, live free or die hard." Chuck stops him: "Buddy. This is not the opening of a TV show. This is real life." How meta.
Kicky music starts up as Sarah puts on makeup and Chuck helps her get ready for her next mission, calling her "honey" so we'll remember it's official between them. Morgan secretly waits with packed bags for Sarah to leave. Chuck pretends he's sad she's going on a spy mission without him, and he says he and Morgan will be Go-Kart racing while she's gone, so... "come home soon." They make out until Casey interrupts and says it makes him sick. On the way out the door, Sarah tells Chuck she loves him, and he says the same. She tells him nothing will keep her from coming back, and leaves. Morgan tells him he has their stuff packed: money belts, cloned passports, the essentials. Though he almost forgot sunblock. Then we get an extended homage to I Spy as Chuck and Morgan travel all over the world using credit cards, apparently.
Their trip ends in... Los Angeles, in Chuck's mom's safe house. Morgan would like to point out it would have been more affordable to start here instead of traveling the world, but Chuck says they didn't really know about here. Chuck sees a secret safe on the wall, and gets serious about it, since his dad never made it this far. He uses the code to open the door, but the safe's completely empty. He panics a bit, but Morgan's okay with it, because at least there's a Chinese food menu for Imperial Dragons, so they can get some dumplings. Chuck just glares, but Morgan says they'll start over after some dumplings. By then Chuck's pouting, though, so Morgan sits next to him for the best friend pep talk. Which gives our camera a chance to pan out to the camera watching Chuck, and then to the screen of whoever's watching him, and then to Linda Hamilton, who's the one watching her son try to find her. She sighs, "Oh, Chuck." Opening Cake credits. The only change seems to be the addition of one General Redhead. The whole Buy More crew (Big Mike and Jeffster!) are still on board.