In tonight’s episode, “Chuck vs. The Nacho Sampler”, we see the return of Hannah (played by Kirstin Kreuk) as Chuck continues his growth into being a real spy. In this week’s mission, Chuck has to make contact with and build an geeky asset who has been building some weapon for the Ring. Using this motif, the writers give us a bit of insight into the thought processes of Sarah when she first appeared to Chuck three years ago. Like Sarah, Chuck now has to work a geeky loner guy with the skills and know how be a serious threat to the world.
Manoosh is a loner and a geek very much like Chuck. It’s pretty easy for Chuck to become friends with him as they are really one in the same, though Chuck has had a few years to smooth out some of the geeky rough edges. Chuck’s mission is to contact and find out what he was building for the Ring, which happens to be a new intersect. On the other hand, Manoosh, at heart, is nothing like Chuck. While they may share a lot of the same intellect and backstory, Manoosh is what Chuck would have been had he spent all his time alone. Out to make a quick buck, Manoosh is willing to sell the technology to the highest bidder, and it’s up to Chuck and the team to stop him.
Back in the BuyMore, we have Morgan quietly pining for Hannah, who makes her first appearance as the latest Nerd Herd employee. Hannah has one more episode for this season of Chuck, and I’m sad to see the writers didn’t really use her for anything this episode. Other than some opportunity to showcase how really creepy the BuyMore employees can be, especially Jeff and Lester, Hannah didn’t have much of a part of this episode. Hopefully, she’ll have a bit more for her last appearance next week.
On the other side story, we are finally starting to see Chucks web of secrets and coverups starting to unravel as Ellie finds Chuck’s ticket from Paris. This makes an already frazzled Devon even more on edge as he tries to cover up what Chuck really does for a living. Even Morgan, who already has been suspicious of Chuck for some time, now has even more zeal to find out what’s going on. As a result, he is now enlisting Jeff and Lester to use their superior stalking skills to find out what’s going on with Chuck.
Overall, “Chuck vs. The Nacho Sampler” was a pretty simple episode with plenty of throwaway lines and silliness to appeal to the Chuck fan. It does set up a new theme of Ellie and Morgan working together to find out what is going on with Chuck, which I’m sure will put them in great danger later on.
Interesting Observations
- One day I hope to meet a girl with her own personal wind machine.
- Chuck is always really lax in his uniform. He’s the only one with it untucked, and his tie is always loose.
- “May the best stalker win.” – Jeff
- One of the BuyMore’s neighbors is “Underpants, Etc.” I’m not sure why I never saw that before.
- “What are you doing Friday? Wanna hangout in my van?” – Jeff, in his extra sleazy voice.
- “It’s my constitutional right to fornicate.” – Jeff
- As Sarah walks into the bar (with wind machine), there is a distinct chatter of “Oh my God” in the background from the other patrons.
- “Frak Off” is a reference to the modern revival of “Battlestar Galactica.”
- Fighting with dark glasses while loaded with combat skills is a bit Matrix-y perhaps.
- Weap-Con, the greatest weapon convention in the world.
- “You aim caerfuly, Bartowski. Don’t you make me a eunuch, else i’ll teach you the meaning of an eye for an eye.” – Casey
- Casey has a golden gun.
- Just like bartowski, bring a knife to a gun fight.” – Casey
- I know that NBC needs to make promos that are appealing, but do they have to spoil all the really cool parts of the episode in the promo? It’s like if ABC made a promo for Lost that showed everyone waking up from a dream in a lab.
- Flash skills of the week: Throwing weapons, disk throwing.
- Gratuitous shot of Sarah: see above.
