Chuck 5x02: Chuck Vs. the Bearded Bandit

Original Air Date: 4 November 2011

Storyline: As Carmichael Industries takes on a missing persons case, Chuck must acclimatize himself to being Morgan's handler and deal with a rival agency. The Buy More gets a new spokesperson.Best Quote:

Big Mike: Man I am so over this whole Jeffster! thing.
Lester: Me too.

Review: Will I start every review for this season with "no no no no no"? Cause it definitely feels like it. Let's forget for a few minutes that I don't like the fact that Morgan has the Intersect now and just say I'm down with it. But did they have to make him even more annoying that he was for the past four seasons? This week, he went beyond his most irritating self either and actually made me hate the character, something it hasn't happened before.

Unfortunately, all this has definitely made things less fun for me. I didn't find any of his scenes funny, and that has never happened in the past. Also, pre-Intersect Morgan, though very determined to help out in missions and become a hero, would have never betrayed his best friend just because he felt left out. I get that the writers for this show have changed so much over the years that consistency is something that's seldom forgotten, but you just cannot recreate a character when you know it's the last season of the series.
For the good part, despite constantly getting the team in trouble and failing to understand why he was a liability, at least Morgan (or his stunt double, to be more precise) delighted us with some amazing action scenes. My favorite one is the double kick with Chuck, but nevertheless, he was kick-ass.
The case they took on this week - is it correct to call them "cases"? - actually featured a lot of good action scenes, from Sarah's rock climbing in those little shorts (for the delight of the guys watching this show) to Sarah and Casey coming to Chuck and Morgan's rescue with the Verbanski team backing them up. And I don't know where they got the inspiration for Wesley Sneijder's name, but I'd like to think it was from the Dutch footballer who plays for Inter Milan. OK, probably not, but a girl can speculate, can't she?
Carrie-Anne Moss' appearance as Gertrude Verbanski, head of Carmichael Industry's competitor company, was not as strong a presence as advertised, but then again, I presume this will not be her last appearance during the season. But her character, as well as the relationship with John Casey, is too much like Mini Anden's Carina to do anything for me at this point. I hate it when ideas are recycled. Despite my constant complaints about this season (and I won't even go into Sarah's regress to her season 1 persona or Zachary Levi's new look, which reminds me or a car salesman - as a friend of mine very plastically put it this weekend), there were some fun moments that reminded me why I love this show: Devon's commercial for the Buy More and his public speaking tips to Chuck, the tumbleweed, Casey's inability to actually ask Gertrude out, Morgan forgetting who Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker were.
I really don't want to give up on Chuck when it's the last season (and I probably won't, I've stuck through worse seasons that this), but keeping Morgan as the Intersect is already getting old and, with only 11 episodes to go, this storyline needs to be dropped asap.
Chuck 5x01: Chuck vs. the Zoom Back to Season 5