Chuck vs. The Aisle of Terror

OK, you know what? Considering you left me when I was… Oh, I don’t know, nine years-old and I still don’t know if you’re good or bad, I think I have every right to have a mother issue or two right now.

And now that that teensy bit of exposition is out of the way, we can all dig in and enjoy “Chuck vs. the Aisle of Terror,” a terrifically funny 45 minutes that performs enough narrative cartwheels to leave us wondering where the episode will stick it’s next landing. This was a particularly tricky installment to pull off, the value of five weeks worth of build-up dependent upon the sparks that flew between a espionage entrenched mother and the adorable nerd turned super-spy son she abandoned, and for the most part, Chuck executed it in style.

Structurally, the key to this week’s story was Dr. Stanley Wheelright (Friday the Thirteenth’s Robert Englund) a mad scientist whose fear toxin (think The Scarecrow from Batman) serves as a McGuffin, driving all of the action forward without possessing any actual importance. It’s the toxin that brings Mary Bartowski (Linda Hamilton) back into Chuck and Ellie’s life, as she seeks her son’s help in bringing down Wheelright without exposing her status as a double agent. This provides the opportunity for Mary to discover her daughter’s pregnancy and dovetails nicely with Elly’s growing resentment towards her visiting busybody of a mother-in-law (Morgan Fairchild).

This mother-centric affair was more or less made by writer Craig DiGregorio’s smart script. Each act presented both Chuck and the audience with a solid argument for Mary’s side of the story, only to blow it straight to hell by the commercial break. Double identities are no stranger to Chuck, but this is the first time in a history of characters including Bryce, Jill, and Shaw that I feel genuinely at a loss as to what someone’s true intentions might be, and it’s absolutely thrilling. Some of the credit has to go to Hamilton, who plays her kick-ass character so matter-of-factly that even a gesture as small as playful pinch to Chuck’s cheek makes her seem so undeniably mom-ish.

Yvonne Strahovski and Adam Baldwin were also given a chance to shine. Sarah and Casey’s shared glance after the briefing in Castle wordlessly indicated a growing sense of unease regarding the operative formerly known as Frost, helping to pick up any slack dropped by the script in selling their episode ending abduction of Chuck’s momma. Baldwin’s best moments, however, were the ones he shared with Joshua Gomez’s Morgan, who’s unabashed enthusiasm for all things spy related (even after being used as “The Magnet”) forces Casey to walk the comically thin line between rage and affection. Morgan’s spy training is simply too funny for the show to keep allowing it to slip into the background, and I hope that they continue to touch upon it throughout the rest of season.

While the wonderful Robert Englund’s villain of the week storyline was, I think by design, slightly underwhelming, “Chuck vs. the Aisle of Terror,” had enough overall action, laughs, and intrigue to compensate. One of Chuck’s few failings has been its struggle to properly utilize all of it’s extraordinarily gifted cast, but so far this season has managed to weave individual storylines that interconnect with and impact one another.  I’m anxious to see how all of the episode’s big reveals, including Chuck’s revelation to Ellie that their mother is a spy, continue to up the season’s stakes for all of the characters and propel Chuck into it’s winter hiatus.