Chuck: "Chuck Versus The Gobbler" Review

Chuck's in prison; Sarah's in a catsuit.

For the second year in a row, Chuck was initially given a thirteen episode order, only to get picked up for a full season after the writers had laid out what they expected to be their full season arc. That being the case, this episode is the penultimate one in the big Mary Bartowski / Alexi Volkoff storyline, as next week's episode was intended to be the season finale initially.

Maybe that's why "Chuck Versus The Gobbler" felt a bit messy and rushed. Getting Sarah into this undercover storyline felt a bit choppy at the end of the last episode, and this week, a lot had to happen (or we had to be told about it happening) very quickly. At the beginning of the episode, Morgan and Casey talk about the reputation Sarah's been building over several weeks, in order to get on Volkoff's radar, and it felt kind of disappointing that we couldn't see any of that.

Also, the end of the episode hinges on Chuck believing that Sarah really tried to kill Casey – which would only have real weight if Casey actually died. Since he didn't, and he will almost certainly wake up and be able to explain what happened soon, it doesn't really resonate as the dark turn for Chuck's perception of Sarah that it might have.

There were still plenty of fun and funny moments throughout this episode. Attention to continuity is always appreciated, so I liked Morgan's concern about Chuck, despondent about Sarah being gone, "Eating Cheetos and watching The View" (in a call back to "Chuck Versus The Pink Slip").

And how can you complain about Sarah dressed in a skintight black costume that was part Emma Peel, part Black Widow and all hot? It was a good week for Morgan one-liners, as I loved his measured, "Sarah, you look... evocative," upon seeing her.

Timothy Dalton also continues to shine as Volkoff. The mixture of menace and humor he brings is perfect, whether he's telling Sarah he's a romantic who appreciates, "Paintings, poetry, the art of massage," or gleefully discussing Yuri the Gobbler by saying, "Don't ask why he's called that… It's because he eats people!"

Yuri on the other hand led to some more questionable moments in the episode. Sarah was tasked by Volkoff with breaking Yuri out of prison and honestly, it would have been more interesting to see how she could do that on her own than having her call in the whole Operation: Bartowski team. It stretched credibility too much to have Sarah, in her skintight outfit, show up in the middle of a packed prison and have the entire populace back off because she'd just knocked out one dude. I know it was played as a joke, that they were scared of her, but it didn't really sell. Though I will say that a joke that did sell was Chuck screaming, "He's hungry! He's hungry!" while fighting the Gobbler, who looked ready to go all Mike Tyson on Chuck.

The Ellie / Awesome subplot was an amusing one. Awesome's horror over the name Grunka and the various planned responses he had the Buy More staff use were pretty priceless – especially Lester saying he lost his virginity to a woman named Grunka who was a, "Filthy, filthy lady. Hard to believe she was a grandmother."

In This Article



Chuck is a one-hour, comedic spy thriller about Chuck Bartowski - a computer geek who is catapulted into a new career as the government's most vital secret agent. When Chuck opens an e-mail subliminally encoded with government secrets, he unwittingly downloads an entire server of sensitive data into his brain. Now, the fate of the world lies in the unlikely hands of a guy who works at Buy More.
Genres:Action, Action-Adventure
Release Date:September 24, 2007
Chuck: "Chuck Versus The Gobbler" Review
Chuck: "Chuck Versus The Gobbler" Review

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