This week on “Chuck” entitled “Chuck vs. the Santa Suit”, Daniel Shaw returns to cause havoc on Chuck and Sarah, Ellie is panicking because her Christmas party isn’t going as plan, the Buy More is facing hostility from customers over the “Omen” virus and General Beckman has an “awkward” moment with Santa Chuck.
It was terrific to see Brandon Routh back as Daniel Shaw. Because of last week’s promo, it wasn’t a surprise the Shaw was behind the “Omen” virus as an attempt to get revenge on Chuck and Sarah. While I knew Shaw was still alive after his last encounter with Chuck, I completely forgot that he still has the Intersect, which by the way, how does he still have the Intersect in his head while in prison. Anyway, if Team Bartowski isn’t already in a disadvantage because Chuck and Morgan don’t have the Intersect anymore, Shaw’s mastermind was to upgrade his Intersect into a 3.0 version. I loved that Shaw’s revenge was more towards Sarah than Chuck because of Sarah’s first mission of killing Shaw’s wife and Shaw’s payback was to kill Chuck while Sarah watches it from the Castle monitor.
The fight scene between Chuck and Shaw was fantastic. At first, you thought that Chuck had to fight “Intersect 3.0” Shaw but Chuck outmaneuvered Shaw by removing the “Intersect” all together. Their fight was pretty intense and at the end, it looks like Chuck was done for by Shaw until Ellie, from behind, hit Shaw in the back of his head with a frying pan. I was surprise Ellie came back and rescued Chuck after Chuck told her to stay away from the Buy More. However, Chuck was lucky that Ellie didn‘t listen and came back to hit Shaw and got some revenge on Shaw after he killed her and Chuck‘s father, Steve Bartowski.
The fun part of the episode had to be the CIA Christmas party scene. From the party, you saw Chuck dressing up as Santa, Stan Lee’s terrific cameo where he (as himself) was a CIA agent and wanted a kiss from Beckman underneath the mistletoe and Santa Chuck was being frisky by a naughty CIA agent. However, the best part from that scene was the “awkward” kiss between Chuck and Beckman. They needed to kiss so that their cover wasn’t blown and afterwards you felt the “awkwardness” when they drove back to the Buy More. I would’ve loved to see them use Stan Lee where he sees Chuck and Beckman kissing and gets enrage (“The Incredible Hulk” style). I also want to mention Bonita Friedericy was sensational this week with her General Beckman scenes with Chuck, Beckman saving Ellie’s Christmas party and Beckman telling Sarah that her kissing Chuck was professional.
Even though I knew he was going to survive at the end, it was still suspenseful of seeing Casey being shot by Shaw and being lockdown at one of the Castle’s rooms. It looked like he was done for and it was touching that he was recording a “I’m proud of you” message to Alex from the “Mr. Pippers the Preppy Polar Bear” that he bought as a Christmas present for Alex. However, Casey realized he can use the electronic equipment from the stuffed bear to open the lock door and gets out to save himself and Sarah with assistance from Morgan. Speaking of Morgan, I loved at the end of Casey telling Alex that she should reconsider Morgan because “he’s not such a bad guy” and while talking about Morgan, Casey has a sweet “father/daughter” moment with Alex where he tells her that he loves her.
It was nice seeing Jeff and Lester working together once again and “unknowingly” contributed into helping Team Bartowski solve what Shaw was doing with the “Omen” virus.
After they were brilliantly used in last week‘s episode, this week I honestly didn’t care that much for Awesome and Ellie with the exception of Ellie’s scenes with Chuck. Besides that, I really got bored of seeing Ellie panicking over her Christmas party not going as plan and just wanted the episode to return to the Shaw and Chuck’s storyline.
The big “cliffhanger” at the end was Shaw asking Sarah if Chuck knows about the baby. My first thought was that if the baby was hers or if she was assigned to baby. In addition, I’m surprise they’re revealing this major development from Sarah’s life this late in the series. One of the few complains I have about the show is Sarah’s background and the writers waiting too long to reveal about her real life where she goes under a different name (not named Sarah Walker). I would’ve preferred if they explored the character more in Season 3 or 4 especially before Sarah married Chuck. If the baby turns out to be hers, I have to admit that I’m going to be upset because why do it now instead of the past or at the very least build the momentum to that moment of Sarah telling Chuck that she has a child. With that being said, I’m still intrigue to see what’s the relationship Sarah has with this baby, why does she have her mother involve and the rest of Sarah‘s backstory.
Overall, I thought “Chuck vs. the Santa Suit” lived up to the hype. It was a lot fun and intense at the same time. It kept you guessing the whole time like how can Chuck stop “Intersect 3.0” Shaw to how Sarah and Casey were going to escape Castle. While the pace of show was slow down by Ellie and Awesome’s scenes, there was just too many great things about this episode that I loved from Shaw’s return, the CIA Christmas party scene and the build up to next week’s episode that I have to give this episode a “5”.
