Chuck Versus the Muuurder
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (June 2011) |
"Chuck Versus the Muuurder" | |
---|---|
Chuck episode | |
Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 19 |
Directed by | Allan Kroeker |
Written by | Alex Katsnelson Kristin Newman |
Production code | 3X6319 |
Original air date | March 21, 2011 |
Guest appearances | |
| |
"Chuck Versus the Muuurder" is the nineteenth episode of the
Plot
Main plot
General
After Chuck and Director Jane Bentley (Robin Givens) find Brody's body, Chuck begins to panic about his leadership abilities. Bentley and the Intersect candidates surrender their weapons to Casey, as Chuck has realized the murderer must be one of them. To determine who killed Brody, Chuck plans to review security tapes and interrogate everyone. However, Damien believes that he is being suspected because of his appearance and angrily leaves. As he opens the door to exit Castle, however, an explosive is triggered. Though he manages to shield himself with the door, Damien is injured, ruling him out as a murder suspect.
The explosive triggers three others, cutting the main power to Castle and locking everyone inside. Chuck and Sarah interrogate Bentley, who has the most motive of the group, still angry about the failure of the
With Damien unconscious after taking shrapnel to the back, the rest of the group decides that Lewis is the murderer and splits up to capture and interrogate him. Chuck and Bentley hear someone crawling in the air ducts, but Casey finds a pig (See "
Chuck, Casey, and Sarah to confront Bentley and Josie, the only remaining suspects, only to find them accusing each and holding each other at gunpoint. Chuck reviews the day's events in his mind and recalls finding a positive pregnancy test in Josie's bag, explaining her emotions. He then accuses Bentley of being the murderer, as she was absent during every murder. When he moves closer to Bentley, however, he whispers that the actual murderer is Damien. As they draw their guns, Damien rises from his cot and threatens to detonate a boombox full of explosives if they do not get him to a doctor. Had Brody not seen him planting the explosives, Damien would have escaped. When he was forced to murder Brody and "cover his tracks", Damien strategically detonated the explosive and shielded himself with the door. He also planted the bomb under the chair during his interrogation and used the distraction to hide Lewis's body. Just as Damien reveals that he came for Chuck, Bentley shoots him and retrieves the boombox. She runs to the Intersect room and uses a manual release to lock the boombox in with her and save everyone else. As the one-minute timer counts down, Chuck hacks the door's control panels to save Bentley and they evacuate. The explosion sends the Large Mart piglet flying into Chuck's arms.
General Beckman congratulates the team for solving the mystery and saving Castle from destruction, with a special commendation to Chuck saying he is a true leader. Chuck humbly accepts and extends the credit to his teammates. Beckman then decides that it is too dangerous to upload the Intersect into a new recruit, leaving Chuck as the only Intersect for the foreseeable future. Bentley is reassigned to Washington and she apologizes for underestimating Chuck, relieving Chuck that he no longer has a nemesis. Later, as the team relaxes at Chuck's apartment, Beckman calls to inform them that
Buy More
Morgan learns from
Morgan meets with the Large Mart manager, Marvin (David H. Lawrence XVII), and several other employees to negotiate a trade. Marvin allows Morgan to call Big Mike, proving that he is alive and being fed. Morgan leads Marvin to the closet where Kevin Bacon was being kept, only to find the pig missing.
Morgan questions Jeff and Lester about the location of the pig, but to no avail. They finally reveal that they have hidden the pig in the air ducts, just as Casey finds him in Castle. Later, an explosion sends the piglet flying into Chuck's arms.
Just as Morgan rallies the Buy More staff to rescue Big Mike, the latter walks through the main door, having easily escaped his "nerd" guards. But their victory is short-lived, as Large Mart employees bring the BM costume to the front door and light it on fire. Chuck then enters the Buy More with the pig, quickly deducing everything that's happened.
The Orion laptop
Meanwhile, Bentley has taken extreme measures in salvaging her credibility by monitoring Ellie's activity on the laptop. Chuck confronts Bentley about interfering with his family, and discovers a surveillance video of Ellie. Bentley later comments that Ellie, is incredibly smart and that if anyone could figure out the Intersect it is her, though she cautions Chuck about taking Ellie into the spy world.
As Devon switches the hard drive with a blank one, Ellie arrives home, having realized the purpose of her father's research. Ellie reveals that Stephen was trying to upload knowledge into the brain without having to learn it. Devon still delivers the hard drive to Chuck; when he returns to Ellie, however, it is revealed that Ellie is still working on same research. Devon and Ellie have agreed to hide the truth from Chuck.
While Ellie is asleep, the laptop scans the room and identifies her, allocating her files and displaying the words "Agent X Files".
Production
Series co-creator Chris Fedak revealed to EW.com, "We've always wanted to do a murder mystery, so we're working on an episode right now where something terrible happens to someone down in Castle and Chuck and Co. are given the Sherlockian job of figuring out who the murder[er] is... So we're working on our own spy version of a chamber piece."[1]
The use of Journey's song "Any Way You Want It" as Brody's ringtone alludes to the pilot episode, where Chuck had the same ringtone when receiving a call from Morgan.[2]
Music
Songs listed by Alan Sepinwall.[2]
- "I Need You" by The Blood Arm
- "Any Way You Want It" by Journey
- "Victim" by Win Win
- "Move to the Mountains" by Clock Opera
Cultural references
- Chuck continually mentions his failed leadership attempt the last time he played Dungeons & Dragons.[3]
- Chuck reveals that Lewis's World of Warcraft guild pioneered in taking down Deathwing.
- Morgan is tasked with testing the candidates' "cultural knowledge", asking the following questions:
- "Rush's best album?"
- Lewis answers Caress of Steel.
- "Omega Man?"
- Damien identifies it as a trick question and answers "POTA" (Planet of the Apes).
- "Favorite Bond: Conneryexcluded?"
- "Most important graphic novelist: Grant Morrison or Moore/Gibbons?"
- Brody and Chuck agree on Brian K. Vaughan.
- "Rush's best album?"
- When Chuck finds a knife in Lewis's bag, he says, "Well lookie what we have here." This is in reference to the line from Back to the Future.
- The Large Mart pig is named "Kevin Bacon" after the actor of the same name.
- In response to Chuck ruling out Lewis as the killer after finding his body, Bentley says, "Brilliant deduction, Sherlock", referencing the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
Reception
"Chuck Versus the Muuurder" received generally positive reviews from critics. HitFix writer Alan Sepinwall wrote that "the actual muuurder investigation of 'Chuck vs. the Muuurder' was the least interesting part of an episode that I enjoyed on the whole. It's such a familiar device that we know a lot of how it works, including the way that the first suspect or two simply can't have done it because we still have a lot of time to fill. The four Intersect candidates were all fairly cartoonish, even by 'Chuck' standards... and the Bentley character has suffered from one of the few real guest casting missteps this show has made in a while, so I didn't particularly care which of them did it, so long as most of them (with the ironic exception of our swarthy bearded killer) were off my screen for good by episode's end... Fortunately, the murder mystery had a secondary element to it in Chuck's need to prove himself as a leader, and that part of the story was very strong."[2] Steve Heisler of The A.V. Club gave the episode a C+. Though he criticized the lack of importance of the series' civilian characters (excluding Morgan) in the episode, he wrote that the episode was "decent fun." Heisler concluded, "'Muuurder' took on a lot, and to its credit managed to make some sense of it all, even if it did resort to cheap, repetitive BM humor (not that I'm above a good BM joke). It's just that, at the end of the day, nothing much happened."[3]
Eric Goldman of IGN gave this episode a score of 9 out of 10, writing, "After an off episode last week, this was a much more enjoyable Chuck installment, that took a time-honored formula ('One of us is a murderer!') and ran with it in classic Chuck style... Some episodes do a better job with a Buy More subplot than others, but the one this week was pretty great... The way this plotline merged with Chuck's had a rather hysterical payoff. I loved seeing little Kevin Bacon running for his life and then being blasted forward by an explosion, in a classic action movie hero style."[4]
The episode continued Chuck's steady decline in viewership, drawing 4.23 million viewers,[5] a series low at the time of the episode's airing.
References
- ^ Gonzalez, Sandra. "'Glee,' 'Chuck,' 'Big Bang Theory,' 'Bones': Find out what's next in the Spoiler Room". EW. Retrieved March 6, 2011.
- ^ a b c Sepinwall, Alan (2011-03-21). "Review: 'Chuck' - 'Chuck vs. the Muuurder': Charles Carmichael in Charge". HitFix. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
- ^ a b Heisler, Steve (2011-03-21). "Chuck Versus The Muuurder". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
- ^ Goldman, Eric (2011-03-22). "Chuck: "Chuck Versus the Muuurder" Review". IGN. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
- ^ Seidman, Robert (2011-03-22). "Monday Final Ratings: 'Castle,' 'The Chicago Code' Adjusted Down; Dancing Stars, 'How I Met Your Mother' Adjusted Up; 'Chuck' Stays Low". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on 2011-03-25. Retrieved 2011-03-22.
External links
- "Chuck Versus the Muuurder" at IMDb