And You Were Worried About Snakes???
Here is your homework assignment and preparation for next Monday. Stone Cold Steve Austin discusses his role in the upcoming episode of Chuck in episode 3.04 – First Class. And if he’s not tough enough for you, Kristin Kreuk might be. She’s an expert on “Close Quarters Combat.” I’d train with her any day.
Oh? Wait. What? He’s the expert you say? [voice type = “Emily Litella”] Never Mind. [/voice]
These two were carefully coached to leave us spoiler free. But that’s okay – they’re fun anyway.
– joe
amyabn
atcDave
Ernie Davis
Faith
joe
thinkling
Chuck This 
Stones? Isn’t there only on stone on the plane provided we don’t go gutter diving?
I’ve been using the title “Spies on a Plane.”
Heh! Much better! I like it.
I am really looking forward to this episode – Chuck’s first solo mission, and we meet Hanah.
So far every episode this season has been better than the one before. I can’t figure out how they do it.
I didn’t think it was impossible to make Chuck better, but they have.
By the way, you miss a few days and it takes longer to catch up on this blog than it does to watch a Chuck episode.
I see there are a few new novels written down below this, but I have to go to a meeting tonight, and tomorrow night, and Friday night. So it will probably take me the entire weekend to get caught up. Although might have time between meetings/work to get through this masterpiece.
Just as long as I’m done in time to watch the Saints/Vikings game. I will be watching with a friend from Minnesota so I guess I will have to cheer for New Orleans. Either way it should be a good game.
I know what you mean, Gord. I’m having a hard time keeping up, and I’m one of the perpetrators! ;>
And all the great comments!
If you haven’t seen me as much on the NBC Boards lately, well, I ran out of pixels here!
Shaw’s Cover
This somewhat lengthy submission deals primarily with speculation about Shaw’s cover, and a little bit of gloating about one of my predictions that didn’t start with “I’ll be disappointed if …” which actually came half true. Not exactly certain where this should have been posted, but his is close enough.
At some point during summer or fall months, I speculated that Sarah and Chuck’s cover relationship would be ended in the initial episodes to allow for the addition of Shaw to the team with the eventual cover as Sarah’s new boyfriend. I prognosticated that this cover status would persist over a significant number of episodes adding an obstacle to Chuck and Sarah kindling a relationship by limiting the time they could spend together outside of missions. The split would be amicable and Sarah and Chuck would remain friends so that sightings of the two of them together for missions and related purposes could be explained. I also postulated that Chuck and Sarah might eventually be driven to covertly spend time together as they got over whatever “epic event” split apart the real relationship.
There was obviously some hostility to the above scenario, both by the shippers who didn’t like any idea that split apart Chuck and Sarah and by another equally crazy sect who felt it was impossible that Chuck and Sarah’s cover would ever be split apart more than a couple of episodes for story reasons, or simply because Chuck and Sarah never split up for more than two episodes. Looks like certain journey advocates have some egg on their face. Apparently, the writers are willing to split Chuck up for more than one episode, don’t feel the relationship is needed to justify Chuck’s constant absence on spy adventures, and feel a friends cover is sufficient to deepen the relationship. Don’t feel too bad, we all make mistakes, even me. In fact I made several mistakes in this very prediction.
I was correct in assuming that Sarah and Chuck’s dating cover would be split apart for the long term, but was incorrect that the need for a cover for Shaw was the cause. I was correct about the amicable split and the friends cover, but so far appear to be wrong about it preventing them from spending time together outside of the missions. Whether this remains the case is unknown. The interesting question is whether my prediction of Shaw and Sarah cover dating will come to fruition.
Let’s face it. If you removed the spoilers and previews you would assume that Shaw is now hiding out in the Castle, ruling his little fiefdom and ordering about his three serfs while hiding from the Ring. We’ve seen the previews and it’s pretty clear that he’s not going to stay locked in the Castle 24 hours a day, 7 days a week subsisting on five dollar footlongs and fro-yo. How then to explain a tall, dark haired man lingering about the OO and Buy More plaza and occasionally spotted with Chuck, Sarah, and Casey. They could make him a Buy More employee, but given the addition of Hannah next week and the Buy More’s supposedly lackluster sales that strains credibility. They could make him an employee of the OO, which has comic appeal although not so much as Casey doing a stint at the OO. Casey or Shaw in tight white pants and a tank top complete with slow motion scene would be epic, and a nice wink by the producers regarding their use of Yvonnexploitation. Unfortunately, I don’t think that would work either. The OO seems to be a less economically viable enterprise than the Buy More and as much fun as seeing superman in something nearly as tight and revealing as spandex, or Sarah wryly explaining to Ellie that things at the OO were so busy they needed to hire more help would be, it wouldn’t be believable. That leaves option three, Shaw coming on board as Log Cabin Casey’s new gay lover who he met during his stint in the slammer for alcohol fueled public exposure. I’m not sure how well that one would play outside of the East and Left coasts, so they probably won’t go there, even in excessively tight OO uniforms.
I’m leaning towards the Shaw and Sarah as a cover couple option. She’s been estranged from Chuck for some time now and they’ve supposedly settled into the friend zone, although nobody that really matters actually believes it with the possibility of Chuck himself. Given Shaw’s physical attributes and Sarah’s past interest in Chuck, he fits the type she’s displayed interest in. It gives him an excuse to hang around the OO and if he’s shown to be friendly with Chuck or Casey and explanation for occasional forays into the Buy More for potential abuse by Chuck’s fellow countrymen. It also opens up a whole can of angst and jealousy for Chuck who certainly won’t like some of the aspects of the cover, and may come to some heart aching conclusions when comparing their interactions to his interactions with Sarah, particularly if Shaw and Sarah practice their cover in the Buy More.
In parting, I’ll mention the ring displayed at the end of 3.4. It’s almost assuredly not going to be a part of their cover. It’s fairly obvious it’s something personal to Shaw and there’s no evidence of a mate for Sarah. It also doesn’t fit with Sarah’s cover. Sarah’s not going to spend 2 years in a complicated dance with Chuck and then meet, fall in love, and marry some random guy in three weeks time. The only conceivable manner in which that could manifest is if Shaw poses as Bruce, Sarah’s ex and then there’s still the matter of their only being a male wedding band and the action still falling way out of the behavior established for Sarah’s cover persona. So what is everyone else’s opinion? Is Shaw going to be an OO worker, BM worker, Casey’s boyfriend, Sarah’s rebound, or is he just going to sort of exist without a plausible explanation?
I would say, that’s actually a troubling question. Shaw cover dating Sarah makes some sense, it would be a fairly acceptable explanation of a couple of romantic moments for them. That could even explain some of the conflicting information we’ve gotten, in some ways it looks like Sarah will be involved with both Shaw and Chuck during the season. If she is cover dating Shaw, while finally, really falling in love with Chuck, many things would make sense. But this is certainly not the “secret relationship” many of us have said we would like to see develop. If they go that way, it hopefully wouldn’t last the full Shaw arc. It just really seems depressing to me, not at all fun or funny. Obviously, I’m saying that without seeing anything yet, so who knows.
Also, if Chuck and Sarah move towards something real, and secret during this period, it makes further fun gatherings like the end of Operation Awesome unlikely for the rest of the season. That alone is a major loss, but of course, they could make that up fairly easily in the back six.
Great post, Weaselone. With apologies for not recalling that you had made that prediction, it really seems you called it. I’ve made a few myself, seldom getting that close.
I think you’re right about the Sarah-Shaw cover. I think he won’t be Sarah’s ex (“Bruce”), though, because although it’s true that Ellie only saw the back of “Bruce”‘s head, Devon talked to him in The Break-Up. “You want my opinion? She’s in love with Chuck, dude.” Devon knows it’s not the same guy.
Of course, we may be made to believe that he won’t think that’s important, but still…
Regardless, it’s a small thing. Your points about Shaw’s wedding band are persuasive.
Now, there’s one thing more to consider, and I’m going to leave this as an exercise for the reader. How does Hannah fit into all this???
He could be “Bruce.” I mean, Devon knows its about cover. He just has say, “yeah, that’s the dude.” My guess though, is that his cover name will be “Shaw.” Keep it simple for us stupid masses you know.
The only problem is that “Bruce” would have to deal with Eleanor Bartowski-Woodcomb. Chances are he’d end up developing a sudden, and decidedly lethal food allergy.
That would be fun to see! The women in Chuck’s life are more dangerous than he will ever be! That is an interesting aspect to this whole scenario, its mostly for Ellie’s benefit, but she won’t like it one little bit.
Since the announcement last fall that the Shaw and Hannah characters were arriving and that 3.06 was going to be called vs the Natcho Sampler I had figured on some cover dating. My thought was that there would be some sort of double date involivng Sarah/Shaw and Chuck/Hannah, perhaps at Bennigans, the home of the Natcho Sampler. That said, my thought was that this would be a mission cover causing misunderstanding and hurt, but not an ongoing cover.
As to the wedding band, I think Shaw has short term secrets and long term secrets, in other words some of his secrets get resolved quickly others don’t play out until the end. I think the wedding band -which does not involve Sarah directly- gets resolved fairly quickly (by episode 3.08) the thing that Beckman can’t tell the team doesn’t get resolved until 3.12 or 3.13. Besides I think he has a bunch more secrets yet to be hinted at.