Instant Reaction: Chuck vs the Coup d'Etat

A note about this week's Instant Reaction: If you were following me tonight on Twitter, you know that I didn't tweet all of these. Everything past Tweet 10 you wouldn't have seen. Why is that? Well, Twitter went crazy tonight and my tweets were erroring on my phone, my desktop, and my laptop. So, I had to bow out of Live-Tweeting. But you people here at Castle Inanity are good people and, as such, you deserve the full I Am Not Amused Chuck Live Tweeting experience. So what did I do? Well I just went ahead and "tweeted" everything anyway. Those tweets that you didn't see on Twitter, you get to see here, with commentary and everything. You guys are good to me, so I try to be good back. Sound good? And away we go!

Tweet 1: #Chuck404? That sounds like a DNS error. I miss #ChuckItLive

Addendum: You see what I did there? With my words? No? Well you see, a 404 error on the Internet is a type of Domain Name System error. Okay it wasn't that funny. Fine. *pouts*




Tweet 2: Girls! That's the band that's playing now. They are awesome. #Chuck404

Addendum: The song is "Laura." They had one of my top ten favorite albums of 2009. It was called, funnily enough, Album. You should all check it out because it some insanely good beach vibes summer rock stuff. "Lust For Life" and "Hellhole Ratrace" are the two songs I would recommend.

Tweet 3: Morgan laying down some truth. #Chuck404

Addendum: Until he got into that whole self-help book thing. Damnit, Morgan, why does your wisdom only last in fifteen second bursts?

Tweet 4: Overprotective Beckman? That's adorable. #Chuck404

Addendum: I have nothing else to say. Is it because Casey is NSA that she's so mom-who-has-a-kid-who-has-a-boo-boo? What I'm implying is that she doesn't care about Chuck and Sarah because they're CIA.

Tweet 5: Hey Ellie. Don't freak out. #Chuck404

Addendum: Did you see that face it was awesome.

Tweet 6: Oh man what an infomercial. #Chuck404

Addendum: I want whoever edited that video to edit any video I'm ever engaged in forever.

Tweet 7: This week of #Chuck404 brought to you by hilariously egregious advertisment spots.

Addendum: Honda and Subway mentioned in the first two commercial breaks in increasingly over the top ways? Hellz yeah.

Tweet 8: This week of #Chuck404 also brought to you by awkward couples moments.

Addendum: Chuck and Sarah. Morgan and Alex. Casey and Morgan. Wait what was that last one?

Tweet 9: Am I going to stop drooling? No. No I am not. #Chuck404

Addendum: *drools*

Tweet 10: Awesome statue, bro. #Chuck404

Addendum: Get it?

Tweet 11: Writing down Casey's crazy stories? Another week of #Chuck404, another week of me giving out fic ideas.

Addendum: I will seriously kiss on the mouth anyone who decides to take up all these crazy fic ideas I throw out there each week.

Tweet 12: "9-foot marble me"? Now there's a euphimism I haven't heard before. #Chuck404

Addendum: But seriously Devon is super attractive even when carved out of stone. Oh hell who am I kidding, the man is carved out of stone just standing there.

Tweet 13: Devon is the dirtiest minded person on this show. Then again, if I looked like him... #Chuck404

Addendum: See previous addendum. THE MAN IS PRETTY IS WHAT I AM SAYING.

Tweet 14: Ellie's expression at Chuck here is the exact same S1 Chuck's expressions toward Sarah. #Chuck404

Addendum: No seriously can we get a side-by-side of those expressions they are similar.

Tweet 15: Flying back already? We're done with Sarah in bikinis? #Disappointed #Chuck404

Addendum: Seriously I may cry.

Tweet 16: This is not Casey's week. Wheelchair. Morgan/Alex. Commie roommates. #Chuck404

Addendum: I felt bad for the poor guy. He then went on to get hit on the head with a flower pot and have to defend a bunch of commies.

Tweet 17: "That's not a daddy you want to give you a spankin'" #LineOfTheNight #Chuck404

Addendum: Big Mike is the best.

Tweet 18: #SOAWKWARD #Chuck404

Addendum: That's really all you can say about any scene this season of Chuck and Sarah in the Castle. Seriously, my girlfriend can't even stand it at this point.

Tweet 19: I love how flippant the Generalissimo is about the nukes. #Chuck404

Addendum: Oh hey they're just nukes it's no big deal you guys.

Tweet 20: Back to Costa Gravas! #MoreBikinis #AlwaysAPlus #Chuck404

Addendum: There weren't any more bikinis, to my infinite dismay.

Tweet 21: Awwww. #CuteGeneralsAbound #Chuck404

Addendum: The General may have hit Casey with a flower pot but he did it to save the big palooka. That shit is cute.

Tweet 22: OH MY GOD THOSE TEETH ARE SO WHITE. #ScaryWhite #Chuck404

Addendum: No seriously that man is terrifying.

Tweet 23: Big Mike also laying down some truth. #SmoothJams #Chuck404

Addendum: I hear smooth jams every time I kiss my girlfriend. I think Big Mike has a point, Morgan. By the way most of these smooth jams are by Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye is the best.

Tweet 24: Chuck laying down some truth. #RunningTheme #Chuck404

Addendum: The man knows his way around an awkward couples standoff. Remember the last time Carina showed up?

Tweet 25: WHAT IS HAPPENING. #BestQuestionThisEpisode #Chuck404

Addendum: I have been asking myself the same thing this whole episode if I'm being honest with myself.

Tweet 26: Sweet sweet jungle love? #OhGod #Chuck404

Addendum: I never needed to hear that sentence. Ever.

Tweet 27: This is a weird scene. #ReallyLong #AlsoBizarre #Chuck404

Addendum: Allow me to say some things about this scene. This was a really strange scene. It was super long, it was completely over-the-top in terms of parallel stories, it was basically three scenes smashed into one scene and I don't know if I actually learned anything about the characters in its length. I spent the whole time sitting there being really confused. We should have done this scene in about a third of the time and lost nothing. And then we could have had some conclusion to the Chuck/Sarah storyline. Seriously this scene was mishandled.

Tweet 28: Did he just grab her ass? #Yep #Chuck404

Addendum: And just to top it off. I wonder if that was in the script.

Tweet 29: Another Chuck episode climaxing with him talking about Sarah without talking to Sarah. #SeenItBefore #OkayWithThat #HeheClimaxing #Chuck404

Addendum: As much as I had to say about that scene, I couldn't avoid a good childish double entendre joke. Because have you met me? Of course I would.

Tweet 30: Alex is so adorable. #Chuck404

Addendum: Seriously that girl is super cute and she should be in more episodes.

Tweet 31: Way to man up, Morgan. #Chuck404

Addendum: At this point in the episode I was officially rooting for Morgan and Alex more than Chuck and Sarah.

Tweet 32: Fountain talk! #WithEllieButThatsOkay #Callbacks #Chuck404

Addendum: I miss Fountain Talks, you guys. I really, really do.

Tweet 33: Chuck and Ellie scenes are the new Chuck and Sarah scenes. #BetterThanTheOtherScenes #Chuck404

Addendum: We need to end just about every episode of this season with these two talking. I am not joking. I am pretty sure they could just ad lib everything at this point and they would be going great.

Tweet 34: #FanboySqueels #Chuck404

Addendum: So I was rooting more for Morgan and Alex AND THEN THIS HAPPENED AND IT WAS SUPER ADORABLE AND OH MY GOD YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS.

Tweet 35: Oh man episode 5 looks pretty badass. #Chuck404

Addendum: Lots of action and who doesn't want that.

Final thoughts: With the whole Twitter going down thing, I was able to put my thoughts down quicker and in more detail. Thus, there wasn't a whole lot of need for extended addendums. But, in that space, let me instead talk about Chuck Season 4 thus far in general.

Let me say this: I like it. It's fun, and it's sweet, and the actions scenes are fun because they're cool but also kind of wink wink nudge nudge over the top. That is cool. Thumbs up all around. That being said, what originally drew me to Chuck was the blend of nerd-dom, humor, action and (and this is key) drama. There was a sort of omniscient tension that hid beneath the surface of Chuck that lent it a depth that other shows didn't have. During Season Three, they went overboard with that drama and people rebelled. It seems to me that Season Four has been a sort of Newtonian reaction to Season Three. Instead of trying to temper their drama, they've gone the exact opposite way with it, by injecting levity even into those scenes of what's supposed to be drama.

That's well and fine. But it's not why I started watching Chuck. I'm a big fan of the Ellie and Chuck scenes, because they do have some of the genuine drama of the old seasons, and I hope they play that up. We don't need to have a reset of Chuck and Sarah to regain that drama, but it needs to be somewhere in the show to be the show that we've come to know and love. My hope is that we can find that balance again some time in Season Four.