Losing a Sense of Self: Fake Names and Identity Games on "Chuck"

"I hope your lies keep you warm at night."

What is in a name? At its core, it's our truest sense of self, a reflection of our identity, a label that we apply to ourselves to sum us up at our most basic and individual level.

But for spies like Sarah Walker, a name is just a cover story, a new identity in a series of never-ending lies that she puts on as easily as most of us do our clothes in the morning. Spies are in the business of lying and Sarah's done a bang-up job at lying to herself for most of her adult life, allowing her true self to slip away amid a cascade of lies both small and large.

She's kept her true name to herself for the last three years, not even trusting Chuck with her true identity, her true sense of self, the name that conjures up both the kick-ass superspy she is today but also the tomboy teenager and the child whose innocence was so brutally ripped from her.

This week's episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Fake Name"), written by Ali Adler and directed by Jeremiah Chechik, dealt head on with the notion of identity in a world where the concept is fluid at best. While Sarah and Chuck continued their dance with other partners this week, Sarah noticed that Chuck's own identity was slipping away from him too as he became further and further entrenched within the espionage world.

So what did I think of this week's episode? Let's discuss. (And, if you need a reminder, here's my advance review of the next four episodes of Chuck, including this week's episode, but I'm keeping my comments restricted just to "Chuck Versus the Fake Name.")

I thought that Ali Adler did a fantastic job at dealing with the latest complications in the ongoing romance between Chuck and Sarah, allowing Sarah to express her own concern about getting involved with yet another partner and falling into the same traps and patterns in which she keeps ending up. By allowing Sarah and goodfellas Matty and Scotty--via a hilarious exchange about will-they-or-won't-they couples--and the Buy More staffers to outwardly explore the thoughts, fears, and concerns of many viewers, Adler subverts our own expectations about television couplehood.

Yes, it is "complicated" and it's only going to get further complicated as the series goes on. It's clear that Chuck and Sarah have deep feelings about each other, emotions that are becoming further conflicted by recent developments. As Sarah attempts to hold onto her sense of self, Chuck is becoming less and less like the man she fell in love with: an ordinary Everyman who was more prone to bumbling through missions than forcibly extracting teeth during a mission.

As Shaw put it so eloquently, Chuck is living the lie and that scares the hell out of Sarah, who has made a profession out of doing just that. The ease with which Chuck now lies to Hannah, to his sister Ellie, to his best friend Morgan is shocking when you look at how our hero could barely keep it together in the first season. He's changing before our eyes and Sarah isn't sure that she wants to be with someone who can lie so callously. (On the opposite end, Devon seems to be coming apart at the seams from lying to Ellie about what's really going on with Chuck... and even Ellie has had a hard time lying to Chuck about how awful his chicken pepperoni dish really is.)

Chuck's transformation into an adept liar is especially felt during his dinner with Ellie, Awesome, and Hannah, a dinner that he didn't prepare at all. There's a sense that the entire scenario is manufactured, a tableau set up to woo Hannah and conceal what he was really doing all day, which was pretending to be a dangerous assassin in order to discover The Ring's next target.

That Target happens to be Daniel Shaw himself. But that's not the shocking turn of events that leave Chuck reeling. It's the fact that he overhears Sarah tell Shaw her real name--Sam (a perfect name for the real Sarah if there ever was one)--and it's a sense of deep betrayal that he can't shake. Why would Sarah tell Shaw and not Chuck? Why would she trust the enigmatic Shaw with this information and not him, after all they've been through?

Answer: Sarah wants a real moment, an honest experience with someone who is willing to be honest with her and Chuck is changing in ways that even he hasn't realized yet. Names have power and Sarah's withholding of her true identity to Chuck is a means of keeping her true self from him for now, to hold on to something secret in the face of someone slipping into a series of lies. Kudos to Yvonne Strahovski for portraying a real sense of anguish and hurt when Chuck throws her true name back at her; you could see that she knew how much she had injured him with this knowledge.

The most honest thing that Chuck does this episode is to tell Hannah the truth about his feelings regarding Sarah and that there are things in his life that are keeping them apart. Hannah says that Chuck is the best liar she's met and Chuck realizes just how good he's become at spinning lies, a tragic epiphany that really seems to strike a chord with him. Despite Chuck's honesty here, I do wish that he had chosen a more opportune time to share his feelings with Hannah, one that wasn't (A) the day after they had slept together and (B) minutes before he was supposed to meet her parents. Yes, Chuck knows that he loves Sarah and that he can't continue to lie to himself about his feelings and lie to Hannah about himself, but badly played, Chuck.

I will say that I thought that Zachary Levi did a fantastic job in the guise of international assassin Rafe Gruber. It was nice to see Chuck rely on skills that had nothing to do with computers or Intersect-derived abilities and instead had to come from deep inside himself. (He did claim, after all, that his acting background extended to playing Perchik in a high school production of "Fiddler on the Roof.") And, given the uniqueness of Rafe's name, I can't help but wonder if it isn't a shout-out to Chuck writer (and former Survivor contestant) Rafe Judkins. My favorite line from Chuck-as-Rafe: "I want to kill him, not some secondary infection." Right before he yanked out Casey's tooth. Ouch.

As for Casey, he proved that he's one hell of a badass, one of five people in the world capable of hitting a target more than a half-mile away, just like Rafe Gruber. Which makes me wonder if we didn't learn Casey's true identity in this episode as well? After all, Matty (Tony Sirico, here reunited with former Sopranos co-star Louis Lombardi) thought he recognized Casey and believed that he was a military sniper named Alex Coburn whom he had served with. Given that Chuck flashed on the name but was unable to see anything in the file should be making people curious whether Casey's true identity is that of Alex Coburn... and just why his files would be redacted in that way. Hmmm...

As for Sarah and Shaw, it does seem like they are now romantically involved, despite Sarah's reservations at the beginning of the episode. Bringing Shaw a crockpot from the Buy More and some Chinese takeaway, Sarah allows herself to be vulnerable with Shaw, in a way that she hasn't been with Chuck in some time. Residual feelings of betrayal from what happened in Prague? Or something far less tangible, like a sense that Chuck is losing the very innocence that made him attractive to her in the first place? Only time will tell.

All in all, I thought that this week's episode offered a fantastic return to the world of Chuck, ended the Chuck and Hannah relationship in a realistic and painful way, and further set up the playing field for future developments, offering one final chance to catch our collective breaths before next week's dramatic and status quo-altering installment.

What did you think of this week's episode? Is Sam a perfect name for Sarah? Think Casey could be Alex Coburn? Was Chuck right or wrong to break up with Hannah? And just what do you predict will happen in the next few weeks? Discuss.

In the meantime, here's a link to the most recent Chuck Vs. the Podcast, where I talk to host Gray Jones about "Chuck Versus the Mask," this season, and upcoming episodes.

Next week on Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Beard"), Chuck discovers that he cannot flash and is left behind when Shaw, Casey, and Sarah go on a mission, but Chuck gets into a sticky situation back at Castle.