Awkward Engagements: The Danger of Air Vents on Chuck

I hate to say anything negative about NBC's Chuck, but I was really let down by this week's installment, which seemed more than a little bit muddled and bursting at the seams with guest stars.

But it was the awkwardness of the ending of this week's episode ("Chuck Versus the Cubic Z"), written by Nicholas Wootton and directed by Norman Buckley, that rubbed me the wrong way as it was so clearly manufactured, rather than organic.

On this week's episode of Chuck, the gang had to contend with the return of both Hugo Panzer (Steve Austen) and Heather Chandler (Nicole Richie) and internal issues of the romantic kind as Sarah was still feeling ill at ease about the speed with which her relationship with Chuck was developing. (Hell, she just finally unpacked that suitcase before questions of marriage and child-rearing came up.)

I'll say upfront that I've been enjoying Chuck and Sarah as a couple this year and it's only natural that they would be confronted with these issues as they are two consenting adults in a romantic relationship. It's only a matter of time before the M-word manifested itself, but I do wish that the proposal--whether accidental or not--had developed from something emotional, rather than a cubic zirconium engagement ring plummeting through the vents.

Did it push the relationship? Absolutely. The look of terror on Sarah's face (or was it just surprise) said more about her fears and her identity as a spy than any amount of tete-a-tetes could have produced, but it also forced these issues to a head in a real tight timeframe, given that the two haven't been living together for all that long and have only really had a few weeks to themselves since Sarah returned to Burbank.

Sure, Chuck didn't intend to propose; he just happened to end up in that awkward kneeling position after stumbling to pick up whatever fell out of the vent. But his intentions towards Sarah are clear, after all. Even if he didn't mean to propose, I do believe he may have gone through with it, if only to test the waters. Sarah's reaction might have lasting implications about the future of their relationship. Or they might have more to do with her own conflicting feelings about marriage and putting down roots. She is, after all, the daughter of a con man whose sense of home and hearth is extremely skewed. Could settling down be what she wants, after all?

But I do wish that these issues had been explored in a more convincing setting, rather than the result of Morgan losing Big Mike's engagement ring, which he intends to give to Morgan's mother. (Whose name, I believe, is Bologna?)

Which was the trouble with the episode as a whole. I was excited about the return of Hugo and Heather and was hoping that they would be vicious adversaries for Team Bartowski but because the writers brought them back together, neither of them carried much weight and the episode was largely Chuck, Sarah, and Heather crawling around the ventilation system, one of my least favorite espionage tropes ever.

I'm also not sure that I bought the juxtaposition of the game release with the prisoner transfer fiasco and the fact that coincidentally both prisoners happened to have past encounters with Chuck and Sarah, yet didn't realize they'd be ending up at Castle. While there's always a certain amount of willing suspension of disbelief going on with series like Chuck, it was such a perfect storm of coincidences that it took me out of the story. (The Buy More story in particular seemed to fall especially flat.)

"Chuck Versus the Cubic Z" certainly wasn't my least favorite episode to date but it also wasn't my favorite, perhaps because I expected so much from it and it didn't quite deliver the full Chuck experience that I was craving. But I'm curious to hear what you thought of the episode? Did you love? Like? Loathe? Head to the comments section to discuss.

Next week on Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Coup d'Etat"), Chuck and Sarah try to become better communicators as they join Ellie and Awesome on a trip to Costa Gravas; a forbidden romance may put Morgan at odds with John Casey.