Episode: Chuck 3.03 – “Chuck Versus the Angel de la Muerte”
Original Air Date: January 11, 2010
Chuck moves to its regular night and continues to bring the good stuff in the third episode of the season. This time around we got a Devon (Dr. Awesome)-centric episode, which in my opinion was long overdue. Awesome has always been a side character that I’ve liked and I’ve never understood why Lester and Jeff were featured so much more. This episode fixed some of that.
Turns out there is a visiting communist dictator, Premier Alejandro Goya (Armand Assante) of the fictional country of Costa Gravas, in town and, despite the fact that every president since Nixon has signed an order to try to kill him, the order has now come down that Team Bartowski is to protect him. Making this even more complicated is the fact that Casey has himself tried to kill the Premier three times in the past and has killed so many people in Costa Gravas that he has earned the nickname “Angel de la Muerte” (Angel of Death).
Before they even get the assignment, the Premier is in the hospital with an apparent heart attack. Dr. Awesome gets the case and manages to heal him in record time, garnering the attention and gratitude of Goya. Unfortunately, it was not a heart attack after all; it was instead an attempted poisoning, and the assassin is still at large. To show his gratitude, Goya invites Ellie and Awesome to a gala at the Costa Gravan embassy, creating a difficult situation for Chuck as he’s faced with not only protecting Ellie from the Premier’s affections and the assassin trying to kill him, but also he finds himself stuck with an overzealous wannabe spy in Awesome.
Devon’s desire to help accidentally exposes Casey, who is captured and held in the basement of the embassy while Chuck and Sarah plot a way to rescue him. Once again, Devon is called to help the Premier after another poisoning, giving Chuck and Sarah a way into the embassy to extract Casey. It also give Yvonne Strahovski the opportunity to wear a great naughty nurse outfit, a fact not overlooked by this reviewer in the least. After flashing and proving his medical skills, Chuck saves the Premier’s life and the gang escapes unscathed. Well, for the moment, anyway.
I particularly like the way this episode managed to bring Ellie and Awesome into the main story and the way that the normal sub plot involving the Buy More was completely absent. Armand Assante was silly and seemed to enjoy hamming it up as the Costa Gravan Premier. Other than a moment at the gala where Ellie and Awesome grill Sarah and Chuck about their relationship, most of the emotional baggage from Prague is absent.
My biggest problem with this episode actually took place after the episode. The assassin shows up at the hospital for Devon with his ominous syringe. Sarah comes to visit Chuck looking distraught and whispers, “It’s Devon” just before Ellie walks up and asks if anyone has seen her husband. It’s obvious something has happened to Awesome and the moment resonates well, creating a ton of dramatic tension right up until the clips for next week’s show. So if you haven’t seen it yet, stop the DVR at the end of the episode, before the preview, and enjoy your cliffhanger.
Rating: 4 / 5 Stars
