‘Chuck’ often rides that proverbial line between the ridiculous and the sublime. Last week’s riotous ‘Charlie’s Angels’-themed episode tears that line to shreds.
‘Chuck vs. the Cat Squad’ opens with a pitch-perfect ‘Charlie’s Angels’ spoof, complete with mysterious unknown voiceover narrator. It’s even more fun than that ‘Hart to Hart’ episode last season. Now that he knows how Sarah feels about not having any family to attend their wedding, Chuck seeks out some of her old friends and learns more of her secret backstory.
Before her current assignment, Sarah was part of the Clandestine Attack Team, a very fashionable squad of secret agent hotties. We’ve already met Carina (Swedish model Mini Andén) early last season, when she inexplicably had the hots for Morgan. The other two members of the team are Zondra (Mercedes Masöhn, who bears a striking resemblance to ‘Fairly Legal‘ star Sarah Shahi) and ditzy blonde Amy (Mircea Monroe). Chuck reunites the team for a special mission to take Sarah on a Girl’s Night Out bachelorette party. They’re all for it, but Sarah is reluctant.
What Chuck doesn’t know is that the C.A.T. Squad disbanded with some bad blood between Sarah and Zondra. A failed mission to take down South American crime lord Augusto Gaez (Lou Diamond Phillips) left Sarah suspecting that Zondra was a double agent. Zondra passed all of the CIA’s lie detectors, but Sarah still doesn’t trust her. When a car bomb explosion leaves Carina with minor injuries, Gaez is immediately suspected to be behind it, and Sarah’s suspicions flare up again. She’s obviously not paying enough attention. It’s plainly obvious to the audience that Amy is really the mole.
While Sarah, Zondra, and Amy fly off to Rio to capture Gaez, Carina stays behind to monitor the mission and relentlessly flirt with Morgan. This leaves Morgan very uncomfortable, and his girlfriend Alex jealous. It takes everything he’s got to resist Carina’s advances and win Alex back.
The rest of the girls get captured, and Gaez reveals that he’s trying to recruit them to join his organization, called the Gentle Hand. They escape and capture Gaez, then bring him back to Castle. Because Sarah still believes that Zondra is the traitor, this leads to a gratuitous fight scene with the two women in Spandex before the inevitable revelation that Amy is really the double agent. She frees Gaez and tries to escape with him through the Buy More, but Chuck fashions some throwing stars out of broken DVDs and helps the others to take both baddies back into custody.
In the end, Sarah and Zondra make up. Sarah asks both Zondra and Carina to be bridesmaids, but asks Ellie to be her maid of honor. Also, Morgan tells Alex that he loves her.
Lou Diamond Phillips seems to be having a blast hamming it up in this episode. The combination of that and the campy ‘Charlie’s Angels’ stuff makes this one of the most purely entertaining episodes of the season.
