Think This + Mr and Mrs Smith after they had the big fight and made up

We open on  a creeper with a knife on the train. Sarah opens the door, slightly disheveled. Turns out Sir Creepsalot was  just delivering room service and asking if Sarah requires anything else when Chuck noses in to let them know they are doing JUST FINE. Looks like they’ve been AWOL in the bedroom awhile, probably playing Boggle or Yahtzee, or both. Sarah says “We can’t just run away like this” but Chuck wants to because everyone else is moving on. They both agree to quit the spy life and Sarah tosses Chuck’s phone out the window! I don’t know why that was necessary. I mean now they can’t call anyone!

Yup, DEFINITELY Boggle!

Back in Burbank, the General wants Casey to use Morgan to find Chuck since they’ve known each other for so long. Casey enlists Morgan’s help as Awesome arrives to do the same thing because he and Ellie are having a going away party and they want Chuck to be there. Jeffster weasels its way into a gig at the going away party.

Back on the love train, Chuck and Sarah have emerged from their “alone time.” They are enjoying some delightful pastries when some unsavory characters join them in the dining car. Before they can sink their teeth into Danish, Sarah’s got a hunch and Chuck’s got a flash. They make a half-hearted toast to their non-spy lives. Really heartfelt guys. I’m sensing a quick turn to Under Siege 2: Dark Territory here.

Before you can say negligee, our favorite couple is lying next to each other lying to each other.  They both want to “get some air” to gather intel on the shady passengers. Sarah ducks out and finds the baddies conveniently down the hall. She jimmies the lock with a “Do Not Disturb” sign which is just really against the entire idea of NOT disturbing. She checks his passport and finds a little black book with names and numbers when she hears someone at the door and heads to the bathroom to hide. In come the Chuck’s famous Chucks, he sees the same black book when HE is interrupted and tries to hop in the bathroom to hideaway, but Sarah has the door locked. He looks to the window and jumps out just in time for Juan the Terrorist to come in with his henchmen. Sarah flushes and plays drunk hot girl to get out of the room. Thank goodness for her classy taste in lingerie. Chuck is on top of the train and flashes to flip back inside to beat Sarah back. Back to bed the happy couple goes. And Sarah comes clean. They decide to pull the classic “one more mission.” Definitely Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.

In Burbank, Morgan and Casey are in Castle, having no luck finding the happy couple. Morgan breaks eventually uses his “knowledge of the subject” to find where Chuck and Sarah are. And just like that, they’re headed to Europe on the Government Dime. On the plane Morgan has a hilarious freakout about plane crashes:  “The only reason the plane stays up is because I’m rooting for it, and if I’m asleep, I’m not rooting for it.” The Odd Couple land and board the train with Morgan using a disguise as one of our friendly neighbors to the north, a Canadian.

Back on the love train the happy couple work to gather some supplies, cuffs from a punk rocker, pills from a figure skater. Soon after, Sarah’s drunken southern girl is spilling the drinks of Juan the Terrorist and Co. Chuck pulls the old pills-in-the-sparkling water trick and the dynamic duo wait for their plan to take effect. BUT Casey shows up. He is ready to haul them in and cuffs them despite their protestations. And just then the henchmen conk out and Juan the Terrorist takes off. Chuck and Sarah apologize and coldcock Casey and chase Juan who is heading back to his room. Sarah and Chuck get divided by door and Sarah kicks ass one-handed then lets Chuck in. They end up on the bed right as Casey chases them down. They tell him about the baddie in the bathroom.  He opens the door and tranqs Juan. But the darts don’t affect him and he takes off again. Bounding through the train, he’s eventually derailed by a body check from Morgan, who had just been shot down by a hot Canuck.

In Burbank, Jeffster is rehearsing at the going-away party and the blow an amp, and say Chuck could fix it. Ellie flips out. Looks like tonight we’ll be serenaded by Jeffster UNPLUGGED! This is like the reverse of Dylan going electric, very similar cultural significance.

Once the terrorist is cuffed, we find out that he had turned and was going into witness protection and the two guys they drugged were Interpol agents. And then finally we have our bad guy girl, the Hot Canadian who dissed Morgan.

Chuck calls Beckman and from the sound of things, did so COLLECT, because she is not happy. She demands they deliver Juan and then immediately return to Burbank.  Team Bartowski take turns watching the captive iIn a coffee house. Morgan and Casey ask how the two of them could leave behind the spy life. They both say they choose each other over spytimes!

At Ellie and Awesome’s party, Jeffster sings “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane,” and it is actually pretty amazing. Ellie is getting smashed and is then invited to say a few words…TOAST CLIFFHANGER.

Chuck and Sarah head out while Morgan and Casey meet agents to hand over Juan, BUUUUUUUUT the agents are bad guys. Morgan outs them with some Lake Como tourist jargon. But they have the place surrounded. Whoops. At the train tracks, Chuck and Sarah are trying to decide whether or not to leave the spy game.  HURRY UP, someone is going to get you while you take all this time making stupid decisions. THEN the Interpol agents who they knocked out surround them and ask what they did with their prisoner. Told ya so!  Chuck and Sarah are cuffed AGAIN and the Interpol guys say that their second team was killed en route, so they are suspicious. Chuck and Sarah realize this means Casey and Morgan are in trouble, they double punch the Interpol idiots and get armed. Meanwhile at the coffee shop, Morgan and Casey are tied up, in what appears to be novelty size rope, while hot fake Canadian questions Juan.

The Maple is the Most Devious of All the Syrup Producing Trees

Chuck and Sarah crash a Vespa into the shop and Chuck flashes so they can kick some ace like some sort of deadly pairs skating team. They really ARE a dynamic duo. Morgan and Casey do their own tandem butt-kicking.  Once everyone is knocked out due to all of the tandem fighting, Juan drops the knowledge on Chuck and Sarah. Neither of them wants to quit. They get together and reverse their earlier pact and then they smooch, Morgan smiles, Casey gets a little sick.

Back in Castle, Casey gives Morgan some props for being actually useful. Morgan wants to do a little monologuing in favor of Chuck and Sarah as spies, but Beckman shuts him up. Chuck and Sarah both try to take the blame for going AWOL. Beckman calls them out and Chuck tries to tell her that they’re dating. Sarah finally gets it out and Beckman reminds them to not let it get in their professional ways, but also it’s about damn time. Chuck remembers about Ellie and Awesome leaving and rushes home. He sees some footage of her toast where she laments his not being there and is getting real emo when Ellie returns.  They share a cute little goodbye and Sarah shows up to show Ellie that Chuck won’t be alone.

Sarah and Chuck rest on the bed to “Feeling Good.” Which seems pretty right on, they’re feeling good and I sure was at the end of this episode. How did you like seeing Chuck and Sarah go at it TOGETHER? The only thing that was a bit unreal was that they couldn’t tell the other wanted to stay in the spy life. I mean come on, they’re so in love, they should be a little more attuned to each others’ feelings, right?  I thought Sarah’s defeat of Juan while the door divided her and Chuck was one of the better action sequences of the show and her wardrobe tonight was FABULOUUUUS!  OK, so what do you all think of the newly minted super spy team? Will this leave Casey on the outs? And WHEN is Jeffster going to go on tour?

These guys have the right idea: MONSTER FIGHT. Also they're looking for a lead singer!

After that crazy play-in game, I think we all knew we were in for something special. In a good way. I think it’s tough to imagine the kind of preparation these competitors go through and how long it took me to visualize each one of these scenarios. And it’s also hard to imagine that Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris couldn’t beat them all up simultaneously. But this isn’t about martial arts, it’s about monsters I think. The proceeding 2500 words will probably convince you better than I can. So let’s let the uglies get at it. Also. Please guys, I need a life.

Cave Creatures vs. Predator

The dreaded one (double meaning!) had little time for rest coming off a tough battle with Alien. But you can bet he had his trusty gadgets all shined up and ready to go for his first round matchup with Cave Creatures. Predator’s cloaking ability would prove PRETTY useless against the cave creatures as they are blind and attack based on their heightened other senses.  What I wonder is how they can smell anything over themselves, like, really guys, take a shower.  The CCs would have to hope to neutralize Predator’s long-range attacks as their most effective weaponry was their speed and vicious strength and jaws.  The Cave Creatures feature one of the stars of this tournament, Carlton P. Huffnagel the 6^th.

On paper, the 5 vs. 1 matchup seems to weigh heavily in the favor of the CCs, but when 6 things as ugly as these 6 get into the ring, who knows what will happen. The cave creatures are not the most intelligent contestants and that proved to be their downfall as the Predator unleashed a barrage of long-range attacks using ninja stars and lasers to wipe out 3 of them only seconds into the competition including CC ace Huffnagel the 6^th. Startled, the cave creatures regrouped and attempted to launch an assault on Predator’s position by taking the lights of the arena out. Whoops, they forgot Predator uses heat vision. Whoops, they are cold blooded! (This is true, sure) Predator almost realized this too late as the CCs advanced on his position on the walls and floor of the arena only make noise just as they met him. They flashed up on his monitor (what a dork he is) just in time for him to knock them back. Switching his visor to electromagnetic field detection, he quickly dispatched of the two remaining CCs with some deftly placed ninja stars.

Early on it looked gruesome for the CCs and the Predator proved to be too much for them. Too much rebounding, too many points from beyond the arc, basketball, basketball. The Predator looked much more confident in this battle and even his gross crab face gave a gross crab face smile following this match.

The Thing vs Yeti

Both parties hail from a frigid forbidding land, so the temperature had to be turned down in the Doom Dome (apologies for the cheese).  The Thing came into this matchup as one of the dark horses of the tournament but faced a tough draw against a classic, battle-tested monster, El Yeti.  The chilly, hairy one is up in age some say, but his brutality and strength, along with a winning smile have really made him a crowd favorite throughout the years. The Thing is visiting for the first time and his supporters were lacking. The crowd jumped on him from the word “Fight!” and never let up. And with good reason.

Directly following the opening whistle, The Thing jumped into the crowd and inhabited one of the fans. This was met with a raucous round of boos and El Yeti only added fuel to the fire when he pounded on his hairy chest. While he was showboating though, The Thing made an immediate charge toward him and dealt a powerful blow, knocking Yeti back. Well that was what we in the business call an “Oopsie” because now El Yeti was focused on the ass-kicking business. And business was good. Despite The Thing’s repeated attempts to inhabit El Yeti, he couldn’t make any headway. And on his final attempt he had almost entered the new host when he was tangled up in the tangled web of what El Yeti calls hair. That was all she wrote for this parasite, as El Yeti is rather protective of his beard, El Yeti quickly dispatched of him once he got a hold of him and The Thing was MUCH worse for the wear.

The Thing just didn’t have it tonight, his bad boy attitude and negative attitude really cost him. El Yeti’s showboating and crowd camaraderie can be seen as a big factor here as he will no doubt ride this wave of success into the second round on a high note. The guy who really lost is El Yeti’s PR man who had almost gotten him to take a shower, but I’d gather there’s no chance for that now.

Godzilla vs. Graboid (Sandworm)

The King of the Mosnters has seen better days while the Graboids have never seen anything. A giant creature versus another giant creature. This matchup promised to deliver some massive blows and it definitely delivered.  What should make this interesting is these two were training partners leading up to Selection Monday.  Yeah, Godzilla needed to work on his conditioning and the Graboid wanted some more strength training. It was a perfect fit, until the brackets were announced. Let’s see if these two kept any secrets from one another as we enter the matchup.

It really did look like Godzilla had lost some weight and retained his very manly figure, whereas Graboid pretty much still looked like giant gross worm. Let’s call a worm a worm folks! Godzilla went on the offensive early, attempting to end the match straight away with a fiery blast from his mouth. But Graboid anticipated the volley and tunneled underground, only to pop up with his whip-like tentacle wrapped around Godzilla’s newly sculpted ankle. He pulled the rug out from under the Big Liz and yanked him into the bowels of the arena. Bowels I say! So this part of the match was pretty boring and extended and the ref couldn’t really tell if he should call the match or not, until BOOM! Godzilla blasts his way back into the arena with Graboid in tow, still hanging on for dear life. Except his dear life was already over. Godzilla 1, Graboid 0. Should have hit that treadmill harder worm food.

Godzilla really had the edge here in pretty much anything, but that doesn’t mean the Graboid didn’t give him a run for his money. In fact, I’d say Graboid had a perfect strategy heading in, but couldn’t execute because Godzilla’s new quick frame made it easier for him to come back from the depths. A strong showing from Graboid despite the early round exit, I bet next year the selection committee will think long  and hard about his seeding.

Trantor the Troll vs. Poltergeist

It’s kinda funny how well these completely random seedings ended up, considering these are two of our strongest supernatural competitors; it really is a shame that they have to meet in the first round.  The tale of the tape on these two seems to hedge largely in the way of the Geist especially with 9 more years of experience in competition. Trantor made this tournament based solely on a threat to the selection committee that he would steal their children’s life force and make every generation in their line stupider and stupider (actual plot of Ernest Scared Stupid).

Well, empty threats they ended up being as Poltergeist immediately ghostnapped all of the Troll’s lifeforce kiddies and therefore zapped most of his mojo. This proved to be an extremely easy round for The Geist as he didn’t even have to get that windy (If you haven’t seen this movie in awhile, let me jog your memory. Poltergeists are often accompanied by like basically giant fans that are always blowing when the Poltergeist is in the area. I seriously think one of the requirements for casting was that the actors look good in wind. Watch it.).  His experience and moxie proved to be too much for Trantor as that ugly S.O.B. was sent back to his home in an oak tree that he splits rent on with the Keebler Elves. Can you imagine going to that tree? You either get delicious cookies or your lifeforce stolen. Hmmm. Probably worth it.

When you look back at the tape of this match, there wasn’t really much to see. Trantor was just entirely outclassed in this matchup and his lack of fight skill really showed. The selection committee was later seen having drinks with The Geist in celebration.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man vs. The Blob

Big sticky guys =, get ready to rumble. This is probably the softest battle ever. I mean seriously, if you were to get caught in the middle of two contestants, this one would feel like a really fun pillow fight with jelly! Both of these competitors are enormous and not the hardest material in the world. This promises to be one of the sloppiest, slowest battles in the entire showdown. Stay Puft comes as the second largest entry in the competition, but the Blob is no slouch, enveloping entire cars during its training program. And frankly, the Blob doesn’t like being written off as a Smucker’s commercial.

The match started with very little action, which really set the pace. It was to be honest, pretty boring. When they finally got down to business, Stay Puft was really at a loss with what to do with the Blob. He attempted to eat some of it, this quickly proved troublesome as he couldn’t actually grab a piece of blob, so he knelt down. Well that silly mallow doesn’t have any teeth to cut into the blob, so he just tried to swallow. And THAT’S when the blob made his “move.” “Move” in this case refers to “rolling” over the Mallow and enveloping him very slowly.  Unfortunately, Stay Puft really couldn’t do much and it’s kinda tough to explain why. His belly would unfortunately not be shaking like a bowl full of jelly. Rest in peace, sweet prince.

Really , this was probably one of the most difficult calls of the early tournament and people would be forgiven for picking Stay Puft here, but his mouth got the best of him. In the post game interview, the Blob had this to say “……………………………………”.

Werewolf vs. Wicked Witch of the West

Two of the most classic horror competitors, the witch and the werewolf, square off in what could also be defined as the Legends game of the opening round. Two tried and true OGs of the game come together for one of the smaller, more competitive matches. On the face of it, WWotW doesn’t have much but a broom and a warty nose and while werewolves are in fact very messy. This competition isn’t about tidy homes. The werewolf has the upper hand in size, strength, and speed. However, it’s simple animal mind could succumb to some of the witch’s trickery. Really a classic case of brains vs. brawn.

The witch zoomed into the arena flying on her broom flanked by her winged monkey minions and the werewolf was brought in on one GIANT leash. Once the beast was unleashed, the beast was unleashed.  Knowing that water was the witch’s kryptonite wouldn’t really help Wolfie as he had no way to procure said water. Besides everyone knows giving a werewolf a water bottle is like giving Genghis Khan a backrub, scratchy, smelly, and unpredictable. The witch attacked first sicking her winged primate assassins on Wolfie and let me tell you these were not your minions of memory they were like flying ninja capuchins of death. They picked at Wolfie almost toying with him while the witch zoomed around him on her broom hurling lightning bolts at him (the ability to throw lightning bolts is never SPECIFICALLY touched on in The Wizard of Oz but I think we can all read between the lines. SUBTEXT.) Her aggressive affront put Wolfie on his heels, until her aim went astray and clipped Capuchin 1. He tumbled out of the sky and in that split second, Wolfie lunged at the other monkey slicing his wing clean off. Ole Warty Nose let out a howl of sorrow, as Wolfie snarled and primed himself for attack. This is when Ole Warty made her fatal mistake: she flew straight at the wolf. This is a classic case of a witch being an idiot. Idiot witch. By the time Warts McIdiot realized her mistake it was too late as Wolfie gave way to his ancestral upbringing and fetched the broomstick clean out of the air, snapping it in two. The witch fell, screamed, and tried to retreat. “GROWL WOOF WOOF SNARL,” said Wolfie which can be roughly translated to “No Surrender, No Retreat.”

A clean sweep for Wolfie. He really brushed back the competition. Swept her right under the rug. If there is one kind of household cleaning joke I can’t get enough of it is broom jokes. A real reversal of fortunes in this match as the witch was the clear aggressor and the wolf was on his heels. But once “Death From Above” was taken out, she didn’t have a monkey to stand on. Or a broom to fly on!

IT vs. Zombies

One comes from beyond the reaches of our mind, the others come from right next door. A pairing here of strange proportions as the most cerebral of competitors takes on the group cerebrally dead foes. BRAAAIIINNNS are on the menu tonight, but does IT even have any? Time will tell!

HOLY SHIT! The Zombies literally just tore into the clown. Fastest fight ever. IT never had a chance, his mind tricks didn’t stand much of a chance against a group of mindless meateaters. Zombies broke their own record for fastest takedown when they beat Krang of TMNT fame in just under one minute. This was even faster and I’ve never seen anything like it.

Zombies look to be in top form as they just plowed through IT. Really tough draw for IT this year. He drew the one truly fearless foe in the competition and that was NOT pretty folks. Saddest clown on the planet right there, saddest clown.

The Host vs. Vampires

We’ve dubbed this the Split-Jaw Showdown as both beasts work with a slightly modified mandible. The Blade 2 Vamps have a 3-way jaw and the Host has a 4-way. Lots of way jaws are definitely the story of this battle. But who will get their jaws on who first?

The Host is extraordinarily aggressive in the early going, but is only able to nip one of the Vamps, wounding him, but not taking him out. Remember these vampires only have one known weakness: sunlight.  The Host tried repeatedly to make inroads, but the Vamps managed to use their quickness to stay away from it. The Host made an epic lunge toward the Pack and took a giant swing…AND A MISS. One of the Vamps slipped behind it without alerting the beast. And once this happened, he hopped on the Host’s back and rode it like a morally casual spring breaker on a mechanical bull. He opened wide and took a bite and the Host wretched, the Vamps then took their cue and went on the full offensive, spreading jaw and digging in. The Host slowly succumbed to their attack as its lifeforce drained. And then, something miraculous happened. Like you know that part when you think the bad guy is dead in movies and then AHHH he’s alive! That happened! The Host revived itself, but the Vamps didn’t even have time to react as they all dropped dead. Doctors would later determine that the Host’s genetic mutation was caused by a toxic chemical and when the Vamps sucked his blood, they took in his pure blood and it shocked their system so they dropped dead.

Never in all my years covering the Monster Madness Tourney have I seen anything like that. Talk about a buzzer beater!  Toxic blood coming to save the day. I mean you can’t make this stuff up. (I can). That’ll do it for Round 1 and if Round 2 holds half the excitement we are in some luck folks.

The action moves a mile a minute and for the time, the effects are really incredible. At some points, the movie makes you year for the days when movies were made by people, not computers. There are a few scenes which really bring this home and if you’ve seen the movie, I’m sure you’ll know which one I’m specifying with this phrase: Human Blowfish. Hopefully that titillates some of you who haven’t seen it.

This movie has everything action, adventure, romance, comedy, a bit of horrorishness (fairly sure that I just created that word), and some classy performances. Ok, here is my best description based on things that are common knowledge, imagine this:
Indiana Jones is not an archaeologist, but a truck driver and stumbles into Chinatown in some city, searching not for an artifact, but for a lady and a very old Chinese man. Ok, that description pretty much was an epic fail. Regardless of my stupid description, you should definitely see this movie if you haven’t. The movie looks great, the effects are still effective, Kurt Russell cements himself as a dude by wearing a tank top for the entirety of the movie, and finally HUMAN BLOWFISH. Enjoy this underappreciated classic for it’s just a solid movie watching experience. And HUMAN BLOWFISH.