Dear Chuck...


Or, man, I love this show and everyone in it. (Well, okay, I don't always love all the Buy-More guys, but holy hell even they were seriously on form tonight.) And tonight was awesome--advancing plot-arc! Sketchy authority figures! Divided loyalties! Chuck being proactive! Giant explosions! Casey shooting things! Spies and counterspies and...wait, what's the trope? *checks* The Omniscient Council of Vagueness, right. Those guys.

And hey, sharp left turn to the formula, too. It's not that the show really got more serious tonight--Fulcrum's been around for a while now--or even that the military proved themselves any less interested in Chuck's well-being than they have before; "teach him to be a spy for the indefinite future" is still less ruthless than "shoot him in the head when this is all over." But nobody told Chuck about that, and the General standing up and saying "No, you don't get to stop being the Intersect, sorry" makes it both official and public; Chuck and his handlers are now actively working at cross-purposes, and boy is that not going to go anywhere good. (I actually feel kind of sorry for Sarah; she wants to be on Chuck's side, she really does, but unless she actively switches her loyalties from her job to him, it's not going to happen. He didn't tell you what he was doing for Very Good Reason, honey.)

I liked the way it was done, too, acknowledging that, okay, no, you're not a spy and we wouldn't have picked you, but whatever you're doing it's clearly working, so who cares? You're not trained? Fine, we'll train you, that should just improve your performance. From the general's perspective, it makes a fair amount of sense. (I bet Chuck is wishing he'd blown a few more missions, though. Especially since "training" is probably going to involve Casey.)

Also I really *heart* proactive, secret-agenda Chuck. I loved the Chart of Doom last episode; in one quick image it conveyed smarts, effectiveness, and totally justifiable paranoia. (Plus using the Tron poster to hide it, which is both sensible, thematically apt, and fills me with geeky glee. I mean, not that I have ever even seen Tron, but he's using his beloved SF-movie poster to conceal a Spy Chart of Doom, how cool is that?) I'm curious to see if Chuck is going to start pushing for some bargaining power--he already knew he was invaluable as the Intersect, and now the general has basically admitted that he's irreplaceable in the fight against Fulcrum; that should give him some leverage. Not a lot, but some.

Also, the BuyMore half of the story was really, really funny. The guys from the other store were perfectly snooty and ridiculous antagonists (toilet paper? Seriously?), the computer was actually a halfway reasonable way to get both halves of the story intertwined (I was pleased to see that Chuck knew exactly what was going on as soon as the other store was targeted) and once again we see that you do not mess with Big Mike's Buy More. That was some epic, if slightly unintentional, destruction, and his "Buy More way" recitation was priceless. Hell, I actually kind of bought our Buy More guys as menacing at that moment, and I know them. Excellent retail caper action. Plus maybe Morgan is going to wind up the heir to the Buy More? I'd kind of like that; Chuck is so busy with spy business that he doesn't have a lot of attention to spare for his other job anymore, and it's not like he ever wanted it in the first place.

Next week: spy catfight!

In other news, I actually turned Heroes off in the middle of a scene that had Ando in it. I think this probably means we are finally broken up for good.