Chuck: Finally!

Chuck:

Seriously, how good is it to have Chuck back on TV again? How I've missed it! After seeing this amazing promo poster, watching the Chuck marathon on SyFy last week, and seeing all the commercials featuring Chuck showing off his fancy new skills, I was so excited for the third season premiere that I could barely contain myself!

Did tonight's two-hour offering live up to my expectations? Absolutely. The first episode was very strong, while the second was probably not as good but still featured a lot of great moments (Chuck's acrobatics in the vault come to mind).

Before I get to discussing the actual episodes, I'd like to declare my love for the special Honda commercials with Morgan, Ellie and Awesome! They were so much fun! At first I didn't know if I was watching the actual show, a Honda commercial or a promo for the Olympics, but I didn't care! I loved when Morgan popped up in the back of the car and everyone screamed. And then when he took them to the monument for the "lost curler." Morgan: "They say if you listen quietly, you can still hear him sweeping." The whole thing made me proud that I recently bought a Honda. More please!


"Chuck vs. the Pink Slip"

The play-by-play:

• Chuck's almost too good at this spy thing!
• Wow, Chuck looks hot with this haircut!
• I totally called that this was a training exercise.
• Awww, Sarah wants to run away with Chuck!
• Chuck's going to get huge, eating all these cheetos!
• Look at his beard! Ha ha ha!
• Ellie: "Sleeping with his cheeseballs!"
• OMG, I can't believe he went to the BuyMore looking like that!
• I didn't know they sold cheesepuffs at BuyMore. Surely he could have gone somewhere else to buy them.
• Um, the CIA/NSA really shouldn't let Chuck roam around with this version of the Intersect in his head! He's a danger to public welfare.
• Lester: "Oh, captain, my captain!"
• Um, Chuck, you are not going to get Sarah back looking like this!
• Chuck: "If this works, maybe Beckman will put the old team back together!"
  
  Casey: "Mmm, then all my dreams come true!"
  
• Cleaned-up Chuck looks far too hot to be a BuyMore employee now!
  
• Wow, that was quite the smack Sarah gave to Chuck! She should watch out; couldn't smacking him cause him to flash and unleash the kung fu?
  
• So, how exactly did they want Chuck to react to being slapped in the face?
  
• Ahh, Chuck panicking; this feels like home.
  
• Chuck trying to knock down the door, bouncing off and saying "Son of a..."
  
• HA HA HA at Chuck in the mariachi outfit and getting pushed up on stage. HA! He knows how to play the guitar now!
  
• LOL at him mouthing "assassin" mid-song to Casey.
  
• Yeah, I figured the "musician" he beat up would turn out to be the bad guy.
  
• Awesome: "Still playing the loser cover! You're nailing it!"
  
• It hasn't occurred to Chuck yet that the CIA's not just going to let him leave? I'm surprised they've let him out in the world for this long. (They were going to shoot him several times in the past when he just has version 1.0 of the Intersect in his head, which was less of a threat.)
  
• Oh no, Morgan got fired from Benihana and Anna took off with one of the other employees. Oh, Anna Wu, why?!
  
• That was nice of Casey to stand up for Chuck to Sarah.
  
• Buster (Emmet) listening to "Hold On (For One More Day)"
  
• AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! He shot Buster (Emmet)! (I guess Big Mike can have his job back now...)
  
• Sarah's wearing some fancy shoes for running away.
  
• In addition to not wanting to give up being a spy, Sarah should have realized that Chuck wouldn't want to run away from his family and friends. We've established that he really likes them.
  
• I don't like to see Chuck breaking both his and Sarah's hearts, but it was kind of amusing to see the look on her face when the nerdy boy dumped her (at least to the evil side of me).
  
• I wonder if there's a secret reason why he didn't go with her.
  
• Sarah: "Break out of your cell and come and get me. I can't pick the lock."
  Chuck: "There's no way that we could reverse those roles, is there?"
  
• So, to get Chuck to flash, we just need to threaten Sarah? Keep that in mind, everybody.
• Casey to the rescue again!
• Casey's face when Beckman said that Operation Bartowski was back on.
• Beckman: "Now we have to protect the world from Chuck."
• Oh well, if Ellie and Awesome have to move, at least they're just moving across the courtyard. And that is the world's coolest apartment complex, so I can see why they wouldn't move out of it.

"Chuck vs. the Three Words"

• Morgan: "We're just here to help you forget about Sarah for awhile. Look, there's Sarah!"
• I think Sarah already broke the cardinal rule at least once, when she fell in love with Bryce a while back. It seemed like she had been in love with him at some point anyway.
• Lester: "Oh, Morgy, there's no way a girl like you could get a woman like you're describing."
• When does "the whole mission" ever not depend on Chuck?
• How come during the gratuitous scene of Sarah getting dressed, she was wearing a black bra with straps, but now, when she's in the dress, she clearly doesn't have the bra on underneath it?
• Lauren Graham in Parenthood! YEA!
• Chuck, seriously, just shut up. Your insistence on having extemporaneous conversations is even annoying me now.
• Ha ha at Casey trying to string out his speech.
• To get Chuck to flash, Sarah should just say, "Chuck, if you don't go through those lasers and get that weapon right now, I'm going to slit my wrists!"
• Ha, last year when there was nothing really going on between Chuck and Sarah, Beckman was asking every 15 minutes if she needed to get a new agent to watch Chuck, but now that Sarah freely admits that there's something going on with them, she can't get Beckman to reassign her.
• Morgan: "If there was a Japanese word for 'no,' I'd be saying it to you right now!"
• Ha ha ha at Morgan capping off his big speech by drinking the tranquilizer alcohol and passing out!
• Ha at Sarah giving Chuck the tiki torch as a weapon.
• Shaw? Is that the name Beckman called the mystery guy? Who's Shaw? (For a second there, I thought it would be Bryce Larkin, alive again. I guess White Collar will keep that from happening.)
• How long was Chuck's speech in the vault?! The footage just keeps on coming!

Wow, this season it looks like it's going to be hard to figure out if we're watching Chuck or some form of Superman/Smallville with both Brandon Routh and Kristin Kreuk joining the show. I'm glad that Kristin's going to be on this show; Lana did get rather annoying at times on Smallville, but I still liked her overall.

(photo: NBC)