"Chuck vs. the Alma Mater"
I am going to start right off by saying this was a fantastic episode. It wasn't as amusing as some of the others, but it made up for that with a tight story and some really great information that explained so much. It wasn't just another bad guy of the week, it was a solid piece of the whole "Chuck as Intersect" premise.
Chuck learned that the professor who booted him from Stanford is actually an operative, and Chuck was assigned to "bring him in" for protection from an Icelandic assassin with some wicked crossbow skills. That part of the mission didn't go so well, but the road trip to Stanford proved to be very successful in more ways than Chuck imagined. There he found a disc that contained all the intel on the students recruited to the agency, including an entry on himself. Back home he opened his file and learned that Bryce got Chuck expelled to save him from becoming a agent.
I absolutely loved the way this episode tied up some plot points. Turns out it wasn't a random act to send Chuck the Intersect info; Bryce knew Chuck's scores for subliminal pattern recognition, so he had to have known that Chuck would respond the way he did to the e-mail. This sets up a very interesting twist: Bryce the "rogue agent" ended up being a really good guy, so, as Chuck wondered, maybe stealing the Intersect was for the greater good, too. I'm sure we will be seeing more of this storyline later on.
The flashbacks to Chuck's college days were bittersweet. You could tell it meant so much to him to be there, and you could see how much Bryce's betrayal hurt him. At first I thought it was going to turn out that Bryce set up Chuck out of jealousy, that he didn't want someone better than he was brought into the agency. That he did it for Chuck's own good was unexpected and a really nice touch. And it gave Chuck his friend back: through all the flashbacks of the happy times he had with Bryce, you got the feeling he missed Bryce's friendship more than he missed being a Stanford student.
As a break in the action, the Buy More crowd engaged in a power struggle against the overlord Tang. Morgan was actually effective (and annoying only once!). Most of us have worked with someone like Tang, and I admit I get some measure of vicarious satisfaction when he is outsmarted by the others.
I'll just get right to some of the moments worth mentioning:
" The flashbacks. I already talked about them, but they bear repeating as standouts. It was a great way to shed light on Chuck's past and fill in some gaps.
" Chuck figuring out Bryce's hiding spot, then coming up with the plan to call the active student agents for back up. That is what sets Chuck apart from the original Intersect computer: Chuck came up with all that, and I doubt the computer would have devised those actions.
" The look on Casey's face when Sarah admitted she had only one shot left instead of the half clip she claimed; and the look on Sarah's face when she saw what Bryce had done for Chuck.
" Shirtless Awesome. Need I say more?
I leave the rest of this amazing episode to you guys. Did you like it as much as I did, or think it was a bit contrived? Let's hear what you have to say!
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