Recap of Monday night tv

I didn’t watch as much television today as I thought I might. I watched yesterday’s Gossip Girl, Heroes, and Chuck, and read parts of several books. Heroes was better than it was last week but I’m convinced that it is essentially a really stupid show, so my praise falls into the category of “faint.” Gossip Girl was pretty good; there was a great catfight between Serena and the ever more deranged Blair, and pretty much every character came out looking interesting (except Dan Humphrey, because Dan Humphrey is the definition of boring). So that was fun. Hands down, though, Chuck was the winner of the night.

The plots of Chuck are pretty standard – spy stuff, stunt casting, more spy stuff, wacky hijinks!, meaningful character interaction, and the conclusion to the spy stuff; so it’s the non-spy stuff that really makes this program. This episode saw the return of Bryce Larkin, Chuck’s former college roommate and Sarah’s former partner who used to be dead but isn’t anymore, and who stuck the intersect in Chuck’s head in the first place. I like Bryce, because he’s kind of like a younger, hotter, American James Bond, and he’s so freaking sexy that I don’t actually mind his visits, even though they’re always bad news for Chuck.

So anyway, this episode was really well-acted, and managed to address one of the things about this show that has been bothering people since the fifth episode of last year: how useful can Chuck continue to be if the information in the Intersect is never updated? Did all of those bad guys stop doing bad things once the government compiled their information? Extremely doubtful. So thanks, Bryce, for leaving those shades for Chuck. And thanks, Chuck, for being dumb enough to take anything from Bryce Larkin. Bryce, who seemed to still have serious feelings for Sarah, watched the way she interacted with Chuck and realized that the two were totally in love, and not just acting out their cover. That love ended up getting in the way of the stated mission several times today, and directly led to Chuck getting fired from his cover job, Sarah ignoring the mission to rescue him, and then being unable to shoot a suspect, for fear of hitting Chuck (in an earlier, similar scenario with Bryce being held by the baddie, Sarah had no problem shooting the bad dude right in the middle of the forehead).

Chuck finally faced the facts: he and Sarah are never going to be a normal couple with a normal life, even when he’s no longer the Intersect (Chuck’s not yet aware that, if the General has her way, he’s going to be eliminated as soon as the new Intersect is functional). He’s not going to know stuff about her, he’s not going to be able to know what’s really going on in her life, and she’s so awesome that she can’t possibly be expected to do normal. In a scene filled with appropriate face-redness and blinking, Chuck breaks up with Sarah, who’s totally sad and moved, too. It was awesome.

Also awesome? Michael Strahan as a jock bully from the sporting goods store in the same shopping complex at the Buy More. Athletes usually make  terrible actors (see: Anderson, Brady on Sabrina the Teenage Witch – it’s been over a decade and I’m still rolling my eyes over that appearance), but Strahan was a natural. He didn’t mug for the camera or chew scenery, and he injected just the right amount of menace into the role of Mitt (horrible name, btw) to make me buy it. They should bring him back to sit on Nicole Richie, who put the “stunt” in stuntcasting and will be in next week’s episode for a girlfight with Sarah. I refuse to link to her, because if you’re reading this blog, you know who Nicole Ritchie is. Can they bring back Rachel Bilson? I really liked Lou, and Chuck could use some awesome-but-normal love right now.