Joshua Gomez will always be able to say he made out with Bo Derek. NBC can’t take that away from him.

Chuck Review

Accepting the Challenge

Sarah with the intersect made me think of two things: 1.) Okay, so now everyone on the show is getting a chance with this thing? Like a fire sale on the intersect? 2.) Sarah is awesome-er with the intersect.

Seeing other people with the intersect is fun, it’s a fun little tool that the show tried to keep as just Chuck’s up until recently. Now that they feel free to play around, the intersect is bouncing around to just about everyone. At this point you might expect to see everyone urging Casey to just try it, via peer pressure. “Everyone else has!” And he’d reluctantly try it out, and shoot a whole bunch of things and love it.

But for now, it’s just Sarah Walker. (Casey calls her Walker, so I guess she didn’t change her last name.) And she had no choice but to accept the fate of the sunglasses. It was try on the fashion accessory, or die! The issue with giving someone like super spy Sarah the intersect is that we’ve already seen her do so many amazing things, that it’s hard to think of what they could show us that would look believable without looking like she was flying around like a vampire. But they actually made it work. She was her, only better. And now she has to save Chuck and get the intersect removed before it kills her brainz! (I’m sure there will be some hiccup with getting it removed.)

Jeffster on the Road

Two of the things we’ve always loved best about the Buy More have been Jeff and Lester. But what about when they’re not in the Buy More? I can’t say that I adored their storyline, but I did enjoy it a lil bit. A smidge. I mean, major bonus points for that dreadlock ski cap. I’d forgotten those existed. But it helps to remind me about the variety of people in America.

In true fashion to Chuck season 5, every episode presents storylines that could gladly have taken us through half a season, but have to be tied up rapidly. For instance, Jeff and Lester finding out about the gang being spies could have been a much longer arc than just two episodes. It seems like the show just really wanted to play that story out before the end. Often you can fault a show for a rush job, but here, as a fan I can only be glad for that taste. (And of course, ditto on Morgan having the intersect – that could have played out a lot longer, and would have been fun. But at least we did get another look at it via flashbacks in “Chuck Versus Bo.”)

The Perfect 10

I may have had to google info about Bo Derek to really know much about her past that one iconic image of her, but she was definitely a fun guest star. When you have a show that people love, they want to be a part of it no matter what. (Such was the case with cameos from Eddie Vedder and Edward James Olmos of Battlestar Gallactica on Portlandia this week.) I do want to point out that Bo Derek was once on 7th Heaven… but, okay, over it. It was super fun seeing Sarah mock Chuck about his “girlfriend” and be a little jealous, and it was fun to see Chuck and Morgan be tongue-tied around the legend.

Can the Sexism

Not to get all ranty, but this episode seemed to trash females. I could take Bo Derek calling Jaclyn Smith a whore, but when Lester called Sarah “that whorey blonde” I was so shocked I was certain I’d heard the line wrong. But I didn’t. And that is not okay. Not even a little bit. I had a knee-jerk reaction of suddenly hating Lester. And I don’t want to hate Lester! But I also don’t want him calling Sarah a whore! Conflict. Pathos. Grr.

The rest of the episode was pricking me sense of feminism when it had Big Mike talking about Morgan’s Mom going to a “feelings retreat about her period,” and the entire rainbows thing. I guess it was kind of a Chuck show cute way of talking about sexual stuff without coming across too crass, but it was played up on so much that I got a little annoyed about it. Contrary to what Katy Perry would have you believe, even if a female grew up loving on Lisa Frank stickers, she does not go around talking about rainbows all the time.

(And Lauren Heimbaugh of Cinema Blend wrote an excellent Chuck review where she also questioned many of these things. Check it out. And Heimbaugh, find me on Twitter – @ThisJessicaRae!)

MISC

– When Sarah hears a noise at the beginning of the episode, why doesn’t she wake her spy husband? Does she still think he can’t handle himself?
– Why did the bad guys say “he’ll be needed” about Chuck?
– What will the intersect do to Sarah’s brain?
– Will Morgan propose to Alex? (I just have a feeling…IN MY PANTS. No. What? In my BRAIN.)
– Will Sarah get pregnant for real? “Maybe Babies” is a cute phrase. I am a bit worried that Sarah has only focused on names starting with L, however. REMEMBER? Yea, you remember.
– Will the show talk about how Chuck got the intersect when he was very young and it’s a whole backstory thing?! (Hi, we’re running out of time!)
– A shoutout to Bryce Larkin! (Matt Bomer)
– And a shoutout to Subway! Turkey BLT, what what.
– “J’accuse! You people are spies!” – Jeff (“J’accuse” is hard to type, but so easy to say – I say it all the time just to see if people are hiding stuff from me.)
– “Chief Googler” is Casey’s future position, if Sarah can successfully bribe him with Ronald Reagan stuff.
Chuck airs on NBC and stars Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski, Adam Baldwin, Joshua Gomez, MeKenna Melvin, Vik Sahay, Scott Krinsky, Sarah Lancaster, Ryan McPartlin.

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