Chuck

Chuck is great TV. Week in and week out it delivers humor, action, an intelligent plot, and characters that are tons of fun to watch and tonight's episode was no different. Chuck and the team are a mission to break into the CIA vault to test the security but unbeknownst (is that a word?) to everyone Casey is approached by his old handler and given a secret side mission.

Casey is tasked with retrieving a secret drug from the vault and delivering to his handler played by Robert Patrick whom it is always nice to see. (I still think one of the biggest mistakes CBS ever made was cancelling The Unit.) After being found out and arrested for treason, Chuck and Sarah take it upon themselves to rescue Casey but before they can The Ring come and take him from his cell first and we find out that Casey knows that his mission was given to him by The Ring.

So Casey knowingly betrays his team and his country? This is where the story falls apart a little. Even though The Ring has threatened his ex-fiancee as leverage I can't help but think that Casey should have brought the situation to his superiors and figured out a way to turn the plot around and not had to commit treason. But I guess that wouldn't have moved the plot forward so Casey had to act a little out of character. A small quibble but one that bugged me as I kept watching and waiting for the reveal that Casey was actually on orders to infiltrate The Ring but it was not to be.

One powerful motif in the episode was Sarah walking in on both Casey and Chuck as they have a bad guy in a helpless position. Casey kills his guy but Chuck lets his live illustrating the difference between the battle-hardened Casey and the softer naive Chuck. One of the more difficult things this show is going to have to do as it moves forward and Chuck gets more and more spy experience is keep that kind streak in Chuck at the forefront and not let him get as jaded as Casey and even sometimes Sarah is.

The last thing that kind of surprised me is after the bad guys are captured and the team is back at the base for debriefing, Casey isn't rearrested for treason! He still broke into a government vault and voluntarily left with the bad guys when they came to his prison cell but no jail for Casey? The magic of TV I guess. He does booted from the military and made a civilian but that seems a small price to pay for what he did.

Despite a few things I had issues with, this episode was very good. The writing and acting have always been top-notch and it's great to have a show like this that's fun to watch every single episode.