About Last Night: Chuck, A Recap

Monday, May 10, 2010
8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Chuck, "Chuck Versus the Tooth"

I don't really want to get in the habit of writing recaps—a) because they take too long and b) because so many other sites already do them—but Monday's Chuck was just so great that I feel like I have to show you guys what you're missing. So if this didn't convince you to start watching, maybe the following will:

Previously, on Chuck: Ellie and Awesome go to Africa, where Awesome gets sick with something that looks like malaria but isn't, according to an evil Ring operative named Justin who's posing as a Doctor Without Borders. Sarah and Chuck move in together, and Chuck is so happy that it looks like the Cheshire Cat just vanished in front of his face leaving only its ridiculous, oversized grin. It's a little sad, actually. You just know that kind of bliss can't last.

Read the rest of the super-long, super-detailed recap after the jump, or just watch the episode on Hulu. The latter might actually be quicker (and will almost certainly be more entertaining). Spoiler alert, duh.

More Chuck Love

He sings, too? Le sigh. Zachary Levi, you may just be my undoing.

Katharine McPhee's duet with 'Chuck' star Zachary Levi: An EW exclusive stream

Update:

There's a video!

My Top 10 Favorite (Scripted) Shows Still in Production

It's ridiculous, but picking 10 shows to feature in this list was actually really difficult. Turns out I watch a lot of TV. And though I obviously like everything I watch to some degree, a few shows are dearer to my heart than others. (You may notice that my Guilty Pleasure of the Week, Cougar Town, is not mentioned here. I still stand by what I said about the show before; I just wouldn't necessarily put it on my Must List.) So, here they are—my official Top 10 Favorite (Scripted) Shows Still in Production.

1) Dexter. I never thought I could love a killer, but Dex proved me wrong. He's now among my favorite television characters of all time. And this past season had one of the most compelling story arcs I've seen from any series ever. The writers on this show continually raise the stakes beyond anything I can even imagine.

2-3) Mad Men/Friday Night Lights. Both are so brilliantly acted and superbly written that I can't pick one over the other. I cherish Don Draper and Coach Taylor equally (but for very different reasons).

4) Lost. Lost used to be my No. 1 with a bullet, but somewhere in the middle of Season 3, I started to feel as if I was just always going to be, well, lost. Thankfully, the show found its footing once Lindelof and Cuse negotiated an end date with ABC.

5) 30 Rock. I love Tina Fey. I want to be Tina Fey. And 30 Rock is one of the smartest, funniest half hours on network TV today.

6) Chuck. If you have to ask why, you haven't been reading my blog.

7) Glee. Fun fact of the day: I'm a former show-choir nerd. Back in high school, I was the proud, sequin-wearing, jazz-hands-waving president of the Temple City Brighter Side Singers. Ergo, Glee appeals to my sense of nostalgia. But it's also just kind of awesome. And Jane Lynch is seriously excellent as Sue Sylvester. She deserves a post all her own.

8) How I Met Your Mother. The show seems to have veered from its original premise a bit, but it's still one of the most consistently entertaining comedies on television. Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segel are pitch-perfect as Barney and Marshall, respectively.

9) The Office. I laugh out loud approximately once every two minutes while watching this show. It's amazing to me that the writers keep finding new ways for Steve Carell's Michael to act hilariously awkward and inappropriate.

10) Bones. I've loved David Boreanaz ever since his Buffy days, when he lived around the corner from my then-pregnant aunt and occasionally made small talk with her about the baby and the weather. But if I hadn't been a fan before, I definitely would have become one after watching Bones. Boreanaz is great as Booth, and the chemistry between him and Emily Deschanel is, for lack of a better word, explosive. The murder cases are generally interesting, too, but they're not why I watch the show.


Five Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
Greek
Ugly Betty
Gossip Girl
Californication
Modern Family

Fictional Characters I Would Date in Real Life, Part 1

(A little housekeeping note: Since this is a blog about TV, I'm limiting myself to only characters who have appeared on the small screen. Otherwise, this list would be, like, four times longer. Also, in instances where characters might be considered age-inappropriate for my 25-year-old self, please consider said characters people I would have dated when I was younger or would someday date when I'm older.)

Jim Halpert, The Office
Okay, I know he's married now. And I love him and Pam together. But let's pretend for the purposes of this list that he's single. (I'm already suspending disbelief by treating him as a flesh-and-blood person; taking his made-up wife out of the picture doesn't seem that much more absurd.) Jim is playful, funny, easygoing, and kind. He's just a really nice guy. And sometimes that's enough.

Chuck Bartowski, Chuck
My fondness for Chuck is well-documented on this blog. I think he's adorable. Slightly awkward, but adorable. And I love that he has no game. He's completely charming without even meaning to be. What you see—in terms of personality, at least—is what you get, and what you get is sweet, sincere, and sensitive. Plus, he's had the same best friend since he was 6, so you know he's loyal. And lest he be mistaken for a total softie, there's that whole super secret spy thing he does in his spare time. Hot.

Brendan Dorff, My Boys
This is so clichéd, and I hate to even admit it, but: I'm kind of a sucker for bartenders and baristas. Drummers, too, but that's a problem for another post. Brendan isn't exactly a bartender or a barista, but he does occasionally tend bar at the club he co-owns with his buddy John. Which means, of course: free drinks! And, more importantly, a go-to hangout spot. A place, perhaps, where everybody knows my name. (Isn't that the dream?) I don't love Brando just for his connections, though. I also love him for his taste in music, his eternally youthful energy, and his tight-knit group of friends. I think you can tell a lot about someone by looking at the people with whom he chooses to spend his time. Brendan's pals are a quirky but endearing bunch. And I appreciate the fact that his oldest and best friend is a girl. Plus, he loves baseball, so I'd always have someone to take with me to games.

Justin Walker, Brothers and Sisters
I admit—his history with drug addiction is, um, less than ideal. In his defense, though, he's been clean for a while, and now he's studying to be a doctor. Well, kind of. He may in fact be failing out of medical school—what happened to that story line, writers?—but he's at least trying to do something meaningful with the rest of his life. Honestly, I'm not sure what it is about him that appeals to me. He just seems like he has a good heart. And while I'd obviously prefer that any potential mates not have substance-abuse issues, I think his past has actually made him a stronger and more resilient person.

Tim Riggins, Friday Night Lights
My tortured 16-year-old self would have written notebooks upon notebooks of epically bad poetry about Tim Riggins. I mean, the guy's a football star with a bad-boy streak and a soulful loner vibe—he's pretty much every angsty teenager's dream come true. I never would have stood a chance.

Matt Saracen, Friday Night Lights
With Matt, on the other hand...well, Matt is different. Matt's the guy I would have been friends with for three years while pining over Tim—the guy I would have turned to when Tim showed up at the Panthers team party with Lyla Garrity on his arm. I would have loved him dearly—but I wouldn't have realized I was in love with him until he started dating Julie Taylor. (Adolescent me always wanted what she couldn't have. Not much has changed in that respect, actually.)

Logan Echolls, Veronica Mars
Logan is a hard choice to defend. He can be a colossal jerk when he wants to be—but he can also be incredibly thoughtful and warm. Beneath all the smug, rich-guy bravado beats the heart of a romantic who's just been hurt one too many times. And can anyone really blame him for being so guarded? In three seasons of Veronica Mars (spoiler alert), he lost his girlfriend, his mother, his father, his best friend, and the love of his life. I'd be a little tense, too. High school me would have fallen hard for that angry/wounded act. Everyone wants to save and be saved.


Still to come: Fictional Characters I Would Date in Real Life, Parts 2 and On (it's an embarrassingly long list), plus A Few I Wouldn't Touch With a 10-Foot Pole

10 Reasons You Should Watch "Chuck"

1) You have an inner geek. We all do. Mine gets her kicks from grammar books and Renaissance literature, plays with a Rubik's cube on the subway, finished the entire Harry Potter series in just over a week, and not-so-secretly loves Michael Cera, board games, and kitchen appliances. She also watches Chuck every Monday and sometimes wishes she had an Intersect in her head to teach her how to play darts or throw a boomerang or disable a bomb. Admit it—you wish that too.

2) Your real life is woefully devoid of covert missions and cunning adversaries who threaten every day to destroy the world as you know it. Maybe that's a big assumption. Maybe you actually do fight evil in airplane cargo holds and take down elaborate crime rings on a regular basis. If that's the case, you probably shouldn't watch Chuck. It'd be like working all day in an ice cream store and then going home and devouring a pint of Chunky Monkey. If you're like me, however, and you don't moonlight as James Bond in your spare time, you can fulfill all your spy fantasies vicariously through Chuck. It's the perfect compromise: You get all the action but none of the heart-stopping fear.

3) Captain Awesome is, in fact, awesome. Ryan McPartlin was supposed to appear in only a handful of episodes, but his character (Devon Woodcomb, better known to viewers as Captain Awesome) was so popular that the show's writers beefed up his role and made him a series regular. Awesome is Chuck's brother-in-law—a handsome, athletic cardiologist who speaks fluent Spanish, enjoys hang-gliding and rock-climbing, and knows how to tango. He's almost annoyingly great, but McPartlin is so perfectly cast that you can't help but like the guy.

4) You can only watch Firefly: The Complete Series so many times in a year. I miss Joss Whedon's short-lived space-age Western as much as the next Browncoat, but Adam Baldwin as John Casey is almost as brilliant as Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb—and certainly better than no Adam Baldwin at all. Casey is essentially Jayne anyway: He's quick to shoot, slow to trust, surly with a well-concealed soft spot, and hilariously short-tempered. He also shares Jayne's predilection for inanimate objects (see: Bonsai tree, Crown Vic, a firearm named Vera) and once very nearly betrayed the people he was hired to protect (see: "Chuck Versus the First Date," "Ariel"). If you have no idea what I'm talking about but correctly think you're missing out, finish reading this list and then immediately track down a set of Firefly DVDs.

5) Your first impression is probably wrong. I'll admit: When I first heard about the show back in 2007—PARADE featured it in our Fall TV Guide—I thought it sounded completely ridiculous. A nerd downloads a computer into his head that causes him to go all cross-eyed and flash on random top-secret government files? Yeah, right. I only tuned in to the pilot because I thought Zachary Levi was cute, but two episodes in, I was hooked. As the show's title character, Levi is charming, vulnerable, endearing, goofy, and—incredibly enough—believable. And if he doesn't win you over, someone else surely will. In addition to Adam Baldwin and Ryan McPartlin, whom I've already singled out, the cast includes Yvonne Strahovski as Chuck's handler/love interest Sarah, Joshua Gomez as Chuck's best friend Morgan, and Sarah Lancaster as Chuck's sister Ellie. There have been some pretty fantastic guest stars, as well, including Rachel Bilson, Dominic Monaghan, and Chevy Chase.

6) You have a heart. Let's get personal for a second. It's a widely known—and mostly accepted—fact among my family and friends that I'm, well, less than sentimental when it comes to relationships of a romantic nature. I'm the girl who laughs at lines like "You complete me" and yells at the TV when people choose love over work. But even I can't help melting a little when Chuck looks longingly at Sarah and then smiles sadly—which, by the way, happens at least twice every episode. The chemistry between Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski is incredible. It brings out a soft side of me I didn't even know I had. You can't not root for those two to make it. I think even the Tin Man would feel a twinge watching them.

7) Laughter is good for your soul. And on Chuck, there's plenty of it to go around. I defy you to be grumpy or sad watching Buy More employees Jeff and Lester (a.k.a. Jeffster!) perform "Mr. Roboto" at Awesome and Ellie's wedding. It's impossible.

8) There are no rules. And if you think you've figured out the game, you're probably wrong. Chuck's writers aren't afraid to shake things up. They do it often and they do it well. Plot twists are par for the course, and even characters you think you know could turn out to be other people entirely. Three seasons in, I'm still not sure where everyone falls on the spectrum of good and evil. And I like it that way.

9) You're a sucker for the underdog. Chuck is David to Goliath, 2004's Red Sox to Joe Torre's Yankees, and Susan Boyle to Simon Cowell all rolled up in one. Both the character and the show have confronted superior opponents—The Ring and NBC, respectively—and both have triumphed, against all odds. Case in point: When the series failed to attract large-enough numbers last April and faced the possibility of cancellation, fans launched an elaborate "Save Chuck" campaign to get it renewed. On the air date of the second season finale, they rallied to purchase footlong sandwiches from Subway, one of the show's biggest sponsors. Zachary Levi himself led an army of supporters to a Subway in Birmingham, England (pictured). Viewers also started "Have a Heart, Renew Chuck," for which people donated money to the American Heart Association in Chuck's name. By May, more than $17,000 had been raised. That might seem like a lot of fuss over one little show, but if you watch it, you'll understand.

10) You have no reason not to. It's on Hulu, so if you have a life outside TV or, like me, you just have 8 million other shows to watch on Monday night—which is a grievance I'll cover in another post—you can catch up on your own time, on your own terms. And if you watch an episode and hate it, you've lost nothing except maybe 43 minutes of your life, which you probably would have wasted on something else down the road. But I don't think you'll hate it.

Photos courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/bramus/ / CC BY 2.0 (Rubik's cube), http://www.flickr.com/photos/ravenu/ / CC BY 2.0 (Adam Baldwin), and http://www.flickr.com/photos/vagueonthehow/ / CC BY 2.0 (Zachary Levi)