Chuck: Sizzling siblings

Spoilers for "Chuck" coming up just as soon as I make a stakeout mix CD...

Thus far, the reaction to Morgan seems to have a range of "Gah, I can't stand him!" to "He's funny, but only in small doses," so the prospect of us having to spend An Evening Of Morgan along with Chuck, Sarah and Ellie wasn't that exciting. But you know what? It kind of worked, mainly because there was an effort to humanize him, to make him more than just the pathetic comic relief. He bonded with Ellie (the surrogate for the "Gah, can't stand him!" segment of the audience) and showed that sometimes he's a lousy salesman not because he's incompetent, but because he's too kind-hearted. By the end, I'd say my opinion of the guy was roughly on par with Ellie's: I still wouldn't want to spend a whole lot of time hanging out with him, but he seems like good people. I actually felt bad for him when the Nerd Herders deployed The Wounded Raccoon at the exact wrong moment (though I was also laughing at the time).

The spy story had some interesting touches, chief among them Chuck both screwing up royally and then saving the day (with the help of the fireworks that seemed like a throwaway joke earlier in the episode). It's going to get old eventually if Chuck is told on every mission to wait in the car and then disobeys that order, but it was worth it here for the fight scene with the freeze frames: the three spies each got a freeze frame when they were throwing an impressive punch or kick, while Chuck got one while stopping a really old man from getting away in his wheelchair. If you don't have the time/budget to do elaborately choreographed fights, might as well find a way to make them funny, and that was.

I also like how, once again, we're exploring some of the real emotional ramifications of Chuck's new life, this time in how it affects his relationship with Ellie. When I watched the pilot, I worried that Ellie would quickly become deadweight in the same way that Francie and Will Tippin did on "Alias" (until Francie got killed and replaced and Will went to work for the CIA), but that hasn't happened yet. Sibling relationships are something that most TV seem ambivalent about, because there can't (or shouldn't) be any sexual tension, but seeing Chuck struggle to be a good brother -- and learning how he and Ellie were effectively orphaned years ago -- makes me like him more and more.

Oh, and Chuck sang along to "Private Eyes." Since the Captain was absent this week (no doubt for budget reasons, same as Harry Tang), let me just say that that was awesome.

What did everybody else think?