Lazybones

I have been doing nothing but watch TV and movies lately. I've made a nice dent in my Netflix queue, but I've still got 286 things left. Thus far, I've seen I'm Reed Fish, Spiral, Open House, See Jane Date, Series 2-5 of Red Dwarf, Heathers, Secondhand Lions, District 9, and Seasons 1 and 2 of Party Down.

So, I've been doing a rewatch of Red Dwarf, and sadly, it didn't cheer me up as much as I'd have liked it to, though I did have the amusing realization that my professor from last semester is exactly like Rimmer when he's had his anger removed by a polymorph. :) This, however, will never stop being funny. I'm on Series 5 now, aka the series with my two favoritest episodes ever, "Quarantine" and "Back to Reality." *bounces* Except I haven't seen it since I watched Buffy, and it's doing strange things to me. I was watching "Demons and Angels" and I couldn't stop thinking of "The Replacement," and I now want to see BtVS versions of "The Inquisitor" and "Terrorform." Also, it occurs to me that "Back to Reality" = "Normal Again," but funnier.

I also watched See Jane Date, starring Charisma Carpenter - who, btw, has enormous post-pregnancy boobs and fantabulous short hair that is not at all like the awful things they did to it on Angel. (Zachary Levi is also in this movie, but I'd already seen pretty much his entire scene on YouTube.) It was cute, although it kind of got my feminist hopes up, only to disappoint me. It starts out with a typical romantic comedy situation: Jane, tired of all the criticism and relentless nagging from her family and friends because she's single, lies and says she has a boyfriend - who, of course, is now expected to be her date at her cousin's wedding. So now Jane has two months to meet and fall in love with a guy, so she can bring him to the wedding and avoid getting caught in an embarrassing lie. After a string of horrible dates and her cousin's snide (albeit true) accusation that this supposed boyfriend doesn't really exist, Jane flips out, delivering an awesome and empowering rant about how trivializing it is to be judged on whether or not she has a boyfriend. She's a great person, and has a great career, and she's really satisfied with her life, and how dare they determine her self-worth based on her dating status. So Jane proudly ends up going to the wedding alone... where, of course, she meets the man of her dreams, and the movie completely undermines its message by being unable to deliver a happy ending unless its heroine is in a relationship. *sigh* I should stop expecting things from romantic comedies.

Big Chuck Post

I know, I know, you've all been waiting for my reaction to the Chuck season finale. :-P Sorry, I have Monday classes now, and they're fucking with my Chuck. I actually did watch last week's episode, but wanted to rewatch before talking about it, so here's my belated thoughts on the last three episodes.

Chuck vs. the Living Dead

Heh, I love that Ellie and Papa Bartowski have a code using the classifieds. It's so old school.

Morgan: "Did you check his pulse?"
Chuck: "Well, he fell into a river."
Morgan: "He fell into a river?! Well, of course Shaw's alive! Haven't you ever seen a John Carpenter movie?"
Hee! And then the callback later when Sarah shoots the CIA guy and Chuck tells her to check his pulse.

Hahaha, Sarah intimidating Morgan into telling her about Chuck's dreams. It's like they listen to me - I said more Morgan and Sarah, and what did we get? More Morgan and Sarah!

Casey: "Reviewing pictures of people you killed? I do that myself from time to time." *snort* Of course he does.

You know what's funny? When Chuck is trying to convince his dad that he's no longer a spy, and he says Sarah's his girlfriend, they seem SO fake, with the "Hi, honey" and the kiss. If I were Papa B, I totally wouldn't have bought that. And yet, it's actually the truth...

Okay, I have to be honest, when the CIA guy gave Ellie the speaker, I was expecting it to be something more dramatic. I didn't buy the "it blocks listening devices" explanation - in fact, it occurred to me that maybe it was actually a way of planting a bug in Ellie and Awesome's apartment, but I was also kind of expecting something like a bomb. When it turned out to be a gun, it was a little bit of a letdown. But then she clocked Casey with the frying pan Anya-style and it was all worth it. :)

Hahaha, Casey torturing Sarah and Chuck with details about her and Shaw. And Chuck's "Objection! Relevance?" Hee!

I got a chuckle out of the sitcommy setup where Ellie is getting more suspicious of Casey, just as Casey promises Chuck he'll be Ellie's shadow. On most shows, it would be too cheesy to take seriously, but Chuck manages just the right level of cheese that you snicker and go OF COURSE. I also enjoyed the misunderstandings that came out of it (especially everyone thinking Ellie's having an affair, lol). I also appreciated that we're seeing the softer side of John Casey, who not only respects Chuck, but cares enough to make sure his family is safe. It's nice foreshadowing for the next episodes, when Casey's trying to protect his own family.

"You threw a knife at my face!" Heh, reference to the Buffy movie? I'll take it.

You know, the first time I watched this episode, I didn't notice how many times Chuck calls himself special, but after having seen the finale (where it turns out he really IS special), I picked up on it in this episode.

Papa B: "Does she have the Intersect, too?"
Chuck: "No, Dad, that's all her."
Awwwww! Also, can I say again how much I love kickass!Sarah? I missed her in the first arc of this season.

Lester has the hips of a six-year-old girl! lol

Chuck vs. the Subway

Okay, I have to admit, when I saw the title of this episode, I thought it was going to involve Chuck's most prominent sponsor. But this is good, too.

Haha, so as soon as Chuck saw Shaw on the subway, I thought, "If this were 24, Jack would call Chloe and have her use the security cameras to find him." And then Papa Bartowski did just that, lol! He's Chloe to Chuck's Jack Bauer. Hee!

Drunk!Awesome! I noticed there were multiple plays on the name joke this episode, first with Devon realizing Morgan's serious because he called him Devon, and then Morgan saying, "Awesome," to the Buy More guys and Devon thinking he's talking to him.

"Our mission is to grab Shaw, or kill him, whichever's quicker." Heh, Casey says that with just a little too much glee.

Can I just point out that Zachary Levi looks really hot in these episodes? I love him being all confident as a spy, and for some reason, that black jacket really does it for me.

Hahahahaha, I love Awesome blurting out the truth to Ellie. The look on his face when he realizes she didn't know about Chuck is priceless. The poor guy has been struggling to keep this secret all year, and he thinks it's finally okay to talk and he just gets in more trouble. And Ellie trying to get information out of him and Morgan! "I have pockets of missing knowledge." "You need to find me somebody who knows a lot more than you do." Loved Morgan's description of the Ring, "a nefarious criminal organization hellbent on world domination."

LOL, Casey in the diner, communicating only in grunts. Also, now I want pie.

So, the bit where Chuck says he's choosing to protect Sarah by running away pinged me because of the patronizing tendency of guys to protect girls who don't need it (see also: Angel). But it didn't bother me this time because Sarah can take care of herself, and moreover, Chuck knows that, so it's not about her being weak or incapable or anything. It's about not wanting to be the cause of bad things happening to the people he loves. Of course, it's also portrayed as the wrong thing to do, since Chuck and his dad are doing a U-turn (to a very nice song, btw) in no time.

Haha, Alex really takes after her dad, doesn't she? "I got an A in my self-defense class!"

"This is the last time I'm gonna walk away from you." Um, yeah, could we be a little less obvious here? Although, for some reason, my first thought was that Ellie was going to die, and then I realized that was pretty unlikely.

Dammit, Shaw made me laugh. I'm still determined not to like him (he's so painfully wooden), but his deadpan "muhaha" after explaining his evil plan got me.

"Don't know when it happened, but our boy became a man. Bartowski's a spy. You picked a good one, Walker. Finally." AWWWWWW. And also hee!

Noooooo!!!! They killed Papa Bartowski! ...right outside a room with a cellular regeneration machine, so who knows, maybe he'll come back. It's like Buffy. No one ever really dies on this show.

Speaking of connections to Buffy, there's been a distinct thread running through this season about emotions being a weakness - Chuck's emotions interfere with the Intersect, everybody says that emotions will get a spy in trouble (which is one of the reasons Sarah was opposed to a relationship with Chuck in the first place), etc. Shaw uses it to his advantage twice in this episode, first by playing on Sarah's emotions to trap her, and then killing Chuck's father in order to make him unable to fight. And I can't help thinking of Buffy's line, "My emotions are total assets." I don't know that we've gotten quite that level of subversion, but since these are our heroes, it doesn't seem like the notion of emotions=bad spy is totally true, either, since our team is pretty successful despite their close personal ties. Even Casey's got some affection for both Sarah and Chuck (and hell, even Morgan) at this point.

Okay, so, the very first scene between Morgan and Alex, I totally started shipping them. And I thought, "Oh, man, Casey would love that." Heh, "You might wanna stand back. This could explode."

I love love love the Team Bartowski second string coming in at the end, just when Chuck's lost all hope. Also, the music in this episode is awesome.

Is it just me, or does flashback!Ellie look like a younger version of Erica's sister Sam on Being Erica?

Heh, Morgan and Awesome. "This is Casey's car!" Yes, it certainly is. The two of them arguing over who has to take the gun, and "You used my missile!" And Casey's reaction when he realizes exactly who saved them, lol.

Okay, when Shaw opened his eyes after the explosion, I seriously for a second wondered if he was supposed to be a robot. That's not even meant as a criticism of his acting (although it is), I legitimately was like, "OMG Shaw's a robot! That explains everything!" Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Chuck vs. the Ring Part II

Zac Levi, still looking hot. Yes, I'm shallow.

Awwww, Chuck and Ellie. I love them as siblings, and I feel like their relationship has suffered from Ellie not knowing - well, obviously from an in-show perspective, but also from a meta perspective. It's been very hard to like Ellie, because she ends up seeming shrill and controlling, and we haven't had a good sense of what Ellie and Chuck mean to each other because of that interference. But these last few episodes are really all about the Bartowski family, and I love it.

Hahaha, Chuck played Perchik in Fiddler on the Roof. (Fun fact: I was in Fiddler my freshman year of high school.)

"Why do you have my daughter's phone number?" Baahaha! Remember how I totally called Morgan/Alex in the last episode? THIS was the scene I was hoping for.

I love Chuck's calm demeanor confronting Shaw, and of course him muhaha-ing back at Shaw (er, even though he wasn't there to hear Shaw say it), which I think goes back to the emotions thing, and shows that he can at least keep his cool when it counts. Even if his brain is completely fried.

"Ellie - she's gonna be so mad at me if I die." Aww, Chuck.

Heh, Morgan dialing the iPhone with his nose. I also love Alan Sepinwall's reaction: "I was skeptical that you could actually work an iPhone with your nose, but I tried it after seeing Morgan do it, and dammit if the buttons didn't respond to the ol' Sepinwall schnozola." Awww, but the poor guy broke his thumbs, only to have Jeff and Lester pull the fire alarm for him. At least he earned Casey's respect for it.

Chuck is now wearing a white t-shirt and... yep. Still hot.

The Intersect-on-Intersect fight to Jeffster's "Blaze of Glory" - OMG. I am loving the show's tradition of having a Jeffster performance coinciding with a big battle in the season finale, though I think the wedding might have an edge, what with the live Jeffster performance and Casey crashing in through the skylight.

Heh, I love Chuck deciding to let Shaw live, and then Sarah braining him with a pole. She is so my kind of girl.

And Morgan blowing up the Buy More! And Jeff and Lester becoming fugitives! I love how they're like, "Did we do that?" This is exactly what I want from a Buy More plot - something totally zany that ends up intersecting with the spy plot in a significant way. Of course, now that the Buy More has been blown to smithereens, who knows what they'll do with the subplots next season. I can't imagine this is the last we've seen of Jeff, Lester, and Big Mike (though that would thin out the cast and give them some wiggle room in the budget).

Speaking of big changes, it looks like Chuck will be a rogue spy, after retiring from the CIA on the goodwill of having saved multiple branches of the US government (hee!), pursuing some of the things his father was working on. I'm guessing Team Bartowski will stick together in some capacity (though I didn't notice that Casey or, more importantly, Sarah got the easy dismissal that Chuck did), and Ellie will again be in the dark about Chuck's extracurricular activities. It's a big change, but I thought they handled the Intersect 2.0 seamlessly, so I trust them to do this, too. It feels a lot like Graduation Day for Chuck, you know? He's finally a real spy, he's outgrown his CIA training, and now everything changes. And I, for one, am very curious who they'll get to play Mama Bartowski - my vote is for Mary McDonnell.

In conclusion? Awesome.

The Story of Maude

Lately, my mother has taken to calling or emailing me to tell crazy stories about my aunt's cat, Maude. Have I ever talked about Maude before? I don't think so, so let me give you some background.

Maude is (was) my cousin's cat. Maude is a Bad Kitty. My cousin and her boyfriend at the time found her as a stray in an alley in Chinatown, and decided to take her home before she ended up as somebody's dinner. She wasn't much more than a kitten at the time, and obviously had never been spayed, so they took her to the vet and got her fixed. A couple days later, my cousin came home from work to find Maude (and the floor of the apartment) covered in blood - she'd ripped out her stitches and was bleeding all over the place. So they took her back to the vet and got her restitched - which she proceeded to tear out again.

The trouble with Maude is that she's a revenge pooper. My cousin has moved apartments a couple times since she adopted Maude, and has on occasion come home to find feces smeared on the wall of her new apartment. Yes, smeared. Maude didn't just poop outside the litter box, she actually smeared it on the wall with her paws to express her displeasure. She's also been known to vomit on my cousin's brand new (expensive) boots, there was an incident where she fell in the toilet (and was blow-dried with a hair dryer for her efforts), and she has managed to completely terrorize my cousin's poor other cat.

My cousin has had Maude for several years now, and understandably is rather fed up with her. In fact, back before I got Chelsea, I had mentioned I wanted a cat, and my cousin said, "You want mine?" I, of course, replied, "Not with the stories you tell!" Finally, things came to a head when my cousin moved in with her fiance, who has a really dumb dog, and so the cats, rather unhappy with this situation, went to live with my aunt (which worked out well, really, because my aunt needed a pet or two to keep her company).

So, the other day, I'm talking to my mother on the phone, and she says (apropos of nothing), "Oh, did I tell you? Aunt Donna had to spray Maude with Pam."

"Pam?" I reply, completely befuddled. "Like... the cooking spray?"

"Yeah."

"Um. Why?"

"Because she was stuck in a jar."

O_O

Keep in mind, Maude has a history of such things. She once got her head stuck in a wine glass. (She also had a habit of tipping over full wine glasses, which did not go over well with my red-wine-drinking cousin and her white carpet.) This time, she'd managed to get her entire head, one leg, and a shoulder stuck in a large jar, and my aunt couldn't get her unstuck. Apparently, wetting her down with water didn't work, and she contemplated trying to break the jar, but she was afraid of hurting Maude with the glass. So she opted for the "grease her up" method and sprayed her with Pam (which worked, btw, in case anyone ever encounters this situation).

Then, the other day, my mother emailed me to tell me that one day, Aunt Donna was in the car on her way to work and Maude popped out of her tote bag, which of course scared her to death, and then she had to turn around and take her home.

Bad. Kitty.

Food post

This is a dinner I cooked a couple weeks ago. I've had pork chops in my freezer for a while, so I made Pork Chops with Apples and Shallots. I am not terribly happy with the broil function on my toaster oven. It seems to be rather inconsistent, and I ended up having to broil the pork chops forever in order to get them cooked through, which meant that my apples and the spinach were both done and sitting around while I had to wait for the chops. Not good. But once they were cooked, the dish was pretty good, although it could've used a bit more sauce (I think all the wine cooked away while I was waiting for the pork chops). I've added a little more wine when I heat up the leftovers, so that there's some liquid. 

Unfortunately, the Wilted Spinach with Nutmeg was a total flop. It was bland and soggy and tasted like baby food. I dumped parmesan cheese on it to make it edible (this is my solution to every cooking failure), but I ended up tossing what was left, because I had no desire to eat it again. I don't know - is it possible I cooked it too long? Can you over-wilt spinach? Mushy vegetables are, like, the worst thing ever to me. You know what I would like to try? Deep fried spinach. I've had it in a restaurant before, and it was amazing. Mmmmm, crispy spinach. Not sure if I could do it at home, though. I'm not big on deep frying. 

And one more

An addendum to my last post... CW has also announced its schedule, and the only show I care about is Life Unexpected, which is no longer in the same timeslot as Chuck and HIMYM, which was murder. So, yay.

Also, just as an FYI, in my last post I mentioned The Good Guys. It's bad. Really, really bad, y'all. I couldn't even make it through the first episode. So, boo.

Fall TV

Just a heads up regarding the announcements of fall TV scheduling from the networks: NBC, FOX, ABC, and CBS.

My schedule:

Mondays
8:00: Chuck (NBC)
8:00: How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

Tuesdays
10:00: Parenthood (NBC)

Thursdays
8:00: Community (NBC)
9:00: The Office (NBC)
9:00: Fringe (FOX)

Fridays
9:00: The Good Guys (FOX)

I am so happy that Chuck was renewed, but can we please do something about the scheduling conflict on Mondays? Meanwhile, Parks & Recreation being bumped to midseason puts an annoying hole in the middle of my Thursday night, and I refuse to switch back to Bones. The only new show that looks interesting thus far is The Good Guys (which actually premieres tonight). It stars Bradley Whitford from The West Wing, so my attendance is pretty much required, even if he has a porn 'stache. And Colin Hanks earned some goodwill by being on Mad Men, so I'll see where it goes.

Stuff people should be watching, part 3

If you're not watching Chuck, I'm not sure I could talk about it more than I already do, but I'm always up for convincing people. This is a show that seems to specialize in providing a little something for everyone.

You want mystery and intrigue? As a spoof of the spy genre, Chuck delves into an ever-expanding web of conspiracies. The Intersect, the computer in Chuck's head that's made him an unwitting spy, is a top secret intelligence project, and plenty of rogue agents and shadowy organizations would love to get their hands on the technology.

You want comedy? This show is hilarious. I mean, Casey alone is comedy gold, with his Jayne-esque love of guns and his ability to communicate only in grunts. You'll never tire of watching him trying to cope with an inept Chuck (or, more recently, Morgan). But then you've also got the Buy More crew, who are pretty much insane, and the go-to guys for wacky antics. And then there's Devon, who's so perfect his nickname is "Captain Awesome," but may be in over his head with the spy world.

You want action? This show has kick-ass fight scenes. In the beginning, we had Sarah and Casey kicking ass and taking names, but now that Chuck knows kung fu, we're getting to see what Zachary Levi can do with a stunt team. One of my favorite fights this season involved Chuck and Sarah having to fight the bad guys while handcuffed together.

You want romance? Chuck/Sarah delivers. Sure, the will-they-won't-they lasted a little too long, but Zac and Yvonne sell it so hard that you can't help wishing those two crazy kids could make it work. And now that they're finally together, the show's got lots of new ground to explore.

You want family drama? Ellie and Chuck are as close as siblings can be - except for the huge secret that Chuck's been keeping from her. Now she's close to finding out that Chuck's a spy - and I can't wait to see her reaction when she realizes that just about everyone (including her husband, Awesome) is in the know except her. Plus, the always fantastic Scott Bakula pops up occasionally as their wayward mad scientist father.

You want nerd love? This show manages to mine humor from its video game-playing, sci-fi movie-watching, comic book-reading, electronics-repairing characters, without making nerds the butt of the joke. (Dude, Chuck saves the day by playing Missile Command.) Plus, the pop culture references abound.

You want random musical numbers? I give you - Jeffster!

In summary: Watch Chuck. It's awesome.

Stuff people should be watching, part 2

Community, which is my favorite new show this year. If you've never seen it, what's wrong with you? it's about seven very different (slightly crazy) people who form a Spanish study group at a community college in Greendale, Colorado. The study group was initially a ploy so that Jeff, a lawyer who was disbarred after his bachelor's degree was deemed invalid, could score with the hot chick in his class, but everybody's kind of bonded and now they're really good friends.

So, why do I like it? It's straight-up hilarious, for one thing. The cast is stellar. One of the things I love about it is that the characters are funny in just about every combination you can think of - the show does a good job of mixing it up so that different characters get to play off each other every week.

But I think the best thing about Community is the way they use meta jokes and references. It's sort of a defining characteristic of the show, particularly since Abed is a pop culture junkie who relates to the world through movies and TV. Thus, the show is ridiculously self-aware and the references come at a rapid-fire pace. But what I've noticed about the last couple episodes (where they did an episode-long extended homage to Goodfellas and then action movies) is that the jokes are funny even if you don't get the reference.

One of the pitfalls of pop culture is that it's not the same for everybody, whether because of generational differences or cultural differences between countries. (BtVS, for example, sometimes loses its international fans with very American references.) Community has addressed this head-on in some cases - like when Troy says, "It's a cookie wand. Me and Jeff made it because it made you look more like the Cookie Crisp wizard, which is not even a reference I get because the Cookie Crisp mascot when I was growing up wasn't a wizard. It was a burglar."

But the brilliance here is that I've never seen Goodfellas, and I still thought the chicken finger crime syndicate was fantastic. I don't need to identify every action movie being spoofed to find the paintball war hilarious. Because - as Alan Sepinwall recently pointed out - everything they do is "tied to honest efforts at characterization to work long-term. The Goodfellas episode was ultimately about how Abed and Jeff each relate to other people. A recent episode where uptight study group members Annie and Shirley turned into a pair of bickering buddy cops was largely about how both of them resented how they were perceived by the group."

The jokes come from the characters, not the other way around. Plenty of shows are guilty of bending a character just to get a good punchline, and ultimately I think viewers resent that. I know I certainly do (I'm looking at you, Bones). When the references are funny not because it's a reference, but because it's a character moment, then it works whether you get the reference or not. And if you DO get it? Bonus. You get to laugh doubly hard.

Stuff more people should be watching

Being Erica, because it's utterly adorable. It's a Canadian show that airs on SoapNet in the U.S., but the first two seasons are up on Hulu.

What if you could go back in time and fix all your regrets? That's exactly the chance Erica gets when she meets Dr. Tom. She's unhappy with her life - 32, single, unemployed, and currently hospitalized after going into anaphylactic shock - and there are so many things she wishes she'd done differently. Each week, Dr. Tom sends Erica back to a significant moment in her life and gives her the chance to do it over and change the outcome. But of course, things never turn out the way she expects.

It's got time travel! Crazy '80s outfits! Erin Karpluk being the most adorable Canadian ever! (Plus she has amazing hair, OMG.) Sebastian Pigott, who reminds me of a younger James Marsters. And he sings! (I am SUCH an Erica/Kai shipper and OMG that scene makes me cry.) It's funny and it's heartwarming, without being too sappy. It'll definitely put a smile on your face. But it's also got depth to it - Erica learns some very hard lessons about herself and the things she cannot change.

Plus, did I mention the time travel?

What is with Facebook continually trying to encroach on my privacy?

So, after hearing about the latest privacy-violating feature that's been made opt-out rather than opt-in, I'm about ready to delete my Facebook account. WTF Internets?? Why is it so hard to understand that some of us might enjoy limited social networking without having our personal information automatically shared with every other site we use? Like that Google Buzz thing. That was horrifying.

I also saw this Evolution of Privacy on Facebook feature today, which is similarly disturbing. And even though the OP says, "I hope your takeaway from this infographic isn't 'I'm deleting my account;' rather, I hope it's 'I'm checking my privacy settings right now, and changing them to a level with which I'm comfortable,'" I can't see how making "OMFG I have to check my privacy settings RIGHT NOW" a typical response to policy changes is a GOOD thing. I don't want to feel threatened every time a website I use introduces a new feature. And I DON'T want to have to rush to the site to opt out in order to protect myself.

Food post

I tried a new recipe for Steak with Parsley Sauce from my Great Foods Fast cookbook, but I couldn't find quite the same one online. I wouldn't worry, though, because while the steak came out fine (I just browned it in a pan with olive oil), the parsley sauce was major fail. It was supposed to get pureed in a blender, but there weren't enough ingredients to cover the blades, so it never really blended. For a while, I tried scooping the mixture onto the blades and then blending, but eventually I gave up and just threw it away. It didn't taste that great anyway. Here's the recipe if you're curious:

Parsley Sauce

1 garlic clove, chopped
1 cup loosely packed fresh parsley leaves
1/4 cup olive oil
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

In a blender, puree the garlic, parsley, olive oil, and 3 tablespoons water until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Makes 1/2 cup.

I also made Roasted Asparagus with Parmesan as a side, and that came out really well. The recipe in my book didn't include the breadcrumbs, but that does sound tasty. I am kind of hit-or-miss with asparagus, but this was very good, tender and not stringy at all.

Some thoughts on Chuck

I haven't done a Chuck post in a while (aside from some Zachary Levi squee), so let's talk about how this extra-six-episodes arc is shaking out.

I thought it got off to a really great start with the Honeymooners episode. It's pretty clear that Chuck and Sarah finally getting together is hardly going to be the downfall of the show. The relationship conflict was a little silly - haven't we already been over the "Do you want to quit?" "Do YOU want to quit?" stuff already? But then, I guess we've gone back and forth so many times, it could be confusing. First Chuck wanted Sarah to quit so they could be together, then he decided he liked the spy stuff and didn't want to give it up, but meanwhile Sarah had decided she DID want to quit to be with Chuck, and she wanted Chuck to quit because it was changing him, so now we're finally coming back around to them both wanting to be together at the same time and what does that mean for their spy careers? Anyway, I'm glad we got that straightened out and out of the way, and in the meantime, it gave us a pretty hilarious episode.

It was cute how they both accidentally caught each other sneaking around the bad guy's cabin, and I LOVED the fight scene with Sarah and Chuck handcuffed together. I kind of want to write a Spuffy fic that incorporates handcuffed fighting now. I also enjoyed Morgan being weirdly brilliant and useful for tracking down Chuck. And the scene in the cafe with Chuck/Morgan and Sarah/Casey talking in front of the terrorist - you could totally see him becoming a Chuck/Sarah shipper before our eyes, lol. Plus, a Jeffster! performance? Awesome.

I haven't been as thrilled with the next two episodes, though. The one with the older spy couple was silly, and although I adored everything to do with that tiger, the whole "Chuck and Sarah get a glimpse of their future" thing was cliched and didn't do much for me. I also felt that they were starting to get too reliant on the character pairings - even before Sarah and Chuck got together, the last few episodes have been putting those two together (usually with much drama) while Casey and Morgan do a comic relief thing on their own. One of the things I miss is the Team Bartowski dynamic, which hasn't been right all season because of Shaw, and especially I miss Chuck/Casey interactions. In taking Chuck's place as the bumbling idiot on the team, Morgan also seems to have taken Chuck's place as the one who receives most of Casey's disapproving glares and grunts. I also think there's a LOT of comedy to be had by pairing up Morgan and Sarah, as that bit in the kitchen proved.

Last night's episode gave me a little of what I wanted, switching things up to put Chuck and Morgan together (at a Beethoven concert!) with Sarah and Casey pairing up to keep Chuck out of hot water. And yet, I wasn't really fond of this one, either. I think Alan Sepinwall hit it on the head when he said the balance of comedy and drama that this show does so well just didn't work for this episode. There could have been a lot more suspense with more build up on both the "Chuck's having crazy dreams" thing and whatever's going on with Ellie and the Ring operatives. Chuck being locked up in a psych ward isn't a big deal when we don't have any doubt that he's right about the bad guys, so you gotta give us some kind of stakes. Even the return of Anna Wu was less than I'd hoped for. She seemed really different, more snooty and full of herself. Well, okay, she was always that, but she used to be awesome, too, and now she's just stuck up. I was happy to see Morgan leave her in the dust.

Coming up, it looks like Papa Bartowski will be back (yay!) and perhaps also Shaw (boo!). Plus, there's still the chance that Chuck might really be crazy someday.

Gah!

I forgot to wish Megan a happy birthday! It was Thursday. I can't keep my days straight. My Mother's Day cards are all going to be late, too.

Have more Zachary Levi singing!

It's official

Move over, NPH. Zachary Levi is my new TV boyfriend. HE SINGS, people.

"I always hate it when people watch a musical and they go, 'Oh, it's so unrealistic. No one just breaks into song in the middle of their day.' Yeah, they do. They do, if they're me."

ME TOO, ZAC! ME TOO!

Freedom!

I am officially DONE with this semester - emailed my last paper to the professor last night. Which means I'm free... for a whole two weeks, and then the summer session starts. Oh well.

Anyway, it's that time of year, so if you're curious whether your favorite shows will be back next year, here's the chart for you. I'm happy to see that only two of my shows are "on the bubble" - Chuck, as ever (eat more Subway!), and Life Unexpected, which was cute, but I probably won't miss it. Getting the axe are 24, which I knew about and am ready for the end, and Dollhouse, which was canceled in the spectacular chaos of "let's cram five seasons worth of plot into the last six episodes" six months ago, so I'm not sure why it's even worth mentioning.