At first, it seemed like “Chuck versus the Cougars,” was going to be filling in an awful lot of blanks in Sarah’s back story. Within the first few minutes, we learned her name was Jenny Burton and that she went to high school in San Diego, and before too much longer, Chuck and Sarah were on their way to a mission at Sarah’s high school reunion. Yep, it seemed like we were going to learn a lot about Sarah tonight. In the end though, not so much.
Thanks to Sarah’s end-of-episode flashback, we now know that while she did go to high school in San Diego, Jenny Burton is not her real name. And her klutz/geek high school persona was almost certainly just a persona. It would have been disappointing to have the episode end revealing that everything we learned was one giant lie, but there was some truth to be had as well.
Apparently Sarah’s father was some sort of con-man/embezzler/something similar. At least some of the people he screwed over were villains so he may not be that bad of a guy, in spite of his profession. Whoever he is, I’m sure he’ll turn up sooner or later and we will eventually get the full story on his past.
I thought Chuck was kind of being insensitive towards Sarah for the early part of the episode. Sure, he’s been dying to know more about Sarah’s past, but also know how much Sarah values keeping that past private. His digging into her past and inviting himself to dinner with her old classmates was totally out-of-line. Fortunately, Chuck realized he was being an ass fairly quickly. Not to mention, his poor behaviour early on provided the set up for a great ending when Chuck turned down the opportunity to finally learn something real about Sarah’s past.
The ending was not the only great moment though. “Chuck versus the Cougars,” was filled with them. The Chuck and Casey role reversal was hilarious. I particularly enjoyed the way Casey was visibly disgusted that “Agent Carmichael” got credit for saving Ratner’s life, but Casey still wasted no time in using it to his own advantage to generate a good cop, bad cop scenario that had Ratner give up everything he knew in seconds.
Even the Buy-More subplot, with Lester being put in charge while Mike was away, was entertaining. Granted, it was obvious that Lester’s plan to let the customer pay whatever they wanted to was going to go awry, and that the party to make up for the lost funds was a disaster waiting to happen, and even that something would happen to upset Mike at the end, but it didn’t really matter that it was predictable; it was still funny. And now, with Lester’s resignation from the assistant manager position, Lester can go back to his usual hijinks with Jeff.
I do have to complain a bit about how the writers tipped their hand when Chuck flashed on Dick at the reunion. Up until that point, I had wasn’t expecting any previously established characters to be in league with the Russians, but as soon as Chuck told Sarah he was “pretty sure” that Dick was the Russian operative, it was obvious that A) Dick wasn’t the operative and B) the operative going to be a previously established character. And Mark’s wife, Heather, was the only possibility. So it was no surprise when it turned out she was up to no good.
“Chuck versus the Cougars” was a great episode. It was sweet, it was funny, it was pure Chuck goodness. Sure, it was a bit predictable, but who cares when it is this entertaining?
Trevor MacKay is the sci-fi/horror/fantasy/cheesy/random geeky stuff guy. If something is geeky and/or unbelievably cheesy, he’s there.
