When X Is Not X

S04E08

So Agent Frost, a.k.a. Chuck's confusing mom, has not taken away the Intersect but merely put an emotional "rock" on top of it. After a month of testing -- during which Casey's a full-time Buy More employee slowly going insane -- they bring in the big guns: Ex-Navy comedian/total hotness Rob Riggle.

Despite the distracting neckbeard -- something even Morgan Grimes has learned to take care of -- Riggle still manages to look awesome as hell in a variety of outfits while subjecting Chuck to emotional abuses in Switzerland during a diamond auction-slash-villain convention that quickly turns into a huge mess.

Believing the titular Fear will be the one that pops Chuck's Intersect brain cherry, Riggle has gotten permission to take him on a mission without the rest of the team to hold his hand. So (besides the unending Ellie abuse) the Mommy arc was leading here the whole time: Without the Intersect, isn't Chuck just kind of... A guy?

Very good question. But once Sarah's blurted out the obvious answer, you know nothing will keep Charles Carmichael from getting his ass murdered. The diamond on auction is actually a fake that contains a microdot of information which Casey figures out is information about Chuck. It's all very complicated, but essentially it means that Riggle and Chuck are stuck in a gondola over the Alps with Richard Chamberlain and about ten henchman -- and that everybody knows about the Intersect.

A short fight later, with some mini-flashes but nothing real, it's revealed that Chuck's dependence on Sarah, or his ambiguous ambivalence about his pretend-spy lifestyle as it relates to her -- something in this general area -- is to blame for the emotion rock. Of course, this info comes at the expense of Riggle's life and Chuck's safety: At the end of the episode, Chuck's been captured and Sarah's off the grid and hot on the trail, with Casey and Morgan for backup.

Meanwhile -- in the decade-long tradition of asexual nerds the world over -- the embarrassing employees of Buy More are so desperate to prove they're not gay that they convince themselves Summer Glau is attractive.

Watch the episode below, then discuss it in our forum. Then see some of our favorite Chuck guest-stars.

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Previously, Sarah told Chuck that she would believe in Linda Hamilton because she trusted his instincts and brains, and then immediately went back on that promise. (Agent Walker has this deal where she always says the right thing, but you don't notice the asterisk where it's like, *unless the situation changes at all, and then you're on your own.) Then Chuck's Mom flashed him with a flashing thing and he went Intersectless, which didn't really matter right away because she wasn't really trying to kill them.

But now it does matter, because the General is concerned about how Chuck's mommy issues caused him to screw up a major takedown and lose the only valuable thing about him. This is his explanation: "I know I screwed up, General, and if she weren't my mom, I would have shown much better judgment." This is the correct response: "So you are an admitted security risk. Colonel Casey, shoot Bartowski in the head." This is her actual response: "Which is why you haven't been ejected from the Agency. Here is a cookie for fucking everything up again."

One of my favorite things about this show to start with was how Casey and the General -- even Walker, sometimes -- were actually hardcore and scary. You honestly felt like Casey might just kill Chuck to get it over with, or Sarah would beat his ass if so ordered, and it was great, because it meant things weren't always safe and that authority actually exists and needs to be dealt with. But now it's just straight-up nerd fantasies, where Chuck is the greatest thing, and all the grownups love him, and Awesome is jealous of him, and everybody gets to be a superspy despite a complete lack of training or backbone or formal education, and everybody hugs each other all the time, and Casey cries all the time and is a growly pussycat, and the General says shit like, "I completely understand your national security-endangering mommy feelings" and...

I mean, I have no doubt that it's a more enjoyable show now for most people, and Lord knows the show will whore itself out no matter what it takes to stay on the air, but it was once a major part of the show that's spent two years leaking out like the p.s.i. of a punctured tire. Leaving more time for the goddamned Buy More. Which is now also a spy, note.

Anyway, the General assigns 1) Walker to Istanbul to find Frost and Volkoff, and hopefully nail down their impossibly complex deal; 2) Casey to work at the Buy More full-time for the time being; and 3) Chuck to go through intense testing at Castle to figure out where the Intersect went. Because yeah, it's not really gone, it's just "suppressed."

By Jacob Clifton

(Not really a Freud guy, but the Mother obscuring the received wisdom of the Father via castration anxiety and this eventually being linked to emasculation by the Girlfriend is something obvious -- so obvious it might not even be intentional, especially given they keep saying "suppress" when they mean "repress" -- that you can pretty much see exactly how this episode is going to play out the second she gives us this info about Frost's suppression/castration device.)

The Intersect, as "an implanted collection of memories," has been hidden under what we're calling a "psychological rock" (which: sure) and so then Chuck goes through 31 days of Halloween -- waterboarded, kitten pictures, groin pull videos, eyeball-staring, skateboard trouble, strobe lights, Rorschach, gut punches, Dingdong/electricity behavior modification -- but no results except that he falls over due to being trapped in A Clockwork Orange for a month while some annoying Aquabats-ish music plays.

Up in the Buy More, the new Greta is Summer Glau, fan-favorite and go-to robot girl for all television shows on television. Here, she's demonstrating range by playing a robotic CIA assassin with legs up to here. I don't begrudge any actor or actress for playing to type, because everybody's gotta eat, and I think she's gorgeous and talented and a great dancer, but the Felicia Day Nerdgasm thing is getting real old, frankly, and when you add it to the "Inability To Let Firefly Go" thing, it just turns into straight up pandering. Nathan Fillion dressed as Richard Castle dressed as Mal Reynolds walks into the Buy More, where he meets a squabbling couple played by Alan Tudyk and Gina Torres. A little goes a long way, is all I'm saying. (And I'll thank you to ignore, for the purposes of this conversation, the screaming coming from my house when Sean Maher showed up on Warehouse 13.)

One of the awful nerds notices that all the Gretas have been named Greta, and Chuck acts twitchy about this -- or maybe about the metalameness of pointing out the Greta thing at all -- before abruptly going into a whinefest about Life In The Absence of the Intersect and how working at the Buy More is pathetic and they should all just kill themselves if that's how it's going to be happening. And then Jeffster puts together and carries out a murder-suicide pact, and the show finally gets great. Just kidding, there's a Cialis joke and a ten minute slide up Walker's beautiful self.

By Jacob Clifton

It's been long enough I guess that Walker has been to Istanbul, n other places, and now Russia -- no sign of Frost/Volkoff, still, or his new HQ -- and she's exhausted her leads. Meanwhile, has Chuck been reintersected? Nope. Casey pops up looking crunk and talking about how he needs to go on a mission and shoot guns, or else, and it's clear that working at the Buy More has increased his mugging hack acting to a degree that is no longer acceptable. Morgan appears and also bitches about the benching because of how crazy Casey is going, and Walker and Chuck are both feeling pressure.

Chuck goes downstairs and is immediately attacked by three ninjas. He flashes a few times but never quite reaches completion on it, and then tries to fight the ninjas his own self. This goes poorly, because Chuck is actually just a dork and not a spy at all. Rob Riggle -- who for some reason in my exhausted state I called ex-Navy last night but is in fact a Marine, which I know because I am obsessed with him -- appears with neck-beard and interprets his character in some pretty wild ways. He starts out tweedy and turtlenecky and gigantic, with the crazy eyes. Meet Agent Jim Rye, from CIA Psy Ops at Langley.

"I don't believe that the psychological rock [yep, sure] can be hoisted off the Intersect by watching kittens play with yarn. My method is physical, psychological, painful. Brutal." Problem is that watching Chuck deal with things is exactly like watching kittens play with yarn, so while I am totally on board in theory, in practice I don't see this working. I think some hug therapy and more talking about his mom would do it. Or put a gun to Ellie's head, that would do it. Pretty sure I would flash on some ninja skills if they pulled that. But just bitchslapping him at intervals? You're only gonna make Bartowski cry.

Rye asks Chuck to visualize the rock [absolutely] sitting on the Intersect, and Chuck starts describing it to him at length, size: "Largey-small." Bitchslap. No flash. Suckerpunch, no flash. Walker jumps in and gets all It Gets Better about this bullying, and Chuck grabs at the balloon string of his masculinity as it wafts away, but no luck. Rye attacks Walker in a form of martial arts she hasn't used since "spy candidate school," and of course she does awesome, and Riggle does the sexy crazy eyes: "You smell delightfully of grapefruit!" Weirded. So Rye explains that there are several possible courses of treatment -- "be it fear, pain, anxiety" -- that will eventually unrepress the Intersect the same way Sarah just remembered Kenpō. He sends Sarah out of the room and she feels nervous and emasculating. Upstairs, the horrible nerds are horrible and stalking Greta and she eats delicious Subway sandwiches and it's everything Masuka about this entire show at once.

By Jacob Clifton

Back home Sarah worries about Chuck's therapy bruises and decides to give him a massage. While there, she does her total Walker thing of white lies followed by sweet true things: "You don't need the Intersect to do great things! You're great on your own." He's like, "But am I a spy?" The answer is No, but she lies and says yes, followed by "But you're Chuck Bartowski! And you do that all on your own!" Everybody gets a medal when Sarah Walker's handing them out.

She runs off to get the massage oil -- should be heated by now, mrrow -- and Riggle appears dressed as yet another ninja, who attacks Chuck and his totally sick naked body with some swords, but still no flash to completion. Because Walker's there to save him, of course. Or because Rob Riggle in Kevlar is distracting to the extreme. Sarah yells at him for awhile, and finally he explains that Casa Bartowski is, like Castle, a psychological safe zone and that Walker ruins everything and that Chuck's going to need real fear. Specifically the PFOD: Pure Fear Of Death. "We need uncut, pure adrenalized fear rocketing through your plasma right now." Death complexes trump sex complexes because they're basically the exact same thing, a.k.a. It's Harder To Worry About Your Dick When You're Worried About Your Neck.

Greta surprises Morgan and threatens to kill Jeffster if they keep fucking with her and following her and stalking her and being so horribly themselves. Instead of giving her leave to do so, or offering to do it himself, Morgan decides to be the hero and protect them from themselves. Sounds like a Buy More B story to me, or what I like to call bleep-bloop time, reserved for the bathroom or to make another plate of hors d'oeuvres.

I totally realize how much it sucks to hate one-third of every episode of a show you claim to love -- watch the show you're watching, not the show you wish you were watching -- but it's only a problem this week in particular because normally you get Ellie and Awesome to balance it out and wipe Jeffster's offensive fucking faces and even worse acting from your brain-palate.

More beautiful smiles and a third cute outfit from Riggle as the General explains how -- against Walker's wishes -- Chuck and Riggle will be going on a mission together, without magic powers or Sarah or Casey. "Is it dangerous?" he asks, and his eyes light up because it's incredibly so. "Chance of violence?" he bounces in his chair, because violence is guaranteed. Walker whines, and the General forces Chuck to verbally say that he wants to do this foolhardy thing no matter how correct Walker is.

The Mission: A Swiss chalet, in Gstaad, where a 100-carat diamond called the Cane Volto is up for auction. The leaders of "numerous criminal and terrorist organizations" plan to attend, for some reason, suggesting that it's not just a big-ass diamond but also special in a spy way. "Method for money laundering, payment for illegal weapons, that sort of thing," Riggle offers, and both Walker and Casey shut him down with a "yeah, we got this" hiss of nastiness. Riggle, of course, giggles like a crazy person, but that might just be how he is. The degree to which Rob Riggle's crazy might be just actual crazy has always bewitched me. It is one of the top five things about him.

Chuck's spy job will be to win the auction and bring the diamond home. That sounds super-dangerous, General! Auctions are generally known to be fraught with danger, especially for the winners of the auctions. Why, I hear they use paddles! Sarah, of course, wants to go along, but since with them he'll never reach "maximum fear," both Walker and Casey are ordered to monitor this from Castle. Chuck reminds them that he needs to be operating without a safety net to get the flash, and Sarah awesomely goes, "Yes, Chuck, but then there's no safety net." Chuck takes off, and she admits defeat with a beautiful sigh and a "Don't be a hero, just come home safe to me."

The best girlfriends are the ones who never let it show how exhausting the care and feeding of the male ego actually gets. Headed up the mountain, in his second tweed/turtle from the last scene, pronouncing the word "gondola" all kinds of ways, Rob Riggle is a vision. "Quite a tableau. Sometimes... Scenery makes me cry. Isn't it amazing being a spy?" The last with such a gleaming crazy-eye that it sort of made me want to be a spy. Chuck's missing Sarah, but just as his girlfriend and not as the safety net that she always, always is, because Switzerland is so romantic and Riggle's over here crying and stuff. "The only way in or out of the chalet is the gondola. Things go south, we're trapped. You'll produce enough adrenalized fear to lift a car, let alone restart the Intersect!" Chuck immediately produces enough adrenalized pee to fill a Swiss gondola.

Sarah wonders if Chuck will actually live through this, due to this being a spy mission and him not being a spy, and all, and Casey's like, "I don't know? But I know he'll try." Which he means in a nice pussycat way, but Sarah knows is the problem. She calls Chuck for the sixth time and he babbles at her about Switzerland for awhile -- "Other than the fact that this place is populated with a crowd of international psychopaths, the air is so fresh! And the chocolate? So milky!" -- and Sarah reiterates how he needs to stay like a little girl with no powers because that's what he is today. Riggle shows up in a tux, and now they're both wearing tuxes. Riggle's awesome line: "Someone could recognize you as CIA, come after you with a knife!" He nearly clicks his heels together at the thought.

By Jacob Clifton

Auction time. Richard Chamberlain is there selling the diamond: "Adelbert de Smet, better known as The Belgian." Chuck makes a waffle joke, which isn't funny but produces an amazing response in Rob Riggle: "Belgian! Yes! Yes! I love your humor. So disarming!" So de Smet is usually about industrial espionage, which is weird, and then Riggle points out the major underworld players from Russia, Serbia, Montenegro, et cetera. Chuck's impressed by how Riggle knows things, due to being a spy.

"Focus, Chuck. When you win the bidding, your competition's not going to be happy. If you're lucky, they'll follow you! And try and kill you!" All lit up like Christmas, Riggle bounces, leaving Chuck alone and waiting for death. The bidding starts and he gets so into it that he forgets that he's the high bidder and bids against himself. The auctioneer is polite about it; less so the Russian now sticking a gun against Chuck's right kidney.

"Bid again, get bullet in back." Chuck bids again. "Nice try, Rye, but I'm not falling for it. Going twice." More gun-shoving, more bidding. "I'm not afraid of your phony Russian accent or your finger-gun, okay?" He bids against, despite the threat of murder. "Oh, look at that, I didn't die. What a shocker!" Chuck finally turns around enough to get a load of the guy, who is clearly not Rob Riggle, and is immediately drained of all gorm and hap. The bid is lost, the mission is blown, and still no flash. Although Swiss chocolate is still very milky, they discuss.

Riggle can't believe that Chuck's presumption of his own safety overrode even a gun in the side, but Chuck admits that mostly it's because Russian accents always sound like fake accents. Which is hilarious, because that's totally true. Russian and Cajun accents both sound like somebody doing an impression of something very unrealistic. On the other hand, the real mystery of the diamond is why all these creeps want it so bad, and there's still time to figure that out because it's not like anybody actually brought a hundred million Swiss francs to EvilCon 2010, so the diamond's still going to be there overnight. Riggle does him one better and suggests stealing it themselves, with all the appropriate twitching and eyebrow-woggling and those sea-before-a-storm Wesley-blue eyes of his just twinkling madly.

By Jacob Clifton

As the awful nerds continue to pester Greta, Morgan takes his issue to Casey. Casey, as any right-thinking American man would, sees nothing wrong with her killing the shit out them, but Morgan has some kind of dumb issue with it. Morgan can't understand why Casey has turned back into himself from all that Alex-induced pussycattism, and keeps trying to hug and kiss him and make him his boyfriend or dad, and for once Casey doesn't indulge Morgan climbing all over him like a jungle gym.

Color Grimes mystified! Because Team Castlemore is such a strong team of spies who are not actually spies and fuck everything up and constantly get kidnapped! And hug all the time! "The team is DOA without the Intersect working, so why protect something that's going up in smoke? You want to waste time with these idiots, you're on your own." I honestly found everything Casey does and says in this episode to be so self-evident that I didn't even realize it was the C plot until like the last scene when he explains it, but we can just get that out of the way:

Casey's worried about getting called back to Afghanistan or Iraq in the near future, so he's using this Intersect break to psychologically distance himself from the Buy More, and the core four especially, in order to cope with the future stress of leaving. Which: Okay, that's pretty good. I would have cared more if it were Morgan in "danger" and not Jeffster, because that would have involved actual suspense rather than just crossing my fingers, but you need Morgan to be John's cheerleader for the Castlemore family for this story to work at all, so I get it. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Jeffster ruins everything. They give babies colic and they give Lindsay cocaine and they give your grandma the burps.

Headed into the vault, where Riggle Vulcan-pinches the guards and then sarcastics Chuck into thinking he learned the move from Star Trek when actually it was this particular nonsensical word salad: "Bangladesh meditative trancing; the secret is mind over matter." Thanks for the way better explanation, babe. Once inside, the doors lock and there are "security measures" that involve the temperature dropping while Chuck tries again and again to flash. No luck. He almost immediately pulls out his cell phone and calls Sarah, like he hasn't been watching the episode at all, but there's no signal, so then they freeze to death and die.

Princess being in another castle, the conversation turns back to Chuck's castration anxiety; specifically the way he has substituted his perfect girlfriend and external computer-brain for the concept of his own masculinity and thus accidentally put himself into a double-bind situation where his relationship and the Intersect overlap and x each other out: He can't be her equal without the Intersect, but he can't have the Intersect until he is her equal.

Which is every boy you've ever met, because that's how boys work, and also why Sarah Walker has to talk out of both sides of her mouth all the time: Because she's always separately talking to Spy Chuck and to Boy Chuck, because they still haven't been able to combine themselves into Man Chuck -- turn that XOR into AND -- for the very good reason that that's when the show ends. Just ask Lois Lane.

Alex waits until the end of lunch with her dad to bring up John's crazy and how Morgan's about to stage an edginess intervention on him, and how we didn't really see any of this because it was subway'd between layers of Buy More BS and we're just now being told that it's a storyline that is actually happening in this episode. Alex is willing to stipulate that part of this is itchy trigger finger from getting benched over the lacuna, but pushes him to explain the other part, about getting called back up.

"I got soft," he admits. "I made friends here." Instead of saying, "Yes, you have" and moving on to dessert, Alex reframes it in the pussycattiest way possible: "Well, you know Morgan's scared of the team being broken up, too. And if you are transferred, which might not even happen, don't you think it'd be better to be nice to your friends than drive them away?" And that's how Colonel John Casey learned that manners are for everyday.

They put Alex back on the plot device shelf for time she's needed, and more of this Greta shit happens and Grimes tries to stop them but they won't be stopped because they are playing pretend-spies and don't understand that she will chop them into little pieces that will never be found because she is real spies. And Morgan tries to warn them off from her threat, which just sounds like he's threatening them, and it's actually pretty funny: "They put a webcam in my locker, they bugged my price gun, the psychotic one follows me with a video camera narrating The Tracking And Hunt Of The Greta Marmot." She asks what they even mean, and better, Morgan's hilarious: "Which one do you think is the psychotic one?"

By Jacob Clifton

Anyway, if Jeffster keeps poking they'll compromise national security and put a CIA facility at risk, so now it's not just about her being robotic and scary but more about them actually getting too close, like in WarGames, which gives her even more grounds to destroy them utterly. But no, again Morgan's gotta do the fuckin' right thing, and stalls her one more time. "Trust me, they have the mental capacity of field mice!" Just let her kill them, Morgan. Dooooo it.

Switzerland: Rob Riggle's "magnifying the microdot," if ya know what I mean, while Chuck hashes and rehashes the whole Sarah Rock thing. Riggle points out that he's constantly screaming for Sarah whenever he's in trouble, which is fine -- "if you're a Nerd Herder" -- but that a real spy "handles his fear on his own."

For some reason Chuck goes, "Or her own," like getting nitpicking feminist isn't underscoring the entire point, which is this is all happening in Chuck's head and isn't about unreconstructed, always-at-issue gender role feelings, which always and will always be an issue for all human beings, but also the general self-image issues that we assign to gender that aren't really ever about gender:

"Are you a spy? Or are you a guy with a spy girlfriend?"

Spy, male or female, here signifies the image of an empowered person capable of extreme feats, self-protection, and most of all possibilities and a future. Letting somebody, anybody, come in and scoop it just because you're used to a safety net is equally as embarrassing for a woman or a man, because it means you're not ready for actual equality, which in a relationship means give and take, rather than protection.

By Jacob Clifton

Which -- and it took two seasons, both parents, and Ellie getting married to get us to this place -- brings it back around to a nonromantic, nonsexual, non-gendered reiteration of that same issue: X isn't Y's equal without the Intersect but X can't have the Intersect until X becomes Y's equal. Which takes Y out of the conversation altogether and says, "X can't have the Intersect until X has the Intersect," and the only way to do that is work the math so that X sub 1 equals X sub 2, which he only rarely does at this point, due to him equating Spy with the Intersect rather than being a skilled human being.

In other words, x != X until Chuck realizes all spies are Batman, not Superman.

Except for Chuck. (Well, and Sarah's constant flow of hot, dark-haired homosexual boyfriends that somehow also end up with the Intersect, but we can talk about those week.) Which is why this is absolutely my favorite storyline of the entire show that doesn't include Bryce Larkin, because it's the only conceit of the show that absolutely must be ripped apart at some point: What does Superman do without Earth's yellow sun, except find new ways to be super?

Okay, so the microdot is heavily encrypted, but so far it's showing some photographs and some blueprints of CIA assets: The Belgian's selling CIA intel and not really a diamond at all. And also there are 20 diamonds total. Casey and Walker are still on microdot duty, while Carmichael and Rye are tasked with capturing the Belgian and his stones. And because nobody knows what's on there -- and SPOILER ALERT it's so contrived that nobody could possibly foretell it, anyway -- they're all treating this as Code Red.

Especially Walker, who once again demands to join them in Switzerland. Still unsure if the Intersect is a Boy/Girl thing or just a regular Boy thing, Chuck surprises everybody, including himself, by asking that Sarah stay at Castle. She's like, "No but okay, but this is actually dangerous." Chuck's hurt reply -- "I'm sorry, and I can only handle fake danger?" -- is as bitchy as it is valid, so she does her Sarah Walker thing and switches viewpoints instantly: "Well, yes. The Intersect is a big deal. But also Agent Rye's been pulling this shit for days now and it's not working, and this diamond is clearly majorly killworthy. This is Advanced Dangerous, not Regular Dangerous." Chuck won't budge. Things get weird.

By Jacob Clifton

"I can take care of these [...] people without you holding my hand!" he shouts. "[Risking your life is] what I do! I'm a spy!" And Sarah's so overtaken with worry (60% girlfriend, 30% handler, only about 10% actual emasculation) that she accidentally drops the curtain for a second and yells, "NO, CHUCK, YOU'RE NOT!" Everybody's nuts shrivel, even the General's, at this awful truth, and Sarah backtracks and eats shit with amazing dexterity: "Not... Right now?"

Which is the nicest possible way to say it besides the actual truth, which is that you don't ask a dance major to do your taxes or your lawyer to build you some furniture, unless they've gone through CPA training or carpentry apprenticeship. Levi's acting here is truly remarkable, I mean he must have been planning for this scene since the show was invented, given what's at stake here, but it's really gorgeous and kind of heartbreaking. I rewound it several times just to see all the twitches in there: He's angry, but not so angry that he looks stupid, and he's hurt, but not so hurt that he looks weak, and he's scared, but not so scared that he's going to let you see it, and his worse fears have been vindicated, but not so much so that it makes him look sexist or shitty. Just a beautiful, scary moment.

But the General's had it with the pussyfooting around this business, and finally finally sends Sarah to Gstaad. Chuck's mouth hanging open, tears in his eyes, and Sarah's just like, "Look, I will grovel about this shit later, but right now I have to get on a supersonic jet and we can work out our power issues when I get there, because even though it's not really about me at this point, it's about you, which makes it about me because I love you and I'm just really, really sorry."

From the heights to the depths: Back at Buy More they're luring Greta to the Cage with a product-placed sandwich, so Morgan tries to beat her there before she can kill them, but of course Greta gets there and pulls her knife -- meaning she's the one that's blowing the CIA facility's cover at this point, at least until they are dead in a second -- so Morgan whines and wriggles and tries to resolve it without using any of the actual words, like "spy" or "assassin" or "massive coverup" or anything like that... (One awesome Jeffster joke, sent Lester's way: "Do you want to die with your wig on or off?") And then Jayne Cobb shows up and calls out in his best CIA voice, "Stand down. Stand down." And River stands down, and Casey produces all this insta-evidence that she was stealing from the store and is a weird knife-wielding thief, so Morgan goose-steps her out of there, and it's sort of great. Except for the part where Jeffster lives. Or is on this show, ever.

By Jacob Clifton

Sarah texts Chuck that she'll be there soon, and he fumes at her gorgeous picture on the phone, and then beautiful Riggle sees the Belgian enter the vault on their cameras. He and his body man run for the gondola, which Riggle pronounces a whole new other way again, and Chuck wants to wait for Sarah but Riggle reminds him that this whole episode is about not waiting for Sarah, so they head off to "be heroes." Which Chuck immediately realizes he's been fooled into extreme Dangertown, but one thing about Chuck: He doesn't back down until maximum comedy potential has been reached.

Greta points out that, though Colonel Casey is quite admirable, the Buy More outpost and its personnel are... Unprofessional, to say the least. Which is what happens when you turn a dork haven into a CIA facility and forget to tell anybody that's what you're doing, I guess. Casey gives a whole speech that goes, "This episode was about me reintegrating with the team emotionally, and so I have done. Here are a bunch of lies about how great Team Castlemore is, and piss on your 'facts' and 'logical proof' that we're not actually spies just because we are not spies." Hugs all around, he is mean to her and they growl at each other like animals until she leaves, tail between her shapely legs even though she is right, Morgan commences climbing all over Casey's face and jock, and everything is back to normal.

But then suddenly Charles Carmichael is decrypted from the secret of the microdot. He's one of the assets/photographs that the Belgian was selling. So even though the Belgian was at the sale and totally saw everybody in the audience, he didn't notice that Chuck was A) the Intersect or B) in Gstaad until it was convenient for the plot that he do so. So now suddenly Chuck is in terrible danger and must not apprehend the Belgian. Casey calls Sarah, Sarah calls Chuck, but Riggle wrestles the phone away from him and tells Sarah to quit bugging them and acting all paternalistic, and hangs up.

"You don't need Sarah. This is all you. Last chance, Chuck. On or off?" Once again Chuck chooses hope over wisdom, but it takes all of five seconds for the Belgian to prove that this was the wrong call: "Agent Carmichael's coming with me. The asset in your head is worth far more than the entire list embedded in these microchips!" See, for me that would do it. I don't want heroism, or to believe in myself anymore than I do -- which is to a fault already -- but should Richard Chamberlain have the opportunity to yell at me something like "The asset in your head is worth far more than the entire list embedded in these microchips!" I would consider it a life well-lived.

By Jacob Clifton

Chuck ends up hanging over the Alps, of course -- you knew that was coming the second Riggle said "gondola" a million times -- and is denied help several times. First because it's like the Ultimate Test and thus lights up Riggle's eyes something fierce because maybe they'll both die; then because it's literally as close to PFOD as you can get; then because this is the perfect example of a situation where Sarah, his rock [got it] can't help him: "Tell yourself you don't need her, and give in to the fear!"

Ah, but Chuck knows damned well he needs Sarah. Specifically that he loves her, which means needing her in a way that is both less and more scary than hanging out of a gondola by your fingertips while ten sexy tons of Rob Riggle fights multiple Eurobaddies inches from your nose. "I'd rather love Sarah than have the Intersect," Chuck grunts, somehow both completely getting and completely missing the point at the same time, but either way he's not flashing and Riggle's not budging, and it's a perfect hit of that old-school toughness I was whining about a second ago.

"CIA didn't send me out here to affirm your love, Bartowski. You need the Intersect up and running. Now, get that rock off your chest and be a real spy." Beat. "Like me!" Beat, and then Riggle gets shot through the chest and falls to his death with one final, gorgeously weird "Did I just get... Shot? I certainly did!" The Belgian pulls Chuck back into the gondola, and answers his phone to tell Walker that she won't be looking for them, or contact them further, or else Chuck is dead.

Back home, Sarah calls the General from Castle, but between acts the Belgian has disappeared from Gstaad on a private jet that has since apparently landed nowhere at all. The General promises that she's got word out everywhere and it's all very Code Red and please calm down, and puts Casey on the new mission. "Sarah, he's out there. We'll find him. But until there's intel, go home and get some rest. You'll be informed of any developments." Sarah swears she's not leaving Castle, and the General orders her home. Casey tries to comfort her -- "Bartowski's smart. Intersect or no, he'll be fine" but Sarah knows damn well he got into this mess: Sarah telling him over and over not to get into this mess.

By Jacob Clifton

The Belgian's insane face has Chuck tied up somewhere, torturing him for the Intersect -- Stupid sexy irony! -- but Sarah's not sitting still, no. She's back in Burbank, packing up all of the guns and knives and gumption available in America, when Morgan and Casey appear in their bedroom, offering her -- and she looks real sad and it's real sad to watch -- their aid in whatever rogue mission she's planning. And when she says thanks, it's somehow the most touching part of all.

You've got me for these three weeks of November, and if you've read this far you already know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. week: Chuck moves from Bear Gay to Supervillain Gay in the attempt to solve for all sets f(x) such that x = X. (Hopefully without turning Y into his ex. As it were.)

Watch the episode below, then discuss it in our forum. Then see some of our favorite Chuck guest-stars.