Once again the promo monkeys at NBC ruined pretty much every major twist in this episode. Thanks guys. There was no doubt that Bryce would turn out to be a good guy, after all, we saw the lengths he went to protect Chuck in Chuck vs. the Alma Mater. However, Bryce is still capable of breaking Chuck’s heart, without even realizing it. For a guy who considers Chuck his only friend, Bryce is pretty self involved not to notice that he’s once again wedged himself in between Chuck and the girl of his dreams. As for last week’s kiss between Chuck and Sarah, it went completely ignored on Sarah’s end, although it was obvious she felt bad when Chuck was asking her to Thanksgiving dinner. I have to say though, making out with Bryce in Chuck’s bedroom? That’s cold. At least she realized pretty quickly that Chuck saw them and was retaliating in the only way he knew how, by sending Casey after Bryce.

It was a good thing that Bryce went off on his one man mission, as it left the potential for his return, and no doubt he’ll wreak havoc during a future sweeps episode. Plus, despite all the answers we got about his sending Chuck the intercept and going rogue, there’s still one giant question mark out there, his involvement with Jill. Here’s hoping the next time we see Matthew Bomer as Bryce, it’ll simply be in flashback form, shedding some light on Chuck: The Stanford Years. Having Bryce there also completely threw off the dynamic between Casey/Sarah/Chuck, and just for that, I’m glad he’s gone.

As for Casey, I’m ashamed of myself for not realizing before tonight the potential that he could have with Awesome. Seriously, these two are prime candidates for love unabashed guy love. Am I the only one who’s waiting for the episode where Awesome and Casey have to compete in some display of athletic ability? It’d be gold just for the smack talk Casey would end up dealing Awesome. But knowing Awesome, he’d be completely oblivious to all of Casey’s snark. I also loved that Casey knew how to suit up for the occasion, and even more so, that he embraced the Cosmo’s.

What I’ve realized the past few weeks is that the Chuck creative team has mastered the art of taking television clichés, and somehow making them work. Case in point, the final scene with Sarah, bags packed and ready to join Bryce, staring at both phones, literally contemplating her past and her future, with the old phone representing Bryce and the iphone (Seriously, Sarah has a photo of him on her phone?) representing Chuck. On any other show a parallel like that would have felt heavy handed, but once again, Chuck somehow made it work.

However, the show’s called Chuck, so there’s no doubt what decision she’ll make. What’s really interesting and something I hope will be explored in future episodes, is why she decided to stay. Was it her loyalty to the position or her loyalty/feelings for Chuck? I’m thinking a little bit of both.

It’s sad, but Sarah’s got a lot of maturing to do before she’ll be ready to deal with her emotions head on. We know so little about her back story at this point, but her saying, “I don’t like to talk much” was a nice touch. She seems like someone completely out of touch, and out of control when it comes to her emotions, as evidenced by her jealously last week, and lack of self control with Bryce this week, especially in her saying to Chuck, ‘You saw Bryce kiss me? As if she wasn’t kissing back. She likes to think she’s a put together CIA agent, but she’s kind of a ticking time-bomb. Hopefully the writers will flesh out her character a little more in future episodes, but for now, Yvonne Strahovski is doing a great job with what she’s given. But it’s only gonna be a matter of time before Sarah’s internal conflicts start to wear thin without some further exposition.

Another quality episode, but it’ll be interesting to see if Chuck’s creative team will be able to keep the momentum going next week, especially since the Bryce arc appears to be behind them for now.

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