Unleash the Casey: The Truth About Jill on "Chuck"

Closure is a funny thing.

Throughout our lives, it's easy to look back at experiences we had or mistakes we might have made with a feeling of unresolved emotion. For Chuck Bartowski, he was still--years after getting kicked out of Stanford--reeling from his breakup with mythical perfect girlfriend Jill Roberts. It was a breakup that sent our boy Chuck into a downward spiral from which he's never truly recovered. After all, he's still working at the Buy More and living with his sister in Burbank and hasn't truly moved past that formative experience.

Until now. In this week's episode of Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Gravitron"), Chuck finally is able to put to rest all of his resolved feelings of betrayal by ex-girlfriend Jill... when she betrays him all over again as an adult. (My advance review of the three-episode Jill arc can be found here.) In this case, it's not a casual breakup and the admission that she slept with Bryce Larkin (we learn that, actually, she made that up) but more the fact that she is Fulcrum agent hell-bent with her handler, the Leader, on getting the Intersect... and has played Chuck since the beginning.

This week's episode, written by series co-creator Chris Fedak, wasn't as strong as the last two installments but still offered up yet another hit of the series' trademark blend of humor, tension, romance, and heartfelt emotion, offering up a climax to the Jill storyline in which Chuck must use his relationship with Jill to lure in the Leader, the Buy More gang guards the merchandise before Black Friday, and Ellie prepares a perfect Thanksgiving dinner for Awesome's parents.

Did Jill underestimate Chuck? Hells yeah, but so does everybody else on an almost daily basis (there's a reason he's always told to wait in the car). He proved that he can be just as crafty--if not moreso--than two Fulcrum agents loose in the Castle. After all, Chuck is hero with book smarts and, well, he read the manual. He also was smart enough to lure her away from Sarah (who surely would have killed her) and into the Nerd Herder (complete with iPod capability) where he was able to use the remote detention program on her.

I loved the plant and pay-off of the Ferris Wheel, both in the flashback to 2002 in which we see the genesis of Chuck and Jill's relationship ("you talk way, way too much") and its eventual demise (thanks to, well, a gun in the gut) and that gorgeous near-kiss between Chuck and Sarah in which she instructed him how to get close to Jill without revealing that he's on to her. (Damn!)

What else worked for me? The fight between Leader and Chuck inside the Gravitron, which perfectly blended humor and action; Jeff's trip-wires at the Buy More; Big Mike tackling the Leader (thinking he's a criminal); the use of the lie detector to reveal Jill's true intentions towards Chuck and their future together; the Wrath of Khan-style hand-touching between Lester and Morgan at the Buy More while breaking out to get "real turkey" rather than the nasty microwavable meal Lester cooked up; Jill shooting Leader in the funhouse from behind the glass (even if it was, sadly, a setup); Awesome pulling Morgan out of the trash can with one arm; the fact that Jill and Leader were looking for Bryce Larkin... thinking that he had the Intersect.

My one itty-bitty complaint: would Ellie really be that wasteful that she would throw an entirely good (if a little dry) cooked turkey into the trash rather than freeze it for another use (say, soup?) or, well, give it to poor Morgan? And shouldn't Chuck and Sarah have invited Casey to Thanksgiving dinner as well?

Best line of the evening: "You're under arrest, Jill. And I'm breaking up with you."

Still, if anything was proven during the Jill storyline, it's that Sarah definitely has intense feelings for Chuck and that her jealousy and protectiveness of Chuck were stirred up by seeing him with Jill. That little hand holding at the end as Chuck and Sarah stroll into Ellie's Thanskgiving dinner? It could just be for their cover but something tells me that Chuck and Sarah's story is only just beginning...

Next week on Chuck ("Chuck Versus the Sensei"), Casey and Sarah send Chuck on a mission to get his mind off of Jill's betrayal; Casey discovers that his sensei is now a wanted rogue agent and becomes too emotionally involved in the mission to track him down; Captain Awesome's parents Honey (guest star Morgan Fairchild) and Woody (Bruce Boxleitner) make a surprise visit to Ellie and Devon to help plan their wedding; Emmett reinstates the Employee of the Month contest but Morgan, Jeff, and Lester have other plans.