'Chuck': Not another teen movie

Chuck continues to amaze and impress: You gotta love a show that can combine heartfelt characters, an offbeat love story, revelations that morph into bigger secrets, references to some of the greatest teen movies ever made, and laugh-out-loud dialog with a chick fight in the showers choreographed to "Smack My Bitch Up."

Activities: Yearbook, drama club and debate team. Voted most likely to spoil.

A mysterious petite blonde seems to be stalking Chuck and Sarah, causing Sarah to put Chuck in lockdown.  But Sarah realizes she's not a threat to national security -- no, it's much worse than that. It's Heather Chandler (!), the meanest of the mean girls. She's the cheerleader who made Sarah's high-school years hell -- well, that and seeing her dad arrested by the ATF. Oh, and back then, Sarah's name was Jenny, and she was in the grips of a puberty that just was not kind.

Sarah wants to pretend this meeting never happened, but Chuck flashes on Heather's husband. Heather married Mark Ratner (!) the high school geek, who went on to work for a defense contractor and now is suspected of trying to sell the plans to the next generation bomber. The general orders Chuck and Sarah to go out to dinner with Heather and Mark. Heather continues to Mean Girl the hell out of Sarah/Jenny, but Mark isn't really paying attention -- he's nervous about something. When he goes to the bathroom, he's confronted by a couple of Russian mobsters demanding the plans to the bomber. Chuck blunders into the bathroom and Mark hides in a stall. Casey comes in and kicks butt, then runs off to get the car so he can stash the unconscious thugs. When Mark emerged, he just sees Chuck, and assumes he's the ass-kicker. Chuck doesn't disabuse him of that notion.

This leads to a fantastic bit back at Orange Orange HQ, where Mark says he only wants to discuss things with Agent Carmichael -- the man saved his life! This prompts Casey to take on the exceedingly unaccustomed role of Good Cop, talking up "Mad Dog" Carmichael's brutality. Mark buys it and tells Chuck the buyers want to set the meet for the next night -- but that's his high school reunion! What can they do!

Cut to Sarah and Chuck attending the reunion, much to Sarah's dismay. A rogue flash convinces Chuck that Dick Duffy, the school bully, is Mark's contact, but when Sarah and Casey investigate, they discover he's just a small-time hood selling smuggled merchandise from his car. Meanwhile, the real Russians have infiltrated the reunion. Check takes the stage and points them out, and Sarah realizes that Heather is somehow involved. This leads to the sublime fight in the locker rooms, where Sarah and Heather manage to turn on the water and so they end up fighting soaking wet. Surely this was in Porky's or something of its ilk...

With the bad guys defeated (and again, Casey managed to beat up the goons without Mark seeing him, so Mark still thinks of Chuck as Mad Dog), there's only one order of business left: The crowning of the reunion queen. That honor goes to Jenny Burton, who limps in soaking wet, bleeding, hair messed up, makeup smeared across her face... and no one seems to notice. It's fantastic. Nice tiara, though.

After the adventure is over, Sarah offers to answer one of Chuck's questions about her past -- but Chuck declines to ask one.  He knows everything he wants to. This, of course, means that he isn't privy to the same flashback we are -- Jenny digging up a box full of cash after witnessing her dad's arrest. She hears a noise and flings a knife -- just missing CIA Director Graham. Graham says he arrested her dad to save his life, and he knows about all the name changes and moving around she's done in her young life. then he offers her a chance to take on a new name and learn some new skills. Sarah Walker is born.

The Buy Morons
The Buy More B-Plot was basically an excuse to ape Risky Business, but without the hookers, Princeton interview or sex on the El, and substituting Big Mike's fish for the crystal egg. Lester resigns his post as assistant manager and goes back with the rest of the plebes. That's about all you need to know.

Highlights, thoughts and odds and ends

• Was anyone else suckered by the title ("Chuck vs. the Cougars")? I was expecting a bunch of predatory older women. Perhaps that's a sign that said term has gotten way too much play in the last couple of years.
• Kudos to the makeup and costume folks for turning stunningly beautiful Yvonne Strahovski into awkward, colorless Jenny Burton. Usually in shows like this, they just stick some glasses on the girl and pull her hair back, and we're supposed to believe no one could tell she was gorgeous. I could completely buy poor Jenny being one of the school nerds.
• Speaking of kudos -- hooray, writers! Heather Chandler is, of course, the head Heather from, you guessed it, Heathers. Mark "Rat" Ratner is the dork who pined for Jennifer Jason Leigh in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Were there more?
• Chuck is loving life: When Heather announces she and Mark went to high school with "Jenny," Chuck burbles: " Come on! Of all the semi-tart, Asian-influenced frozen yogurt shops in all the towns in  all the world you walked into hers?" Hee!
• Nicole Richie does a damn good job channeling the Ultimate Mean Girl as Heather. Who knew she had it in her? I loved her turn at the restaurant, when Sarah says she learned knife skills at culinary school. "Was that to advance your yogurt career, or are you working your way up to the carving station at Lawry's?" Ouch!
• Mark may be an engineering genius, but he's none too bright. First, he doesn't realize that Heather is, well, a Heather. Second, he's highly confused when he sees Casey again -- "Wait, you're out waiter from last night! Man we really screwed you on the tip." Heh.
• I loved Adam Baldwin playing good cop. He doesn't get a chance to do that very often, and he just oozed earnest, if fake, sincerity.
• Casey posing as the DJ was a joy to behold.
• I like the Buy Morons plot much better when it actually plays into what Chuck is doing, although I can see where it's hard to do that every week. This week? It just seemed tacked on.
• That said, there were a few nice notes. Big Mike announces he's going fishing, and leaving Lester in charge: "When you look at him, I want you to see Big Mike, and not some scrawny-ass Indian kid with a bay city rollers hairdo."
• When Lester finds Morgan fixing the fish, Morgan gives him a speech about wanting Lester to know that people are basically good, and that he doesn't have to be afraid in this bid bad world. Lester is touched. "Are you crying?" Morgan scoffs. "Naw, man, I was just doing my job!" Hee!

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