Chuck 3.09 "vs the Beard"

[emeraldstag]

As I tweeted earlier tonight, I was dreadfully afraid of the reveal they kept teasing and was determined to stay away from any spoilers and I was so thankful that I did because this episode to me was the best episode of Chuck here in S3.

• Chuck/Morgan. It is AWESOME that they are back as best friends with no secrets. I loved it when Chuck seriously started explaining everything and how thrilled Morgan was that everything made sense now and that his best friend was a spy. Also when Chuck's flashed again, I FELT it that he was about to kick some ass. I was really expecting Morgan and Ellie not to be the ones to find out his secret, and I didn't really want Lester or Jeff to be the one so I was actually predicting that Big Mike would be the one to find out. I'm so glad I was wrong and I think the friendship of Chuck/Morgan really shined and I'm pretty sure that the fact that Zachary Levi made his directorial debut with this episode added to that chemistry between the characters.
• Awesome. Talk about someone looking seriously stressed. I swear I wouldn't have blinked an eye if Devon had chosen to deck Shaw for scaring the shit out of him like that. I wonder if the Ring still knows about him, or if it was just a coincidence that he had similar trunks to the person the recording described. I'm really expecting Devon to break down and spill to Ellie what's going on with Chuck. I hate seeing him so "freaked out."
• Casey. The only thing that put a damper on the episode for me was that twist ending with Casey answering the Ring communication device and them clearly having past business with him. I'm not entirely upset because I'm pretty sure it's just a lead-in for the next episode and I'm sure it will come out that Casey has been double agents for plenty of organizations and needs Chuck and Sarah to help him stop himself from whatever he needs to do. Turning him bad would just be the worst character assassination and not work. What would work would be that Casey is such a great agent that he would go undercover with any organization to help his country. Like that sniper that Chuck flashed on last week when the mob guy had thought he recognized Casey, I'm sure that was Casey doing something undercover.

Next week's preview showed a dangerous Casey, I only hope it's what I think and he's doing what he needs to do, not what he wants to do. Also I didn't notice any shots of Shaw, so I wonder if because the Ring is targeting him perhaps he'll be going offscreen for a few episodes to try to lure the Ring away from searching for the base.