Guess who’s coming to dinner, ‘Chuck’

Last night’s episode might have been titled “Chuck vs. the Leftovers,” but the show served up a main course.

This season’s main bad guy, Volkoff (former 007 Timothy Dalton) knows that Chuck is still alive. What he DOESN’T know is that Chuck is the son of his object of affection. When he finds out, and discovers that she has a daughter too, he wants to… impress them at a family dinner?

As long as it ends up with Dalton playing charades, I’m willing to go along with it.

Seriously, Dalton has been amazing in his guest-starring role so far this season, brilliantly playing bumbling goofball a few weeks ago and menacing psychopath this week. He’s been miles ahead of Linda Hamilton, whose acting gives off more of a “can I get paid now?” vibe. It’s a little disappointing that a storyline that could have been so full of emotion (the return of Chuck’s mom) feels wasted on a guest star that seems to have been cast primarily for name recognition.

The real emotion, as always, comes in the form of Chuck’s interaction with his family. By telling Devin that he’s spying again (which made spying sound like some sort of drug), Chuck opened up the opportunity for Devin’s awesome smack down at the end of the show, and he’s absolutely right. Neither he nor Ellie should be anywhere near the spy world just because they’re related to Chuck, and it’s unfair to the point of cruel how Chuck keeps bringing Ellie back into it. This show did a terrible disservice to Ellie by keeping her in the dark for so long about Chuck being a spy. Once she finally found out, it seemed like we had turned a corner, but apparently not. Either let her in on the secrets or let her be.

As for the Buy More crew, we got another ‘80s action movie homage this week in the form of “Die Hard.” I spotted where this was going when I saw Morgan barefoot with the gray slacks and sleeveless undershirt. Yippee-ki-yay! I’m not at all surprised with how well this plot was set up. What I was surprised by was how quickly they dropped it. Don’t get me wrong, I was much more interested in what was happening back at Ellie’s apartment, but why bother with this re-creation just to ignore it? There were a couple good sight gags (Morgan, you have to tape the gun to your back where you can REACH it), but once Chuck and Volkoff left the Buy More, so did the show.

And just to wrap up last week’s cliffhanger, what Ellie and Devin found on her dad’s secret laptop was the key to Chuck getting the intersect back, which he does. And we’re through another turn on the “Chuck gets the intersect, loses the intersect, gets the intersect back” merry-go-round. Just in time for a little winter break.