Chuck 5x01: Chuck Vs. the Zoom

Original Air Date: 28 October 2011

Storyline: Now the head of his own spy agency, Chuck takes on a slick thief and an investor who has stolen money from dangerous criminals, but has to deal with Morgan being now the Intersect. Morgan aids Chuck in planning a surprise for Sarah. Jeff and Lester launch their latest scheme at the Buy More.Best Quote:

Chuck: Bale is playing in a club squash tournament. Morgan, you're gonna delay his opponent while I step in and match up with Bale. He'll get to know my face and name so that when I show up at the party, I won't be a complete stranger. What? What-what-what, what's the problem? What's up?
Casey: You're gonna play? Do you actually play any non-video game sports?

Review: No. No, no, no, no, no! Hell no! Chuck without the Intersect? No! I'm sorry, guys, but I cannot support this. I have Intersect withdrawal same as Chuck. Not saying he's not great without it, or even that the episode was bad - compared to others in the past, it was somewhat in the middle - but I just cannot get over the fact that Morgan, among all people, a character I've had problems with ever since the beginning, is now a king-fu and salsa master. 

It's not that I didn't expect that - last season's finale made it clear -, but I'd hoped that Chuck would actually find a way to get it back. I mean, the show is not called "Morgan" and it's already bad that we only have 13 episodes in this final season.
And in pure Morgan fashion, he found a way to make the Intersect his by actually renaming Chuck's flashing to "zoom".  It was, of course, hilarious that Casey went along with it and that even Sarah is now putting baby in a corner and thinks Morgan is now the team's best asset. It must suck to be Chuck right now (and I didn't mean for that to rhyme...).
OK, Morgan rant over, I loved his action scenes. He literally kicked ass, and Chuck himself was not bad; he managed to throw a good punch and come up with a last minute plan that would save the day, eventually. 
I couldn't manage to get into the whole perfect house thing; stuff like this usually happens when the main characters are paired before the actual series finale - but the fifth season was an unknown when that happened, so I get the reasoning behind the wedding. But now the writers need to give the newlyweds some kind of arc, so I predict a lot of lameness in this area and maybe a baby bump. God, I hope that last part actually doesn't happen, it would be to cliche.
Moving on, there were a lot of funny moments throughout the hour. I was happy to see the Jeffster at work, those two crack me up every time. Other highlights included Casey being unable to resist taking down a man who had stolen from Rush Limbaugh, the premature zoom and the baseball calming technique (others may use breathing exercises, but I'm with you, Morgan: baseball is boring!), as well as the opening sequence, with the gang talking about Morgan's moves as a super spy compared to his actual entrance.
As for Decker, I'm not particularly into him as the bad guy - he doesn't give me the villain creeps -, but if anyone was still hoping Chuck will keep going after episode 13, his speech made all that moot: "This is the plan. Its final chapter. Nothing can stop it." But, in the meantime, let's just enjoy this while it lasts, chucksters!Back to Season 5