(Not That Kind of Cougars)

As promised:

Chuck, "Chuck vs. The Cougars": I was a little worried with this one. A big part of Sarah's character ins that we're not supposed to know anything about her (she is, after all, a spy). So imagine my being happiness I was at the end, which created new mysteries and undid all that silly "we want answers" crap. Sarah's wasn't just a normal girl who became a spy, but someone who's actually interesting. Also like the Don Draper-Dick Whitman aspect of Chuck's spy persona, and how they used it in this episode ("see this scar?"). (No haikus today).

Heroes, "Dying of the Light": According to some, the first season of Heroes started off slow, but picked up steam as it went forward, and near the end it had a few great episodes ("Company Man" and "Five Years Gone" most notably, and yes, I looked that up), and then an then an abysmal finale. Season 2 started off terribly (or at least mediocrely) and slowly improved to become pretty good by the end. It looks like season 3 is going to be the same.

After last week's almost-good-enough episode, we get something that's actually entertaining. It was still badly paced, and had more than a few plot holes, but there was nobody acting incredibly stupid (except Suresh, but he had it coming), a Peter-Sylar fight that didn't involve parking meters, and a Hiro subplot that tied into his actual personality (he wants to do good, but isn't sure how), instead of stupid plot contrivances (like opening the safe in episode 3.1). The Claire thing was weaker than last week-- the puppet man was neither creepy enough to be scary (all he wanted was a kiss?), nor interesting in some other way (like Bubbles was), and he had the same "unlimited power" problem that too many characters have on this show (Peter most notably)-- but it was an actual story with a beginning middle and end, and a villain of the week who was actually a villain.

How I Met Your Mother, "Shelter Island": OK, so Stella's gone (I heard she has one more episode, but she's on the way out) Now what? Was the whole storyline just the writers killing time? Does Stella play a role in finding the mother? (It doesn't look like it's her sister, which some people guessed). My guess is the Stella thing is supposed to be instructive to Ted: it teaches him something new about himself or relationships in general, probably that he shouldn't rush into things as much, which becomes important later on. Watch, next time he has a girlfriend, he'll be all "I'm not going to rush into things like I did with Stella" (if it's those exact words, Craig Thomas and Carter Bays owe me a coke. And lots of money).

As for the rest of the episode, it was pretty good. I liked the Tokyo Ichi monkey (and that "ichi" is one of the ten Japanese words I know (it means "one." Can you guess what the other nine words are?)), and the non-alcoholic bar ("I think that's the lead singer of the Spin Doctors"). This one felt a little squeezed to fit into 22 minutes, though. It may have worked better as a two-parter or one of those 30-minute "supersized" episodes they sometimes do with The Office.