The Babe in the Bar

by Courtney Hilden

In this episode of Bones a woman is discovered in a giant chocolate bar. Like many of the show's openings, this happened to have the gross-out moment where putrefied body liquid came out of the bar. Luckily (or maybe not) the body liquid looked like carmel and raspberry filing, not corpse juice.
Meanwhile, other characters were dealing with other storylines. Cam's daughter was about to apply to college, and decided she wanted to go to Central Maine State. It was so nice to see a character applying to a college that no one has ever gone to. Every time characters go to college on tv, they go somewhere well-known and usually prestigious, so showing a state school is a nice change. The not so good thing about this decision? Michelle's motivation for going to the school, which was where her boyfriend was going to be at. The storyline also emphasized Cam's lack of confidence in Sweets. When Angela suggested Cam talk to him, Cam said that she didn't want to "talk to a child about a child." Ouch. It was really unfair, considering that Sweets did make a reasonable argument for why Cam should back off. Of course, just because Sweets made a reasonable argument doesn't mean Cam listened, which includes applying for her adopted daughter.
Also, Hodgins finally decided it was time to announce his and Angela's pregnancy. You already knew how the baby surprise storyline was going to end, since the writers have been setting everyone up since the beginning of the season. Poor Hodgins had no idea that everyone already knew the surprise. Angela was forced into asking people into pretending they were surprise, which of course means they would accidentally tip Hodgins off.
As for the central storyline, I was hoping that the victim had lied to her family about training to be a chocolate maker. It was additionally strange that no matter what the size of evidence, there's always a table big enough to hold it, even when it's a giant chocolate lab. (And don't defend this by saying they had borrowed the table. Did you see how big that table is? Who has a table like that just so someone can borrow it?) Also lame? Making the victim, named Harriet, a spy.

Chuck Versus the Anniversary

Spoiler Alert!: This review reveals everything about the episode.
by Courtney Hilden

In the season premiere of Chuck, our title character tries to both find his Mom and find a job (neither of which work out,) Chuck's Mom makes a few appearances (in a flashback, watching her son look for her, fighting bad guys), Sarah and Casey are so busy on missions they never see Chuck, and the Buy More is resurrected.
There was something reckless and sloppy about this episode. There was way too much they were trying to cram in to one episode. A lot of the other things that usually make this show delightful fell flat or felt lackluster. The humor was not nearly as funny as it once was, and this is probably attributable to the lack of everyone's favorite comic duo, Jeff and Lester. Something about the show feels very wrong and off without them.
Once again, Chuck is making a mistake he has already made: lying to Sarah. This always turns out badly, and Chuck never seems to think about this. Too bad the writers cannot allow Chuck the chance to think about things more. Sarah seemed completely unsurprised by the news that Chuck was lying about something, again. Even with the spy business being what it is, the lying that goes on between Chuck and Sarah is disappointing to watch. It also stretches a certain amount of believability, because it is hard to imagine any smart woman staying with someone with Chuck's history.
The show is wise not to rely too much on Chuck's intersect abilities. On another show, these abilities could easily morph into a deus ex machina, but on this show, they at least are smart enough to use it as sparingly as possible. The truth is that the show is at its best when it adheres to more realistic things, which is why Ellie's comment that jobs "are hard to come by," rings totally true, especially to anyone currently in the job market.
In terms of fight scenes, the best for this episode goes to Chuck's Mom, who had the most badass (but sadly quick) fight scenes. She and this episode's bad guy almost seemed friendly at the beginning of the episode, but that quickly turned sour.
Olivia Munn's acting left much to be desired. Usually the show does a decent job with acting, but her attempts at frigid were more like monotone.
Costume-wise, Sarah has one of the cutest tiered skirts on while discussing with Casey how Chuck does not want to come back to the spy world.
And finally, the show had a wonderful joke about spies when this episode's bad guy mentioned that Chuck and Morgan were smart to use public transportation to avoid detection. There was something about that joke that poked spies and spy movies right in the nose and allowed the audience to consider how too easy it often is for these characters. Getting Sarah and Casey on a bus? Perfect.