Hey, pastrami lovers! Sorry I wasn’t able to blog much about “Chuck” last week. I hope to make it up to you now.

First up, the good news for fans of the show is that it was picked up for a full season—whatever that means. I don’t blame the WGA; the striking writers deserve to get their piece of the action. But in light of the strike, it’s just hard to celebrate new episodes when it’s unknown when—or if—they’ll be made, despite assurances from TV execs. (Need an extreme example? Just ask any “Deadwood” fan, then run very fast.)

Still, it’s encouraging to see that NBC—probably my favorite network in terms of programming quality—is extending the life of “Chuck” and, well, “Life,” especially because the easy thing for the ratings-challenged network would be to give up on shows like those and “30 Rock,” when fans who know quality feel so passionately about them and there’s a real shot for audience growth (”The Office,” “Seinfeld,” et al.).

One quick link for you before this week’s “Chuck” recap: Check out this excellent TV Guide interview with Adam Baldwin, a.k.a. John Casey. If you couldn’t figure it out by now, he’s my favorite character on “Chuck” — and that says a lot, considering the fantastic jobs Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski are doing.

My “Chuck vs. The Nemesis” recap is after the break.

As dramatic as it was to see Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker kiss when time expired on what they thought was a bomb, it seems a bit strange that Bryce Larkin didn’t die (again) when the timer that supposedly measured the amount of oxygen remaining in his life-saving unit expired. I mean, some time had to have passed between the time Chuck left and the crews worked to open that capsule. But, no, Shirtless Colin Farrell Lookalike had to open his big mouth and start breathing again. Yes, I’m bitter.

At the start of the “Chuck vs. The Nemesis,” Bryce, strapped to medical equipment, awakens under government surveillance. (Bryce Not Dead Tote Board: 1.) He whispers to a nurse that he wants to see Chuck, who’s busy connecting with Sarah’s cell-phone voice mail. While telling Morgan he regrets their breakup, Chuck turns to see him sucking face with Anna. Chuck allows Anna to join them for Thanksgiving dinner, but she’s jealous of Ellie because, duh, Morgan loves her and has said so to pretty much anyone who will listen.

After Big Mike tells the Buy More crew they have to work the holiday, Sarah enters the store. Chuck offers a rambling mess of a post-kiss monologue, then asks her to Thanksgiving dinner and wants to know if their cover as boyfriend and girlfriend is no longer a sham. She doesn’t answer. Instead, she drops the Bryce Bomb on him. Hard. The nervous smile on Chuck’s face disappears.

Sarah takes him to see Bryce, who hasn’t seen her or Casey because he specifically asked to see Chuck. Casey smirks and gives Chuck a pep talk before the door opens and locks behind him:

Remember, he’s a rogue CIA-trained assassin. Be careful.

Thanks, buddy!

For a guy thought to be dead, Bryce ironically is skeptical if Chuck is, in fact, real. So, he speaks to him in Klingon. Wary about being watched participating in such a studly activity, Chuck finally obliges when Bryce presses him. Bryce is convinced, but Chuck isn’t exactly thrilled to reunite with the guy who ruined his college experience and turned him into an intersect without his permission.

Chuck: Why’d you send me the intersect? Then why did you destroy it? And last up, how the hell are you still alive?
Bryce: It’s complicated.
Chuck: Who saved you?
Bryce: They did.
Chuck: They saved you? Did they? Could you be any more cryptic? Can I get a name, a place, a something?

Judging by Bryce’s holding a hypodermic needle to Chuck’s throat, he isn’t in the mood for chit-chat. He orders Chuck to untie him when Sarah busts into the room with Casey right behind her; Bryce is confused by Sarah’s presence, then teases Casey, whom he saw in his last life gunning him down. “Hello, Casey,” Bryce seethes. “Care to try again?”

Although Chuck is being held hostage, he convinces Sarah and Casey not to shoot Bryce. Bryce forces Sarah to give him the elevator’s code. Once the doors close, he releases Chuck, who doesn’t know what to think. He tells Bryce that Sarah and Casey are protecting him and that they’re the good guys. The elevator stops sooner than Bryce anticipates, revealing Tommy (the guy who shot Yari in the last episode because Tommy didn’t want him to talk to the feds). Tommy and Bryce exchange a lack of pleasantries while Chuck flashes on Tommy. Before Chuck can get an answer about the identities of Tommy and Tommy’s shady file called Fulcrum, Bryce apologizes in advance and injects Chuck with a sedative. He tells Chuck to tell Sarah that it’s hard to say good-bye.

When Chuck awakens in groggy fashion, he’s reduced to mere gibberish. Here, we have by far the funniest moment of the episode, far funnier in video form than in print, I assure you:

Chuck: (sees Sarah) Heh… heh… heyyyy! Hey, hey! (sees Casey) AHHH! Not pretty! Uglyyy!

Chuck still wants answers. This time, from Sarah. But Ellie gets in the way during Chuck’s second interrogation of the day, but at least convinces Sarah to join him for Thanksgiving.

The holiday arrives and Morgan tries to motivate the Buy More troops into preparing for “Pineapple,” the code word used only in the most extreme emergencies. The Nerd Herd, ever so sensitive, begins to use the word as if it would expire like Bryce’s oxygen supply. Morgan is not amused.

Chuck returns home for Thanksgiving dinner and finds Casey with a cosmo. Ellie invited him over. Grimacing when Chuck tries to hold his shoulder for a brief heart-to-heart, Casey confirms Chuck’s suspicion that he was the one who killed Bryce the first time.

Chuck: Why would you do that? Why did you kill Bryce?
Casey: Orders. Your old nemesis is a very dangerous human being, Chuck. You get a chance to shoot Bryce Larkin, you shoot to kill.

Hmm… call me crazy, but something tells me Fulcrum gave Casey faulty info about Bryce. And who wouldn’t love a Casey-Tommy showdown once that’s revealed? Good times!

Anna and Morgan arrive, with a clingy Anna handing over an inedible green-bean casserole dish to Ellie, whom she calls a hussy. Uh oh.

Meanwhile, Captain Awesome continues living up to his name, bubbling over with enthusiasm over bird-stuffing, bird-eating and white-water rafting. Hooray for Ryan McPartlin, doing a bang-up job with a character that could totally be boring as hell. He’d be the show’s best scene-stealer if it weren’t for Baldwin.

Seeing that Morgan’s marshmallow-less sweet potatoes could potentially set off a chain reaction to melt down Thanksgiving dinner at Chez Bartowski, Chuck heads to the herder to pick up the Stay Puft. On his way, he runs into Bryce, who busts his chops about living with his sister and falling short of expectations. Chuck bristles and reminds Bryce that he’s the reason he got kicked out of Stanford. Bryce wants to see Sarah, but Chuck doesn’t have any incentive to help him—until Bryce tells him that Tommy and the bad boys at Fulcrum are hunting down the intersect, a.k.a. Mr. Bartowski himself.

With Casey and Captain Awesome comparing work-out notes and Morgan and Anna discussing the merits of tartar sauce in casserole, Chuck whispers to Sarah that Bryce is waiting for her in Chuck’s bedroom. (Of all places! Ouch.) There, Sarah asks why she shouldn’t arrest him.

Because I’m not a rogue spy. Because Intersect was a mission. Because, Sarah, you’re still in love with me.

Now, there are a couple of interesting things about their subsequent kiss, which Chuck witnesses when he volunteers to get the white-water rafting brochures for Awesome. For starters, Sarah isn’t exactly diving into Bryce’s face; he has to initiate. But once he makes his move, she’s not finding a way to turn away either. Nice nuance by Strahovski here, because the kiss reflects a character who isn’t sure what she wants. Now, compare that to the woman who jumped Chuck when she thought a bomb was about to go off. Hmm.

While friends and family give thanks at the dinner table—except Casey (”I’ll pass.”)—Chuck bitterly answers in a way that only Casey would truly comprehend.

I’m thankful that Bryce Larkin is dead and is not currently in my bedroom making out with my new girlfriend.

Casey excuses himself as Awesome wonders why that that moment of Thanksgiving was so specific. Excellent job by the writers here. Very clever.

Sarah, swept up in the moment, tells Bryce he’s “still got it.” But when he backpedals and assures her he needs her help, Casey busts in with a gun and Bryce flees out the window. Back at the dinner table, Ellie’s new-and-improved sweet potatoes impress Morgan in a guttural way reminiscent of Chuck’s suggestive appreciation for Lou’s sandwiches. Anna, in a jealous fit, tells Ellie she can have him before storming out of the apartment with Morgan trailing behind her.

Ellie: Honey, no more family dinners.
Awesome: What do you think of a destination Christmas?

With Casey splitting to find Bryce, Chuck admits he called Casey to break up the kissing party. Then Chuck spots someone in Casey’s apartment and Sarah sneaks in to find Bryce hacking into Casey’s computer. But when Sarah and Bryce turn guns on each other, he explains that Fulcrum is a sinister inside job.

Bryce: The Intersect was a mission. I was recruited by an outfit called Fulcrum—a special access group inside the CIA.
Sarah: You’re lying. We would know that.
Bryce: They knew who I was—my activation codes, my record. They ordered me to shed my agency contacts and go deep. Only then did I realize then it was an internal strike to download and destroy the Intersect. Fulcrum had plans for its intel.
Sarah: How can I trust you, Bryce?
Bryce: I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sarah. I didn’t know who to trust.
Sarah: Why Chuck?
Chuck: Yeah, why Chuck?
Bryce: I needed a friend who wasn’t a spy, who wouldn’t know anything about Fulcrum or the Intersect or Sandwall.
Chuck: (Flashes.) Sandwall. Sandwall. That was the name of the mission. Sarah, I think he’s telling the truth.
Sarah: Why, did you flash?
Chuck: Yeah.
Bryce: I’m not rogue.

Casey shoots Bryce before Chuck and Sarah can explain that he’s not rogue, but he’s wearing a bullet-proof vest. (Bryce Not Dead Tote Board: 2.) Chuck faints. Casey and Sarah lift Bryce to his feet and Chuck is left alone on the floor. Bryce doesn’t know how he’s alive after Casey shot him the first time, but he reveals that he regained consciousness in an ambulance, where Tommy demanded to know the location of the intersect files. Bryce says “they’re in me,” so Tommy let him live. But Bryce needs the help of Chuck, Sarah and Casey so he can turn himself into the CIA safely. Because Fulcrum rogues are embedded throughout the government, Chuck volunteers to ID which agents are the good guys by seeing if he flashes on anyone who tries to take Bryce in. Casey wants a public place for the drop-off, where there are plenty of witnesses.

Of course, the Buy More on Black Friday suffices. There’s an intriguing moment when Morgan sees Bryce and tells him he looks just like the guy who ruined Chuck’s life. That had to make Bryce wonder, for a split second, is Chuck really helping me out here? For a split second, Chuck had all the power and could have purposely sent him away with Fulcrum guys. But Chuck, of course, does the right thing. Also, this might be a way in the future for Morgan to learn about Chuck’s other life.

Hey, another hooray goes out to Scott Krinsky, who plays Jeff of the Nerd Herd clan. Jeff had his best moments of the series so far. In addition to being the slapstick hero, falling down in the face of a too-loud megaphone and after various electronics were dropped on his head, Jeff’s “Somebody touched me!” line as he hid from swarming customers was classic.

Bryce apologizes to Chuck, adding that he’s only got one friend in the world while Chuck’s got a house and a store full of them. He puts his hand out to Chuck, who pauses, then shakes it. Sarah steps in and takes Bryce away with the agents, leaving Chuck alone at the store.

Sarah and Bryce begin to talk about their relationship in the car when a van slams into it. Back at the Buy More, Tommy reintroduces himself to Chuck and tells him he’s looking for the intersect. Uh oh.

The limp bodies of Bryce and Sarah are dragged into the street by Fulcrum ops while Tommy informs Chuck that the store is now overrun by his henchmen, even neutralizing Casey by holding him quietly at gunpoint. Not threatened by the idea of executing everyone in the store, Tommy wants answers.

Thankfully, Bryce and Sarah were only unconscious. (Bryce Not Dead Tote Board: 3.) In tandem, they dispatch their captors and head back to the Buy More in search of Tommy, whom Sarah correctly suspects is after Chuck. Back at the store, Jeff asks Chuck how to fix the cash registers.

Tommy: Say more than one word and I’ll kill him right here.
Chuck: Pineapple.

Chaos ensues, enabling Casey to do some neutralizing of his own and grab Chuck, whom he throws over his shoulders and takes to the home entertainment room. He isn’t the only one to get swept off his feet, as Morgan shows some heroism of his own by carrying Anna out of the Buy More. Even Big Mike isn’t big enough to stop the stampeding shoppers from leaving the store.

Casey uses his cell phone to issue a Code Black and reloads using ammo hidden in the coffee table. Tommy and his Fulcrum team—of no fewer than eight people, I counted—lock the Buy More doors and assume their own battle stations. Moments after the shoot-out begins, Sarah and Bryce offer back-up with perfectly synchronized guns a-blazin’ and ninja kicks. Watching from afar, even Chuck must admit, “Wow, they really are great.”

As Casey tries to usher Chuck out of the room toward safety, Casey is punched in the face and it’s Tommy’s turn to hold Chuck hostage. Bryce and Sarah point guns at Tommy, but he’s been in this situation before. Luckily, Bryce asks Chuck in Klingon if he’s wearing a vest; Chuck confirms it and takes one for the team. Distracted, Tommy is returned the knock-out punch from the guy to whom he had just given one: Casey.

Morgan passes another one of Anna’s arbitrary tests by carrying her out of the store, but is about to fail his shot at employment as Big Mike questions him about the Pineapple Incident. Before he can answer, an NSA op—disguised as a firefighter—tells Big Mike that Morgan saved a lot of people’s lives because of a “gas leak” inside. Morgan’s job is saved.

Back inside, the clean-up begins and Bryce gives his report to General Beckman in the conference room. Looking like a thin Oakland A’s-era Jason Giambi this time, Bryce emerges in a tuxedo—where’d he get that from?—to give the ladies in the audience something to admire. With Awesome, Bryce, Casey, Ellie, Anna and Sarah—and arguably Chuck and Morgan in their own way—this is definitely an equal opportunity show as far as eye candy is concerned. No shortage of beautiful people.

Bryce says his tux is for a consulate dinner, and that his new assignment involves going after Fulcrum “on my own, off the radar”—Casey’s dream job. Chuck asks where he’s going, but Bryce says even he can’t know. Bryce then addresses Sarah cryptically:

We’ll always have Omaha.

Chuck knocks on Casey’s door that night to ask what that means. Casey explains that it might be a contact point, a place to meet in case Sarah wants to join Bryce on his mission. Casey assures Chuck that if Sarah leaves, he’ll help find him a new girl. They’re not exactly hugging yet, but Casey is slowly warming up to the big Nerd.

And then we come to the infamous phone scene, during which no words are spoken. At her residence, Sarah is looking out the window while a packed, but unzipped, suitcase sits on her bed. The old-timey phone (old phone, old flame) by her bed starts to ring; it’s Bryce on the other end. As she approaches it, her iPhone rings (new phone, new start); it’s Chuck on the other end. Bryce’s phone rings for 1 minute, 21 seconds; Chuck’s rings for 46 seconds. Sarah, frozen, answers neither. Wow.

I couldn’t help but root for and against Bryce simultaneously. I’ve enjoyed five seasons’ worth of “Smallville” (and need to catch up with the last season-and-a-half); this week, it hit me that Bryce Larkin is very much the Lex Luthor of “Chuck.” He starts out as the protagonist’s friend, but the audience often finds itself rooting for the baddie because of his charm and seemingly good intentions. Michael Bomer does a solid job in fleshing out this good-guy-bad-guy role on “Chuck,” but credit must go to Michael Rosenbaum for perfecting it on “Smallville.”

I’m conflicted about the return of live Bryce. For starters, I tend to like revelations to occur through discovery in an Indiana Jones way: through life experience and discovery of artifacts. For example, I loved when Chuck saw the video of Bryce, for the right reasons, stepping in to stop the CIA from drafting Chuck for dangerous missions.

But having live Bryce back in the picture now allows for him to appear and disappear at will to reveal more about the reasons their friendship deteriorated. It’s bad news for Chuck, the character, as far as his quest for Sarah is concerned, but I suppose it makes the show more suspenseful as Sarah no longer has the excuse of getting over Bryce merely because he was thought to be dead.

Speaking of characters to make an exit but whose frequency of return is unknown: Is Tang really gone for good? I mean, has a show ever so blatantly cast off a character that was received with, at best, mixed reviews? I won’t complain too much; I don’t think Tang added anything to the show. (I won’t blame actor, C.S. Lee, though. The role as written seemed unnecessarily antagonistic, unlikable and cartoonish.) Big Mike’s mild antagonism plays funnier and better, and stems from a more realistic place: sales.

As fellow Remote Accessory Amy Vernon wrote late last week, it’s a little fuzzy how many episodes of Chuck will be broadcast before a break. Ack! Just as the series hit that Next Level, too!

Ah well. Here’s what’s on tap for what could be the last “Chuck” for the foreseeable future:

“‘Chuck vs. The Crown Vic’: Chuck poses as Sarah’s husband to foil a politically connected counterfeiter.”

Oh, that shouldn’t be awkward at all.

(Photos courtesy of NBC/Universal.)