Chuck - Series Finale - "Chuck Vs. Sarah"/"Chuck Vs. The Goodbye"

Season 5, Episode 12-13 

“If you ever want to save the world again...” 

I know I've said this in pretty much every review that I've written this season, but Chuck was a show made for happy endings. In this day and age, where the best works of both television and film have at least a healthy amount of skepticism, and where many writers and directors think that “happy” and “treacly” are somehow synonymous, this can seem like criticism on my part, but it's not. Chuck is one of the few shows, right up there with Parks and Recreation, that can and does earn it's happy endings almost regularly. This is largely due to the fact that Chuck tends to wear its heart on its sleeve, and while this was sometimes a liability (especially in the later seasons), it's what gave the show so much power, and when it was able to expand the range of emotions to something other than happy or lovesick, that's when it was at its best. Thus it should be no surprise that the finale worked not just because we were able to experience so many happy moments for all the character, but also because there was so much moving darkness to these two hours.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. The Bullet Train"

Season 5, Episode 11


“So close I can smell it.” 

The fifth season of Chuck has been forced to make a lot of....let's say “interesting”...choices when it comes to its overall plotting, having to fit in several different arcs in a fairly mish-mash manner in order to set everything up for the finale, all in a very short order of time. This has meant that a lot of stories end up getting under-developed, and things resolve not so much because they evolve organically out of the story, but because they need to in order to move on to the next bit of plotting. “Chuck Vs. The Bullet Train” was perfunctory for most of its running time, but at least it's ending felt earned and hold the needed interest and tension for next week's final two hours.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. Bo"

Season 5, Episode 10

“Never say 'One last mission.'” 

Last week, I posited my two main worries about the home stretch of Chuck. One, that the last few episodes weren't really going to give us a coherent narrative because two, the show was so concerned with making sure that everybody got the happy ending that the show thinks that they deserve. “Chuck Vs. Bo”, while still dabbling in the latter problem – to successful end, I would argue – also managed to solve the former.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. The Kept Man"

Season 5, Episode 9 

What do you want from a series finale? What beats or plot points need to be covered so that a show can close out “successfully”? Now, obviously any answer to this question is going to be subjective, but in general finales tend to fall into one of two categories: either the wrap everything up nicely and they provide “closure”, or they purposely avoid such things in order to provide the sense that life will go on for these characters. Unsurprisingly, Chuck has taken the former route, and while that's certainly a move that fits into the established tone, here in the home stretch it's made for some fairly boring (and quite possibly unnecessary) wrap-up work.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. The Baby"

Season 5, Episode 8

In terms of television narratives, the introduction of babies tends to mark a creative downturn for any show. It’s this truism that made me really nervous when, in the last seconds of last week’s episode, it was revealed that there was a child apparently important enough to be referred to as “the baby”, thus indicating that it held some importance to Sarah. I suppose all those fears were for naught, considering that “Chuck Vs. The Baby” didn't go somewhere as stupid as Sarah having a secret child, and in fact the little McGuffin actually led to some nice moments of pathos for Sarah as a character. However, that didn’t stop the episode from being sort of disappointing in its own way.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. The Santa Suit"

Season 5, Episode 7

At this point in the show’s run, I’m often struck with a fairly simple yet confounding question: What makes Chuck work? We all know that Chuck more or less peaked in season two, and there are enough recurring complaints about the show – mostly along the lines of the characters acting irrationally, emotionally, and/or stupidly – that we know what Chuck should avoid, but that isn’t really the same as identifying what makes the show work well. But to that end, I believe that “Chuck Vs. The Santa Suit” reveals that sometimes it’s just best for the show to keep it simple, stupid.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. the Curse"

Season 5, Episode 6

“Who’s after us, Sarah?”

“It was a bit like old times, wasn’t it?”

Those are two important questions that got raised tonight, aren’t they? So far in this final season, Chuck has been stringing viewers along both in terms of where this season was going, and (perhaps more importantly) whether the show would be able to deliver on that the-end-is-nigh-induced uptick in quality that we’ve come to expect in this day and age of television. And to these two important questions, tonight’s episode gives us the respective answers of “I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out”, and “well…”

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. the Hack-Off"

Season 5, Episode 5

Really? It’s only been five episodes so far? With three weeks off, it feel like it been a lot longer since Chuck premiered back in October, and that we should be further along in the season. Part of that is of course the show’s quickly approaching end date on January 27^th with a 2-hour finale, but I think a larger part of that is that the show packed so much plot into the first four episodes trying to reset the status quo from the season four finale that it initially seemed to be squandering the potential of the season five premiere. However, now that the show is done with the ridiculous “Morgan as the Intersect” arc, it finally seems to be settling into a much more enjoyable groove, and if the rest of the episodes can work like this, well then Chuck just might be able to go out strong after all.

Chuck - "Chuck Versus the Buisness Trip"

Season 3, Episode 4

I’m beginning to wonder if Chuck’s biggest problem, at least for this season, isn’t the fact that it isn’t telling the best stories – although, yes, that still is a significant issue – but that it hasn’t found out just how to break those stories into sizeable chunks. Two weeks ago, I railed against the show for introducing evil Morgan far too quickly, and I equally criticized last week’s episode for walking him back at roughly the same pace. But it goes beyond pacing; the show has also had problems connecting the episodes to one another. “Chuck Versus The Bearded Bandit” seemed to end with Morgan working for Verbanski, only for it to take half of the next episode to get to that point. Likewise, tonight’s episode opened with Morgan’s brain still fried (something that I thought was already fixed), and, in a weird bit of continuity, with Jeff still sober. But, if you could manage to look past the fought spots that it took to get here, “Chuck Versus The Business Trip” was actually pretty solid, and the best episode of the season so far.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. The Frosted Tips"

Season 5, Episode 3

Over the past couple of years, I have grown to hate episodic previews. It’s not that I dislike show’s trying to tease us about what’s coming up, and I appreciate knowing when there will and won’t be an episode next week, or if the show is taking a break. But somewhere along the way, networks leaned a little too much into this concept, as they began revealing too much about the next week’s hook, or, even worse (and in the case of this week’s episode) they destroy what was supposed to be a cliffhanger. Usually, I try to avoid these previews (except for FX and AMC, where it usually doesn’t matter), but NBC likes to tack them on right to the end of the episode, and I was ruined about the truth behind Morgan’s attitude shift.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. the Bearded Bandit"

Season 5, Episode 2

Last week, I posited that it was strange that Chuck would give us a premiere that held off on giving us a look the new Intersect that is Morgan. I appreciated the move to focus instead on the show’s lead, even though he’s no longer the character the gives the show it’s hook; it was a moment of subtlety, of paring down the pace from a show that usually doesn’t do such things, and I thought that was admirable. And yet considering that this is show that usually runs right through the plot elements that it does have on it slate was what made Morgan’s relegation to the sidelines stand out so much. So tonight’s episode saw a much greater focus placed on Morgan, all though now I’m wishing that wasn’t the case.

Chuck - "Chuck Vs. The Zoom"

Season 5, Episode 1

Resetting the formula causes a few bumps

Chuck: "Chuck Versus the Family Volkoff"

Season 4, Episode 20

A welcome return of Alexei Volkoff makes everything better

Chuck: "Chuck Versus The A-Team"

Once I protest the fact that 100 mg doesn’t really make anything salty enough to be a substitute for sea water, I’ll offer up a review of tonight’s episode, after the jump…

Chuck: "Chuck Vesus The Cat Squad"

Once I determine the aerodynamic properties of a DVD shard, I'll offer up a review of last night's episode, after the jump....

Chuck: "Chuck Versus The Seduction Impossible"

Once I get done with tracking down a copy of The John Larroquette Show, I will be able to give you a review of last night's episode, after the jump....

Chuck: "Chuck Versus The Push Mix"

Though last week's episode was a bit of a mess, my faith in the show was shaken, as season finales have always been Chuck's bread and butter (which is what tonight's episode was written as). A review of how this episode held up, after the jump... 

Chuck: "Chuck Vs. The Gobbler"

A review of last night's Chuck, coming up after the jump... 

Chuck: "Chuck Versus The Balcony"

Chuck, for a least the past few months, if not longer, has had problems in balancing the show's emotional and spy elements, usually at the loss of the latter. So it was a welcome surprise that tonight's episode was able to strike that balance. More thoughts on tonight's episode after the jump....