Here we are folks – it’s the season 3 finale of Chuck, filled to its two hour brim with double crosses, right crosses, and all kinds of other things like that. We get the return of Daniel Shaw, the death of a big time character, and tons of game changers for season 4. It’s a colossal season finale that has two more parts that match with the best of the series.
Synopsis: In the Season 3 finale, shadowy thugs from the Ring inch closer to take down Chuck and his team, but not if Chuck’s father (Scott Bakula) has anything to say about it. Elsewhere, Casey undertakes a clandestine mission to protect his daughter.
What Was Good: Man, this episode had a TON going on. I’ve said it a number of times in the past, but one of the most astounding things this show does is pack so damn much into one episode. Giving Team Bartowski (the showrunners, not the spy team) two hours to work with is sort of like giving George Perez free reign on cover design – you know it’s going to be packed with a ton of detail.
This episode finds Shaw back in action, putting a plan in motion to effectively put The Ring in charge of all branches of American espionage and military power. It also involves effectively taking out the entirety of Team Bartowski (the spy team, not the showrunners) and putting them into action with the chips on the line, and I’m glad to say the whole team steps up to the plate and then some.
One of the best things the episode did was finally pull the Bartowski family together, as Ellie finally found out about Chuck’s time as a CIA agent and her father’s own time with the company and beyond. It’s a watershed moment, especially considering the fact that almost everyone in the cast (with the exclusion of Big Mike and Jeffster, really) knows that Chuck is a spy finally. Sadly, the thing that really brings this pair together is the death of their father Stephen Bartowksi.
This moment was handled incredibly well, as Stephen’s death was incredibly painfully rendered. The whole scene was played out very well by all involved, from Routh (what’s this? a villain actually doing nefarious things that cause damage as well as being self-referential? muhaha) to Levi (his early bravado and late cries were a brilliant juxtaposition), and the way they cut in Ellie crying around the corner was beautiful.
After this, Ellie was emboldened, heading off on a quest to save her brother and to avenger her father’s death. Fedak and Schwartz brilliantly cut this with flashbacks from childhood, as Stephen had always told Ellie that no matter what she needed to take care of her brother. Everything Sarah Lancaster touched in these episodes turned to gold, as she brought a ton of power and emotion to each and every one of these scenes (not bad for just finding out everyone in the world she cared about knew about her brother the CIA Agent). Plus, bonus points because her tailing of Shaw’s team led to the fantastic sequence between Morgan and Awesome in which each of them deliberated how to take out the armored car that held Sarah, Chuck and Casey. Lapsed vegetarian and doctor or not, those two dudes know how to shoot a mean missile.
Backtracking a bit, early in the episode we found out the reason why Shaw was gunning for Chuck was because of the governor his dad was able to make that negated the negative aspects of the Intersect. Of course, when Shaw took out Stephen and took the governor back, Chuck’s mind pretty much would break whenever he flashed. This added an interesting wrinkle to the episode and to Chuck’s flashing, as it used to be an easy out for tough situations and now it was rapidly killing Chuck.
Thankfully, Team Bartowski proved that they weren’t all flash as they managed to effectively take down the ominous Ring Elders and their minion Shaw rather effectively using a clever mix of spy moves (fake beards and badges plus Chuck as a Russian elder spy = nice) and Nerd Herding skills. Chuck has always been an awesome character, but in moments like this Zachary Levi really imbued him with a level of confidence unlike anything we’d seen previously.
Continued belowShaw escaped though, and this predictably led to a showdown between Chuck and Shaw in the Buy More – Intersect vs. (Broken) Intersect. While Chuck got his ass kicked for a bit by the governor wearing Shaw (who also planted C4 all around the Buy More), the tide was turned quickly by a new wrinkle. It seems that the Intersect 2.0 wasn’t Chuck’s second Intersect, but his third, and that his dad first accidentally downloaded it into him when he was little. As he was dying, his dad said Chuck was special, and now we know why. Queue Intersect reboot and some serious Shaw domination. Boom!
Literally, as the Buy More blows up when Morgan accidentally drops the detonator and sets off the C4, killing Buymoria once and for all. Awesome. The whole Buy More sequence was handled incredibly well, and really established Chuck as a hero and as a very, very tough guy to take out. Suck it Shaw (who could easily come back given Chuck’s decision to not attempt to kill him for a second time).
So here we are at the end of the episode. It seems Big Mike pinned the Buy More’s explosion on Jeffster (they just suggested burning it down after all), Chuck is out as a spy (he promised Ellie he was out), and Casey’s daughter (there was a touching subplot throughout about him finally meeting his daughter via kidnapping) has now joined the gang as a potential love interest for Morgan…much to Casey’s chagrin. All is well in the world of Team Bartowski.
The episode ends with our big positioning for season 4. It seems Stephen programmed Chuck’s computer to receive a message from him if he didn’t make a sequence go through in a certain period of time, and it reveals the fact that Stephen has a special area for his research and work in his old home. It seems Stephen’s alter-ego Orion has some serious enemies that Chuck will be confronting as an off the grid spy, and that the reason his and Ellie’s mother left may have been to protect them. It was an awesome reveal, and a fantastic way to wrap up a stellar season finale, giving us a ton to chew on until next year.
Everyone rocked it in this episode. Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahvoski, Adam Baldwin, Joshua Gomez, Scott Bakula, Sarah Lancaster, Ryan McPartlin, Brandon Routh…you name it. Next season offers new challenges, but almost everyone in the cast will be back and it will be all the more exciting. At the very least, you know it will be charming and well acted.
The music was also superb, with Band of Horses’ new album being incredibly well used.
Umm…everything was awesome. Sigh…reviewing Chuck is difficult because it’s so good.
What Was Bad: It ended and I have to wait for months to watch more. Ridiculous! I demand a Chuck channel!
Overall: This was a fitting coda to the season, and one that captured everything about the show that works so well. Sure, some things were outlandish and/or blatantly impossible, but who am I to judge? I enjoyed every damn minute of this episode, and I’d say the stretch between the “Chuck Versus the Other Guy” to here marks the best stretch in the history of Chuck. Now that’s a heck of an achievement for a consistently fantastic show.
