‘Chuck’ Recap (Series Finale): Thanks for the Memory

In this epic two-hour finale for NBC’s Chuck, we explore the show’s final conflict: can an ultra-hot badass spy like Sarah fall for a dopey nerd like Chuck… again?

Yikes. This is it. After five seasons of improbable season extensions and renewals, it’s the end of the road for Team Bartowski.

Because this is a long one, encompassing two episodes, feel free to skip to:
Recap of “Chuck Versus Sarah”
Recap of “Chuck Versus the Goodbye”
Analysis

Sarah’s memories have been erased by Nicholas Quinn. She thinks she’s still in the CIA, and her mission is to kill Chuck. Chuck’s already planning a rescue: he knows Quinn will send Sarah after the US government’s Intersect, held in a secure DARPA facility. But while Chuck’s reviewing plans with Casey and Morgan, who should arrive at the door but…. Sarah? She’s a little worse for wear, but she remembers everything! In flashback, we see how she guessed Quinn was lying and beat him up. Well. Easy resolution! Story over, right?

Not really: Sarah’s lying. She didn’t believe Quinn at first, but by showing Sarah her own video mission logs out of context, he convinced Sarah that Chuck’s a dangerous terrorist who killed her partner Bryce. Now her mission is to retrieve Chuck’s empty Intersect glasses, load them with DARPA’s Intersect, and kill Chuck. So Sarah goes undercover in the Bartowski home, snooping around for the glasses. Chuck can tell that something’s wrong, and discusses his fears with Ellie. Sarah overhears, and the way Chuck talks about her makes her wonder if he’s really so bad.

Anyhow, Chuck wants to destroy the Intersect forever. As Morgan notes, this is the team’s third “last mission.” The team infiltrates DARPA and Sarah takes down a bunch of guards with trademark badass fighting skills. But when they reach the Intersect, Sarah downloads it to the glasses and puts a gun to Morgan’s head. Chuck freaks out and tries to convince her that’s she’s suffered brain damage and is making a mistake, but she leaves with the Intersect, locking everyone in the Intersect room with a ticking bomb. Outside, Sarah hesitates with the detonator, but Quinn presses his. Boom! Everyone’s dead!

Okay, not really. The Intersect room’s fried but the gang’s all right, and Chuck switched Sarah’s Intersect with a fake. Casey tries to convince Chuck that the Sarah he knew may well be gone, but Chuck’s in denial. Sarah takes Ellie hostage and demands the real Intersect back, but while Chuck is leading Sarah to an ambush, Ellie takes matters into her own hands and crashes the car. Chuck takes the unconscious Sarah from the car wreck to the one place he thinks he can make her remember: their dream house. Chuck begs her to believe and remember, but Sarah’s conclusion is that she did her job too well, and their five-year relationship is a cover Chuck foolishly bought. Sarah beats him up and he won’t fight back. She’s about to kill him, when he has him backed against the door frame where she carved their names. She realizes that she’s the one who carved that.

Just as she’s beginning to believe, Quinn enters, takes the glasses, admits he lied to Sarah, and shoots her. Chuck jumps to take the bullet (he’s wearing a vest) and tells Sarah to run. Quinn gets away with the Intersect, and Sarah runs off before Casey and co. rush in to save Chuck. While Ellie and Awesome take Chuck home, Chuck laments that Sarah is really lost to him this time. But Casey’s stopped by Sarah’s apartment with an envelope for her. He notes that while Sarah may remember his brutal reputation, Bartowski’s made them both a little soft. After he leaves, she watches the DVD he left in the envelope: it’s her full mission log for Project Bartowski. As she sees herself in the log she watches herself slowly falling for Chuck, one day at a time. She stops by Echo Park to tell Chuck that even though she believes she loved him, she doesn’t remember it and she doesn’t feel it. She came to apologize and say goodbye. She’s going after Quinn.

Two weeks later, Quinn is on a plane meeting with Mark Pellegrino (reprising his role as a Fulcrum agent from waaaay back in season two), who has one of the three keys Quinn will need to unlock the encoded Intersect. Sarah’s smuggled herself on the plane, but she’s not able to stop Quinn getting the key and has to bail by skydiving off the plane. Neat.

Meanwhile, Chuck is moping, thinking he’s had a major setback and he’s back where he was in the pilot, but Morgan, Ellie, and Awesome egg him on to go get Sarah back. All he has to do is make Sarah fall for him again and her memories should follow. And Ellie would know–she’s a neuroscientist! Morgan’s seen a few too many Disney movies and thinks all Chuck’s gotta do is kiss Sarah once and her memories will return. Yeah right. To find Sarah, Chuck enlists Lester, Jeff, and the non-speaking Nerd Herd extras, who stalk Sarah with pinpoint accuracy–she’s in the Buy More!

She came to see Chuck? Well, no. She came to use Castle’s armory. Quinn’s looking for the other pieces of the Intersect key, and the next one’s with the Ring operative Reny Deutche in Berlin. Chuck and Morgan want to come along as backup, and reluctantly she lets them. Sarah gives Chuck Casey’s Desert Eagle, and Chuck can’t bring himself to tell her he doesn’t do the whole “gun” thing.

In Berlin, Chuck and Sarah follow Reny to a restaurant, which Chuck notices looks exactly like El Compadre, the scene of Chuck and Sarah’s first date. They continue following Reny through scenes that seem familiar from their courtship, like the ballroom of a Russian Consulate, and a German version of Weinerlicious. Meanwhile, Casey’s follows from a helicopter, hoping Chuck and Sarah will lead him to Quinn. He’s once again working for Beckman, who wants him to be the “old”, ruthless Casey back, so he’s ignoring Alex’s calls. In the Weinerlicious, Chuck notices Sarah rearranging the things on the counter… could she be remembering?

Quinn enters and takes the second part of the Intersect Key from Reny, and there’s a huge fight in the Weinerlicious. Chuck pursues Quinn into the street and fires a warning shot into the air with the Desert Eagle–it hits Casey’s helicopter! Quinn gets away, and Casey (furious that he was downed by his own gun) arrests the whole team and locks them up in Castle.

Casey says his time with Team Bartowski has made him lose his edge, but Morgan gives a great speech retorting that Team Bartowski always was his edge. This wears Casey down, and soon he’s back with the team. Chuck’s mother shows up to give some intel on the Intersect key: when Chuck’s dad developed the Intersect, three keys were created, and all three would be needed to modify the Intersect. In private, Ellie tells Chuck she thinks they can use this to program the Intersect with info on Sarah and use it to restore her memories. The last remaining piece of the key is with someone in the government–they realize it’s Beckman! She’s watching a performance at the Pacific Concert Hall, and they call her the realize Quinn’s gotten to her already. There’s a bomb under her seat. The team rushes out to save her. Meanwhile, Jeff and Lester have overheard enough info to follow them.

The bomb is pressure sensitive–if Beckman stands, it’ll blow. And it’s also sensitive to sound: It’ll blow when the music ends. If they let the audience know about the bomb, it might disrupt the performance and set off the bomb. Casey stays with Beckman in the audience to handle the bomb while Chuck and Sarah pursue Quinn to the roof, where Quinn gloats that the bomb can’t be stopped. The performance is about to end and Morgan realizes that their only hope is….

JEFFSTER!

With a rousing keytar performance of A-ha’s “Take on Me”. Morgan steals the conductor’s baton and conducts the orchestra in playing along. This is ridiculous but it’s also supremely awesome. And the audience is confused but they kind of dig it. Up on the roof, Sarah kills Quinn and Chuck grabs the completed Intersect. It’s only got one use left (isn’t that always the way?) and Chuck agonizes: he was going to use it to restore Sarah’s memories, but he has no idea how to disarm the bomb without the Intersect. So he takes it and runs downstairs. He flashes on how to open the Bomb’s casing, but inside the bomb is attached to a rather tricky laptop which he has no idea how to disable. Sarah blurts out “Irene Demova!” Chuck is shocked that Sarah remembers… that’s pornographic virus he used to disable a bomb in the pilot, in a very similar situation. The laptop is fried, the bomb is disabled, Jeffster’s song ends to thunderous applause (even from Beckman!), and the day is magnificently saved.

Back in Castle, Beckman gives them one last, heartfelt “Good Work Team,” telling them they’ll always have a place in the CIA if they want it (even Morgan, presumably). But for everyone involved, this is the end. Casey gives Chuck a big, Russian hug and leaves. Sarah says she needs to go “find herself.” She came up with Irene Dimova when the heat was on, but she doesn’t have her memories back. Up in the Buy More, Jeff and Lester are telling Big Mike about their performance at the Pacific Concert Hall. Big Mike doesn’t believe a word of it, until a German record executive comes into the store promising Jeffster that in Germany they’re going to be big and famous, and have attention lots of “women… and men!” Jeff and Lester walk off into the sunset while Big Mike revels inthe glory of Buy More’s new corporate ownership…. of course, it’s Subway Sandwiches!

Casey’s going abroad to pursue Verbanski. Morgan and Alex are finally moving in together. The Awesomes have gotten job offers from a hospital in Chicago, and they’re moving there with baby and grandma. Only Chuck hasn’t got a happy ending, but Morgan eggs him on to go find Sarah and try out his “just one kiss” strategy. Chuck says he’s got no idea where Sarah is, but Morgan thinks deep down he knows.

Well, he’s right. Sarah’s on the beach. The same beach where Chuck and Sarah formed their bond of trust in the pilot. Sarah knows the beach is important, but can’t remember why, and asks Chuck to tell her their story. He starts at the beginning with his getting the Intersect and we see a flashback montage of moments from their relationship. Chuck tells her about Morgan’s idea, that if they only kiss, all her memories will come flooding back. Sarah asks Chuck to kiss her, and we fade out on them kissing on the beach.

And that’s Chuck.

Over the years, there’s been more than one episode of Chuck intended to function as a possible series finale (by my count, this is the sixth). And while some of them have been more epic in the scope of the threat (though not in the length of the episode), this one is intensely focused on the personal level and all the better for it. Sure, there’s a lot of ideas jammed into here, including references to old foes such as Fulcrum and the Ring, but ultimately this one’s all about Chuck and Sarah and very little else.

To that end, the episode does a really great job of taking the viewer all the way back to the pilot episode to relive the journey of the series. Over the years Chuck has remained a very strong series as the writers have refined the formula and learned what works and what doesn’t on this show. But as a result, the show ended up straying a bit from the primary issues with which it was originally concerned: namely, the question whether there’s any way a guy like Chuck can really function in a world of spy intrigue, and whether a girl like Sarah could ever really feel anything for a guy like him.

Obviously, it’s natural and right that the show would shed these concerns because the characters grew and changed, and I’d never want to see the show thrown back into the constant will-they-won’t-they of season two. But sometimes it felt like Chuck had become a different show entirely (albeit still a good one). I mean, just take a look at the DVD box art for the show’s first season and fifth season side by side and you’ll see the contrast visualized in how it presents the dynamic between the two leads. Which is why it’s great that this episode did such a great job of revisiting the pilot without throwing five years of character development out the window for Chuck, Sarah, Casey, and Morgan. Instead, it feels like it all ties together pretty seamlessly.

And it all ends happily for everyone, as I think we all knew it would. The show’s had its darker moments over the years, including the deaths of some important recurring allies, and there were even some dark moments this week (Sarah nearly killing Chuck in their own dream house comes to mind), but Chuck is fundamentally a show where the happy ending is never really in doubt and this finale managed to deliver in a way that just makes the viewer feel warm and fuzzy inside. You can believe that the kiss brings Sarah’s memories flooding back, or you can believe that they have a long road ahead of falling in love again and bringing the memories back piece by piece. You can believe that they go back to spying, or convert Carmichael industries into a cyber-security firm, or pretty much whatever you want.

On that note, even though Chuck and Sarah are allegedly out of the spy game, there may well be more adventure and intrigue in the future for these characters. To be perfectly honest, if the writers, producers, cast and executives were on board for a sixth season of Chuck, I’d gladly lap it up. But they’re not, and it’s probably better that it end now, on its own terms, with the magnificent, uplifting, joyous, nostalgic finale that it got, full of references to the show’s narrative past and even its real-world production history (one last shoutout to the Subway promotional deal that saved the show from oblivion all those years ago).

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the fantastic performances all around, with Levi, Strahovski, Baldwin and Gomez giving particularly strong comedic and dramatic performances here. And while the rest of the cast doesn’t get as much time to shine in this finale, we get just enough of each to remind us of why we’ve always loved the characters.

If you’ll permit the cliché review phrase, the whole two-hour finale (and especially the second hour) was a massive “love letter to the fans,” and a supremely fitting end to this wildly improbably five-season journey.