Chuck – Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

When the Chuck writers were so bold as to use the word “cliffhanger” in the title, and after days of promising tweets from Josh Schwartz, I expected something jaw-dropping to happen in the fourth-season finale. While a lot of things happened, the last-second reveal (and honestly, this show is turning the last-second reveal into something rote with how often it’s been used this season) didn’t drop my jaw; instead, it made me arch my eyebrow and say, “Really? We’re going there?”

We’re going with Morgan Grimes becoming the new Intersect?

Last week I expressed uneasiness with the Nikita season finale, wondering if it wasn’t the best direction for the series; I have that same question about Chuck after seeing “Chuck Versus The Cliffhanger.” The idea of Morgan (Joshua Gomez) as the Intersect is dangerously close to the original premise of the series, so close that I hope we don’t see the same “clueless but well-intentioned new guy” material with Morgan that we saw with Chuck in the first and second seasons. I don’t want to see Morgan and Alex become the new Chuck and Sarah. I don’t want to tune in next fall feeling like I’ve seen everything before.

I got that same feeling from boorish CIA agent Decker (Richard Burgi, who seems to make a post-The Sentinel living playing some real jerks, between this, 24 and Desperate Housewives) telling Chuck that everything we had seen over the course of the series was part of a grander plan. Television has been relying on the ‘master plan, conspiracy, or underlying mystery’ concept for forever and a day now. (Hawaii Five-O would go to the same well two hours later.) I’m not saying it can’t work, but I’ve seen that idea fail just as often as it succeeds. Especially knowing that season five of Chuck will be its last, I was looking for more than concepts that felt like just spinning the show’s wheels.

I have a little more faith in Chuck than I do in Nikita, though, because the Chuck team knows that season five will be their final run, and more importantly, they know exactly how many episodes it involves. I think the show’s suffered a bit from its perpetual “bubble” status; the writers have to come up with one arc for thirteen episodes and then another for a potential back order. That’s not a great way to plot out a show. Hopefully, with a set episode order, plenty of time to think ahead, and four years of experience, they’ll send this much-beloved series out in a great way.

After all, if nothing else, they’re still in touch with what’s made the show so endearing over its entire run: its heart. What elevates Chuck above being a screwball comedy with cooler toys is that it’s always been such a positive series in a world that’s generally very negative. Particularly, over and over again, we’ve been reminded that this eclectic bunch of people is a family. We saw that again tonight, as Morgan regaled an unconscious Sarah with stories of Chuck coming to his rescue, as Casey gave Chuck the blank identities he’d been saving for his own use, and as Devon (the underappreciated Ryan McPartlin) helped Morgan dispatch a CIA agent at the hospital. These only served to bolster the season-long story of the Bartowski and Volkoff families, which came to a happy ending as Alexei (Timothy Dalton at his best), now returned to his real identity — Hartley Winterbottom, Stephen Bartowski’s best friend and colleague — talked daughter Vivian (Lauren Cohan) into helping save Sarah’s life. It’s that positive energy which makes Chuck something special, beyond just being fun.

The final minutes of the episode also dropped another reveal: as a wedding gift, Hartley gave Chuck and Sarah all of Volkoff Industries’ assets, making them worth about a billion dollars. They used part of the money to purchase the Buy More, and part of it to purchase new equipment — since they’d all been fired by the CIA, Chuck decided they’d all go freelance. This is all intriguing, although as before, I’m really not sure what it means for season five; guess we’ll just have to tune in Fridays this fall to find out.

What I took away from the season four finale is that season five is the right time for Chuck to come to an end. The ideas that it sets up aren’t ones that necessarily would pan out for the long-term future of the show, but that’s no longer a concern. Although what we’ve now seen about season five seems wildly disjointed to me, I have to also be fair and admit that the writers have nothing left to lose. I just hope they stick to what got them this far and don’t lose sight of providing a satisfying final season for the devoted fans that have stuck by them through it all.

But maybe they should steer clear of such inciting titles next time? Just a thought.

Clacked by Brittany Frederick
on May 17, 2011 @ 10:00 EST5EDT