So I know that the CHUCK finale was last week, and oh how I will miss it, especially that cast. No other cast has ever been as entertaining to watch, whether it be comedy, drama, action, or romance as this one has. They will be sorely missed, but will go on to bigger and better things.
There were things I liked about the episodes.
- The acting, especially Yvonne and Zac. It was great. They played the drama well. Yvonne played all versions of Sarah in "Sarah" just freaking spectacularly.
- Morgan's "You're a wizard, Harry" when he found the invisible cloak at D.A.R.P.A. Hilarious.
- The great line "The Ring? Amateurs" because they most certainly were.
- Chuck shooting down Casey's chopper with his own Desert Eagle. Totally unrealistic but hilarious none the less.
- The Jeffster performance may end up being my favorite of theirs. It also doesn't hurt that Aha's "Take on Me" is one of the catchiest song in history.
- The final song, "Rivers and Roads" by The Head and The Heart, is amazing, fit that scene (no matter my personal feelings) to a T and is now stuck in my head.
I originally thought everything up to the last five minutes was pretty good, but now, I realized how very bad they actually were.
The following list of grievances after this have very, very little to do with the Chuck and Sarah relationship. That will come afterwards.
Let's start with "Sarah".
Once it was revealed that Sarah wasn't in her right mind, they couldn't just tranq and detain her? And then after that, Ellie could do her neurology magic on her? Everybody but Chuck just sat there and said Sarah was gone, but no one even tried to do anything to help her. She is family to them, and the writers made it look like they were resigned to a stupid fate immediately.
After she watches the video logs, and tells Chuck she believes that she loved him but just doesn't feel it, you seriously think Chuck, or Casey for that matter, is going to let her go after Quinn by herself? Not. A. Chance. Those two would've told her that they were going with her, whether she liked it or not because it was their fight as well, and they were her team.
She says that Quinn destroyed her life but what about Chuck? His wife doesn't remember him. That pretty much sounds like life ruining to me. Even Forgetful Sarah would recognize that.
So annoying.
I'm surprised this episode came from Rafe Judkins and Lauren LeFranc, but I'm not going to be too much blame on them because I'm suspecting Chris Fedak had a very heavy hand on how this script went.
On to "the Goodbye".
Are we seriously saying Chuck has to be convinced to go after his wife that he fought so hard over the last five years to get to love him? Laughably stupid.
Casey being convinced by Beckman he's gone soft? Beckman thinking anyone on Team Bartowski is soft? Where did that even come from? It makes absolutely zero sense.
The Intersect mythology I'm just going to roll my eyes at, because none of this stuff makes any sense. The first we see of the Intersect glasses is "Break Up", and those were an update. And then in "Nacho Sampler", the sets Manoosh created were small uploads and mainly physical. Before that, the Intersect was a massive computer taking up FOOTBALL FIELDS worth of room. Now the writers act like the Intersect glasses were there from the beginning with "the Key"? And it was a "learning tool"? Maybe learning to be a super agent.
Still, no one says "Hey Sarah. Why don't we have you sit down with Ellie, who happens to be a neurologist and the foremost expert on the Intersect? Maybe she can get your memories back." So. Freaking. Stupid.
Ellie and Awesome are moving to Chicago when it seems like Chuck is about to be going through the roughest part of his life ever (which is saying something for a guy whose parents left him at a young age, got kicked out of Stanford and then had an entire government database dropped into his head involuntarily)? Would never, ever happen. Never ever.
We had no payoff with Sarah and Casey, who had grown to be very close friends. Instead, Casey goes off to find Verbanksi, leaving Chuck having to deal with the possible loss of his wife and partner all alone.
We had no payoff with Ellie and Sarah who had become like sisters and were in each other's wedding for God's sake. You don't think she'd stick around to help Sarah too?
I am wholly not surprised this was written by Chris Fedak, because he sucks as a writer, and a story teller, and pretty much anything to do with keeping his characters consistent.
Now let's move onto the last five minutes.
Fuck you, Chris Fedak!! FUCK YOU!!
OK, now that I've gotten that out of my system, what they hell were they thinking leaving this kind of ending ambiguous?! I see the parallels here with the pilot and the reversal of the "Trust me, ___", but come on. CHUCK is a happy show. It is what would be called a Greek comedy. You do not go out ambiguously with Sarah asking Chuck to kiss her even though the viewers don't actually know whether she gets her memory back. Fedak said they wanted to leave it up to the viewers to decide how it ended, but that isn't what CHUCK has ever been about. Not when it comes to the Chuck and Sarah relationship. You show what happens, because otherwise, the viewers never really know. Sure, best case scenario, Sarah remembers with the kiss and everything is hunk dory. Worst case scenario, Sarah doesn't remember, and though it's implied she has feelings for them, they have a long ass road ahead of them that will be difficult, frustrating, and lonely because everyone freaking left. So it's heart breaking. It's tragic. And I didn't like seeing that happen to Chuck and Sarah. They deserved the white picket fence, even if it was totally cheesy (but let's face it, CHUCK has always been cheesy).
And probably the most egregious part of the whole finale was the fact that the Sarah Walker the fans came to know and love of the last 5 seasons died at the end of "Bullet Train". She has lost her husband, her partner and closest friend, her family, and we don't know if she gets it back. And to make matters worse, they all just bail on her. Hell, even Chuck did after not going after her at the end of "Sarah" and then seeming resigned to never having her again until Morgan actually talked some freaking sense into him. It was hard to watch the death of my favorite female character.
So in conclusion (getting academic on you now), just bad, awful, horrible writing all around, and I will refuse to acknowledge any parts of this show after half way through "Bullet Train". I'm going to just think that they made it to the station, Quinn "the Plot Device Bad Guy" was killed, GB got the Intersect out of Sarah's head, and everyone lived happily ever after with Chuck and Sarah making babies.
Because otherwise, Chris Fedak and Josh Shwartz created the worst finale I've ever witnessed. And that's a grave injustice to such an active fan base this show had, and how much great work this cast put into it.
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