Anti-Chuck series finale thread

[Joe Washington]

This thread will cover two questions:

1. What was it about the Chuck series finale that left you unsatisfied, disappointed, or flat-out pissed off?

2. Which of the show's potential finales (listed above) do you wish the show had ended with?

 

[Greg Cox]

This thread will cover two questions:

1. What was it about the Chuck series finale that left you unsatisfied, disappointed, or flat-out pissed off?

Seems like kind of a slanted question, along the lines of "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

Rather than asking people what they thought of the finale, the phrasing of the question presupposes that it left people disappointed or upset--and doesn't allow for the possibility of anyone actually enjoying it.

In other words, you've got your finger rather heavily on the scale.

 

[Joe Washington]

Well, this thread is titled "Anti-Chuck series finale thread." It is supposed to be for those who didn't like the series finale. If it was for those who enjoy the finale and didn't enjoy it, it would have been just titled "Chuck series finale thread."

 

[Professor Zoom]

Well, this thread is titled "Anti-Chuck series finale thread." It is supposed to be for those who didn't like the series finale. If it was for those who enjoy the finale and didn't enjoy it, it would have been just titled "Chuck series finale thread."

Which might have garnered more discussion.

 

[Guy Gardener]

No I have not stopped beating my wife.

Also I have not started beating my wife.

Probably because I do not have a wife.

But no, I have not stopped beating my wife.

 

[Joe Washington]

Well, this thread is titled "Anti-Chuck series finale thread." It is supposed to be for those who didn't like the series finale. If it was for those who enjoy the finale and didn't enjoy it, it would have been just titled "Chuck series finale thread."

Which might have garnered more discussion.

It is already a "Chuck series finale" thread. I wanted to do something different.

And thank you, Guy Gardener, for that insightful response.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Well, this thread is titled "Anti-Chuck series finale thread." It is supposed to be for those who didn't like the series finale. If it was for those who enjoy the finale and didn't enjoy it, it would have been just titled "Chuck series finale thread."

Which might have garnered more discussion.

It is already a "Chuck series finale" thread. I wanted to do something different.

You couldn't discuss how you didn't like the series finale in the Chuck series finale thread?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I didn't watch S5, so it didn't have a chance to piss me off. I just thought the S4 finale was a perfectly good ending. Get married, live happily ever after, the end. Morgan getting the intersect is good as a joke, not so interesting as an actual plot point.

No I have not stopped beating my wife.

Also I have not started beating my wife.

Probably because I do not have a wife.

But no, I have not stopped beating my wife.

The correct response is "yes, but she hasn't stopped beating me."

 

[Joe Washington]

That's the spirit, Temis the Vorta.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Not bad.

How about...

"Beat my wife, please"

 

[Scout101]

Just more disappointed that it erased so much of the character evolution for Sarah (and Chuck, through the relationship). Sure, it's hinted that the memories might be in there somewhere, or at the very least, she's open to falling for him all over again, but still. 5 seasons worth of character growth for Sarah were erased.

Saw people happy that they didn't hit a reset button and restore the memories, but wasn't the whole thing a big reset button for the most part anyway? Chuck's got the Intersect, Sarah is literally starting over, and Beckman implied they can have their old jobs back. After we spent a season watching them outgrow them and want something else, they're gonna reset to Season 1, only with a softer Casey and wiser Chuck.

There's a bit of the challenge of getting Sarah to fall for Chuck again, but it's equally likely that her first reaction is going to happen again. She's TOLD she loves him, and obviously sees how he feels, but doesn't feel it herself. If she's not getting there, might eventually resent it, or feel frustrated, and bolt again.

The bit on the beach at the end was nice and all, but would have been nicer had they more strongly hinted that she was getting even a flash of memory during the stories. It can go either way with the 'magical kiss' at the end, I suppose, just would like to know that our Sarah is still in there, and we didn't lose all that for a lame plot twist that really didn't go anywhere anyway.

That was really it, it was a contrived thing that really didn't play to anything bigger. In the end, he didn't even put up a fight, and caught a bullet without much hassle. They didn't want to end on a low note, so the big bad couldn't actually kill anyone, but needed SOME sort of threat, so they erased Sarah's memories. And then couldn't commit to making HER the bad guy for more than 15 minutes, so went back towards trying to just wipe it all clean...

Didn't HATE it, would have just prefered to skip the memory wipe, and let them leave the spy business together happy. Probably my least favorite of the last 2-3 finales that could have been the end. Ending with the wedding would have been fine. Speaking of which, why aren't they millionaires again? The accounts were frozen, but then the CIA guy was discredited and killed, so seems like that should have cleared itself up...

 

[Goji]

Out of all of them I vastly prefer the finale we got in season 5.

"Chuck vs. the Ring" is probably my favorite episode of the whole series, but I like it much more as a preview of season 3 than I would had it been the definitive end. It's a new turning point for the story, not the conclusion.

"Chuck vs. the Other Guy", the first potential series finale in season 3, is a good episode. But again, the show definitely had more life left in it at this point. I don't care what anyone says, I *like* Morgan and I enjoyed seeing him join the team in season 3.5. Plus, while it made sense for this arc to end with Chuck shooting Shaw and getting together with Sarah, I don't think it would have made sense for the series to end on that note. I'm glad they eventually brought Shaw back because there's something really wrong with Chuck shooting people.

"Chuck vs. the Ring Part 2" is the first episode on the list that flat out would not work for me as a finale. The last few minutes are 100% setup for the next season. Granted not all of it would be used as intended, but still... it's obviously not even close to the end. Plus, it's not that a great a conclusion on its own terms. The Ring elders get captured in a stair way and Chuck punches Brandon Routh a lot. Not bad, exactly, but a big step down from the first two on the list.

I am not a fan of "Push Mix" at all. I don't hate it, but it's so... predictable. Volkoff, the season's big bad and the reason Chuck's mother left him for 20 years, really is just a big blowhard arms dealer. Chuck and co. have put away a dozen guys just like him, so why are we supposed to believe he was so horrible as to warrant Chuck's mother sacrificing her entire life to keep him in check? Plus the whole thing lacks any really memorable moments of humor, which any good Chuck episode, even the dark ones, should and usually do excel at. And Casey is kept out of the action entirely! The last few minutes of the episode are as sappy as the show ever got and contains the weakest Jeffster performance of the series. Meh.

"Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger" is... better. I like the episode a lot and could see it working as a finale. Like Casey in "Push Mix", Sarah is kept out of the action entirely and that's disappointing. I liked the resolution to the Volkoff storyline, the whole Agent X angle was a huge redemption for the weak plot of the earlier episodes in the season, but again it feels like a good ending for the season, and not the series. In the end, who really cares about the Volkoffs? Chuck gets married and I don't care because season 4 laid on the syrupy sweetness of their relationship to the point where gagging was a constant possibility.

I liked "Chuck vs. the Goodbye" as the finale. I liked the callbacks to earlier points in the series, I liked that each character got something important to do (except poor Big Mike, alas) and some kind of worthy sendoff. I loved the return of the Wienerlicious and the showdown in the concert hall with Jeffster. I like that it interjected real drama and stakes into nearly every relationship on the show and avoided the silly storybook ending that episodes like "Chuck vs. the Baby" seemed to be suggesting we'd get. And I liked that it left much of what will come next up in the air, to be imagined or debated to our hearts' content.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

I would've prefered that the show had ended with Chuck Vs. the Cliffhanger. Everyone was in a good place at the end even Morgan getting the Intersect was fine. We didn't really need to see the aftermath. that would've been a nice ambiguous ending than what we got.

My main problem with the finale was basically the Sarah Walker we had seen grow as a person was essentially wiped out in the episode previous to Chuck vs. Sarah. We spent the last two hours without her character. We got hints that her memories were returning but they were little more than hints not a certaintude. To me it just left way too much up in the air with the Chuck/Sarah relationship. I always felt that that was the heart of the series and I didn't like how it was ripped away. I think if they had had Chuck and Sarah kiss and then have her pull away and say "I remember everything" then I'd have little to complain about. I pretty much enjoyed everything up until that final scene. A show like Chuck needs a more definitive ending. It's a fun, sappy little not too seriously show not something deeper that could end more ambiguously.

 

[Caliburn24]

The reason I did not like the Chuck finale was almost entirely due to the writing. It was aimless, sloppy and very self-indulgent. Even as I enjoyed some of the call-backs, the humor and action, I was still disgusted that this was the best the writers could do.

First aimless.

Season five has a much looser structure than other season, but the one central thread is Chuck and Sarah(and to a lesser extent some of the secondary characters) deciding what to do with the rest of their lives. Where to live, where to work, who to live with, whether or not to start a family, questions about growing up and maturing, all that stuff is present in some form in almost every episode of the season. So naturally I thought it should pay off in some form in the finale. Did it?

I would argue that it only did so for Chuck, and only in part. When he decides to save the concert-goers and sacrifice "his" Sarah that is perhaps the best moment in the finale. But what about all the other characters? Sarah is of course memory wiped, a waste of five years of development. Casey makes no major decisions about anything, except to return to his wandering agent/assassin role. So basically he returns to season one Casey, only this time he can flirt with Verbanski and call his daughter on weekends. No wonder Adam Baldwin pushed for Casey to get killed this season, it is character regression of the highest order. Morgan, the Awesomes, Jeffster and Big Mike all get rewards tossed in their directions, and their own little happy endings, but do they make any decisions or have any character development of note? Not really. The ending for every character felt arbitrary, manufactured and in some cases insulting to me as a series long viewer.

Second, sloppy.

Chuck always has plot-holes. I accepted this fact back in season one. But the holes in the finale were bigger and more glaring than almost any previous ones. In no particular order, or significance;

-A throwaway line about how the Intersect only has one charge left. No reasoning behind it.
-Sarah after losing her memory of the past five years becomes a barely functioning idiot who believes Quinn because the plot demands it. Even though she was quite the sharp agent even before meeting Chuck.
-As a subset of the above, what does Sarah believe Chuck is guilty of and how did Quinn convince her of it?
-Why does Sarah not check in with Langley or whoever her CIA bosses were? Memory wiped, so I'm going to believe whatever Robert the Bruce tells me? Okay then.
-Why doesn't Chuck let Sarah use the Intersect glasses, regain her memory, then go defuse the bomb?
-Why isn't there any effort to construct a new Intersect to cure Sarah, you have all the pieces and blueprints.
-Why does Chuck let Sarah leave at the end of the first hour to chase down Quinn alone? COMPLETELY out of character.
-Why does Beckman let a re-Intersected Chuck walk away from the spy game?
-Why does Chuck think he can walk away from the spy game (remember all those villains who have wanted a piece of him for so many years? Yeah, they're still around)now?

Third, self-indulgent.

Chuck has always been self-indulgent, that is part of its charm, and honestly many of the best parts of the finale were those bits and pieces. But all that nostalgia came at the price of a lot of screen-time, that might have been better used to bring closure to certain elements or better explained the far too quickly sketched plot and conclusion. Reminding us of earlier seasons and moments of Chuck was a cheap emotional gimmick(that worked fairly well) but at the expense of failing to create a truly satisfying ending or move the characters forward meaningfully.

 

[Pingfah]

Thought it was fine. It was only a silly throwaway action comedy show anyway.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Which is why the ambiguous final scene was totally out of character for the show and was a let down to me.

 

[the_wildcard]

Well I just saw the finale and I also did not feel satisifed. I would have liked it to see Sarah and Chuck end on a happier note.