SPOILERS: Analyzing the Chuck Season Finale Promo

Chuck fans are thorough! Over in the forum, Aces put together speculation based on the promo for “Chuck vs. the Cliffhanger”, then Nick_Scryer added screencaps to illustrate that speculation. Ready to analyze?

 

Wedding scene. Probably a dream sequence for Chuck because Morgan is presiding rather than Best Man and Sarah’s wedding dress is different than the one she picked out in Bank of Evil. I suppose Sarah could be hallucinating but I’d expect her hallucination to include the dress she picked out… so I’m going with Chuck dreaming this. Betting this is the opening of the episode.
Sarah in medical distress. Nothing new here. Looks feverish and is in ice to keep her temperature down.
Sarah in medical distress. Nothing new here. Looks feverish and is in ice to keep her temperature down.
Chuck and Casey wearing prison guard uniforms. Likely breaking into the detention facility that’s holding Alexi Volkoff.
Beckman warning Chuck if he goes rogue, he’s going against the CIA. Not sure why but probably related to the Agent X cover up.
Chuck and Hartley Winterbottom walking through the main lobby of the headquarters for Volkoff Industries. Same lobby visited by Michael and Charles Carmichael in Anniversary.
The conclusion of Casey’s fight with The Eraser in Castle.
A scene from Street Hawk. How did that get in there?
Chuck with Casey asking Hartley Winterbottom to help save Sarah.
Volkoff resisting Chuck’s attempts to put de-intersecting glasses on him while in his cell at the detention facility.
Standoff outside a building. Casey can be seen pointing a gun at someone. Is that Morgan and Mary on the left pointing guns at Casey? Paratroopers landing. I’m going to venture a guess that Chuck is the one Casey is targeting at and that the standoff is with the CIA trying to stop Chuck’s rogue mission. Casey likely just covering the fact he’s helping Chuck. If not Chuck, maybe the Eraser in which case Morgan and Mary don’t make sense. Could be just a run-of-the-mill bearded henchman. Pure WAG here. This scene has me stumped.
Casey likely fighting The Eraser in Castle.
Before the tasers, Chuck returning to the hospital with whatever he acquired to save Sarah—post rogue mission.
After the tasers, Volkoff wearing de-intersecting glasses in his cell at the detention facility. They make him a new man.
Chuck and Sarah’s right shoulder following the real wedding driving off in the Lotus with “Just Married” plastered on the rear window. Thinking not a dream sequence because of “Oh, boy.” Thinking, “Oh, Boy” is a reaction to the twist being revealed to Chuck. Or maybe Sarah is driving off a cliff but I’m pretty sure the Lotus has a Navigation Radio (or spy gadget of the week) with a large LCD screen. Perhaps that’s the source of the twist. Chuck’s viewing angle appears to be toward the dash not out the window.

Captions/speculation by Aces. Screencaps by Nick_Scryer

Thoughts from Mel: Much is being made about Sarah’s wedding dress not being the one she liked so much in Castle. Folks, that dress was riddled with bullet holes and stained with blood. She’s not wearing that dress to her wedding!

The shot of the standoff seems ripe for analysis. As Aces noted, it’s difficult to tell what’s going on there what with Team B seemingly pointing guns at each other. I lightened up the screencap and was able to see more details. The two people facing each other are Chuck (facing us, wearing olive fatigues) and Alexei Volkoff (back to us, wearing a dark suit). Behind Chuck is Vivian Volkoff, aiming at him. Mama B and Morgan (Morgan gets a gun???) are not aiming at Casey but at someone on Casey’s left, either blocked by the henchman in the foreground or off-screen. I think that’s Sarah standing to Casey’s left. Those are definitely her boots and her skinny black jeans, but her head is turned and blocked by the henchman. Several commenters below suggest that this woman is either Karina or Zondra; that would make sense. She appears to have her torso turned toward whoever Mama B and Morgan are aiming at. I have two questions here: 1. Why isn’t anyone aiming at Vivian? 2. This seems to be after Sarah has recovered, so why is Chuck negotiating with Volkoff/Winterbottom surrounded by guns and paratroopers? Shouldn’t they be on the same team now?

I still think Chuck’s “Oh boy” in the final scene is an Orion reference, and agree that he’s looking at a screen somewhere in the car when he says it.

Your turn!

Hulu Plus Free Trial

About Mel

Check Also

Chuck vs the Goodbye: 10 Years Later

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the Chuck series finale. It feels like a decade …

66 comments

  1. I think in the scene with Casey, Mary and Morgan, Zondra and Carina are there too. I’m freaking out!

  2. I’m not saying it’s not a dream sequence. But who dreams in 3rd person? Most dreams are from the dreamer’s pov. Think of Chuck’s dreams in Phase Three. They were all from his pov.

  3. In the 10th screencap, I think the people in the shot are, from left to right:
    1. Unknown agent/henchman/thug
    2. Mama Bartowski
    3. Morgan
    4. Zondra or Carina
    5. Chuck
    6. The “eraser” agent
    7. Casey (short-sleeve black shirt is a dead giveaway)
    8. Zondra or Carina (not sure; face is obscured)
    9. Unknown agent/henchman/thug

  4. Daniel McFarland

    Sarah and Chuck get married in a church like normal people, and Sarah isn’t that sick at the end of the season as they show the wedding scene which means Sarah is recovered. The cliffhanger must be of Chuck, Sarah and Casey in trouble with the CIA for exposing the truth about Alexi Volkoff being Agent X.

    Just my thoughts.

    My blog post about it: http://danielmcfarland.co.uk/?p=241

  5. i think the two women one on morgans side and the other on caseys are the bridesmaid carina and zondra ie the rest of the cat squad.

  6. Wow great Job!!!!
    How the hell the writers are going to fit all these in 43 minutes?

  7. I think Chuck in fatigues is talking to the Eraser…
    And, I don’t think Vivian is there…just Sarah and the 2 bridesmaids (the women, anyway). Chuck looks to be negotiating something.

  8. Dont’ think Sarah is in that scene at all. I think the two ladies in black (aside from Frost) are Zondra and Carina. Why they would be pointing guns at Volkoff is still a mystery.

  9. Wow! Thanks for the help on the standoff. I’m leaning with Matt’s IDs on the characters in the standoff. The lady behind Chuck seems to be targeting the guy in the center with his back to us. Not at Chuck. This picture could be explaining the part of the synopsis saying that Chuck has to enlist the help of his wedding party to save Sarah. They’re all there.

  10. I think it’s clear none of these are in order. We’ve already been told the last scene involves a motorcycle and the desert. As to th standoff scene, I think Mama B, Morgan, and the woman to Casey’s left are aiming at Vivian. The woman to Chuck’s right and Casey are pointing at Volkoff. I think this scene happens after Volkoff is de-intersected and is near the middle of the episode. As for the twist, could it be that Sarah is pregnant? Or is it an Orion related thing like has been suggested? I guess we’ll find out Monday. Still holding hope for a 5th season 🙂

  11. This thread explains why NBC doesn’t to a lot of Chuck promos.

  12. BillAtWork and Mr. McFarland might have a point on the wedding sequence. Maybe it’s the real wedding. Everytime I think I have something figured out Fedak and Schwartz pull the wool over my eyes and I got locked into the dream scenario based on spoilers on another site combined with what I thought Morgan’s role should be. Maybe the funeral before the wedding ran long and the pastor was planning on doing both–he’s still at the cemetary and Morgan is filling in (very Chuck-like glitch). Sarah did go shopping for a dress after she picked the one out in Castle. For all we know the term “dream dress” could come from a convrsation between her and Casey about it not being the one he saw in Castle.

  13. OMG!!!~~Chuck fans are AWESOME!~~
    Can I post this to a Chinese forum (after translation of course)?
    Thank you!!!~~

  14. Final thought: Maybe the standoff is occurring at a CIA facility where the wedding party is trying to steal the de-intersecting glasses. The CIA is annoyed by this.

  15. The stand off pix seems the most interesting.
    I think it’s chuck face the Eraser or maybe agant X. (if that is vivian behind chuck with the gun i’m guessing the person chuck is talking to is Alexi
    Casey looks like he’s poiting his gun at whomever chuck is talking to.
    I think the girls from sarah’s cat squad next to casey and it looks like Morgan and Mary is pointing their gun at Chuck?? doesn’t make sense but that’s what it looks like.

  16. “Oh boy” is definately a Papa B reference. He used it whenever there was something strange or new that just occurred. My guess is that it’s the last line in the episode that sets up the next great adventure to come. It’s your turn NBC – make that great adventure come.

    • Oh boy was a spillover expression from S Bakula’s days on Quantum Leap.

    • I personally thin that it’s an Pap B referense, a kscreen appears saying well done you have finished what i couldn’t, ready to make the intersect better? Or something like that.

      It closes off the story and will serve as a good end if not renewed, but if a season 5 happens which it should then can finally show us improving the work his father started.

  17. I think in last oh boy scene chuck will be downloaded new version intersect. This can erase his memory or make him different person!! This is the big cliffhanger!!

  18. Not that I disagree with Mel’s decision to analyze by fashion, specifically Sarah’s skinny jeans and boots, but Carina and Zondra are both at least as tall and thin as Sarah. Maybe skinny jeans and boots are now the official outfit of all Cat-Squad-created coups 🙂

  19. Impressive detective work Aces and Nick! My guess on Chuck’s “Oh, Boy” is another communication, perhaps mission, from Papa B. since Chuck and Ellie are successful in fixing Hartley. Wonder what Papa. B. has in mind this time?

  20. Thrilled that Chuck and Casey are going rogue, but having problems with the “suspending reality” as to Sarah in the hospital. Everyone at the table with Morgan (expect the MI-6 agent) dies instantly, yet Sarah continues on into the next epidsode?

    Don’t get me wrong, I know they can’t kill Sarah off and keep their fans, but what explains her resistance to the Norseman?

    • I’m thinking it has to do with distance. Vivian or Riley says in the episode that the Norseman can kill someone from a long distance, but I’m thinking that it’s effectiveness diminishes the farther away the target is. For example, if Vivian had been in or near the courtyard when she triggered the Norseman, it probably would’ve been instantly lethal for Sarah the way it was for the guys at the conference table whose DNA was keyed into it.

      • If it’s not the distance factor, I think Vivian could have let up on the trigger so Sarah wouldn’t die to torture Chuck (or probably unlikely) she suddenly had a tinge of remorse and stopped using the weapon.

  21. I’ll agree that the wedding might not be a dream sequence (Hey, you NEVER know with Morgan . . . ), but I’m finding it fascinating that so many fans are convinced it can’t be a dream sequence for whatever reason. It would totally be something Fedak and Schwartz, and it I have a hard time believing that they would include the wedding so heavily in the promos along with shots of Sarah possibly dying if they were trying to create suspense about her life. I mean, the NBC promo people can be dumb, but that just seems like a new low for them.

    Going to be a looooong weekend, people. And I would love some renewal news so I can stop holding my breath every time I load a site like Entertainment Weekly!

  22. The three women in the standoff scene are Mama B, Zondra, and Carina. There were backstage photos on Twitter of Josh Gomez with the actresses who play the Cats and he was in the same outfit.

    Sarah is not there.

    Chuck has parachuted in. He’s in the Russian army uniform. I think the guys in suits are all CIA. The CIA cleaner, who will be played by Richard Burgi, may be one of them.

    I think Chuck is trying to get back to the hospital, perhaps with the cure, and the CIA is in his way.

    We seem him in the army outfit bursting into the hospital at another point in the promo.

  23. “Volkoff resisting Chuck’s attempts to put de-intersecting glasses on him while in his cell at the detention facility. ”

    The man holding the glasses is wearing a dark suit with white shirt cuffs sticking out. If it’s Chuck, it’s at another location besides the prison and Chuck has changed. Chuck is wearing a blue prison guard uniform earlier.

    Am I mistaken that Chuck appears to be holding a real gun rather than his usual tranq pistol in the scene where he and Casey enter the prison? You don’t have that picture, but I’ve seen it elsewhere.

    • Regarding possible real gun rather than tranq pistol:

      I’m not sure, but maybe this is when the gloves come off for Chuck.

    • That could be Chuck in his wedding tux.

    • Rethinking, it could be Chuck, but Chuck and Casey spring Volkoff from the federal look-up and put him in a different cell of their own. It’s there that they try to de-intersect him.

  24. I think the wedding is a dream, and the scene in the car is still from the dream. When Chuck says “Oh, Boy”, that’s when he realizes he’s dreaming and wakes up. I think it’s all part of the opening segment.

    I also think the man putting the de-intersecting glasses on Volkoff is the Eraser.

    I think Charah will get married in the end, but it will be in the hospital, just like Devon and Ellie’s wedding got moved to the beach.

    In the multi-gun stand-off, I agree that it’s Cat Squad members Carina and Zondra, Mary, Casey and Morgan, and they’re all pointing guns at Volkoff.

  25. I don’t understand why you guys are expecting a big cliffhanger in the end. Sure there will be some kind of teasing stuff to make us expect new and amazing things for the new season (if any), but I’m not so sure it’s going to be that much of a cliffhanger situation.

    The title of the episode is referring to this, but as far as I know, all Chuck episodes are “Chuck vs something”, and Chuck has to deal with this “something” during the episode, that’s not something that happens in the end. In that particular case, the cliffhanger happened in the end of episode 23, as we all saw what happened to Sarah, and this is what he’ll have to deal with, until he hopefully saves his love, and maybe Alexis Volkoff in the process.

    Considering Chuck is not a killer, and always trying to pull the best of people, he may even be able to save, or at least cause no harm to Vivian, especially because she really doesn’t fit well in the “bad guy” role.

    After what they did to Sarah, they’re better fix that fast, because fans would accept no other issue. Overall, I expect a quite good ending for all this. This is Chuck we’re watching, nothing can go wrong! … oops.

  26. receptionitis66

    has anyone else wondered why the Norseman killed everyone else it “attacked” but not Sarah? Doesn’t that seem strange?

    • Most folks seem to be speculating the weapon is range limited or because she didn’t have line of sight, she released the trigger too soon.

    • Maybe because Vivian is not that a bad person, she wanted Chuck to feel pain, but she may not want to kill her, so she activated the device only a couple of seconds… well I hope so.

    • No immediate medical for the henchmen — and, maybe one of the reasons more people don’t love “Chuck” — inconsistencies. Great breakdown, though, Mel!

      • receptionitis66

        well, in this case I’m ok with the inconsistencies- and I usually am. Everything is usually explained in the end, and that’s why I love chuck!

  27. My take on that wedding scene we see in the promo is that it is a dream sequence of Sarah’s. It is after Chuck has returned with the antidote. They are not sure if they are too late getting her the antitode and while he is waiting for her to wake up, Chuck is reciting the vows he has written to her to express how much she means to him.

    It is going to be filmed in a similar fashion to that sequence in phase 3 where we get a mix of dream Chuck and real Chuck pleading with Sarah to come back to him.

    • The reversed phase 3 seems to be the most likely scenario. And I am guessing that the ‘Cliffhanger’ reference is Chuck returning to the hospital in time to save Sarah???
      Is it Monday yet???

  28. Well, maybe the guy in the cell with Volkoff is The Eraser and he’s erasing the Intersect.

  29. I think/hope the cliffhanger is Sarah announcing she’s pregnant…

  30. OFF TOPIC BUT VARIETY REPORTS CHUCK LIKELY TO BE RENEWED!!!

    http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118036823

    • Already posted: https://chucktv.net/?p=9893 🙂

      • What the hell are you guys talking about, have any of you seen this episode, and even if you havent, chuck has known that sarah’s real name is jenny burton since like season 2…..and what’s this “Oh boy” you are all refering to?

      • Uh, no, Jenny Burton was an alias she used during a con with her dad. Her birth name was Sam Lisa —- (we don’t know her birth surname). Her legal name as of at least mid-season 4 was Sarah Walker, now it’s Sarah Bartowski.

  31. Hi all, I reckon Chuck’s “Oh Boy” @ the end is @ Sarah revieling somthing True & Dangerous about herself & her Family most likely! What do people think?

    • Sarah probabely told Chuck her Real Name Causing an interset moment – Hence the “Oh Boy” – thats Season 5 set up (according 2 Vareity has the green light :-D) What do people think?

  32. The Oh Boy is Chuck finding out that Vivian is really his sister by his mother Mary and Valkoff.

  33. At the end of monday’s episode Vivian says that she had a second Norseman, maybe it was like a prototype or a second one that wasn’t finished and thats why it didn’t kill Sarah right away like the others.

  34. This was fun. When the episode airs, we’ll probably find that we weren’t even close.

  35. It’s official, Chuck has been renewed for a 5th season!

  36. Hi all, Was thinking bout the Chuck’s “Oh Boy” again – After the wedding as Chuck & Sarah drive “into the sun set” Chuck is checking the CIA mainframe & discovers that the Bartowski’s (ie Chuck & Sarah) have been Disavowed & Declared Rouge To cover up Agent X situation! Make any sense?

  37. think Sarah’s not killed right away by the device because it’s just an off shoot from the original one hence not as fatal plus she was given medical attention right after it happened by her future in laws Devon & Ellie.

  38. In the “Oh Boy” photo, I don’t think Chuck is looking at anything in particular. He looks like he has a post-flash expression on his face to me. Either that or an I’m in so much trouble expression like in Chuck vs. Santa claus after he tells the fulcrum agent he is the intersect. If it’s a post-flash look, Sean could be right that he flashes after hearing sarah’s real name. Or maybe he flashes after seeing the driver of the car? Maybe it’s Timothy Dalton or the Eraser guy or someone else from the CIA driving.

  39. My view about this promo:
    The wedding scene is not a dream sequence, it’s real after they take care of the eraser (but this eraser may be a recurring character in S05, as this guy is said to be stronger than Bentley+Beckman+Shaw, there should be more about him)
    The motorcycle scene is when Chuck persue after the eraser to rescue Volkoff
    The standoff scene with the on in the middle is the eraser. The paratroopers are with him.
    “Oh boy” scene is the last scene, with Chuck noticing sth.

  40. Chuck already learned Sarah’s real name (Sam) in a previous season (when she is dating Shaw). My vote for the ‘oh boy’ is that Vivian is Chuck’s half sister (if not, then who IS Vivian’s mother?) That would also maybe mean that Chuck, Mama B and Ellie are all related to Vivian; would the common DNA mean she wouldn’t (couldn’t) use the weapon against them?

    As for the standoff, if it is Cat Squad, it would tie in nicely with Sarah’s otherwise random comment in the opening scene of the last episode that ‘she’s sorry her bridesmaids haven’t helped much.’

    Btw, thanks to all posters for this thread – it takes the pain out of waiting between episodes!!

  41. has anyone else wondered why the Norseman killed everyone else it “attacked” but not Sarah? because Vivian wearing prototype Norseman……Norseman that has been in use at the CIA

    • If you think about it, Vivian actually using the Norseman is a really stupid strategy given that the CIA can retaliate with their own Norseman. She’s been in Castle. Is she sure they have no trace of her DNA? It’s Chuck’s version of the Cold War MAD standoff.

  42. Well, got a few snippets correct but generally incorrect… as usual.

  43. power transformers

    I never thought of that this way .. good writing.