Zachary Levi in Chuck season 5 premiere

Zachary Levi Says Chuck Finale is “Very Homage-y”

At last night’s Golden Globes, Zachary Levi gave a bit of scoop about the Chuck series finale to TVLine:

Zach Levi, who we observed mingling with everyone from Adam Levine to the female cast of Glee in the ballroom during commercial breaks, told TVLine that the show’s Jan. 27 swan song “is very homage-y,” adding, “There are nods to the pilot and the first few episodes of the first season. We come full circle on the characters and the relationships. There’s a lot of Square 1 stuff, and I think the fans will get a real kick out of it.”

 

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54 comments

  1. I think the finale episode will have a scene with Chuck and Sarah at the beach that ended episode 1.

  2. I think that Chuck will have to make Sarah fall in love with him again after the intersect messes with her brain.

    Done right, that could be incredibly romantic. It would validate them. The first time wasn’t a fluke. Nothing can get between them. They’re meant to be.

    Okay /sap off, lol.

    • If the finale doesn’t end with Sarah having all of her memories restored, there’s no way I’ll be able to enjoy it.

      It wouldn’t be romantic, it would we horribly stupid, throwing 5 years of character development out of the window.

      • I could be okay with Sarah, maybe not remembering everything. But knowing (not just remembering) that she loves him, understanding that they’re married, and being okay with that.

        I think that’s the most likely outcome. Morgan didn’t remember Star Wars or Indiana Jones. He had to rewatch them.

      • You think TPTB don’t know that? They want to give the show a proper send-off, which means NOT doing something “horribly stupid”.

      • We know with zero doubt that we’re going to get a good ending. Even Yvonne said that.

        See, I almost hope that she doesn’t remember everything. Imagine Sarah basically at the time of early S1. She clearly had fallen for Chuck. She just was conflicted with her duty, and she was frankly scared.

        Except now Chuck is different. He knows how to break down her walls. She wouldn’t stand a chance if he really wooed her.

        How romantic would that be? Seeing her fall in love with him all over again.

        And maybe she doesn’t remember the wedding. So what? As long as she realizes that she’s in love with him and being married is okay.

        Isn’t that better? She doesn’t stay because she feels obligated by some marraige license. She stays because she is in love. It totally reinforces what they have.

        As long as I have been coming to this site, people have complained about the artificial wt/wt. Well this could be the love story told without wt/wt.

        Now I’m hoping that is what they do.

      • The problem is, everyone has their own view on what is “horribly stupid”.

        My view is that any kind of permanent memory loss/loss of character growth is totally unacceptable and it would ruin the whole series for me.

        Unfortunately the writers might think differently.

      • And I should also add: Bill above here proves that some people would like it, even find it romantic.

        Me, I’d find it 100% unacceptable.

      • See, I think I’m probably the exact opposite. The worst thing for me would be a Cliffhanger type finale where Sarah is out of commission for the entrire episode, Chuck races around to save her, and we find she is okay just before the credits are rolling.

        I hope that whatever they do, they allow us enough time to say goodbye to the characters.

        Give us a chance to see them sail into the sunset.

      • I don’t disagree about that, I want Sarah up and in action during the finale.

        What I don’t want is any kind of regression or (permanent) memory loss.

      • 100 % agree with you jmc, its unacceptable

  3. Mel- Thanks for the info and Zack’s words. Right now my brain is so Chucked Out I cannot really decide what Zack is saying. Would you please tell me your feelings on Zack’s comments. Appreciate it.

  4. OK Bill. I will go with your point & suspend my angsty feelings regarding the possible ending to the series.

    It could work, as you say, if Chuck has to make Sarah fall in love with him all over again?

    However, to be done right, I think a storyline like that has to be given time to develop & work it’s way through.

    With only a few episodes left… Let’s say Sarah begins to lose her memories in the next episode.

    Bill, do you think that their will be enough time to tell the story properly, of Chuck & Sarah’s relationship?

    I mean that will be key for many of us in the “Satisfying Ending” part of it.
    With Team Bartowski having to deal with Quinn & also figure out the full & final conspiracy that has lasted for 5yrs now, plus your Buy More stuff thrown in for good measure.

    Do you trust that these writers will have enough time to put a proper & Happy & Satisfying finish, for many of us, to Chuck & Sarah’s story?

    BMB.

    • That’s the fear. Sometimes this team has tried to tell too much story in too little time and it has felt rushed.

      They could possibly shorten this. Sarah might know that they’re married. After all, they can show her the wedding pictures. She just doesn’t remember it and doesn’t feel it.

      But we know that Sarah fell for Chuck quickly the first time. In Other Guy, she told him that she fell for him basically in the Pilot. So it wouldn’t be ooc for this to happen pretty quickly. Chuck knows how to get to her now, and he has the confidence that he lacked.

      So is there enough time? Yeah, probably.

      Can they do it without feeling rushed? Let’s hope so.

  5. Mel- Know this has nothing to do with this piece,BUT I just saw Zach on NBC’s Betty White’s 90th BDay and he was absolutely the best. He had the audience in stitches and Betty White accepted his marriage proposal (so he could have a better name-Zach White) It was really funny, and Zach again showed his range of talent. FYI He appeared in the first 10-15 mins (712pmCT MON) if you are on the West Coast.

  6. Really hoping for a goold ol’ fashion flash, and possibly Bryce coming out of left field to somehow spring some bit of game changing info. Either way it’s going to be weird. This is really the only series I’ve watched from start to finish, it’s weird that it’s over too.

  7. If Sarah does lose her memory, it would be great if it ends like “Just Like Heaven. Where it would take an object or a touch for Sarah’s memories to come back (like wedding “montage”). Thus givings the fans a look back to all the major events at how their relationship grew.

    • Not too bad – ‘Just Like Heaven’ was a good movie 😀
      My thoughts of a Homage-y ending would be where Sarah is sitting at the beach where S1E13 ended and Chuck walks up to her and sits down and say to Sarah, ‘Trust me Sarah’ and they kiss and watches the sunset, screen goes black!! Not the best ending but a total homage if you ask me. 😛

      • I don’t think that’s how the showrunners went with it and, personally, I’ll take what comes and make a judgment AFTER I actually see it.

        But I like what YOU suggested A LOT, mr2boynz. I always thought the beach scene is what set the show apart from others. The dialogue in that scene was unique, not the trite stuff you usually get at the end of a pilot episode. And A Comet Appears was perfect.

        If the showrunners went with a flip and Sarah is on the beach confused and it’s Chuck who’s waited there all night with her and then lays out the parameters of the future, that would be just terrific. And very fitting.

        But, as I say, I just don’t think they’ve gone that way…

  8. If Sarah was going to lose her memory, permanently wouldn’t be a good way to do it. It’d be fine if remembering that she loves Chuck brings everything back (kind of like on Lost when they see something important to them and remember their whole lives), but I don’t want her to lose it all forever and become a whole new person. All it took for Morgan was one story from when he was in 7th grade, and the only he lost was his movie knowledge (which seems fully regained- he knew about the crush Chuck had on Bo Derek), which Sarah doesn’t even have to begin with. Also, Chuck and Ellie were surprised that their dad remembered something about when they were younger, so the Governor helped him regain memories he had lost.

  9. I’d prefer all of the memory drama (if it indeed goes this way) and all of the villainy issues get taken care of through 5.12 and the first half of 5.13, giving us time in the last half of the last episode to really say goodbye to the characters, but sadly.. given how all past finales have been written, I feel we won’t get that. =[

    Ah well. I’ve still got some hope. Some people said Cliffhanger was just awful at the end.. but I looked past the Morgan bits and just enjoyed the rest of the episode, so hopefully it won’t be this way with this one.

    I suppose my real wish.. I wish Sarah and Chuck could team up and just save the day together in a finale instead of Sarah being ‘out of it’ in some capacity making chuck save the day.

  10. What if, the ending is that Sarah has the intersect but they repress it so it’s just like the intersect 1.0 and she can’t really remember Chuck, or her spy skills for that matter, so in order to save her, chuck must download the intersect 3.0 and then after all the action is over, he goes back to the CIA since Sarah can’t remember him and Beckman hands him a folder and tells him that she is assigning him to be a handler. Chuck then opens the folder and it’s Sarah, he goes to some coffee shop where she is now working, and says “excuse me, are you Sarah Walker?” she looks up and says yes, then he goes “I’m agent Chuck Bartowski, can we talk?” then it cuts to the scene of them on the beach and they’re in mid conversation with Sarah talking about how she’s scared and stuff and chuck says “it’s all going to be ok, just trust me Sarah” and then the screen fades to black, so kind of like the beginning of chuck season 1 just with Sarah and Chuck’s roles reversed

    • If it went that way, I’d just look at it as bad fanfiction, pretty much forget I watched “Chuck” for the last five years of my life, and move on. Case closed. Not only would it undo *everything* Sarah and Chuck have gone through over the course of the show, but it’d also put Chuck back into the spy life.. the one thing he wanted to leave so he could have his life with Sarah.

      • I agree, I’m already thinking of ways to erase the show from my memory in case they go with the permanent memory loss route in the finale. 🙂

  11. Okay,

    I’m going to try this one last time. I think that some of you are drawing a line in the sand that needn’t be there. As long as we feel good about where they are at the end, who cares how they got there?

    Why did you fall in love with the show in the first place? For me it was because I identified with this underachieving nerd who worked in a Buy More. Through circumstances that he had no control of, he finds himself partnered with Sarah. He quickly falls for her. Naturally, he had no shot in hell with this smoking hot blonde James Bond badass. In fact he was probably the last man on earth to have a chance to be with Sarah Walker. We knew it. He knew it. He made fun of the situation constantly. Only we quickly began to learn something that he didn’t know. Amazingly, the smoking hot badass was falling for him more than he had her.

    Except that this is television. You can’t put the leads together, right? Everybody knows that. So they invented ways to keep them apart. What some here are calling five years of character development, I call five years of artificially keeping them apart. In fact, when they finally got together, they had lost a good deal of the charm that made the story so powerful in the first place.

    So now I think we have an opportunity to get back to the original charm of the show. Can this nerd who still works in a Buy More make this smoking hot badass fall for him enough to want to leave her duty behind and be with him? It took 3 years the first time. But this time he’s not the same guy. He knows how to break down her walls. She really doesn’t stand much of a chance.

    So, look. I’m not sure if this is what they have planned at all. I’m not sure if Sarah loses memory, or if so, how much and for how long. But I can see the opportunity to tell the love story of the two most unlikely people you can think of – without the television rules of not putting the leads together. And at the end, Sarah might remember everything, or nothing, so some things. But it really doesn’t matter. She’s where she wants to be.

    I think that could be the most powerful story they could tell.

    • Bill, this would be very satisfying. It also ties into the comments both Yvonne & Zac have made – focusing on the relationship, coming full circle.
      I have faith that the leads could pull it off – execution would be the most critical part of this equation. Let’s see if the were “brave” enough to go this route.

    • It’s not that i don’t like this theory. I do. But since we’ve heard since ep 9 about Sarah and Chuck and ‘maybe babies,” this story leaves no time for that, and that disappoints me. And I never doubted their love story or relationship, so I never needed a reset. But if that’s the way it goes, that’s fine. But I wanted baby Bartowski’s, and sadly, I don’t think that’s part of the satisfying ending 🙁

      • I’m with you.

        I haven’t given up hope that we find out that Sarah is pregnant at the very end. Imagine this as a last line.

        “Maybe it’s a good thing we’re already married.”

      • Yeah. I’m starting to think the whole pregnancy test thing was a red herring to throw us off of what the last few episodes may bring.. the ‘rough patch’ as it were. Seems like anything the character “Shaw” is involved with.. bad things follow. Curse you, Shaw. Curse youuu.

        But seriously. I’d be okay with an amensia-sort of based storyline as long as things work out before the last minute of the series. That’s all I’d ask for a good ending.

  12. I’m not a big fan of amnesia plots because they have the potential to be used when the writers run out of ideas and are prone to being done very poorly. If this speculation pans out and Sarah somehow suffers from amnesia as the result of her Intersect, the X13 gas, et al, a callout to the Bourne Identity would be kind of cool though.

  13. Everyone seems to be forgetting another feature of Chuck season 1. Casey’s potential ‘kill’ order which he nearly carried out a couple of times….

  14. Nope, I don’t find loss of character growth powerful storytelling.

    It’s like none of what has happened during the last 5 years would matter. It’s not only Chuck that Sarah would forget, she’d forget how she has changed, the fact that she now has a ‘sister’ etc.

    Just bad idea. Especially since they have so little time left and the finale is already full of stuff.

  15. I don’t know why people are sure that Sara will suffer memory loss yes it
    happened to Morgan that was cause by a computer virus and he only forgot
    minor things he didn’t forget his love for Alex. Chuck had problems at the end of season 3 and suffered no memory loss again I asked the question what infomation are you using to come up with this memory loss theory you must be watching a different show than I am.

    • Memory loss doesn’t have to make sense based on the established canon. The writers will still go with it because they know that threatening Chuck and Sarah’s relationship is the thing that causes the greatest amount of angst among the fans.

      Lame and predictable? Yes, but that’s tv for you.

    • No one is sure, at least I’m certainly not. But having said that, there are a lot of things that we know that would fit in here.

      Per Fedak, Chuck and Sarah suffer a great loss.

      Per Yvonne, something is taken away from them that causes big problems.

      Per Yvonne, it’s almost slightly tragic.

      We’ve seen the previews from next episode where Sarah is clearly struggling with the effects of the intersect.

      Per Zac, it’s a homage to S1, back to square 1, and the relationships come full circle.

      We know that there is at least 1 scene in the Wienerlicious.

      They’ve already set up with Morgan that the intersect can mess with the person’s memories. Morgan never did get his memories of the movies back. He had to rewatch them.

      Put that all together and it makes sense at least, right?

  16. I’m french and i don’t understand “Homage-y” that mean Y???
    Me too i don’t really a fan of loss memory because I shall have the impression that the evolution of the couple during 5 years will have served a nothing if Sarah must take everything back in 0. But thisstory can allow us to come back over instants of season 1

    • What he meant with “homage-y” is that the finale will somehow pay tribute to the early episodes, show respect for them.

      And yeah, permanent memory loss would be a terrible idea for the reasons you stated, destroying 5 years of Sarah’s character growth wouldn’t make any sense… yet they still might do it.

    • Homage means paying respect to something, so I think Zac was referring to paying respect to S1 and things that occurred in that season. Hope that helps.

  17. Come on, people!

    Do you really think that Sarah will have a permanent loss of memories? If she loses memories, something will happen that will make her remember; and I’m willing to bet all that there is in my bank account that it will be Chuck who will do it!

    Don’t forget that both Mr. Fedak and Ms. Strahovski both said that the end will satisfy the fans. Would you be satisfied to see Sarah permanently losing her memories? Do you think Chuck would be happy to share his life with a wife who doesn’t remember him? Or worse, would we be happy with Chuck and Sarah apart? Would we be satisfied with such an ending? TPTB are not that stupid.

    Sarah may very well lose her memories of Chuck for a little while, but it won’t last. At one point, during the last episode, she will regains some if not all of them, and that’s only if TPTB have decided to go that route, so maybe we are panicking a little bit too much for nothing, like we did during Season 3.1

    The ride will be very nerve-wracking, but the end will leave us happy, that’s what’s in the plans here, don’t forget that!

    • No, not permanent. Not even sure if any memory loss occurs. If it does occur, suspect it won’t be resolved until Chuck vs. Sarah.

  18. http://zacharylevifan.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=60499&fullsize=1

  19. Yeah, just saw the magazine scan. That pretty much confirms what we’ve all come to think, sadly. Now all we can do is sit and wait.. and hope they handle things properly for a good send off.

    • I think I might start to cry 🙁

      • Aw. I think it’ll be okay. With payoff from finales.. outside of a few spots here and there, they haven’t let us down. Let’s not doubt them now. 🙂

    • Come on guys. Does anybody thing there is any chance that C/S won’t be together and happy when the show ends?

      Fedak pretty much admitted that in the article.

      This is like Cliffhanger when they told us that Sarah might not survive. Who bought that? Well, I’m not buying it even more now.

      I’m looking forward to a powerful, emotional finale that reinforces C/S.

  20. That article made me even more excited. The structure of this show has always been such that the events set in motion in one episode are mostly resolved during that episode and then there is just a single issue cliffhanger that carries over to the next episode. When they were writing those two last episodes they did not know that those would be shown togheter, so I’m assuming the standard episode structure applies to the final episodes also.

    So assuming there is somekind of “Sarah with messed up brain goes against Chuck” plotline I believe it’s mostly resolved in the penultimate episode. Reason to this is the article that says they chase the bad guy to Berlin and to local Wienerlicious. Before this I thought the Wienerlicious would have been somekind of retrieving old memories device, but now it looks like Chuck and Sarah are already back togheter when it happens (there’s a BTS photo of both of them in Wienerlicious unifirms).

  21. Based on what Zach says above I’m wondering if we will see a reversion to where Chuck, Sarah and Casey all had difficulty trusting each other. If that happens with Chuck and Sarah it will be hard to watch, but no Chuck finale has let us down yet.

  22. I’m just hoping at the end of this show we will know that it’s finished for good (which we have been told). Not something that we will be wondering forever if it’s coming back or not.

  23. Now I understand what Ms. Strahovski meant by “tragic”. This is gonna be ugly!

    But I refuse to think that TPTB is stupid enough to end the show with Chuck and Sarah no longer together when the credits for 5.13 will roll.

    Like “Thank you, Chuck (Sarah), you’ve helped me become a better person. I will always love you, you will always have a special place in my heart, but we have to move on. So long.”

    That would suck BIG TIME!!!!

    Quite frankly, if they really did that, why putting them together in the first place? No, we are not being told everything; we are led to believe that it will be so, and perhaps it will in a sense, but something will happen near the end of 5.13 to reverse it, I don’t know what…

  24. To answer you Robert, No I will not be satisfied if the end ended with an amnesiac Sarah, I can not bear to see Chuck unfortunate and most of all, I’m really not happy if they broke the couple Charah. In this case, we find Chuck suicidal, it’s awful.

    I just read the magazine scan and I wonder what the sentence ” They will or they won’t make it” will mean and above all do what?????

    And thanks to jmc and Lianne for the answer

  25. Does anyone know if Orion is officially dead or is he in charge of the conspirarcy

  26. Hello. Nice job. I didn’t count on this on a Wednesday. can be nice story. Thank you!