John Casey: Clown or Stalwart Defender?

It would be easy to mistake the character of Colonel John Casey for a cardboard cutout. He grunts. He makes sarcastic remarks. He follows orders. As for thinking outside the box, Casey doesn’t even seem aware that there is a box. And he likes it that way.

But what has also struck me recently is how a character who is often portrayed as a parody of a fervent Republican – he reminds us with relish and undisguised enthusiasm that “Ronald Reagan won the cold war” – seems to be more than capable of bending and even breaking the rules from time to time.

With John Casey, though, there is something notable in his disobedience. He never disobeys orders or strays from the rules for personal gain. He’s done it for Chuck to keep the Intersect from being stowed away in a government bunker, ironically after telling Chuck with a smirk that he would be put in a place where he would “forget what fresh air smells like.” He’s given Sarah a free pass when she messed up, thereby endangering the lives of herself, Bryce, Casey and the Intersect that she is charged to protect. And he’s joined up with Chuck and Sarah when they went AWOL instead of capturing them and bringing them into custody, his reaction to an about‑face on General Beckman’s part that broke Casey’s personal code of honour. Casey has also advocated to the general on Chuck’s behalf citing his honourable actions and service to his country. But, being Casey through and through, once the general confirmed the kill order on Chuck, he was prepared to go through with it. Luckily for Chuck fans, Casey was very slow to set up the shot, which left time for Sarah to make her entrance and save the day. Whew!

So what would make a man like John Casey, a man who is apparently so lacking in imagination that we can see visual evidence of this in Adam Baldwin’s fluid facial expressions as his brain clicks laboriously through any new idea presented to him – effectively a Sugar Bear of very literal brain – struggle so with such a heady concept as the personal safety and human dignity of two people he normally communicates with via attitudes ranging from ridicule to outright scorn?

If he were to simply follow orders in relation to Chuck and Sarah like a good career soldier, his life would certainly be a lot simpler. Add to this Casey’s dogged tendency to see everything in black and white, and it would be very easy for the viewer to dismiss him as merely a comic foil, a clown.

I see Casey’s role beyond that of straight man to Chuck’s quirky funny man, as a part-time conscience of the covert community. In spite of the fact that he’s a ruthless killer, Casey has shown us through the selfless choices he has made when the chips were down that he has the ability to draw a moral line and stay behind it, and in this way he acts as the very thinnest of shields between Chuck and a force against which the computer nerd would have absolutely no defenses – the faceless and soulless machine of government bureaucracy.

Perhaps because he’s been in the “business” for such a long time, Casey is in the best position to know what Chuck is up against from the people who are running him, who to trust, when to trust, and just how much it would be safe to trust. And thus he guards Chuck from the enemy within, possibly without even being consciously aware that he is doing so.

And because Adam Baldwin plays Casey with such subtlety and clarity, we can buy that he is both a source of laughs and a stalwart protector, a defensive, competitive, child‑like man and a gruff hero who will always have your back.

As a result, whenever Casey – the man who keeps a framed photo of Ronald Reagan on the table during evenings of surveillance in his jammies while eating milk and cookies – defies the authorities that he also reveres to keep his friends safe, the audience is compelled to sit up and take notice.