Chuck vs. The Goodbye: Five Years Later

Chuck vs. the Goodbye

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Chuck series finale, and one of the most controversial final episodes in television history. It was an emotional time. Many of us had been fighting for this show since season 2. We were invested in Charah, in Carmichael Industries, in Casey and his daughter Alex, in Morgan and his growth (and Alex), in Ellie …

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Casey: The Man Who Lived Behind Walls

Early on in the series, Casey’s personality is reflected (literally in one screen shot) in both his name and his Crown Vic. A character who ‘encases’ his emotions, he hides behind an outward armor plating to protect his feelings even while using a fully stocked arsenal of sarcasm, dismissiveness, and physical intimidation as weapons to keep others at a distance. …

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Zachary Levi to Battle Zombies & Other Chuck Cast News

Chuck alumni continue to make their mark on the world. Herewith, a round up of projects where you might encounter familiar faces from the Chuck ‘verse. Zachary Levi has joined the cast of Office Uprising, an “energy drink-based horror movie”. Brenton Thwaites is the lead, playing a slacker who has to step up his game in order to rescue himself and his …

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Chucktoids: The Loves of Morgan Grimes

Morgan’s path from pathetic to respectable over the course of five seasons perhaps best mirrors itself in the upward progression of his romantic relationships. At the outset, the hapless Buy More green shirt continues to suffer from a hopeless infatuation with his best friend’s sister, Ellie. But neither body language nor words have any effect in dissolving his delusion. After …

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Chucktoid: The Tragicomic Childhood of Jeffrey Barnes

Jeff spends the first four seasons in a very different place than the viewer finds him for the bulk of Season 5. Frankly, no one would wish to model a life after the Buy Moron during these years. The closer one looks, though, the reasons behind his substance abuse and oftentimes bizarre behavior can be traced back to a decidedly …

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Chucktoids: Health & Fitness Tips from Captain Awesome

Much of the series portrays Devon as the nearest thing to human perfection, a status implied by his former modeling stint with Abercrombie and Fitch as a college frat boy (vs. Bearded Bandit), his turn as Adam, the pinnacle of creation, at a Halloween party (vs. Sandworm), and the Marble Me sculpted at the bequest of Premier Goya (vs. Coup …

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Chucktoids: Tron Poster

The Tron poster proves more than just a father’s nerdy gift to his son or a nostalgic pop culture reference. Originally given by Orion to a young Chuck, it also hints at their shared secret identity as Intersects. Not only did Chuck accidentally download a prototype of the program as a 12-year-old child before stumbling upon the 1.0 as an …

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Chucktoids: Did Sarah Leave Malibu With Chuck?

The tears and passionate kiss Chuck and Sarah share before the series fades to black suggest they will leave Malibu together. However, additional audio-visual clues during the final episode subtly reinforce this impression. Imagery The finale’s opening sequence of Sarah free falling foreshadows her ultimate awakening and transformation in a variety of ways. She revives in time to pull her chute …

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Chucktoids: 6 Old Testament Parallels for Charah

When viewing Seasons 1-3 as a whole, several compelling parallels emerge between Chuck and Sarah’s romantic journey and archetypal elements of the Old Testament: Not only does Chuck shepherd a flock of misfit Nerd Herders at the Buy More (owned by Moses Finkelstein, no less), but he ends up marrying a wife named Sarah who initially scoffs at the thought …

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Chucktoids: Lester of the Literati

Though it may surprise some fans, Lester, yes one of the Buy Morons, proves the most literary-minded character on the show. Indeed, the Brown Beauty quotes from at least five different classic works over the five seasons, each time his recitation accenting the scene: Lester twice cites a portion of Walt Whitman’s poetic eulogy of Abraham Lincoln, “Oh Captain, my …

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Chucktoids: Flat Screens

Scenes filmed in the Buy More often include background projections on the flat screens that metaphorically accent the events at hand. At series’ end, when Jeffster leaves the big box store for the final time to pursue a musical career in Germany, their departure notably coincides with the scene of cowboys riding off into the sunset. Earlier in Season 5, …

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Chucktoids: An Axe to Grind

“Chuck vs. The Living Dead” opens with a pronounced focus on Orion sharpening an axe with a whet stone in his cabin hideaway. To what purpose? It serves as a controlling metaphor for an episode in which Orion clearly has an axe to grind with the espionage life in general and the CIA in particular, given the separation & endangerment …

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Zachary Levi Reprises ‘Tangled’ Role, Plus #SaveChuckAgain

Zachary Levi is making headlines again this week thanks to an animated performance and a new campaign. First, Disney released a teaser for Tangled: The Series, an animated series set between the events of the original 2010 film and the 2012 short “Tangled Ever After”. The series follows Rapunzel as she “acquaints herself with her parents, her kingdom and the …

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Chris Fedak Gets Magical with ABC

‘Tis the season for announcing new projects! ABC announced that they’ve greenlit a pilot for Deception, a drama written by Chris Fedak that combines magic and the FBI. According to the official synopsis, Deception follows a superstar magician whose career is plagued by scandal. In an effort to keep practicing the arts of deception, illusion and influence, he teams with the FBI to become …

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Zachary Levi Developing CIA Thriller with NBC

Zachary Levi is moving into a new phase of his career: executive producer. Deadline announced this week that Zac, through his production company, Middle Man, is working with Universal Television to develop Unidentified, “a high octane thriller with sci-fi elements, which centers on a CIA operative trying to protect his family from an unimaginable secret.” That’s pretty much all the …

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