So on last night’s Chuck, the first of six bonus episodes resulting from an additional episode order by NBC, we meet Chuck and Sarah after they have consummated their relationship. Repeatedly. And, for those of you needing the additional assistance of Freudian symbolism, it takes place… on a train.
Needing to tack on an epilogue to season three must have presented a challenge for Chuck’s producers: they needed to give us a taste of where the series was going with Chuck and Sarah together, a bit of a complication to sustain additional episodes, but nothing so major as to step on the next season or attempt to cram a season’s worth of drama into a little over a month.
The solution: have Chuck and Sarah suddenly resolve to quit the spy life together. I didn’t completely buy the sudden move on a couple levels—first, that either of them would assume this is what the other really wants (when espionage has been such a part of Sarah’s identity, and when Chuck has so recenty committed to it), and second, that it wouldn’t occur, at least to Sarah, that spies can’t easily go missing without being assumed AWOL or worse. In any case, it was a moot point, as we knew all along that the duo couldn’t quit the spy game so easily, and sure enough, they were quickly showing us what the pair would be like as a couple in action—in the process restoring some of the lightness that had been missing from much of season three.
Chuck for me remains a show that doesn’t hold up too well under analysis and is more enjoyable without it—a soap bubble that’s beautiful to look at but that pops as soon as you try to grab it. Next season, J.J. Abrams is making a series for NBC about married spies, Undercover, which has been described as a lighthearted espionage show, a little bit Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a little bit Hart to Hart. Somebody may want to tell J.J. that it looks like someone has already made that show for NBC. If Chuck survives to a fourth season, he’s going to have company.
