Season Three of Chuck Brings Angst and Catharsis

There’s a certain melancholy attached to starting a really good series on DVD. You start off hoping to get sucked in but knowing that when the multiple marathons have brought you to the end of what’s available on DVD, malaise will set in. My family finished watching season three of Chuck a couple weeks ago, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to rush out and write the review right away. It felt too final. Of course, there is a season four, but I hate to plunge into it “live” having missed the first half of the season, so I have a feeling it will have to wait. I’m sure it will be worth it; the first three seasons certainly were.

Season three of the action-comedy-romance created by Chris Fedak and Josh Schwartz has a slightly different tone to it than the first two seasons. While there are still laugh-aloud moments in every episode, I’m not sure I would classify it as primarily comical. Each of the characters faces major challenges in this season, and at times their obstacles feel downright oppressive. In fact, there were several episodes that left me feeling depressed, though the season ends on a mostly uplifting note.

The biggest reason for the change is that Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi), the unassuming computer technician who unwittingly filled his head with government secrets in the first episode, has experienced a shift in his life plan. After spending two seasons largely focused on ridding himself of that unwanted knowledge, he had a brief taste of freedom before downloading the new Intersect, this time intentionally, in a moment of crisis. With this new version, he not only is able to identify baddies instantaneously, he has the chance to immediately learn how to accomplish complex tasks such as doing kung fu or performing surgery. These abilities come only intermittently.  He has to concentrate harder than usual to call them forth, and he doesn't always have control over them once he gets them, but just knowing that they’re lying dormant in his system is enough to change Chuck’s attitude toward espionage. He is no longer a reluctant spy simply waiting to go back to his old life. Instead, like Clark Kent, he feels a duty to use his newfound powers for good.

Because of these abilities, season three is the most action-packed yet, though I sometimes missed his more unconventional means of getting out of scrapes. That’s not to say that he never escapes his enemies primarily through his quick wits or that his two handlers, tough, pretty Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and steely, deadly John Casey (Adam Baldwin), don’t ever have to come to his rescue. But we do get several fight scenes with him that are pretty much straightforward action. As he gets closer to becoming an actual, official spy, it becomes harder and harder for him to avoid making morally reprehensible decisions, and I worried along with Sarah that the season might strip him of many of the qualities that make him so lovable in the first place.

Of the main trio, Sarah has always been the straight man of sorts. She’s sweet and incredibly capable, but she doesn’t usually make me laugh as Chuck and Casey do. In season three, she’s not just rather serious, she’s angsty. This season begins several months after the season two finale, and we learn that Chuck declined an opportunity to run away with her, opting instead for the life of a spy. It’s a rather perplexing decision, considering how desperately he loves Sarah. On the other hand, it would have meant abandoning his beloved sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and giving up the chance to help a lot of people, so his decision is at least somewhat understandable. But throughout most of the season, Sarah remains bitter over this incident, and her relationship with Chuck suffers. For at least half the season, it seems that there is a dark cloud hanging over Sarah’s head, and it’s draining to watch, though there’s a definite sense of exultation when she finally begins to come out of her funk.

Deadpan Casey has subtly, gradually softened up since the beginning of the series, and at this point, while he still looks like he could rip your head off – and would if he had the right motivation – he is as sympathetic as he is intimidating. Casey must deal with several significant changes this season, and we come to see just how important Chuck and Sarah have become to him. More surprisingly, he has several opportunities to bond with Chuck’s best friend Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez), and despite his initial irritation with Morgan, the two turn out to make a pretty effective team. Meanwhile, a secret long buried in Casey’s past comes to light and reveals a truly tender side of his personality.

Chuck’s beefed up spy duties threaten to drive a wedge between him and Morgan as his behavior becomes ever more erratic, but the strength of this lifelong friendship proves capable of withstanding seemingly insurmountable obstacles. After two seasons of frequently coming across like a doofus and a nuisance, Morgan really begins to grow up in this season. At the urging of paternal boss Big Mike (Mark Christopher Lawrence), he takes on new duties at the Buy More that demonstrate an unforeseen knack for leadership, and he shows both cleverness and bravery when he finds himself in the position of needing to come to Chuck’s rescue. By contrast, Chuck’s brother-in-law Devon (Ryan McPartlin), a buff, easy-going doctor who rarely seems rattled in the first two seasons, gets a taste of Chuck’s lifestyle that leaves him truly shaken, and he spends much of the season looking haggard and haunted. This leads to some funny moments, in particular a hilarious confrontation with Morgan as he tries to convince Ellie that they should leave Burbank to participate in Doctors Without Borders in Africa, but it’s rather unsettling to see the man Chuck refers to as Captain Awesome so utterly stressed out.

With the arrival of Chuck’s new “superpowers,” it’s not much surprise that Superman references would fill the season. This is most noticeable in two of the season’s casting decisions. Kristin Kreuk, known for playing Clark’s longtime crush and on-again, off-again girlfriend Lana Lang on Smallville, surfaces as a potential love interest for Chuck who, after meeting him on a mission, moves to Burbank to work in his Buy More. Generally, I found her character here more likable than Lana, who was sweet enough in Smallville’s first season but soon began to exhibit obnoxious and shifty traits. More significant to the arc of the season is Shaw, a highly accomplished agent who becomes Chuck’s boss. Played by Brandon Routh, who donned Superman’s red and blue suit in Superman Returns, Shaw has an impeccable record, not to mention killer abs, and Chuck’s not so crazy about the way he’s disrupting the cozy little trio he’s become so accustomed to, especially since he seems to have his sights set on Sarah.

Along with all the Superman stuff, the season remains steeped in pop culture references that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere. Chuck’s unpredictable kung fu chops lead to an episode-long subplot about a Fight Club in the Buy More, one of the more disruptive ideas cooked up by Lester Patel (Vic Sahay) and Jeff Barnes (Scott Krinsky), Chuck’s most aggravating co-workers. I must admit, though, that they got a big smile out of this folkie with a performance of a John Denver song while garbed like Simon and Garfunkel in what’s probably my favorite episode of the season. And really, they didn’t sound half-bad. Battlestar Galactica gets a prominent shout-out in one of the season’s most dispiriting episodes, and Subway, the corporate sponsor partly responsible for keeping Chuck on the air, is integrated in a number of amusing ways. While many pop culture moments throughout the season made me smile, my hands-down favorite has to be the out-of-the-blue nod to one of Sesame Street’s most popular segments.

Taken as a whole, I love the third season of Chuck as much as the first two, but this is definitely a darker season. Several likable characters get burned, some of them fatally, and the main trio face some deeply troubling crises that threaten their sense of self-worth and psychological well-being. However, when good things happen this season, they feel all the more cathartic, so the dark moments are worth enduring, especially since there is joy and humor to be found in even the direst episode. I’m so glad that Chuck got a third season, and I’m sure that the fourth will be just as engrossing.