Chuck – Chuck vs. the American Hero

Chuck has been strong these last few weeks, and all signs point to next week’s episode as a real fizzing whizbang. Some of this has to do with the usual things that make for good television – the acting is well done (for the most part, although last night Shaw yelled “NOOOOOO!” and it was his own little “KHAAAAN!” moment), the plots are moving swiftly and taking risks, character development is working well. That aside, though, it’s pretty obvious that what’s happening on Chuck lately is unusually epic for a show that’s twelve episodes into its nineteen-episode season. As I mentioned briefly last week, there’s a really good reason for that. Chuck was initially given a thirteen-episode order for this season, and then several months into production, that order was extended to nineteen episodes. Last night’s “Chuck vs. the American Hero” was to have been the cliffhanger that leads into the season finale. Instead, we get this oddly climactic mid-season huzzah, and then what will be a really interesting transition between next week’s ersatz-finale and the group of new extra episodes.

This is what the run-up to the end of a season looks like

There are several odd things about this, but one of the biggest is just how obvious it is that something out of the ordinary is going on. The appropriate tempos, tones, plotlines, the special momentousness of a season finale is so well established now that you can see it a mile away, even when it’s hidden in the middle of a season. Last night’s episode was laden with “This is a Big Deal” cues, mostly to do with the ongoing evolution of Chuck and Sarah’s relationship and the standard end-of-season revelations (in this case, that Sarah was the one who killed Shaw’s wife). But there was also plenty of smaller stuff falling into place – Casey donning a ski cap to join Devon and Morgan in Operation Charah is a classic humorous, worlds-colliding, lead-up-to-the-end shenanigan, as is Jeff and Lester being the ones to successfully stalk Shaw. Even the musical cues were operating at full finale throttle. Chuck has a special, eighties techno-esque theme that it reserves for particularly epic moments on the show, and there were plenty of teases of it in last night’s episode.

Also this

It’s hard to see clearly because it’s just a matter-of-fact aspect of television, but it’s actually quite astonishing that premieres and finales have become such patterned, familiar, known objects. Because the marketing and production obstacles of making television are so visible underneath the surface of a show, we see quite easily why finales are such reliable Game Changer or Cliffhanger or Major Character Deathtrap or OMG They Finally Kissed episodes, and we accept the rules for How You End a Season and expect them to be followed. And yet, the whole thing is actually completely bizarre. Major network television shows are unwieldy, unbalanced things that resemble a piece of clay you’ve rolled only in the center. The ends are enormous, heavy globs of Relationship Drama and Suddenly a Shot Rang Out! and the middle is barely thick enough to hold them together. Shows with seasons that run for twenty episodes often have a mid-season hiatus, which follows the same rules as a season break, except in miniature. When a major character’s life is in mortal peril at the end of an episode in December, you know you’re going to have to wait three or four weeks until you find out if they died.

And this

Which is why it’s so refreshing and strange to see this big epic lump of Eventful Things in the middle of this season of Chuck. I’m really, really curious to see how they’ll knit together what’s obviously an ending with the remaining six episodes, but for now, I’m mostly just enjoying my unexpected plot windfall at the end of March.