Goodbye to Chuck (the TV show)
Jan. 31st, 2012 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xannosideI'll put most of it behind jump, but...wow. Solid job, all around, folks.
Look, I didn't like a lot of where the show went this season. It felt contrived, it felt tired, it felt seen before. But this finale reminded me of everything I loved about this show in the first place.
Maybe you guys fell off the bar in the end, but damn, you stuck the landing. Good job, and thanks for all the memories.
I almost gave up completely when Sarah lost her memory in the final frame of the penultimate episode. I was actually, "wait so they 'killed' off our Sarah early just so Chuck can put her back together miraculously in the end via montage? Really?!" Haven't we seen this before? Won't she get it back at just the right time?
And then, in this final 2-hour ep...she didn't. Holy crap. Every time Chuck tries something different, something bigger, to desperately try and bring his wife back...it fails. There really is no going back, and each time the walk down memory lane (with montages, even) fails, it gets more and more heart-breaking. Massive props to both Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski; as each attempt fell apart, the look of agony on his face just grew and grew until he was more pain than human, and she looked increasingly terrified while simultaneous desperately waiting for something inside her to tell that it was okay, she could remember. And when she says that she believes everything that he says happened, but she doesn't feel any of it, I don't think you could have summed up the theme show better.
Knowing vs feeling, knowledge vs understanding, savoir vs comprehension, one of the things that made Chuck such a good show in the first place was how easy it was to relate to that conflict. Who doesn't understand the terror of trying to go through life the way you know you should without understanding why you should?
And the very, very end? Perfect. We were reminded of just how good the two of them were together, and while they could have gotten away with the cliche ending, we were left to wonder on the outcome. Did Sarah regain her memories in that last moment, or is it the start of a new story where they begin again? We don't know. But we do understand.
And we got one last, truly epic performance by Jeffster. ;)
Look, I didn't like a lot of where the show went this season. It felt contrived, it felt tired, it felt seen before. But this finale reminded me of everything I loved about this show in the first place.
Maybe you guys fell off the bar in the end, but damn, you stuck the landing. Good job, and thanks for all the memories.
I almost gave up completely when Sarah lost her memory in the final frame of the penultimate episode. I was actually, "wait so they 'killed' off our Sarah early just so Chuck can put her back together miraculously in the end via montage? Really?!" Haven't we seen this before? Won't she get it back at just the right time?
And then, in this final 2-hour ep...she didn't. Holy crap. Every time Chuck tries something different, something bigger, to desperately try and bring his wife back...it fails. There really is no going back, and each time the walk down memory lane (with montages, even) fails, it gets more and more heart-breaking. Massive props to both Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski; as each attempt fell apart, the look of agony on his face just grew and grew until he was more pain than human, and she looked increasingly terrified while simultaneous desperately waiting for something inside her to tell that it was okay, she could remember. And when she says that she believes everything that he says happened, but she doesn't feel any of it, I don't think you could have summed up the theme show better.
Knowing vs feeling, knowledge vs understanding, savoir vs comprehension, one of the things that made Chuck such a good show in the first place was how easy it was to relate to that conflict. Who doesn't understand the terror of trying to go through life the way you know you should without understanding why you should?
And the very, very end? Perfect. We were reminded of just how good the two of them were together, and while they could have gotten away with the cliche ending, we were left to wonder on the outcome. Did Sarah regain her memories in that last moment, or is it the start of a new story where they begin again? We don't know. But we do understand.
And we got one last, truly epic performance by Jeffster. ;)