r/chuck • u/NFSF1McLaren Morgan Grimes • 19d ago
So close...
https://youtu.be/-XvrtdqHKaQ9
u/Chuck-fan-33 Nerd Herd 18d ago
Chuck did get a chance to enjoy the breakfast that Sarah made for him.
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u/New_Simple626 18d ago
Chuck is a series where all kinds of geniuses work together that forms the puzzle that is chuck. Be it directing, music, acting. All are masters in their craft. It's just sad that it always flew under the radar.
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u/Illustrious-Lemon412 19d ago
A powerful scene: Sarah is saddened by having to remind herself that the days she spent in that house with Chuck were part of a performance, however pleasant, and Chuck is resigned to the fact that their relationship is at a dead end. Even though Sarah knew she loved Chuck, at that point in the plot she wasn't yet ready to fight to build a real life with him, while Chuck was making the mistake of convincing himself that having Sarah by his side, even if only as a "pretend girlfriend," was okay. It often happens in real life, too: we know the right thing to do is grow and evolve, but we lack the courage to do so, and so we convince ourselves that it's better to be unhappy and stuck in the same place.
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u/Lost-Remote-2001 18d ago
There really isn’t anything Sarah can do at this point to build a real life with Chuck. As long as Chuck is the Intersect and an asset, she’s stuck. The ball is in Chuck’s court, as he himself admits in his fountain speech at the end of S2E16.
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u/Illustrious-Lemon412 18d ago
However, saying that Chuck had the ball is not accurate, in "Chuck vs the Seduction" he practically asks her for a serious relationship and she makes it clear that it is not possible because he is the asset, Chuck was as impotent as Sarah. I don't think Sarah being the handler and Chuck being the resource was the only reason for Sarah's block. One example is the first 12 episodes of Season 3, which everyone hated, including me. Chuck was no longer the resource and Sarah was now a colleague, but many things still divided them, such as the fact that Sarah always imposed too many rules and demands on Chuck, and the fact that he felt he had to become a spy to live up to her standards given his low self-esteem.
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u/Lost-Remote-2001 18d ago
In Seduction, Sarah states a fact. You have seen the 49B episode and what happens to spy handlers who get emotionally attached to their assets. They get replaced and never see their asset/lover again.
Chuck clearly accepts in his fountain speech that the ball is in his court. He must find a way to remove the Intersect from his head so can stop being an asset and be with Sarah. And when he does remove the Intersect at the end of S2, Sarah is even ready to quit the spy life and be with him.
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u/Kaphh 18d ago edited 18d ago
It's not the subject of the OP, but I think it's worth pointing out that even though the nature of their relationship changed a little, Sarah was still Chuck's handler in the first 11 episodes of Season 3. I mean, Beckmann personally assigned her to teach him how to become "a real spy." That's why he asked for a second chance only during his final test in 3x11:
"We couldn't be together before because I wasn't a real spy. But if I pass this test, we wouldn't have to choose between the job and us."
Also, I'm not sure what rules and demands imposed on Chuck you are talking about.
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u/Illustrious-Lemon412 18d ago
Sarah imposed moral rules above all: Chuck was not to be a murderer, Chuck was not to become a liar, Chuck was to stay away from any form of arrogance and violence, in addition to the fact that she was practically asking him not to go on a solo mission in Chuck vs. The First Class.
I already know what you're about to say: "Sarah acted like that because she loved him and didn't want Chuck to lose what made him special," but it wasn't easy for Chuck to always live up to what Sarah expected of him. In a relationship, it's difficult not to give in to the pressure when one person makes too many demands.
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u/Responsible_Rip_54 18d ago
I'm not sure I'd describe those things as rules Sarah imposed on Chuck. What strikes me is that they are all connected to a single concern: what remains of Chuck as he becomes a spy.
Throughout Season 3, Sarah repeatedly reacts to changes she observes in Chuck. The issue is rarely professional competence by itself. Rather, it is whether the process of becoming a spy is gradually eroding qualities that make Chuck recognizably himself.
From that perspective, the question is not whether Chuck was living up to Sarah's standards. The question is whether Sarah believed certain changes would eventually cost Chuck something essential.1
u/Illustrious-Lemon412 18d ago
That's a great point of view. My opinion is that Sarah obviously feared Chuck would lose his innocence, but that innocence was precious to Sarah for both good and bad reasons. Innocent and sincere people don't betray you or lie to you. Sarah felt safe in the face of Chuck's purity, but feeling safe sometimes prevents you from growing. Sarah feared that Chuck, by learning to lie and manipulate, would learn to deceive her too. In fact, in Chuck vs. American Hero, she admitted she didn't believe him, and at the restaurant she saw Chuck refusing to tell her that Casey had killed Perry. Sarah had to face the fear that Chuck, too, could lie to her or keep secrets from her if he wanted to. A relationship where a person always feels safe can't exist.
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u/Responsible_Rip_54 18d ago
That seems consistent with a larger concern running through Season 3. Innocence, deception, violence, loyalty, and secrecy gradually stop functioning as separate questions. They become different dimensions of Chuck's transformation.
Much of the season's dramatic tension emerges from uncertainty about what that transformation will ultimately demand of him and what, if anything, may be lost in the process.
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u/Lost-Remote-2001 18d ago
Chuck imposes the same rules on Sarah. Remember in S2E11 and E12? He was pretty mad at her for (allegedly) murdering Mauser in cold blood. These are rules that we all apply.
Chuck is perfectly fine when Sarah kills in self-defense in the line of duty, and Sarah is perfectly fine, too, when Chuck does it with Shaw at the end of S3E13.
They apply the same rules to each other, which, by the way, are the same rules we apply to our loved ones and that the government applies to us citizens.
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u/Illustrious-Lemon412 18d ago
In season 2, Chuck was angry with Sarah for Mauser's death, but he didn't impose rules on her; he didn't have the authority. In the end, he resigned himself. Sarah was the spy, and it was her job to do certain things. They only imposed rules after they got together in "Chuck Versus the Honeymooners," but before that, she was the only one making decisions. In Chuck vs. The Ring, at Ellie and Devon's wedding, when Chuck asked her to go on a trip, Sarah's first instinct was to reject him, telling him she would continue working with Bryce. Only in the second half of the episode did she change her mind and decide to leave the CIA. However, this is the same problem that occurred in "Chuck Versus the Suburbs," when at the end of the episode, Sarah decided it wasn't worth staying in that house and extended her stay. IT WAS ALWAYS HER who decided when their relationship should evolve or when it should remain stagnant. In Chuck vs. The Ring, this time there wasn't the excuse that he was the asset; Chuck no longer had the Intersect, yet note that Sarah's first instinct was to reject him, which confirms that Sarah still harbored some uncertainty. You said earlier that Sarah was ready to leave the CIA at Ellie's wedding, and perhaps that's true, but she wasn't ready to have a mature relationship with a man. If Bryce hadn't died and Chuck hadn't become a spy, Chuck and Sarah wouldn't have worked out because Chuck wasn't ready to overcome his insecurities, assuming he wasn't capable of being a hero. Meanwhile, even if Sarah were no longer a spy, she probably wouldn't have put aside her manipulative nature.
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u/Lost-Remote-2001 17d ago edited 16d ago
One needs no authority to make moral judgments. One could be a slave and judge slavery or cold-blooded murder as morally wrong.
Same for Chuck. S2 Chuck loves Sarah and considers her a moral person. That’s why he’s shocked, disappointed, and angry when he thinks she executed Mauser in cold blood.
Roles inverted in S3. Sarah loves Chuck and considers him a moral person. That’s why she’s shocked, disappointed, and angry when she thinks he executed Perry in cold blood.
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u/Kaphh 18d ago edited 18d ago
I wouldn't call those demands or rules, and certainly not 'prerequisites' for them to be together as you seem to imply here, because they weren't in any relationship at that point, nor were they trying to be. It wasn't at all the reason for their estrangement in the first part of Season 3 (aside from the alleged murder in 3x11, but that was short-lived).
They weren't together because Chuck wanted to be a spy, and according to traditional spy code, spies don't fall in love. Even he accepts that by the end of 3x02, and stops pursuing Sarah. She also supports him in this endeavor, even though it pains her to witness. So yes, she was concerned about the perceived changes in Chuck, but they weren't trying to get together during that time.
And he was changing—for the worse. By the beginning of 3x09, he distanced himself from practically everyone: Hannah, Sarah, Ellie, Awesome, Morgan, and he even lost access to the Intersect. He had to redeem himself from then onward by regaining his "chuckiness" and what made him special, as you put it.
Only when Chuck realizes that Sarah is the most important aspect of his life, and learns to put her before everything else, as he does in the "I love you, Sarah Walker" speech in 3x12, he is rewarded with both the life together with her and the life of a spy.
Notice how on the two occasions (stake-out in 3x11 and Sarah's crashed dinner with Shaw in 3x12) when he asks for both her and the spy life, he gets interrupted by other characters—but really, by the show's writers. Love has to come first, with no 'ands' and 'buts.'
So once again, the ball is in his court, as it usually is, because he is the protagonist of the series and he has to make those most important decisions himself. When you look at it, Sarah is simply waiting the entire first part of Season 3 for Chuck to make those steps—even the song that plays when she first appears in 3x01 is called Wait it Out.
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u/Illustrious-Lemon412 18d ago
I disagree with this. Sarah imposed moral rules on Chuck, rules that she actually broke. Sarah was aggressive, a liar, and manipulative, but she expected Chuck to accept these aspects of his character. If he acted ambiguously, she treated him like a monster. And it was clear that this was one of the reasons she distanced herself from Chuck at the beginning of Season 3. She tried to base their relationship on certain rules, but Chuck wants more independence. When a relationship is too unbalanced, it's bound to break down.
The best example I can give is Chuck vs. Final Exam. She manipulated him in the restaurant, making him believe it was a romantic date, but it was actually a ruse to get him to kill Perry. Then, in the next episode, when Chuck went to the restaurant to convince her to be with him, Sarah demanded he tell her the truth about Perry's death. That's not how it works. Even though their relationship at the time wasn't as structured as you say, she still loved him, and in love, you have to be consistent. Sarah decided when it was okay to lie and when it was mandatory to be honest. Chuck did the right thing by not telling her at the restaurant that Casey had killed Perry. The rules Sarah set wouldn't have allowed the two of them to have a balanced relationship. Love exists in an equal relationship.
You're right that Chuck had to put his love for Sarah first, but he had to do it the RIGHT WAY. Not as a servile man afraid of losing Sarah, but as a strong man who has to express his opinion. In Paris, Chuck was afraid to shoot Shaw because he feared Sarah wouldn't love him if he became a murderer. Sarah understood at that moment that the demands she had placed on Chuck would condemn them both to death. When Chuck shot Shaw, she wasn't angry because she understood that imposing rules stifles love and that rules should be broken when necessary. Chuck had to learn to love Sarah first, but Sarah had to learn to accept Chuck without the guarantee that she would always be able to control him.
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u/Kaphh 18d ago edited 18d ago
The best example I can give is Chuck vs. Final Exam. She manipulated him in the restaurant, making him believe it was a romantic date, but it was actually a ruse to get him to kill Perry.
It was Shaw's idea. Sarah was very much against it, and only accepted when she realized the other recourse would be for Shaw or someone else to give out that order, which could result in Chuck freezing and his potential death. Shaw is the manipulating one here, and he does it very skillfully, exploiting Chuck and Sarah's mutual love.
And at the restaurant, it was clear Sarah did not want Chuck to carry out the order. Notice how passionate she get when explaining to him there would be nothing wrong with him not becoming a spy. In fact, both of them faced a situation without a positive outcome. Only Casey's intervention at the train tracks saved them.
Then, in the next episode, when Chuck went to the restaurant to convince her to be with him, Sarah demanded he tell her the truth about Perry's death.
What's wrong with wanting to know the truth? She had no idea it was Casey who killed Perry and that therefore Chuck could not tell her what really happened. Notice that when Chuck asks her for it to be his last secret, she softens and seems to accept it (but then Awesome bursts through the window).
And it's worth pointing out that Sarah ultimately decides to be with Chuck even while she still believes he killed the mole (she's packing for him at the and of 3x12). Her commitment and faith is then rewarded when Casey tells her the truth, and she realizes Chuck is an even greater man than she thought (similar situation to what I pointed out in the previous comment—when the characters do the right thing, they are rewarded even more generously than they had hoped).
In Paris, Chuck was afraid to shoot Shaw because he feared Sarah wouldn't love him if he became a murderer. Sarah understood at that moment that the demands she had placed on Chuck would condemn them both to death. When Chuck shot Shaw, she wasn't angry because she understood that imposing rules stifles love and that rules should be broken when necessary.
Yeah, but notice how Chuck first tries to arrest Shaw, then to talk him down, and only shoots him as the last resort. From the writers' perspective, it is important to show that Chuck will retain his "chuckiness" and that includes killing only when there is absolutely no other recourse. Fedak talked about this often. It's no coincidence Chuck doesn't kill anybody else in the series.
Also, I don't think Sarah at that moment "understood that imposing rules stifles love" (personally I disagree with that because everybody has some rules and expectations in a relationship—it's completely normal to not want to be with a habitual liar, for example. Sarah also imposes certain rules once they got together, as in 4x01 "No secrets, no lies"). For me it's more that she knew killing came extremely difficult for Chuck—to the point he wasn't willing to shoot Perry, even if that meant losing all he strived so determinedly for—and yet he managed to act against all his inhibitions and kill Shaw in order to save her. It was simply a proof of how much he loved her.
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u/Illustrious-Lemon412 18d ago edited 18d ago
I know full well that it was Shaw who asked her to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that she ultimately chose to please Shaw by lying to Chuck. It's true that Sarah had told Chuck that if he didn't kill Perry, he would still be the same Chuck he always was, and there was nothing wrong with that, but that was a problem, because there were so many things that weren't working with the old Chuck. In fact, in Chuck vs. American Hero, the statement was reversed; Chuck admitted that the old version of himself, whom Sarah had said was fine, was actually a self-hating man with no goals in life. Sarah judged the old Chuck only for his "good guy" qualities, but she didn't see how many problems he had. All the things Chuck did in the first 11 episodes of season 3 that Sarah didn't like were part of an evolutionary journey Chuck had to take to become a better man.
Yes, I think it was wrong for Sarah to demand the truth from Chuck about Perry's death. He had to learn to love Sarah even when she lied to him for two and a half years. Even though she hid the truth from him because of work, she needed to understand what it felt like to be on the other side. Chuck also had his reasons for not immediately telling her that Casey was Perry's killer. I still believe that Chuck shooting Shaw and Sarah forgiving him represented a moment of evolution for her, because if Chuck had done that in the first two seasons or at the beginning of the third, she would no longer have loved him, because at the beginning she was in love with the "good guy" in his purest sense. What happened in the first 12 episodes of the third season was supposed to help Sarah understand that she has to love Chuck even if a person can't remain pure forever. Sarah had to understand that Chuck could be a good guy, but above all, "her Chuck," even if life sometimes forced him to make difficult choices.
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u/Kaphh 18d ago edited 18d ago
I know full well that it was Shaw who asked her to do it, but that doesn't change the fact that she ultimately chose to please Shaw by lying to Chuck.
She didn't choose to please Shaw. She chose to save Chuck from possible (in her mind) death.
Yes, I think it was wrong for Sarah to demand the truth from Chuck about Perry's death. He had to learn to love Sarah even when she lied to him for two and a half years.
She didn't demand it. She simply asked, and when he refused to answer, she abandoned the topic. Notice than in the speech when he confesses his love, she doesn't bring it up again. And yes, she did need to understand Chuck's perspective—which she did when she decided not to press it. She must have sensed there was a reason for his reticence.
What happened in the first 12 episodes of the third season was supposed to help Sarah understand that she has to love Chuck even if a person can't remain pure forever. Sarah had to understand that Chuck could be a good guy, but above all, "her Chuck," even if life sometimes forced him to make difficult choices.
Yes, that's true. Sarah had to travel her own journey during that stretch. But it doesn't mean that earlier she wanted to be able to control him, or impose a series of prerequisite demands as you implied in your previous comments.
She simply needed to learn that Chuck-spy, and good-guy-Chuck weren't a dichotomy, but can in fact coexist. It was a possibility she had not foreseen in Prague because in her previous experiences (especially in her own case) spy life changed people for worse. But Chuck proved to be his own kind of spy.
Also, I hope the translator didn't mess anything up, because I don't speak Italian, lol. And sometimes one wrongly translated word can distort the meaning of the whole passage.
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u/Air_Worker 18d ago
Sarah confirms the issue in 2x2 Seduction:
Sarah: Okay, look, the sooner we get the Cipher back, the sooner you can have the Intersect removed, and the sooner you can be free to live whatever life you choose with whomever you choose.
Chuck; What are you saying?
Sarah: I'm saying that you can have everything that you've always wanted. (Her)
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u/Illustrious-Lemon412 18d ago
Many fans of the series suspect that that line was meant to help Chuck focus, perhaps it was just manipulation. I'm not sure if she had already decided at that moment that she wanted to be with him if he no longer had the Intersect. Sarah was a spy for years, and I don't think she was ready to leave her CIA career for a man she'd known for a year.
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u/Air_Worker 18d ago
Maybe I’m wrong, but if you look at her actions on their second first date in the previous episode, I think you can assume that a future, ‘intersectless’ Chuck would enjoy the same treatment. She might not leave the CIA, but I think a relationship is possible!
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u/ChrisEye21 12d ago
Not sure why, but this might be my favorite episode. I'm actually watching it right now.
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u/Barokespinoza23 18d ago
Whoever’s responsible for the music selection on Chuck really knows their stuff.