Daniel, Daniel, Daniel Shaw. You were the most hated villain in Chuck history. Sorry, Brandon Routh, but it’s true. It’s not really personal. Shaw just showed fans how easily a man could be corrupted, and that scared those who were rooting for Chuck himself (Zachary Levi). But he you posed a threat to the epic love that was evident from the start in Chuck and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski). So he had to go. But he never truly died, and now in the fifth and final season, we will see why: he had to come back one last time to throw a monkey wrench into the Bartowskis lives anew. Both personally and professionally.
“It was a trip!” Levi laughed, reminiscing about working with Routh just a few weeks ago for "Chuck vs The Santa Suit"-- a fact that the network, and the Tweet-happy actors, managed to keep underwraps so as not to ruin the surprise. Well, the surprise wasn’t ruined until the NBC promo department decided to spoil the guest star after the December 9th episode, “Chuck vs The Hack Off,” anyway.
“He’s a tough one; he’s Superman; you can’t expect anything less. Look, it’s always fun when you get to have recurring themes or recurring characters, and you know, Brandon spent a lot of time with us. And I’ve known Brandon outside of work for years because we have mutual friends, so that’s always fun, too. In some ways it’s kind of cool to have even more closure than what was the closure before."
Chuck has taken on a lot of opponents since Shaw, and many of them seemed bigger or badder on paper (and you know, in artillery) than he, but in many ways Shaw was always supposed to be Chuck’s counterpart. Maybe part cautionary tale, but certainly his best match and adversary.
“Other bad [guys] for example, like Volkhoff, [were] very formidable opponents, but I wasn’t fist-fighting Volkhoff. Daniel Shaw and Chuck Bartowski, we were contemporaries and we were enemies-- and friends at one point and then you know, enemies. Frenemies! And we were both the same age and stuff, and also in some ways, vying for the love of the same girl…That was very messy-- all that stuff,” Levi pointed out.
Messy, yes, but also emotional. So we had to ask showrunner Chris Fedak to justify Shaw’s return in this final season over so many other options.
“We wanted to do a monster story,” Fedak explained simply. “We wanted to do a Christmas story, but Christmas is such a holiday haunted of the Charles Dickens tradition, so when we started thinking about a Christmas story, we said ‘Let’s bring back a monster from our past.’ And Brandon-- at the end of season three, Brandon was such a ‘Muahaha' bad guy. And I said ‘We’ve got to bring back the ‘Muahaha’ bad guy'!”
Fedak, who praised Routh as the “best icy killer” (no pun intended, we’re sure!) they’ve had, said there was really no question that it was going to be him they brought back this final season.
“When we were working on it, we thought…maybe bring him back for an act,” he admitted. “But no, the minute you bring Daniel Shaw back, it has to be for the whole episode.”
Chuck airs on NBC on Friday nights at 8pm. “Chuck vs The Santa Suit” airs on December 23rd 2011.
Want more Chuck news and interviews? Follow LA TV Insider Examiner on Twitter!
Comments