“We [have] come to the finale. It’s almost a reset of sorts. The ‘will they/won’t they’ dynamic comes into play…There’s a ton of homage to the pilot, to the origins of these characters and their journey together. And everyone’s in it, and that’s awesome, and it’s really-- it’s been really emotional,” Chuck series star Zachary Levi opened up to LA TV Insider Examiner on location in Los Angeles for his NBC spy series finale.
It was a warm and sunny winter morning that we headed out to Cal State Northridge to catch the cast and crew of Chuck one final time as they prepped to film a big finale scene in a concert hall. We had our suspicions about where the storyline was going before we got there, but seeing everyone all dressed up one last time, any intelligent thought about arcs and character development faded away for a deep sense of nostalgia. And if we were feeling it, having only covered the show professionally for the past year, they had to be blubbering messes!
“That’s the thing,” Joshua Gomez chuckled to when asked who’s been crying the most around set. “I get a text from Ryan McPartlin going, ‘Dude, I just got the last script. I’m in tears, man.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, was it good?’ He’s like, ‘I just looked at the title.’ I’m like, ‘Dude, didn’t you play football?’ Like this guy, he blows my mind!”
All joking aside, though, there is a lot to be emotional about leading into the final two episodes of a series that struck such a cord with such a number of viewers over the last five years. Just as Morgan (Gomez) downloaded the Intersect at the end of the fourth season and then promptly lost his real personality, this time around Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) was the one to strap on the sunglasses and store a computer in her head. And the effects for her are much, much worse.
“The damage is done. She’s kidnapped by Quinn and then kind of reprogrammed by him,” Levi admitted.
“It will be epic!” Series showrunner Chris Fedak added. “It will be big; and the finale is very much haunted by seasons’ past. This episode is not only a finale for season five, but it’s a finale for five seasons of television. So we’re going to be bringing back a lot of things that-- it wouldn’t be an episode unless I saw Yvonne in a catsuit. Also, wearing an evening gown, dancing the tango. Or wearing some other outfits that maybe she’s worn from time to time. It’s a show that has a lot of echoes.”
Linda Hamilton will reprise her role as Mama Bartowski one final time, and another special guest star from seasons past will pop up in a fun cameo that Fedak called on eof the most “deep into the Matrix callbacks of the show.”
“Mark Pellegrino, reprising his role, in the opening scene of the show...In consideration of he was a Fulcrum agent, we touch upon what’s going on with Fulcrum these days,” Fedak previewed.
The series finale will also provide some closure for the Morgan and Alex (McKenna Melvin) relationship; Jeffster will get a shining moment as their friendship comes back full-force and full-circle; and Adam Baldwin promised that Casey-- in true Casey fashion-- will “go out with a bang.” But Levi was quick to remind that just because the show won’t be continuing doesn’t mean these characters, nor the world of Chuck, won’t.
“Obviously Chuck and Morgan are going to be best friends for the rest of their lives; Chuck and Ellie are brother and sister, and therefore Awesome is still my brother-in-law…We would all still continue to see each other in one way, shape, or form, but the world that has been created, and the world in which we all live and work has changed and is drastically different, and so you know, we do say good-byes, at least for the time being,” Levi said.
“What happens in the last few episodes kind of reset the clock in a lot of ways, and you find our heroes almost like you found them in the beginning of the show, which is a really cool, kind of full-circle kind of thing. And because of that, that leads to a tremendous amount of emotion and a tremendous amount of fighting and yearning and then aside from that and the love story and the major stuff that’s going on there…”
“If people aren’t tearing up, then we’ve kind of not done our job,” Fedak grinned.
Chuck airs its fifth and final finale on NBC on January 27th 2012. Stay tuned right here for more of a good-bye from the cast!
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