YMMV / Chuck

• Adorkable: Chuck. He works at the Nerd Herd, is into lots of nerdy media (Dune, Tron, Star Wars etc.) and subjects, and has not had much luck with girls. However, he does have a level of charm.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Emmett in the Season 3 opener. An Asshole Victim for sure, and there are many who would quickly say that he deserved what he got, but others think it was a bit shocking given that, by and large, the Buy More crew was a separate world from the spy world and any danger to them was usually done for slapstick. The flippant way Casey covered it up while pressing the Reset Button was a bit callous, even for him.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Do not, for any reason, get entangled with spy agencies. Seriously, don't.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Did Alexei Volkoff really turn over a new leaf while in prison? Or was it all a ruse to get Chuck to let his guard down? His final scenes in Castle suggest the former, but his betrayal of the team when his daughter arrived suggests the latter.
  • Sarah requesting Chuck to kiss her at the end of the show. Was it to test Morgan's theory that it would unlock her memories, or was it proof that she's already fallen in love with him again?
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Ellie got over Chuck ruining her wedding pretty quickly. This is justified, as Chuck fixed her wedding rather quickly, and gave her the wedding she actually wanted, as opposed to the original, which was what her mother-in-law-to-be had arranged.
  • Viciously subverted by Shaw seemingly getting over the reveal that Sarah killed his wife. Not so much.
  • Hartley Winterbottom doesn't seem all that shaken up by the fact that he's lost 30 years of his life being brainwashed into becoming the fictitious supervillain Alexei Volkoff, and most of his angst is over the revelation that he has a daughter he didn't know about.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Quinn, who studied the Intersect 2.0 and was able to hold his own against people using it against him in hand-to-hand combat, and who managed to survive several firefights against the heroes, is unceremoniously killed when he attempts to draw his weapon while Sarah has him at gunpoint.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • A major point of contention with season 3 is that it hit the Reset Button on Chuck and Sarah's relationship to drag another season of the "Will They or Won't They?" drama.
    Beckman: Off the record? It's about damn time.
    • On the other hand, it also gave us the relief of finally bringing the rest of the main cast in on Chuck's secret.
  • Fans grew tired of the Ring, as the reduced episode count meant that the show simply didn't have time for any standalone episodes, and the entire season, aside from two episodes, featured them as the villains of the episode; and the two episodes where they aren't villains still feature the Ring as a threat.
• Ass Pull:
  • Chuck's quite quick on his feet in dicey situations, even before he Took a Level in Badass.
  • In later seasons, if a certain skill is needed, it's probably in the Intersect. Possibly one of the few times where this trope is actually justified by the mythos.
  • Some fans view the reveal of Casey's backstory in season 3 as this, as much of it (particularly his age, but also several direct contradictions in how long he has served under Beckman) doesn't mesh with any previous details we learned about him.
  • The late season 3 plot with the Intersect slowly destroying Chuck's brain, since it literally comes out of nowhere and the characters treat it as if it had been going on for some time. The problem is largely down to NBC's decision to order an additional 6 episodes for the season, as the show was in production for the intended season (And potential series) finale when the decision was made. Subsequently, the writers had to write another 6 episodes in a story arc that had already reached it's conclusion, and the plot point couldn't really be introduced in the first two of the six episodes without putting a damper on Chuck and Sarah's relationship, as those episodes directly dealt with the ramifications of them becoming a spy couple.
  • The reveal halfway through season 5 that Clyde Decker was being blackmailed into trying to bring down the team by Shaw. Richard Burgi's performance never once gave any sign that his motivations were anything but his own.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: Good luck finding a fan of the show who liked the fact that Sarah was Brainwashed and Crazy to forget about Chuck and their relationship in the Grand Finale, smashing down hard on the Reset Button. The episode (and thus the series) ending with said relationship having to be rebuilt again from nearly-nothing but a tiny reed of implied Amnesia Missed a Spot was outright infuriating.
• Awesome Music: The show has its own sub-page.
• Broken Base: The comparative quality of Seasons 2 & 3 is a point of contention among the fans. Inarguably however, the budget cuts that impacted on the visual effects & the removal of Anna's character just to save money on actor salaries was not well received.
• Die for Our Ship: Bryce Larkin, and quite honestly, anyone else who comes between Chuck and Sarah.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Carina was so popular after her first appearance that she later made return appearances in the third season episode "Chuck Versus the Three Words" and the fourth season episodes "Chuck Versus the CAT Squad" and "Chuck Versus the Cliffhanger".
  • The Director is quite popular among the fandom, despite only appearing in a handful of scenes in two episodes.
  • Cole Barker, while not a very prominent character, easily steals the episodes he's in thanks to being a charismatic, badass, and loyal Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Being part of MI6 and a heroic British character after initially appearing to be a typical Evil Brit also help that. His graceful acceptance of Sarah's rejection also certainly did not hurt with the Chuck/Sarah shippers, handily averting Die for Our Ship.
  • Fulcrum agent Tommy, despite only appearing in the episode which first introduced Fulcrum (and briefly in the one before it), is quite popular among the fans.
  • Ellie's then-boyfriend, now-husband, Captain Awesome, was suppose to be revealed as an enemy spy for Fulcrum at the end of the first season. However, he became this, and his character was rewritten to a genuine Nice Guy.
  • Affably Evil Fulcrum Agent Vincent, for the large number of injuries and near-death experiences he survives. The scene where he unzips the body bag he was placed in (after being assumed dead by the audience and main characters) from the inside is probably when a lot of fans started thinking this.
  • G.R.E.T.A.-2 and G.R.E.T.A.-3 have less than three minutes of combined screen time across their respective debuts, but they have enough humor and competence respectively in those appearances to get a lot of internet appreciation and comments about their performances even before the well-received reveal that their candidates for getting the Intersect.
  • Hugo Panzer, due to his The Ace skills (he beats Chuck in a fair fight), name, actor ("Stone Cold" Steve Austin), and Affably Evil moments before he realizes Chuck is a spy. He's even one of the only Villain of the Week characters to reappear in a subsequent season.
• Epileptic Trees: Everyone knows that Stephen Bartowski is Orion. Bryce also mentions that he befriended Chuck in college because he owed Orion a favor. Since Bryce is responsible for Chuck receiving the Intersect, is Orion the one really behind that part of the plot? Yeah, he denies it... but it seems HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • A lot of fans liked Shaw a lot more after his Face–Heel Turn. Probably why he came Back from the Dead...
  • Alexei Volkoff, for Timothy Dalton's deliciously hammy performance and for being awesome, was embraced by fans and critics alike.
  • Made of Iron Fulcrum agent Vincent.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Arnold Vosloo's character, Vincent, is frequently referred to by fans as Agent Imhotep, alluding to his most famous role in The Mummy. It's helped by the fact that Vincent manages to survive an absurd amount of punishment, apparently dying only to resurface again later several times.
  • Yvonne Strahotski. Though the fans aren't the only ones who call her that.
  • Fans also christened Morgan "The Beard", which stuck.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Some fans definitely like the idea of Carina/Morgan. It also helps that she too has definitely warmed up to him, but alas, Morgan chose Alex over Carina and Anna.
  • Many fans preferred Anna with Morgan over Alex.
  • Despite being happily married to Captain Awesome, the fans tend to frequently ship Casey and Ellie.
• Growing the Beard: The second season is a nice step above the entertaining but uneven first season. This could partly be down to it getting cut short by the writer's strike.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In "Chuck Versus the Living Dead", as Sarah helps Chuck fight the men who are keeping his father Stephen hostage, he asks him if she has an Intersect. Sarah does indeed become an Intersect in the final season, and it does not end well for her.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Nicole Ritchie's performance got this surprised reaction from many viewers.
  • Brandon Routh's performance as Daniel Shaw initially received numerous criticisms over Shaw being The Stoic to an unbelievable degree. Once Shaw's Face–Heel Turn happened, Routh's portrayal became a lot more charismatic as Shaw became a Magnificent Bastard; winning over critics of his performance in the first half of the season and his earlier turn as the title character in Superman Returns.
• He's Just Hiding: Fulcrum agent Vincent is knocked unconscious and left in a building that's about to be bombed, but after everything he survived before that, quite a few fans are convinced that he survived.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Chuck's throwaway line to Ellie in the pilot that he'll get to work on a five year plan the next day. At the time, that's just plain funny because the next day he meets Sarah. It becomes Hilarious In Hindsight because the show ended after its fifth season.
  • Chuck's comment to Sarah, after she gives him a faked photograph of the two at Comic Con dressed as Han Solo and Slave!Leia in "Chuck Versus the Sand Worm", that they've never actually been to Comic Con. Over the next few years, the Chuck panels at Comic Con would go on to be considered highlights of the event.
  • The first season featured Bryce Larkin engaging in a bit of Superdickery, as he got Chuck kicked out of Stanford to protect him from being recruited into the CIA against his will. Matthew Bomer was not only a contender for playing the role of the the poster child for Super Dickery, but would go on to voice him in an animated film six years later. And who got the role of Superman over Mr. Bomer? Brandon Routh, who would join Chuck as Daniel Shaw in the third season.
  • Casey displays his Osama Bin Laden targets in an episode that aired one day after Bin Laden was killed.
  • Brandon Routh would go on to Ray Palmer on Arrow, where he again gets in the way of a Fan-Preferred Couple during its third season.
    • On the subject of DC Comics castings, Zachary Levi himself went on to play Shazam, with his role existing in the DC Extended Universe, while Routh's role is a part of the Arrowverse. Given the Fandom Rivalry between the two^note due to characters from the latter often being either Exiled from Continuity or killed off when they appear on the former since the films take higher priority, much to the chagrin of Arrowverse fans., having Levi and Routh playing arch enemies can feel like the rivalries between the two DC media franchises personified.
    • And then that ends up being even funnier after the crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019) officially linked the Arrowverse and DC Extended Universe together as part of the same multiverse by having the franchises' respective Barry Allens meet. Which means that Levi and Routh's DC characters could theoretically crossover through the multiverse and meet.
    • Additionally, Chuck and Shaw's rematch in the final season featured a cameo appearance from Stan Lee in the episode. Given how both actors have now prominently gone on to play DC heroes (again in Routh's case), it feels like him showing up for the other team. Taking that into account it feels prophetic about his appearance in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies where he comments about loving cameos so much he even makes them for the Distinguished Competition.
    • Yvonne Strahovski would also voice a DC character, namely Batwoman in Batman: Bad Blood.
    • It doesn't stop there. "Chuck Versus the Aisle of Terror" guest starred Robert Englund as an evil scientist who had invented a fear toxin. Years later, Englund would voice the Scarecrow, a villain notorious for creating using fear toxins, in Injustice 2.
  • We now know that Casey's super-Republican gun nut personality is not an exaggeration in the slightest of Adam Baldwin's real political beliefs.
  • Due to Adam Baldwin's controversial comments on gay marriage, Chuck kissing Casey can be seen as either this or Harsher in Hindsight, depending how you view things.
  • Ryan McPartlin (aka "Captain Awesome") and Yvonne Strahovski starred in LEGO's first TV Movie, LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers. Fast forward four years and LEGO's first theatrical feature, The LEGO Movie, is released. What's that movie's theme song? "Everything is Awesome."
• Ho Yay:
  • Jeff and Lester, so very much.
  • Morgan towards Chuck, but he grows out of it (Mostly) as the series goes on and he undergoes some Character Development by becoming less dependant on Chuck.
  • Casey and Morgan gets lots of this after Morgan becomes a member of Team Bartowski in season 3. They even move in together in season 4.
    Casey: You know, half of marriages end up in divorces. (Casey and Morgan drink juice at the same time)
    Chuck: It's nice to see yours is going so well.
  • On the female side of things, there's Sarah and Carina. It's most notable in "Chuck Versus the Three Words", where the two zip up each other's dresses, talk about going on a vacation together, and at the end of the episode, they share a goodbye hug that ends in them linking hands.
• I Knew It!:
  • Who is Orion? Stephen Bartowski.
  • In season three, even Morgan knew Shaw lived. Come on, he was shot and fell in a river.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • We're supposed to agree with Sarah in "Chuck vs the Helicopter" that Chuck was at fault for their mission going array, since he didn't trust her. Of course, the only reason Chuck didn't trust Sarah was the explosive that went off in Casey's car, and had Casey and Sarah trusted each other as they were supposed to, the mission would have worked out fine.
  • The Season 4 episodes "Chuck Versus the Fear of Death" and "Chuck Versus Phase Three" treat Sarah as though she has mislead Chuck into believing she will leave him if he is no longer a spy, resulting in Chuck getting into peril when his desperate bid to reactivate The Intersect 2.0 fails. Given how much of the Season 3 drama revolved around Sarah not wanting Chuck to become a real spy, these episodes instead seem to demonstrate that Chuck is an Insecure Love Interest with Aesop Amnesia.
• Iron Woobie: Sarah, who loses many professional friend and colleagues, and undergoes some complicated and painful relationship stuff with Chuck while never losing her brave face.
• Like You Would Really Do It: The "cliffhanger" of "Chuck vs. The Last Details". Very few fans believed that they would kill off Sarah.
• Love to Hate: Both Shaw and Volkoff are the show's most iconic villains for very good reasons. Shaw for his charisma and intellect as well being the most despicable bad guy on the show making him just fun to hate because of it. Volkoff for being a delicious mix of being fun, goofy, hilarious along with being insane and ruthless at the same time.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Carina Miller is an agent of the DEA and one of Sarah's oldest friends. Before her first mission with Team Bartowski, Carina manipulates Chuck into trusting her over Sarah by revealing the latter's relationship with Bryce Larkin, leading to him handing her the Nadan-i-Noor after stealing it from Peyman Alahi. After abandoning Chuck and Sarah, Carina hides the diamond in Morgan's bag while distracting him with a kiss, then chains a pursuing Casey to her bed after seducing him. During her second trip to Burbank, Carina convinces Karl Stromberg that she really did fall in love with him after her cover is blown, giving her the chance to knock him out when his guard is down. Flirtatious and unpredictable, Carina ultimately proves to be a good person deep down when she helps Chuck rescue Sarah from Alahi, gives Sarah a recording of Chuck confessing his love for her, and helps Chuck cure Sarah of the Norse Virus, before finally attending the two's wedding as a bridesmaid.
  • "Chuck Versus the American Hero" & "Chuck Versus the Other Guy": The Director is the head of the Ring and behind many foes Team Bartowski face during their first few years. Discovering footage of Evelyn Shaw being killed by CIA agent Sarah Walker, the Director uses said footage to manipulate Evelyn's husband Daniel into joining the Ring. Luring Chuck and Sarah to his base, the Director tricks the two spies into taking the Ring's flawed Cipher, before having Shaw fake his death to further sell the latter's loyalty to the CIA. Snarky and cunning, the Director comes close to perfecting the Ring's Intersect with the data from the Cipher Shaw passes over to him, only failing due to Morgan discovering Shaw's betrayal.
• Memetic Badass: As per the NBC site, God created Eve out of Adam's rib, because that's all that was left after Casey was done with him.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Shaw trying to kill Sarah was his Start of Darkness. He crossed the MEH when he shoots Stephen Bartowski in order to cause Chuck enough emotional pain he'd be unable to flash and fight him head on.
  • On a slightly less severe one, Emmett secures his place as the most hatable man on the show (who isn't a criminal) when he manipulates Morgan into getting evidence of Big Mike's laziness to get him demoted so Emmett can take the store manager position. Its made worse by the fact that, not only did this involve abusing the trust Mike had in Morgan, but also the trust Mike had in Emmett himself. Given his general personality, this act shows that Emmett might actually be a complete sociopath.
  • Quinn crosses it by painfully erasing Sarah's memories of the past five years, then tricking her into trying to kill Chuck and his loved ones.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Atroxium is this, created by Dr. Wheelwright (played by Robert Englund, who is apparently channeling Scarecrow.
  • Casey brainwashing Lester into obeying Morgan. The red dot and Casey's soft yet Compelling Voice repeating "Morgan is your boss" is just disturbing.
  • The series' final story arc involving Sarah losing her memories of the past five years and manipulated by the Big Bad to kill Chuck is just disturbing as hell.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Julius the gay security guard in "Chuck Versus Operation Awesome".
  • More of a Two Scene Wonder: The repo man in "Chuck Versus the Anniversary".
  • In "Chuck Versus the Suitcase", the bodyguard who attempts to confess his love for his boss, a female arms dealer, accidentally confessing to Sarah instead.
  • Steve the prison guard in "Chuck Versus the Gobbler". Happy birthday, Steve!
  • The woman talking on her cell phone in "Chuck Versus the Wedding Planner".
• Padding: Season 4 is both the longest season, and has the least complex season-long Story Arc, leading to a large number of padding episodes and B-stories, hence the below-mentioned Seasonal Rot.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Daniel Shaw. Some fans saw him as a knockoff of Bryce Larkin written in to cover Matt Bomer leaving to do White Collar, and not much else. Brandon Routh had virtually no chemistry with the rest of the cast and was The Stoic to an extent in broke Willing Suspension of Disbelief. At least until his Face–Heel Turn, when Routh proved that no, he's not actually a robot.
  • The Ring was often viewed as this, with many fans finding them not nearly as interesting as Fulcrum. This was exacerbated by Fulcrum's complete disappearance after Season 2, and that every episode of Season 3 directly involved the Ring, leading to severe Arc Fatigue (whereas Season 2 mixed standalone episodes with the Fulcrum arc plot). It gets a lampshade in the final episode of the series when a Fulcrum agent from Season 2 reappears in a cameo with Quinn, and disgustedly dismisses the Ring as amateurs.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • To the point that the show could be described as a Scrappy Rehabilitation Facility, with Television Without Pity once lampshading the fact that Chuck frequently takes actors who were mishandled on other series and makes them, in a word, awesome.
  • The trope is played in-show with Daniel Shaw, who achieves it by Face–Heel Turn . Whilst his Scrappydom largely stems from getting in the way of Chuck and Sarah becoming a couple, Shaw is still a somewhat bland character before the Face–Heel Turn. Once it happens, Routh's performance became a lot more charismatic and the shippers relished being able to hate for being the actual villain now.
• Retroactive Recognition: "Chuck Versus the Couch Lock" was one of the first ever acting appearances of Dave Bautista. He was known at the time as a professional wrestler, but would go on to become a major movie star in The New '10s.
• Seasonal Rot: Fandom was split over whether season 3 was worse than season 2, but most agree that the 4th season isn't as fresh as the preceding two. Season 5 is a more complicated Broken Base situation thanks to many characters spending significant chunks of the season being Brainwashed and Crazy and therefore acting out of character, not to mention the aforementioned Audience-Alienating Ending.
• Tear Jerker: Orion's death in the Season 3 finale.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • At the end of Season 3, Chuck receives his "inheritance" from his father - Orion's spy bunker located underneath the Bartowski's former family home. This is used to introduce one plot point (Chuck's mother is missing because she, like her husband, is involved in the spy business) before being destroyed, despite the potential to use it to introduce several more plot lines in future episodes.
  • The Season 4 winter finale teased us with Ellie getting the Intersect after Chuck lost it. Nope, just a Red Herring.
  • Season 4 as a whole almost exclusively uses the Intersect 2.0 to give Chuck Kung fu abilities, and very little other skills. Just acrobatics on two occasions and motorcycle riding in the finale.
  • We never do learn just who it was Sarah's dad conned that led to Graham arresting him to protect him.
  • The program to give the Intersect to other agents in season four, with shades of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character. Rick and Vicky (the two Greta's who passed the qualifications) only get one episode of running around with the Intersect after having been fairly popular characters early on, and never get any interactions with Chuck and the others later, when the perspective of having gotten to use the Intersect could have provided the perspective for them to work better together. The same thing is true of Chuck's Intersect candidates (especially Lewis), none of whom even get to use it before getting caught up in a murder mystery plot. Seeing multiple episodes with multiple Intersect users (especially if there'd been a way to combine both Beckman and Chuck's preferred candidates) would have been impressive to watch.
• Vindicated by History: Chuck was one of the first shows where the fans were able to take advantage of social media to facilitate "Save our show!" campaigns, and did so with such efficency that the only time they ever actually campaigned for a renewal was after season two, with every season following featuring fan campaigns on Twitter during the season to show NBC and the show's sponsors that there was an audience watching the show, regardless of what Nielsen ratings showed, which led to NBC renewing the show for it's fourth and fifth seasons before the fans actively mounted a campaign for a renewal. To this day, the cast and crew actively credit the show's fandom with keeping Chuck on the air for 5 seasons, and the model Chuck fans used has since been utilised by other fandoms since then.
• Wangst: While not as guilty as other shows, the writers do tend to hit the "Chuck and Sarah can never be" chord a LOT. Until, of course, they are; then the writers keep going to the "Chuck and Sarah have an issue but choose not to talk about it" plots.