Synopsis:

Chuck Bartowski was looking at a bright and geeky future in computers when he was falsely accused of cheating and kicked out of Stanford. He opens an e-mail from his old college roommate… and downloads the secrets of all the world’s intelligence agencies into his brain! Now a top level “asset” and assigned super-spy protectors in the form of fake hot girlfriend Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski), and fake surly neighbour/colleague Casey (Adam Baldwin), Chuck’s uncontrollable “flashes” are the only thing standing between a safe and free democracy and radical terrorist rule by a cabal of conscienceless thieves, nationless mercenaries and ruthless killers. Also, he works at a local superstore with some wacky, wacky people of whom we sometimes see just a little too much.

Chuck Versus Season 1:

We meet Chuck. He lives with his doctor sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and her golden boyfriend Devon AKA Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin), and works in tech support at the Buy More, alongside his socially maladjusted best-friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez). One gets the impression Chuck hasn’t been laid in a while. He gets an e-mail from hated former friend, Bryce Larkin (Matthew Bomer) which he soon wishes he’d sent it to his Spam folder: it –somehow! – contains all the secrets of the spy world, and now Chuck holds the only copy of them in his pretty little head. Now he—and the show that bears his name—must strike a balance between derring-do exploits battling the agents of Fulcrum (Chuck’s version of KAOS), trying to get the secrets of the spy world out of his head (with limited success), and the goings on of his caricature-ish Buy More colleagues. Plus, he tries, tries, tries to get -- and keep -- a girlfriend.

Chuck Versus Season 2:

Chuck is still struggling with being a super-secret spy Encarta, a Buy More employee, a brother, friend and—he dreams—boyfriend. His hopes of freedom from the Intersect curse are dashed (again) when the new one is destroyed. His ex-girlfriend Jill (Jordana Brewster) shows up and they briefly reconcile, but she turns out to be a Very Bad Girl. He is with Sarah, then not with Sarah, then with Sarah again. His Dad shows up (and is Scott Bakula), a computer genius who designed the Intersect thingy in the first place, and finds a way to safely remove it from Chuck. At last, the Intersect is out of his brain! He’s a free man! He can date Sarah! He can… oh, damn. He’s the Intersect again, but this time, he knows Top Secret terrorist dossiers and kung fu. Also, stuff happens at the Buy More, including Morgan leaving for Hawaii with girlfriend Anna (Julia Ling).

Chuck Versus Season 3:

03.01 - “Chuck Versus the Pink Slip”

Six months after he knows kung fu, Chuck washes out of super-spy training (despite some beautifully-coiffed new hair). He goes into a funk of depression and spends more time in his bathrobe than Arthur Dent. Sarah’s mad at him -- we learn why in flashbacks, and fair enough, too -- Casey’s just so over him, and Chuck’s Intersect-accessing skills are shoddy and best. Chuck returns to the Buy More, as does an Anna-less Morgan, and it’s like déjà vu all over again. But, then, hello! Chuck plays the mariachi guitar and Team Bartowski’s back in the world-saving business. Chuck and Morgan decide to move in together. Also, the usually bloodless killing in Chuck makes one most satisfying exception.

03.02 - “Chuck Versus the Three Words”

First season temptress and Sarah’s best spy-girl frenemy, Carina (Mini Anden), is back as arms dealer Vinnie Jones’s pseudo-intended bride. Chuck attends their engagement party undercover as Sarah’s boyfriend (and Casey as Carina’s uncle), and then engages in the most athletic (yet ultimately pointless) game of elastics the world has ever seen. He tells Sarah he loves her. Also, a lot of time is spent dwelling on hot chicks in their underwear. In slow motion.

03.03 - “Chuck Versus The Angel De Le Muerte”

We learned at the end of last season that there is a new shadowy consortium of ne’er do wells in play. Fulcrum is so yesterday, and has been revealed as only one small branch of the bad guy nexus that is The Ring. (And if you see them, you’ll probably die even less than seven days later.) Armand Assante lisps his way through a sleazy turn as a South American dictator with the hots for Ellie, who is the target of a Ring assassination plot. Also, Casey is a legendary demon south of the border, and something has happened to Captain Awesome. What? What? What has happened to Captain Awesome?

03.04 - “Chuck Versus Operation Awesome”

Captain Awesome was kidnapped! By Ring operative Angie Harmon, no less. But only ‘cause she thought he was Chuck. So Awesome and Chuck jump through her evil spy hoops, and end up making the target of her enmity, one Daniel Shaw (Brendan Routh), shoot himself—and Angie Harmon. And at the Buy More, Morgan is having management issues, and we all wish very hard that the writer of this episode had never seen Fight Club.

03.05 - “Chuck versus First Class”

Turns out Brendan Routh’s appearance last episode wasn’t a cameo: we bid a not-at-all-fond farewell to regular General Beckman (Bonita Freidricy) griping as Shaw becomes Team Bartowski’s new leader, and for some reason decides that Chuck is ready for his first solo mission. Well, sure, it’s been at least three episodes since he was kicked out of spy school for general incompetence; he’ll be fine! Sarah and Casey play the concerned parents sending their little boy off to Summer Camp for the first time, but Chuck’s mission succeeds despite all odds, and he also meets the suspiciously friendly Kristin Kreuk; by the end of the episode, she hasn’t even tried to kill him.

03.06 - “Chuck Versus The Nacho Sampler”

Kristin Kreuk is still around, playing hot new Nerd Herder and Chuck-stalker, Hannah. Chuck’s mission has him befriending, then rejecting, a computer programmer with ties to The Ring who launches Intersect glasses at an International Arms Dealers’ Fair. (What? They must have them.) Shaw remains convinced of Chuck’s spy coolness, on little to no evidence; Shaw may actually have a little crush on Chuck. Oh. Nope. Shaw has a crush Sarah.

03.07 - “Chuck Versus the Mask”

No, not Chuck vs. the Jim Carrey movie... that might have made for a better episode. Instead, this one has Chuck going undercover as, well, himself in a museum to retrieve a much needed artefact, with new girl Hannah along for the ride. Shaw hits on Sarah, then acts all “No I wasn’t” when he totally was, and by the end of the episode, she’s kind of into him, too. Meanwhile, Chuck and Hannah hook up! Where, oh, where, will this tangled mess of beautiful people end? Also, the Ring discovers that Shaw’s still alive, and reveals itself to be somewhat more in the theatrical bad guy vein than Fulcrum, with a kind of judges-in-a-post-apocalyptic-regime kind of feel to their lair.