I hate TV finales, but I also love them. As the saying goes all good things must come to an end. It is in fact those ends that often make the good shows into classics and is one of the biggest advantages that a popular TV show has over a good comic book or even a movie as they can build for years to a real conclusion. Today, I watched the last few episodes of Chuck,  a show that I have enjoyed from the beginning, and the emotions as I finished Chuck Vs. The Goodbye were as mixed as they ever have been watching any show.

This season of Chuck has been hit or miss.  I enjoyed the first part with a new intersect, but once they resolved that part of the story it didn’t really feel a lot like Chuck. It was more like a generic spy show with a few quirky references.  The finale both helped to make it clear why it felt so different and yet made it feel like Chuck again.

The biggest accomplishment of the finale was that it managed to get everything that I loved about the show into a single episode and do them all well. It rekindled the feeling of the first seasons with Chuck’s uncertainty and lack of confidence , had Sarah and Casey more like they were at the beginning and even brought back Jeffster.

Perhaps the best part of Chuck Vs. The Goodbye was the very end.  Without spoilers it was able to make it clear that everything was going to be OK without actually telling you exactly how it turned out. If Morgan was right then naturally everything will be good, but if he was wrong, which seems likely, then it might take a bit of time but it will still be OK. That feeling that the story is over, but there is still a story to be told is hard to do, but when it’s done well.

Overall this season of Chuck wasn’t its strongest, but the finale itself really did feel like a great cap to a series that I really enjoyed, making the story feel complete without undermining anything that came before it. So all in all this was a good ending to one of my favorite shows even if the last season wasn’t as good as I would have liked.