Charles Irving Bartowski is the title character of the American spy show Chuck on NBC. He is portrayed by Zachary Levi.
Character profile At the outset of the show, Chuck Bartowski is presented as a twenty-something underachiever who lives in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California and works at a dead end job at the Burbank Buy More in its Nerd Herd division (a fictionalized Geek Squad). Chuck's life stalled after his college roommate, Bryce Larkin, planted test answers under Chuck's bed and then reported him to the officials, which led to Chuck's expulsion from Stanford University (where he was a scholarship student) in 2002; only twelve credits shy of completing his Bachelor of Engineering degree. For a long time, Chuck hated Bryce for his betrayal, but he later learns that Bryce got him expelled to protect him from being recruited into the CIA because he knew Chuck wouldn't survive in the field. He also lost his college girlfriend, Jill Roberts (Jordana Brewster). Following his expulsion, Chuck moved in with his sister and began working at the Burbank, California branch of Buy More."Chuck Versus the Ex" At some point over the next five years Chuck becomes the Nerd Herd supervisor.
That's his job at the time of the pilot, when the viewers are introduced to the key people in Chuck's current life: his older sister, Eleanor Fay "Ellie" Bartowski, M.D. (Sarah Lancaster), her live-in boyfriend, Devon "Captain Awesome" Woodcomb (Ryan McPartlin) and Chuck's best friend since childhood, Morgan Grimes. Very little else is known about his family. His mother left when Chuck was in the fifth grade and his father was "never really around" even before he also left (roughly eleven years ago), so Chuck and Ellie increasingly had to fend for themselves.
On his birthday in 2007, Chuck opens an email from Bryce Larkin that causes Chuck to download into his brain the full contents of a CIA/NSA supercomputer known as the Intersect, which has served as a database for their combined collected intelligence. Unbeknownst to Chuck, the Intersect computer has been destroyed, making his brain the only location of this top-secret information. The government learns that Chuck Bartowski was the last known person that Bryce Larkin contacted, so both the CIA and NSA (independent of each other) send agents to find him. The CIA dispatches field officer Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) to retrieve a copy of the Intersect, while the NSA sends then-Major John Casey (Adam Baldwin) to capture Chuck. The two agents eventually cross paths, and Sarah fends off Casey. They then discover that Chuck is a human version of the Intersect who sees a rapid-fire series of images (or "flashes") of intelligence from the Intersect database whenever his brain recognizes a bit of related information with his own eyes or ears. The two agencies conclude that Chuck must be protected and assign Sarah and Casey jointly to the task."Chuck Versus the Intersect"
Series development Chuck is the lead character on the show. Thus, major seasonal plot arcs generally revolve around the weekly missions that Chuck, Sarah and Casey engage in, as well as Chuck's relationships with Morgan Grimes (his best friend and co-worker), his fellow Nerd Herders and co-workers, his sister Ellie and her boyfriend (later husband) Devon. Chuck is also very worried about his future and wants desperately to remove the Intersect from his brain, although by the beginning of season three he has come to accept his role as the Intersect. Chuck is often involved in the major and secondary episodic plots and the two sometimes intertwine.
Sarah Walker
A major thread throughout the series is that Chuck is in love with his CIA protector Sarah, who is pretending to be his girlfriend as part of her cover story. The two characters continue to become closer despite frequent setbacks and constant resistance due to their circumstances.
Sarah is depicted as slower to recognize her own feelings toward Chuck than the other way around, and for various reasons has been reluctant to voice her feelings. Despite Sarah characteristically hiding her real feelings, several other characters have detected a genuine attraction and pointed it out, as early as "Chuck Versus the Wookiee" when Carina (Mini Anden), who is familiar with Sarah, tells Chuck that Sarah wants him, though she probably doesn't even know it yet.
Sarah and Chuck have shared kisses under unusual circumstances in "Chuck Versus the Imported Hard Salami" and "Chuck Versus the Seduction". In the former case, Sarah kisses Chuck seconds before the countdown on what they believe to be a bomb reaches zero. In the latter case, Seduction trainer Roan Montgomery (John Larroquette) quickly discerned that there was more than a working relationship between Chuck and Sarah.
Sarah maintains that it would be unprofessional of her to actually engage in a real relationship with Chuck while she is serving as his CIA handler,"Chuck Versus the Seduction" and indeed her feelings for him have proven to be a liability at times, placing the mission and both of their lives at risk."Chuck Versus the Break-Up"
Complicating the developing relationship between Chuck and Sarah are a series of love triangles.
The longest-running triangle involved Chuck's nemesis Bryce Larkin, who was previously partnered with Sarah and developed a romantic relationship with her which he still wishes to pursue. During Bryce's return in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis", Sarah is clearly torn between Larkin and Chuck. However, when he later reappears in "Chuck Versus the Break-Up", the situation has changed. Sarah chooses Chuck's safety over their assigned mission objectives, and when later confronted by Captain Awesome (who correctly and unknowingly recognized that Sarah's feelings for Chuck are genuine and not part of her cover), Bryce realizes that Sarah has chosen Chuck. At the end of the mission, Bryce warns Chuck that her feelings nearly got both her and Chuck killed, and have interfered with her performance. Bryce claims that in this, as always, he is looking out for Chuck, and challenges Chuck to "do the right thing" as usual. Chuck acquiesces and tells Sarah that regardless of how they feel towards each other, they can never be together.
Sarah also has a minor love triangle with Cole Barker, an MI6 agent who, like Bryce, contrasts with Chuck—he is a skilled spy who excels in combat, has a high tolerance for pain and a suave personality. Chuck is of course afraid that Sarah will fall for him. However, when Cole asks Sarah to board a jet to Fiji with him, Sarah turns him down. Cole says "What's the matter I thought you were a girl who liked adventure." Sarah then says "I guess I'm not the type of girl who cheats on her cover boyfriend (Chuck)." Cole then asks her if that's all Chuck is to her, saying that he saw the way she looked at him when he was in danger. Sarah then says: "When you meet somebody you care about it's just hard to walk away." Making it obvious she is in love with Chuck.
The other two love triangles involved Chuck seeking a real relationship, with Lou the sandwich girl (Rachel Bilson) and later with his ex-girlfriend Jill Roberts. In both cases, Sarah becomes jealous and protective, though she makes more of an effort to give Chuck space with Jill.
Sarah's feelings for Chuck and their ramifications for their mission are the focus of "Chuck Versus the Broken Heart", when Beckman decides Sarah and Chuck are too close emotionally, leading her to temporarily replace her with Agent Alexandra Forrest (the 49B). After the mission takes a turn for the worse, it becomes clear that the strong emotional bond between Chuck and Sarah is more of an asset than a liability, leading Beckman to reinstate Sarah's position.
At the end of "Chuck Versus the First Kill", Beckman orders Sarah to lure Chuck to Castle so he could be taken into custody and returned to Washington. Feeling guilt in the act of betraying him, Sarah instead warns Chuck of the plan and reveals that they thus have to flee. They nearly have sex in "Chuck Versus the Colonel", but a series of circumstances, including the arrival of John Casey, interrupts them.
Despite their apparently genuine connection at the close of "Chuck Versus the Colonel", Chuck now free from the intersect, Sarah wavers in "Chuck Versus the Ring" between leaving Chuck on her new assignment (the new Intersect project with Bryce Larkin) and staying with him. She ultimately chooses to stay with Chuck, which resolves that love triangle, but Chuck doesn't learn of her choice until Bryce tells him in the Intersect room. Despite this knowledge, and reflecting on her confidence in him as a hero, Chuck uploads the new Intersect. Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak have suggested that Chuck re-uploading the Intersect will have implications for his developing relationship with Sarah.Interview: April 27, 2009: New Jersey Star-Ledger Josh Schwartz says that "in a way, she becomes his Kryptonite" as Chuck's emotional state will impact his ability to control his new Intersect.
By the beginning of "Chuck Versus the Pink Slip", Chuck's relationship with Sarah has been shattered. Flashbacks over the course of the episode reveal that Sarah asked him to go AWOL and run away with her to be together. Chuck was initially happy to do so, but by the time he met with her at their agreed rendezvous point had changed his mind and declined so he could go to Prague and become a real spy. Sarah was heartbroken and cut off contact with him. Their relationship was partially mended by the end of "Chuck Versus the Three Words" when Carina shows Sarah security footage of a failed attempt by Chuck to explain the situation: He had to turn her down because of the sense of duty and confidence Sarah instilled in him, and that he knew he needed to be a real spy to protect those he loves—Sarah included.
Chuck admitted directly to Sarah he wanted to be with her in "Chuck Versus the Final Exam" and asked her to run away with him in "Chuck Versus the American Hero". In "Chuck Versus the Other Guy", Sarah saw the lengths to which Chuck was willing to go when he misappropriated a government strike team in an attempt to rescue her when he believed Shaw intended to kill her. Chuck's misgivings over Shaw's stability after learning Sarah was the one who killed his wife proved well-founded when Shaw revealed he had been turned to the Ring, and he was forced to shoot Shaw when Sarah's life was in danger. Chuck and Sarah subsequently began a real relationship and had sex in a hotel room in Paris.
He and Sarah did attempt to run away from the spy life together in "Chuck Versus the Honeymooners", however a run-in with a surrendering Basque terrorist led them both to realize (with the advice of the terrorist) that they wanted to "have it all", being together without giving up their jobs. Although Beckman was not pleased when she learned of their relationship, even she noted "it's about damn time". In "Chuck Versus the Role Models", Chuck hints that he and Sarah could be together in 30 years.
In "Chuck Versus the Cubic Z", Chuck accidentally proposes to Sarah when he found Big Mike's engagement ring and held it out to her. In "Chuck Versus the Coup d'Etat" it is revealed that both walked away awkwardly but at the end of the episode, Sarah, taking the advice from a self-help book, reveals to Chuck while he is asleep in bed that nothing could ever change her love for him and that if Chuck really were to propose, she would say "yes". Chuck, seemingly sleeping, slowly grins.