With the Fall finale of Chuck, the show essentially rebooted itself back to square one. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

We ended last night with Chuck and Sarah merely friends, and John Casey patiently (if hesitantly) awaiting orders to kill Chuck once Intercect 2.0 reaches fruition. But we were here at the end of the second episode, right? In between, Chuck went on various missions, learned the real reason he got kicked out of Stanford, got semi-romantically involved with Sarah, and lost her thanks to complications with her loyalty to the CIA and the reintroduction of Bryce Larkin in their lives. I mean, that’s a lot of stuff, to be sure. And a lot of good stuff, to be even surer.

But it only took half a season to plow through all that. And that’s the problem: after all that, the show settled down to where it was roughly ten episodes ago, with the only difference on the viewer’s being a clearer sense of the world and the relationships between the people in it. And clearly, with each passing week, John’s begrudging respect of Chuck makes it that much harder for him to fulfill his ultimate mission.

Two things separate last night’s episode from Episode 2, and they are small ones at best. In one case, with John’s arrival at the marina, we finally see a man willing to buck authority. And second, we learned that the powers behind the Intersect are the real villains of this show. Bryce’s reintroduction essentially tipped the show’s hand in this direction, but with the images of Chuck, his friends/family, and the agents dancing menacingly behind General Beckman’s head, we know the powers that be ultimately need to be removed from power.

Thing is this, though: that buys Chuck how much more narrative time, exactly? How many years could this show actually carry on? Given the short-time frame imposed by the show on the creation of Intercept 2.0 (six months from the time of the second episode), there can only be so many more missions before time is up for both Chuck and Chuck. The only logical way for this show to continue is the removal of Beckman by season’s end, exposure of the nefarious side of the Intersect, and the continued work by Chuck for the government under more moral judgement.

If they don’t go that route, however, then Chuck will have to become a show about a guy continually on the run from the government. And I’m not sure I want Chuck to turn into Prison Break. For one thing, I don’t think Chuck could stand the pain of receiving a tattoo that big. Secondly, I like the sunny world that Chuck currently inhabits, so I hope he sticks around. But that means the ultimate dismantling of the Intercept project altogether. If that doesn’t happen, I’m just not sure how much longer the show can successfully continue.