'Chuck's' Yvonne Strahovski Talks the Final Season: 'We're Milking It'

NBC

When Chuck returns to NBC for its fifth and final season Friday at 8 p.m., fans can expect several key changes.

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Team Bartowski are now Carmichael Industries, spies for hire, and Chuck (Zachary Levi) is no longer the Intersect. Morgan (Joshua Gomez) takes on the super spy flashing, er, “zooming” as Morgan decides to call it while the Intersect is his.

“It kind of feels like Chuck and Sarah have a man child, that is Morgan, that they have to look after now,” Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Chuck’s better half, Sarah, says when The Hollywood Reporter visited the set recently.

“I mean originally it was I was looking after Chuck, and now it's sort of us together looking after Morgan,” she continues. “But at the same time, Chuck not having the intersect is also something that's a little scary.”

Strahovski discussed the changes we’ll see on the final season, and previews what to expect as the team embarks on its new business venture with Morgan as the Intersect.

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How is Sarah adjusting to married life?

Yvonne Strahovski:  I think she's adjusting well, I think she's happy between the spy life and the marriage. So, I'm not sure, I think Chuck might be questioning it, like whether the spy life feels right to him. We'll see where that goes.

We just watched you practice some fight scenes. Are they keeping you on your toes with those this season?

Strahovski: I've had a bit of a break. Josh Gomez took a lot of the pressure off of Zach and myself this season. I feel like I've had it very easy, because he's been sweating it, doing all the fight stuff for us.

Are there any big stunts that you’ve had to do that really stand out this season?

Strahovski:Yeah. Rock climbing, I do rock climbing, that was one of the things I wanted to do, I didn't know we were going to do rock climbing and it was on my wish list -- except on the day it was 110 degrees and I think I got heat exhaustion. I didn't realize how hot it was. And then I sort of did the scenes and then I felt like I was going to spew after that. It was lovely, on the day, I'm sure you'd like to know all about that.

What’s the general feeling right now with the show going into its final season?

Strahovski: I feel like we're milking it for what it's worth. I feel like it's kind of the most fun we've had as a group. You know, drinking and boozing on set and all that stuff. No really, no. Oh, I just dropped something, so, yeah… It's very bittersweet in a way. It's nice to know that we have an ending that we can ride towards that the fans will be happy with and not sort of a weird open ending that we didn't really know that we we’re going to end, so it's really nice, that we can work towards it.

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Have the producers given you an idea of how the series will end?

Strahovski: Oh, I haven't asked. And I was trying to figure why I haven’t asked yesterday and I think it's because I don't know if I want to know. I think I just want to keep plodding along like we usually do, where they give us the script the week before we shoot it and work it. And it keeps an element of surprise I think for me. 

What are you going to miss most?

Strahovski: I think I'm going to have major withdrawals when I finish. You know, I went on such a vigorous schedule here day in and day out. I think that alone is going to be a giant slap in the face, not having to go work and shoot scenes at such a fast pace, that we do here on Chuck. But I think most it’s the people, it’s seeing the familiar faces everyday of the cast, and crew and you know having that gone… It's hard with anything, I feel like with television and film you spend so much time with a group of people and you sort of become family and then one day it's just gone. So, yeah, it’s a lot to digest.

What do you most want for Sarah in the final season?

Strahovski: I said this at the beginning -- Sarah's mom (played by guest star Cheryl Ladd). That would sort of piece together for me my character’s history, we know Gary Cole played my dad. So it would be great to see what Sarah took from her mom and why she is the way she is, because of her mom.

How would you like to see things end for Chuck and Sarah?

Strahovski: It should be a happy ending. Maybe they all run away as a family, like in everyone to a tropical island and just hang out there, because they've made too many enemies.

Even Jeffster?

Strahovski: Yeah. Who knows what's happening with Jeffster this season, there's a bit of drama going on there.

Watch a preview from Friday’s season premiere below.

Email: Jethro.Nededog@thr.com; Twitter: @TheRealJethro