Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Some of the very best Halloween episodes on television have absolutely nothing to do with horror. No tricks, very few treats; just pitch perfect storytelling. There’s more than one way to celebrate the Halloween season, so if haunted houses and things that go bump in the night aren’t your particular poison, I highly suggest streaming the season one Halloween episode of Chuck.
Underseen yet fervently-adored, Chuck miraculously lasted for five seasons on NBC, airing from 2007-2012 and producing 91 episodes. Created by Chris Fedak and television wunderkind Josh Schwartz, Chuck is a delightful, genre-bending blend of humor, action, and heart. The series centers around an underachieving Buy More employee named Chuck (portrayed with affable charm by Zachary Levi) who inadvertently downloads critical government secrets into his brain. Now one of the most important national security assets in the world, the CIA and NSA assign two agents to protect him (Yvonne Strahovski and Adam Baldwin) as Chuck goes from a humdrum life of fixing computers to the exhilarating thrill of espionage.
The show’s first Halloween episode, “Chuck Versus the Sandworm,” is a perfect illustration of the program’s ability to nimbly balance two vastly divergent storylines: Chuck’s career as a super secret spy and his personal life at the Buy More. Sure, Chuck thwarts the bad guy, dramatically disarms a bomb, and saves the day, but what makes this series such a rare treat is its overt optimism and inexorable heart. In the process of (once again) saving the world, Chuck disappointed his best friend Morgan (Joshua Gomez). To Chuck, this inadvertent act of friendship treason is an atrocity that’s comparable to an exploding bomb. The episode culminates with Chuck making amends with his friend, and to do so, creator Josh Schwartz reached into his bag of tricks to callback an iconic scene from one of his old shows: The O.C.
There are so many amazing musical moments from The O.C. (we see you, Spider-Man kiss), but one of the most beloved scenes from the FOX drama was Ryan and Marissa’s impromptu New Year’s Eve kiss from the season one episode “The Countdown.” True O.C. fans know what I’m talking about. Ryan frantically runs to a New Year’s Eve party, arrives seconds before the clock strikes midnight, and dramatically kisses Coop — all while Finley Quaye’s melodic delight “Dice” heightens the moment.
No stranger to meta humor, Schwartz gave O.C. fans an appreciative nod by referencing Ryan and Marissa’s classic New Year’s Eve scene during the conclusion of “Chuck Versus the Sandworm.”
You can watch both scenes below.
It’s the little things that transform a good television show into a great television show. Sure, one of these scenes is a passionate declaration of love and another is a genuine display of friendship, but both of these moments are replete with the one quality that makes all of Josh Schwartz’s shows such a pleasure to watch: heart.
