Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Chuck begins the season searching for his missing mother, Mary, while Sarah and Casey investigate the arms network Volkoff Industries. They find that Mary has been working undercover inside the organization, and her return reunites the Bartowski family while bringing Chuck’s parents’ spy past into the present. The team’s main enemy is Alexei Volkoff, a formidable arms dealer whose daughter Vivian McArthur becomes involved in the business. Chuck and Sarah’s relationship is steadier now, but missions keep colliding with plans for their future. Ellie, meanwhile, studies clues left by her father Stephen and edges toward discovering what her family has concealed. The Buy More’s new role as a CIA base keeps Morgan, Jeff and Lester’s retail antics tangled with the team’s covert work.
Mary’s history with Volkoff and Stephen’s secret project reveal that the dangerous criminal is actually Hartley Winterbottom, transformed by an Intersect program. Vivian is drawn into the same machinery and comes to see Chuck as an enemy. Chuck’s team works to expose the truth and stop Volkoff Industries; in the season’s first half, Chuck captures Volkoff and Beckman’s agents take him into custody. Chuck then proposes to Sarah, and she accepts. In the final episodes Vivian acquires the Norseman, a weapon that leaves Sarah in a coma after Vivian uses it against her just before the wedding. Chuck has lost his Intersect, and a hostile CIA official strips him of his access, but Casey helps him escape and reach Hartley. Chuck and Hartley appeal to Vivian, who gives them the antidote that saves Sarah. The wedding goes ahead, and the former team uses the Volkoffs’ gift to buy the Buy More and run a freelance spy outfit. The season’s last turn comes when Morgan puts on Beckman’s sunglasses and receives the Intersect.