
That said, I wasn't a fan of the season finale last May, as I explained here.
And I wasn't a huge fan of the season premiere last week, either.
Some of it was well done. As with both "Chuck vs. The Push Mix" and last season's finale, we see Chuck's ability to plan things. While a bit far-fetched, the plan that Chuck comes up with near the end of this episode ("Chuck vs. The Zoom") shows that he is the rightful leader of this odd group of spies. That was good.
I also liked that Chuck started talking about how it bothered him to not be the Intersect. Sure, he wasn't talking to either Sarah or Morgan about it--the two people he arguably should have been talking to--but he was talking to Ellie, and being honest with himself, which was refreshing.
But there were quite a few things that bothered me, some big, some small. While I realize that talking about continuity problems on Chuck is a bit of a lost cause, I feel that so much was made about how Chuck's brain was specially able to handle the Intersect (even as recently as last season) that for Morgan to be able to use it without any trouble whatsoever is a thumbed nose to anyone who has been watching for more than, say, 10 minutes.

The biggest thing that bothered me, though, was that I don't like the way this season feels like we're starting over. Over and over throughout the episode, Chuck would say, "We're still working out the kinks," referring to he, Casey, Sarah, and Morgan getting used to working as a free-lance spy team. Well, I don't want that. I like seeing Chuck be a competent spy. I like it when their missions go well, and when everything goes as planned. Maybe that's not the point of the show, but I've really enjoyed moving past the intial clumsiness, awkwardness, and incompetence of Chuck to someone who can handle himself in a fight, make clever plans, and get stuff done. Based on what I saw in the season premiere, it seems like there's going to be a lot of backtracking, and I'm not looking forward to that.
Of course, I am going to keep watching--I'm intrigued by the Decker conspiracy plot line, and I want to see how the show ties all its loose ends together. But I can't help but wish that they had found a different way to make this season exciting that didn't rely so much on "working out the kinks" and moving back to square one.