After five seasons of Chuck peppered with Subway sandwich campaigns and eleventh-hour renewals, it’s clear that the spy series owes much of its life to its passionate fan base.

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“It’s funny being on this show because it’s such an — I don’t know if the word is ‘honor’ — to be a part of a show where the fans were so behind it because it’s so mysterious,” actor Vik Sahay told reporters at the set visit for Chuck’s two-hour series finale (Friday, 8/7c, NBC). “It’s so elusive how things connect with fans because you can kind of take all of the pieces of why it should and put them together and it often doesn’t. So that kind of alchemy between the show and the fans is stunning. It’s what’s allowed the producers to create the show that they created. It’s something that I’ve never experienced before, and it’s so moving, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to experience that kind of back and forth again.”

The secret to the series’ devoted following? Nerd appeal. Chuck made being a nerd cool. In Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi), fans found an everyman who also was a computer whiz, an alpha member of Buy More’s Nerd Herd. The show celebrated computer geekdom with a good chunk of the stories taking place in the big-box electronics store. “The Buy More was a really emotional place when we shot our last scenes there,” Levi said. “There were about 12 of us there… standing in a very kind of dimly lit Buy More because everyone was wrapping out, the lights were down. But we were just standing around in a circle, reminiscing about the Buy More and the memories we had there.”

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The Buy More is also where Chuck first met Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) and thereafter became a geek god by getting the girl. And what a girl she was! Beyond Sarah’s devastating looks and physique, she also had a hidden nerd cred — intelligent in her own right and able to hang with the boys.

By association, Strahovski became a representative for the nerd culture. “The hot nerd? I’m a nerd, too? I don’t know. It’s so weird,” she said. “I’ve always been a tomboy, so being thrown into the hot-nerd category and the glam thing has been very interesting for me to swallow. They put me in a pair of high heels in the pilot, and I didn’t know how to walk in them.”

“One of the most endearing things about Yvonne is that she really is just this rugged tomboy character from Australia who is able to embody that glam, geeky, nerdy thing,” added Adam Baldwin, who plays fellow CIA agent John Casey. “But she’s got this behind-the-scenes bawdiness that reminds me of Carol Burnett in her heyday, which is just lovely for a bunch of guys.”

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For Levi, being a nerd isn’t just an on-screen persona, it’s a way of life. “‘Nerd’ is a really operative word in my life,” he said. “Being a nerd just means you’re passionate about something or it’s a defining thing in your life. And therefore we’re all nerds, because we’re all passionate about something. And I love that people are able to embrace that and bridge the gap between people who might not necessarily consider themself a nerd. I say do it! Embrace that. And it brings people together on a much more level playing field.”

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