I was looking forward to them changing it up. I'm disappointed that they didn't. Almost very disappointed. They took the safe way out. They've also made Chuck's new intersect abilities different from the way they used to work. When he would flash on someone, he would KNOW that information. He wouldn't forget it some unspecified period of time later. Whereas now when he flashes a skill, he forgets it (an unspecified amount of time later) and has to re-flash when he needs the skill again. Lame. I understand why they did it—Chuck would have become too powerful—but it's inconsistent.
That said, it's still Chuck. It's fun to watch. The explanations for how things went back to status quo are plausible in the universe, though the relationship thing is, I think, an in-character misunderstanding (I think Chuck flashes better when he has someone to protect, and once they realize that they can have a normal relationship).
Karen said, before we watched it, that she would be happy if they made Chuck's skills like Ralph's in Greatest American Hero—great when they work, but something often gets screwed up. Which is basically what they did, so it's fine.
However, the run-up to the end, and the end of season two, was transcendant. Chuck became a truly great show on many many levels. If it had ended that way, I would have been truly happy. I was happy, thinking it was the ending. But the network realized it was a good show and didn't cancel it, so now there's more of Chuck to milk. Which is fine—we'll watch it and enjoy it—but it illustrates the common failure in American television storytelling.
There may never be an American television show as good as Cowboy Bebop. When you can set out to tell a story the way you want, with a beginning, middle, and end, and then do exactly what you want, the potential for greatness is higher than when you just keep making more as long as something is popular.
Heroes season 1 was great. Lost season 1 was great. The very beginning and the last half of Jericho was great. Day Break was great (though the last half of that had to be watched online). In this country, great shows either 1. get canceled before they can go anywhere or 2. get renewed after they go somewhere and then get horribly lost.