The season, cut short by the Writers' Strike, contains thirteen episodes.

It introduced the series' main characters and established the general plot of the title character, Chuck Bartowski, having to adapt to his new life as a spy after the only remaining copy of the U.S. government's spy secrets are embedded into his brain.

[1] Having become the most important asset of the U.S. government, Chuck is under the constant surveillance of his CIA handler, Sarah Walker, and NSA agent John Casey, who remind him that he cannot reveal his spy life to his sister Ellie, nor his best friend Morgan Grimes.

When Chuck sabotages the mission of a Chinese spy, Mei-Ling Cho, (Gwendoline Yeo) who is trying to save her kidnapped brother, Sarah and Casey refuse to help him fix his mistake.

Meanwhile, Morgan is caught in a dilemma of his own when Buy More forces him into a sales competition that reveals his total failure as a salesman, only later to find out it was a ploy to make the sales team generally work harder.