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Nicholas Quinn

Quinn

Seasons: Season 5
Portrayed by: Angus Macfadyen
Status: Deceased
Occupation: freelance spy; former CIA spy;
Aliases:
Relatives:
Relationships: Sarah Walker (prisoner/pawn)
Residence:
Appearances: Chuck Versus Bo
Chuck Versus the Bullet Train
Chuck Versus Sarah
Chuck Versus the Goodbye
Quote1
I tried to win without it.
Quote2


Nicholas Quinn was a rogue freelance spy and a discharged CIA agent. The final antagonist on Chuck, he is portrayed by Angus Macfadyen.

He has a long history with the Intersect project in almost all its incarnations.[1] He and his freelance spy company served as the primary antagonists of Season 5.

He first appeared in the Season Five episode, Chuck Versus Bo.

Series[]

Quinn claims to have been a candidate for the first Intersect before CIA Agent Bryce Larkin stole it and sent it to Chuck on Chuck Versus the Intersect. As a result, Quinn claims to have failed his mission and was held captive by his enemies for over a year. He was later discharged from the CIA. Since then, he formed a freelance spy firm and has served Fulcrum, The Ring and Volkoff Industries as his clients, all of which were thwarted by Chuck with his aid of the Intersect. In turn, Quinn seeks to steal the Intersect 2.0 from Carmichael Industries during Chuck Versus Bo.

In Chuck Versus Bo, it is revealed that during Morgan's time as the Intersect, he ran his mouth telling all that he was the Intersect. Quinn sent an agent, Bo Derek, to seduce and capture him. Quinn revealed himself to be in possession of Intersect glasses, before hitting Morgan with X-13 short-term memory loss gas. Just as he was sprayed, Morgan zoomed and escaped with the glasses.

A few months later, Team Bartowski began retracing Morgan's lost memories and discovered the glasses hidden in a game display at the Buy More in Vail, Colorado. Quinn figured it out too and confronted the team. Though Chuck attempts to reason that the Intersect has been nothing but trouble, Quinn retorted that he got a wife out of it. Casey starts a firefight before Quinn escapes, though Chuck chose not to pursue him. This proved to be a mistake, as Quinn later captured Chuck and tried ransoming him for the glasses.

In Chuck Versus the Bullet Train Quinn manages to kidnap Sarah while Team Bartowski was still catching up to them. Having studied the Intersect for years, he is aware that Sarah and Morgan's version of the Intersect 2.0 can be corrupted from excessive use. Quinn uses this knowledge to supress some of her memories, convincing her that she is still a CIA agent and that he is her handler. He twists her even further when he claims that Chuck is responsible for sabotaging a CIA mission on the Bullet Train. He used Sarah to try and steal the Intersect, and then kill Chuck. Once he had the Intersect glasses in his hands, Quinn confesses that he lied to her. He then tried to shoot her, only for Chuck to take the bullet for her, fortunately he was wearing a vest.

Though he finally had what he wanted, Quinn couldn't take the chance that the Intersect may be a faulty one. To that end, he pursued The Key, a device designed to alter the Intersects original function and perfect. The Key was split between Stephen Bartowski, Ted Roark, and Hartley Winterbottom.

Quinn first met with a Ring agent on board an airplane. But as soon as he got the first piece, Sarah attempted to ambush him but lost her balance. She then was then forced to jump out the door. The second piece was in the possession of a Ring agent in Germany. Quinn changed the meeting place a few times, inadvertently bringing Sarah through events similar to her first meeting with Chuck. At a Wienerlicious, Quinn finally arrives and shoots the Ring agent and takes his piece. His men also take Morgan hostage, as his spy van was easy to spot. Sarah is able to get the drop on him as she throws some wooden sticks, forcing him to retreat. He gets away after Chuck hesitates to shoot Quinn and then unintentionally shoots down Casey's helicopter.

The last Key piece was in the possession of General Beckman. While she was attending a concert with her Chinese counterpart, Quinn planted a bomb beneath her chair set to go off once the musics ends, as he takes the final piece.

With the Intersect ready and his extraction incoming, Quinn assumed that he was set. He was then cornered by Chuck and Sarah, who try convincing him to disarm his bomb. Quinn refused to help, and expected to hear an explosion, only to hear Jeffster! singing a-ha's Take On Me. Unwilling to lose, Quinn went for his gun, only for Sarah to shoot him dead. Chuck is then forced to upload the Intersect to save Beckman and the audience threatened by the bomb.

Skills[]

  • Manipulation - Quinn is very good at using his words, expressions and tone to convince the subject that he is telling the truth. This is witnessed when he shows up at Sarah's house right after wiping her memories clean, and then convinces her that he is her CIA handler.
  • Combat - Quinn's obsession with the Intersect led to him studying the program thoroughly and mimicking it, making him a really skilled combatant in pretty much any fighting style, almost like a human Intersect without the actual Intersect.
  • Leadership - He seems to be very successful, which is indicative of the presence of strong leadership. He is also shown to be very efficient in the field along with subordinate agents.
  • Planning - Quinn is shown to be a meticulous planner. After his interrogation with Morgan, he wipes out the latter's memories with the X-13 gas. After Sarah finishes her mission to capture Chuck, Casey and Morgan in the Intersect room and download the Intersect onto the glasses, he is revealed to have his own detonator button with him, whilst it was earlier believed that Sarah was the only one who had it. In the last episode, he is shown to have set up a sonic bomb in the Orchestra hall to keep General Beckman fully cooperative, and has an extraction team incoming not much later on.

Personality[]

Quinn is described as obsessive. He blames all his failures on not having received the Intersect but he had never been mentioned in connection to it before. He may only have heard of it, and never been in the inner circle, but he blamed Chuck for being the recipient. He was willing to do anything to get what he believes he deserves.

While he doesn't seem to care about harming innocent people, as witnessed when he detonates the Intersect room at the CIA facility, he is not particularly maniacal and motivated to keep doing that. At Chuck and Sarah's dream home, he reveals to Sarah that he had been lying to her all along once he had the Intersect glasses.

Quinn's obsessive behavior is illustrated when he tells Chuck how he had obsessively studied every version of the Intersect, which is quite a difficult task.

Trivia[]

Nicholas Quinn was the name of the character in the Colin Dexter Inspector Morse novel and British television show, upon whom the plot hinges.

References[]


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