Stephen J. Bartowski
| Stephen J. Bartowski | |
|---|---|
| Chuck character | |
| First appearance | "Chuck Versus the Predator" (as Orion) "Chuck Versus the Dream Job" (as Stephen) |
| Last appearance | "Chuck Versus the First Fight" (voice only) |
| Portrayed by | Scott Bakula |
| Information | |
| Aliases | Orion (codename) |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Independent |
| Family |
Dr. Devon Christian Woodcomb (son-in-law) Sarah Bartowski (daughter-in-law) Clara Woodcomb (granddaughter) Jesse Gunter (father-in-law) Mary Gunter (mother-in-law) |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Elizabeth Bartowski (widow) |
| Children |
Dr. Eleanor Fay "Ellie" Woodcomb (daughter) Charles Irving Bartowski (son) |
| Expertise | Computer expert and inventor, engineer, some hand-to-hand combat training; foremost expert on the Intersect; Espionage Master (no governmental affiliation, freelance or self-employed); high-level classified knowledge made available through "flashes" |
Stephen Joseph Bartowski is a recurring character on the television series Chuck portrayed by actor Scott Bakula. Stephen is the estranged father of Chuck and Ellie Bartowski, and under the government codename "Orion" was the chief designer of the Intersect.
Few details about Stephen Bartowski's life have been revealed on the show. His wife, Mary Elizabeth Bartowski, left him under unknown circumstances when Chuck was in the fifth grade and although he loved his children, Chuck describes him in "Chuck Versus the Sizzling Shrimp" as "never really there." Stephen is a computer and software genius who attended graduate school with Ted Roark, whom Bartowski would later allege stole all of his best ideas. Sometime after the end of his association with Roark, he went to work for the government. He worked with Dr. Jonas Zarnow and Howard Busgang on the Intersect computer database, where he was the head of the project under the codename "Orion." Stephen would tell Chuck in "Chuck Versus the Dream Job," regarding the Intersect, he designed "just the really cool parts." He would later reveal to Chuck that he tested the Intersect on himself, and thus possesses an older version of it himself.
Stephen left his children roughly ten to eighteen years before the events of "Chuck Versus the Dream Job" after promising to make his children pancakes for dinner. This number seems to vary: in the second season, Chuck says that their father abandoned them ten years ago, but at the end of the third season, Chuck indicates that this time was much longer, as Ellie had to raise Chuck and manage the family finances when she was twelve due to the fact that their father left soon after their mother did; their mother supposedly left almost immediately after Chuck broke Mary's necklace, and both Chuck and Ellie are seen as children at this time. As Chuck and Ellie are both in their late twenties at minimum, this further illustrates that the time Stephen left was longer than the time mentioned earlier in the series.
At some point, Stephen learned what the government intended to do with the Intersect and knew that others would want it too, whereas he wanted to use it to help people as a learning device. Stephen decided then that he had to go on the run, and stay away from his children in order to protect them.
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Wikipedia