Array.reverse() seems to not work?

Can anyone explain why this code behaves this way?

function reverseString(str) {
  var chars = str.split();
  chars.reverse();
  chars.join();
  return chars;
}

reverseString("dog");

Output is:
[“dog”]

Ah, so .split() on a string creates a single element array? I thought it split the string into an array of characters.

God I miss real Java. Never thought I would say that…

Thanks Randell