Chuck: Chuck versus the truth (Episode 8)

I don’t think I’ve ever expressed the awesomeness of Chuck’s standard opening. It stars the little stick guy – probably best known for his work on men’s bathroom doors. Damn! The range of emotion that guy has! It still boggles me why he keeps his day job as a bathroom gender traffic officer.

Anyhow, Chuck’s drama starts at an undisclosed location, where a sweaty man, Mason Whitney, is being held against his will by a guy who calls himself a poison expert. He’s poisoned Whitney with a toxin that starts as truth serum but eventually kills you. He tells Whitney to get him some “codes” and in exchange, he’ll give him the antidote. Don’t worry kids, there will be no take backsies.

So he stumbles out onto the street and finds a necklace stuck under a mailbox – apparently the codes are in a computer chip stuck to the back of the pendant. The poison expert is not too far behind, tracking him with his Blackberry. Seconds later, Whitney’s passed out on the sidewalk. As luck would have it, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Captain Awesome walk out of a restaurant just in time to see him hit the ground. So Ellie gets her doctor on and administers first aid. An ambulance arrives after the commercial breaks. As Ellie helps him in, he drops the codes into her sweater pocket. As they drive away, Chuck checks Whitney’s wallet for ID. It gives him a secret state flash about some scary scary nuclear stuff.

The head CIA people brief the team on what they have on Mason Whitney: he’s not actually a bad guy. But he is a dead guy – he died shortly after arriving at the hospital. While he was still alive, he used to be a programmer for the government who worked on a top secret nuclear project. When he left his position, he took a whole bunch of secret information on a small computer chip. If anybody got their hands on it, it would be the equivalent of having a skeleton key to the United States’ nuclear facilities.

While the team is learning about Whitney, Ellie comes face to face with the man who poisoned Whitney. Dressed as a police man, he is questioning Ellie on yesterday’s events for his “report.” He manages to put a tracking device behind her ear as well as poison her with utmost stealth. For future reference: beware if you are ever given a foreign clicky pen - they may spew poisonous gases. That and cooties. You just never know.

Later that night, Sarah and Chuck are having their first slumber party – they’ve got to keep up appearances, you know! Chuck lights some candles and does a little Barry White themed jig complete with white man’s overbite. I think I puked a little bit in my mouth. At any rate, no time is given to the faux-couple for anything to happen. Ellie barges in and is acting extremely loopy – poison/truth serum can do that to a person. The poison part suddenly kicks in and Ellie passes out. While Captain Awesome calls for help, the team finds a bug on her neck. Post commercial break, the team gets up to speed with the poisoner guy’s police impersonation tactics through Chuck’s home surveillance system. Then, they reconvene at the hospital where Chuck makes a very rash, un-Chuck-like decision. I don’t know when this happened but thank the lord, Chuck grew a pair. He swipes the bug Casey had placed in a sound proof box and speaks into it saying they found the codes and hid it on the attending nurse. He wants to lure the bad guy in so they have a chance to get a hold of the antidote.

So poison dude takes the bait and walks into a hospital room where Sarah is laying in a hospital bed in a brown wig (I assume trying to pass herself off as Ellie). Ninja fight ensues, ending with a standoff. The bad guy holds a vile of poison and threatens to poison them all if he doesn’t get the codes. But he didn’t count on Chuck finding the codes in Ellie’s sweater pocket, getting really excited, running into the room, accidentally bumping into him making him drop the vile. Now he’s poisoned himself, Chuck, Casey and Sarah. Burn!

So there’s another chase. But before Poison Ivy runs away, he drops one little vile of the antidote which is dramatically caught by Sarah. Sarah and Casey try to force Chuck to take it – since Chuck is full of state secrets, he takes priority. Nevertheless, Chuck, or shall I say Saint Chuck, gives it to Ellie. Oh please. I’d totally down the antidote and rub the residue left in the vile all over my body. I’m just not good people that way.

So while they’re waiting around to die, Chuck notices the bad guy accidentally dropped his Blackberry. He picks it up and uses it to lead him to his bad cave. On the way, while waiting for the elevator, Chuck fills the awkward silence in an even more deliciously awkward way. He turns to Sarah, “God you’re pretty,” and then he turns to Casey, “Your jaw was chiselled by Michael Angelo himself.”

Anyhow, they find their guy and after a few minutes of intimidating spy banter, Sarah shoots him in the knee caps. Moments later he gives up the antidote.

Before drinking it, Chuck asks Sarah whether spy cover or not, this “relationship” could go anywhere. I.e. he wants to go steady. Sarah seems unmoved by Chuck’s puppy eyes and declines. I sorta hoped this would turn into a musical with Chuck belting out, “Loooooove huuuuurts…” I just think more people should spontaneously break out into song and dance.

Chuck’s little leap of faith may have been triggered by guest star Rachel Bilson’s character: Lou. (Best name EVER.) Earlier in the episode, she walked into Buy More extremely upset about her broken phone. Once Chuck fixed it, as a thank you, she gave him a sandwich she named after him. You see, she works at a Deli and has a thing for sandwiches. It’s freakish. Take it and love it. Anyhow, they totally hit it off, and everything went smoothly until Chuck is forced to introduce to her to Sarah – his girlfriend.

After having had a near death experience and having been rejected by Sarah, he tells Sarah that life is too short. They have to put a stop to this fake relationship; it’s just wasting his time. So he walks off and goes to have a sandwich with Lou. Sarah watches on with a sad look on her face. Suddenly her phone rings; it’s Casey asking her if she said anything compromising while under the truth serum/poison’s influence. She answers no: she’s been trained to withstand Pentothal. So instead of fake breaking up with her, Chuck’s appropriate response should have been, “LIAR LIAR PANTALONES ON FIRE.” In my humble opinion.

And now you may ask yourselves, what’s happened to Harry Tang? Well I’ll tell you. Big Mike sent Morgan on a super secret mission to help Mr Tang’s wife pick out his birthday present. When Morgan meets Mrs Tang, she’s very touchy feely (in a completely innocent way). So much so that when he says he can help her get what she needs, she presses his head into her bosoms. While in between Righty McBoob and Titty McGee, Morgan instructs her to meet him in the entertainment section that night to pick her merchandise. Unbeknownst to Morgan and Mrs Tang, Lester and Anonymous Buy More Sidekick #3 are filming it all for extortion purposes. Actually, they just go ahead and show it to Harry Tang for nothing in exchange except the sweet look of anger on his face.

Later that night, he goes to Buy More hoping to surprise Morgan and his wife. Instead, he finds Chuck, Sarah and Casey getting debriefed by their CIA superiors. They have no choice but to confess to being spies. However, they say that Chuck was a pawn to lure Harry to them – the government needs him… in Hawaii. The next day, Big Mike tells Morgan he is happy Tang moved away. The only reason he promoted him was because he felt guilty about boinking his wife. And there you have it. Big Mike is a dirty dirty man. How do you like them apples?