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We pick up right where we left off last week, but Chuck quickly realizes Jill is a spy. He makes his way back home to safety, but Agent Redhead insists he keep up the dating ruse. On the top of a ferris wheel, Jill outs herself as Fulcrum by pointing a gun at Chuck. But then she turns against her fellow Fulcrum operative, and saves Chuck's life. But not until the operative and Chuck have a hilarious battle on the Gravitron, which ... if you have ever ridden the Gravitron, you'll get why any type of fight on there would be hilarious. Casey and Sarah take Jill in anyway, and question her with a lie detector. She gives up the location of her Leader, and Sarah and Casey take off, stupidly leaving Chuck with a tied-up Jill. He obviously sets her free and then she turns on him, telling him it's "complicated." When Sarah and Casey come back with Jill's leader, they lock Sarah and Casey up. It's Chuck to the rescue again, though, since he memorized the manual to the Orange Orange's Super Secret Lair. That will come in handy again and again, I would think. Chuck still doesn't want Sarah to hurt Jill, but then Jill almost hurts Sarah and Chuck makes his actual choice: He puts Jill in a Nerd Herd detention car (how handy!) and then spends Thanksgiving with Sarah.
Meanwhile, there are Thanksgiving storylines for everyone else. Ellie prepares the house and meal for the Awesomes (Awesome's family, obviously), and it's stressing her out. So much that she uninvites her biggest Thanksgiving fan, Morgan. So he gets stuck at the Buy More guarding the Black Friday wares with Jeff and Lester. Morgan heads to Ellie's to steal an old turkey just after she finds out the Awesomes can't make it, so he gets his invitation back, and even gets to bring Jeff and Lester. As much as I would have loved to see the Awesomes, it's a pretty awesome (little a) Thanksgiving with Ellie, Awesome, Chuck, Sarah, Jeff, Lester, and Morgan. For a moment, all is right with the world.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Chuck loved Jill again. Sarah told Jill not to hurt him. Jill said she wouldn't. Then we (along with Sarah and Casey) found out she was a Fulcrum agent as she threw Chuck down on his bed.
And now, or actually in a flashback: Chuck and Jill are on a ferris wheel in 2002. Chuck's terrified for a couple of reasons: He bribed the carney to stop it with them on top, but he's afraid of heights. He was going for romantic, and he asks Jill to be his girlfriend. I think her kiss means yes. Either that, or she just really wants him to stop talking.
Back in the present, Agent Redhead is disgusted that Sarah and Casey would let a Fulcrum agent get away with Chuck. Casey says by the time the LeFleur list revealed that Jill was an agent, Chuck and Jill were long gone. Sarah adds that his cell is off and he left the GPS watch in his bedroom. Agent Redhead doesn't care; she just wants him found. When she goes away, Casey tells Sarah that if Fulcrum knows he's the Intersect, it's too late and he's as good as dead. Sarah says Jill doesn't know. Casey wonders what Fulcrum's doing to him if not torturing him.
And we cut to Jill and Chuck getting it on. His phone rings, and he knows he's going to get yelled at, but he ignores it. Jill goes to take a shower, and Chuck looks at his "14 New Messages" with more than a little fear. Then Jill's phone buzzes. Chuck tells her it's buzzing, but also looks at it. The text message from "MOM (M)" says, "Have you heard from Uncle Tobias ? -- Mom" Chuck immediately flashes on a bunch of letters in the text that unscramble to say "Meet Leader Urgent." I don't think there are enough e's in the original text to unscramble to that, though, so maybe it wasn't unscrambling that Chuck's brain was doing. He realizes immediately what the flash means, though, and tells himself this can't be happening. He tells Jill he's a little parched because of last night and then asks if she wants coffee.
He takes off running out of the room, and is quickly snatched and thrown into a massage chair by Casey and Sarah, posing as spa workers at the hotel. Casey calls Chuck a "sad-sack bleeding-heart idiot" and Sarah tells him never to do that again. He starts to tell them about Jill, but they say they know. Chuck tries to tell them this must be a mistake because he's known her for eight years and they had this amazing night. He says she's not a spy and has no Fulcrum code name. Casey tells him her code name is Sand Storm, and sure enough, hearing that makes Chuck flash on "Jill Roberts." But they tell him he has to go back in there so that Jill won't know that they know. Chuck thinks it's a bad idea for the Intersect to hang out with the people who want it. They give him coffee and he heads back in. By the time he goes back, Jill's read her text, but she still has time for nervous coffee and doesn't notice (or pretends not to notice) how ridiculously, obviously nervous Chuck is.
As Chuck and Jill arrive back at his apartment courtyard (I wonder if she attended to the Leader's "Urgent" message?), she asks if he's sure he's okay and he says that this is just him on the verge of total happiness. She asks him to hang out tonight. He tries to make excuses, but really has no reason. I have an idea: Maybe he should say that he has to work at the Buy More, since he almost never does that. Jill leaves and Chuck's summoned into Casey's apartment for a meeting with Sarah and Casey. He tells them he thought Jill was normal and doesn't understand how this happened. Cue Agent Redhead explaining that Jill was probably recruited at Stanford. Chuck asks her who in his life isn't a spy, and if he should start asking everyone he meets. She ignores him, and tells him he needs to keep up his relationship with Jill and see if she tries to make contact with this "Leader" person he flashed on at the hotel. Sarah tries to tell Agent Redhead that Chuck's not ready for this type of mission, but Chuck says he'll do it. He's seeking some revenge after being betrayed by Jill yet again.
Chuck arrives home, where Ellie is neurotically cleaning for Awesome's parents, whom she and Chuck refer to as "the Awesomes." She actually calls them "the Very Awesomes." Which ... awesome. Ellie's fluffing pillows and squeegeeing windows, and she won't even let Chuck sit on her perfect couch. She is stressed because the Awesomes are both doctors and they have three Awesome boys, so Ellie always feels judged by Mrs. Awesome. Chuck can't believe how much Ellie's using the nickname. She says she's "just a little stressed."
In Chuck's room, Morgan's outside the Morgan Door asking if Chuck's alone. He's afraid Chuck's with "the other woman," but Chuck says there is no other woman. Morgan's relieved. Morgan smells Thanksgiving right then, and starts freaking out. Chuck says Ellie's practice-cooking, and Morgan heads toward the kitchen. We get a slow-mo sequence of him watching Ellie pull the turkey out of the oven. She has him try it, and he loves it. She thinks it's too dry, though, and throws the whole turkey in the trash. Morgan is horrified, and rightfully so. He asks her to please not hurt another turkey like that, and then she uninvites him from Thanksgiving because of the Awesomes.
At the Buy More, Chuck tells Morgan he's going to talk to Ellie to get him re-invited. Morgan is babbling about how Anna's out of town, so Chuck and Ellie are his only Thanksgiving hope. Until Big Mike comes by and calls Morgan over. Mike thinks it's sad that Jeff, Lester, and Morgan don't have Thanksgiving plans, so he would like them to stand guard at the store to guard all of the Black Friday inventory.
Jill calls Chuck and asks him on a date. She'd like his bodyguards to take the night off, and Chuck repeats everything for Casey's benefit. Then he really sells it by closing with, "I'm looking forward to it as well. Mmmwaah." Casey tweaks Chuck's ear and when Chuck asks why, Casey says, "Kissing noise. Have some self-respect, Bartowski. You're a man." I love that Casey knows Chuck's doing the right thing to convince Jill, but he can't help himself from getting angry that someone would make a kissing noise. Chuck leaves to go talk to Sarah.
She's in her Orange Orange uniform in the Orange Orange's Super Secret Lair (OOSSL) when Chuck walks in for advice on how to convince Jill he loves her. She tells him that Jill, being a spy, will test him to make sure she has him. Sarah decides the best way to show Chuck how to act with Jill is to demonstrate. He gets way too into it and almost kisses her, but she backs away and says, "Good. You're all set." Casey walks in and says that Jill's credit card just bought two tickets to some music event, that Casey hopes isn't opera again. Sarah tells Chuck to remember that Jill's capable of anything.
Chuck and Jill are at the carnival, and she asks if he likes her surprise. He tells her his tension is just his irrational fear of carnivals. She takes him to the top of the ferris wheel and it stops. She starts talking about what happens : Chuck gets nervous, rambles on, and then she has to kiss him. She does, and Chuck either really learned from Sarah or can't help loving Jill. After the kiss, she says she's sorry, and when he asks why, we see she has a gun aimed at his stomach. Was all of that really necessary? Couldn't she have pointed a gun at him somewhere other than on top of the ferris wheel. Why did she have to ruin this sweet memory Chuck had?
After commercials, she explains she works for Fulcrum, and that they want her to kill him. He asks her not to, and she says she doesn't want to because she's not a killer. He talks her out of it, and she tells him there's a Fulcrum operative watching them, and he'll kill both of them if they see that she doesn't kill Chuck. Casey and Sarah realize that the music center Chuck GPS is a fake one, and they turn around and head toward the carnival. Jill and Chuck are trying to leave the carnival when "Leader" shows up. And, seriously, that guy's a bad guy? No one would ever suspect. He's bald, wearing a leather jacket, with a creepy moustache. He has all of the trademarks of a bad guy, so I'm shocked that's the agent. Actually, I am sort of surprised, because this show is usually a little more subtle in its choice of agents and villains. Leader looks ominously at them and cuts them off as they try to get away. He tells Jill to eliminate Chuck, but she won't do it, so Leader's going to until Jill points a gun at him. Chuck immediately takes off running, which is so much smarter than people usually are in TV and movies. Go Chuck! Leader knocks Jill out and says she's making a big mistake.
Chuck runs in to the Gravitron and Leader follows him in. The door closes and Chuck hits the on button. If you have ever ridden the Gravitron, you'll get why this is a hysterical place to set a fight sequence. You cannot even move on this ride, let alone try to fight or run away. Both Chuck and Leader are plastered against the walls. Leader manages to climb on top of Chuck, but then the Gravitron stops, and they fall down, Chuck landing on top of Leader, knocking him out. He makes his getaway. That whole Gravitron sequence was very funny, which is probably why they named the episode after it, but I think "Chuck Versus the Carnival" would have been a better episode title, since they do so much more at the carnival than just fight on the Gravitron.
For example, as Casey and Sarah arrive, Chuck walks into a funhouse and gets confused when Jill follows him into the hall of mirrors. He asks her how she got into Fulcrum and why, and she says it was a leadership seminar at Stanford, and that once she realized what she was getting into, it was too late to get out. They are both looking around like they can't tell which image is the real person. She disappears mid-conversation and Leader walks in with a gun. Chuck starts running, but runs straight into a mirror. He comes face to face with Leader, who points the gun at him. Jill shoots Leader and they both leave. They run into Casey and Sarah, who arrest Jill despite Chuck's request that they don't hurt her since she saved his life.
Big Mike's telling Lester, Jeff, and Morgan what the plan is for Thanksgiving: He will lock them in, and doesn't care if that's illegal or if there's a fire while they're locked in. He is going fishing, and they will protect his store.
At the OOSSL, Sarah is asking Jill yes or no questions while she's hooked up to the world's most high-tech lie detector. It's high-tech in that it says "Positive" or "Negative" on a screen after she answers, but it's still not good enough to read any answers other than yes or no. I don't get that. If she's lying, why does it matter if it's yes or no, or some other answer? She passes the first few questions easily: Her name, Stanford, her degree in molecular biology. She says no at first when asked if she's a Fulcrum agent, but explains she's not used to telling the truth and then says yes. She knows where Leader is now, and then tells them where. Man, for an agent, she cracked easily. They ask her if it's a trap, and she says no. It says "Positive." They leave Chuck alone in the OOSSL, with Jill, who's strapped into a chair.
Jeff's putting a trip wire all around the Buy More entrance area. Lester says he does this every year, but it's really sad because Jeff's the only one who trips over it. Lester and Morgan are about to eat their really disgusting microwave Thanksgiving meals. Morgan sings the wonders of real Thanksgiving and tells Lester he has to get out to bring a turkey back to the Buy More. They hotwire the electronic doors and manage to let Morgan out, but only after almost smashing him in it. Jeff then trips over his trip wire, and then Big Mike gets a security breach phone call alerting him that the door was opened. He drops his fishing tackle and starts running.
Ellie's frantically preparing food, but Awesome gets off the phone and tells her his parents can't make it. She's very excited at this development, and he seems to be too. This is a match made in heaven, folks: They agree about the parents/in-laws at the holidays, which can be a big relationship argument. Awesome wonders if they can just have their Chuck and Morgan dinner, and Ellie realizes she uninvited Thanksgiving's biggest fan. Just then they hear something outside and find Morgan rooting through the trash. He has the old turkey, and Ellie runs to hug him. She apologizes for uninviting him, and he tells her he understands. Things have been stressful: the Awesomes, the new boss at work (why would this stress Ellie?), the Chuck and Jill thing. Oops! Ellie's like, "What Chuck and Jill thing?" And Morgan tries to pretend he didn't say anything about Jill, but it's too late. She wants to know everything. He says he'll tell her if she'll let him bring a couple extra people to Thanksgiving.
In the OOSSL, Chuck opens the holding area Jill's in to ask if she needs anything. He wants to ask her some lie-detector questions. He tells her he can work it because he read the manual for the entire OOSSL. She makes fun of him for being a geek, but he says he just "skimmed it." It would be cute if she weren't, you know, evil. So he starts asking her questions, and she gets all positives: Their relationship was real, her emotions were real, she didn't love Bryce, she didn't even sleep with Bryce. This is actually a really cool reveal, because it means Bryce didn't do anything bad to Chuck back at Stanford other than get him kicked out, which he was doing to protect him from having to be an agent. That doesn't negate that he later turned him into the Intersect, but it does redeem him an awful lot from Stanford.
Casey and Sarah arrive at the mobile medical unit where Leader's being treated for the gun shot. They make the doctors leave, and they take him over.
Back at the OOSSL with Chuck and Sarah, she tells him Fulcrum made her break up with him and she made up the Bryce thing because she knew Chuck wasn't talking to him anyway. He's happy she didn't listen this time when Fulcrum told her to kill him, at least. He guesses that means something, and she says it does. She never wanted to hurt him. She tells him he was her first love. Interesting that she used the past tense. He asks if she thinks they could try again when this is all over, and she asks him to let her out of the chair she's strapped into. She says yes and then kisses him passionately, so that he might not notice the "Negative" that comes up on the screen. But he notices it anyway.
Sarah calls and tells Chuck they have Leader and are coming back. He says, "Great. See you then," and we pan out to see Jill pointing a gun at Chuck. She apologizes to him. Her sorries are starting to mean very little to me, and I'm hoping Chuck's feeling the same way.
Casey and Sarah bring Leader into the OOSSL, and Chuck yells to Jill that she promised she wouldn't hurt them. She points two guns, one at each of them, and tells them to put their guns on the table and remove Leader's cuffs. Chuck apologizes for letting her out. Leader's freed and asks them to show him the way to the holding area. Jill stays with Chuck and tells him to do what Leader says and he'll be okay. He asks how she could do this and she says it's complicated. It always is in love and spying. Leader comes back in and compliments her on her excellent job. They want to see the "access screen for the Joint Intelligence Database." Chuck pretends he doesn't know how, but when Leader threatens to kill Sarah and Casey, he does it. Chuck's putting it all together and realizing the whole thing was a setup from the start -- down to Jill shooting Leader. Leader responds, "Devious, aren't we?" and then tells Jill to lock Chuck up.
On the way to their holding cell, Chuck tells Jill she's making a mistake. He asks questions and while she answers them, he grabs the manual to the OOSSL off the table and then takes it into the holding cell with him. She tells him they're looking for Bryce, and Chuck plays dumb. She tells him not to do that, because they know he's CIA. She leaves, and Casey says they're looking for the Intersect. Chuck tells Sarah he's sorry he didn't listen to her about not being able to trust Jill, but he has a plan. He starts punching the keypad in his holding cell. At first I didn't like this, because I thought they'd never put keypads inside holding cells, because what if prisoners knew how to use them, but then I told myself they would have them for exactly this purpose: If some evil villain locks up the people who run the OOSSL, they can use the internal keypads to get out. Casey seethes at Chuck for using the Castle manual (when did they start calling it the Castle anyway?), since he told him it was top secret. Chuck: "I know. So am I."
Meanwhile, a very pissed off Big Mike is making his way back from fishing to save the Buy More.
And then the screens Jill and Leader are looking at go fuzzy, and they head back to question Chuck. He's like, "I read the manual." He says he locked them out of the computer system using the remote console, and that they can't open the bulletproof holding cells since he overrode all of that from inside, and he has the manual in there with him. Oh, and they can't call for backup since he also jammed the communications signals. And he triggered the CIA's trouble alarm. Chuck finishes his awesome speech with "The nerd in me really really wants to say 'Checkmate' right about now," but Leader has another trick. He thinks the bulletproof cells won't withstand a bomb, and places one on Casey and Sarah's cell. Casey and Sarah both tell him to ignore it and stay safe in his cell, but he instead opens his cell and gets out. Leader wants to be shown the way out of OOSSL. He leads them out with a gun pointed at him. Back in the holding cell, Casey and Sarah get a message from Chuck on their remote console. It says, "I also unlocked your door. Taking them to Buy More. Unleash the Casey." As much as I love that, I just don't think he had time to type that. Unless he pre-typed it in case this happened? I'll go ahead and believe that's it. Their door opens and they run out.
Chuck, Leader, and Jill come into the Buy More through a hole in the floor. Chuck leads them toward the doors, deftly stepping over Jeff's trip wire, which takes Leader down. Jill points a gun at Chuck, but then Sarah's there pointing a gun at Jill. Casey comes in and fights Leader, as Sarah takes off after Jill. Chuck yells, "Sarah, don't hurt her." Chuck follows them and sees Jill sneaking up behind Sarah with her gun pointed. Chuck pleads with her to please come with him; that he can get her out of here. She turns and goes with him.
Casey and Leader continue to fight and Leader knocks Casey out, getting the upperhand. He says, "You thought you were going to take me down," and we hear Big Mike yell, "No, baby! I am!" as he runs toward Leader and knocks him out. He tells Casey he hates thieves and then calls Morgan a "smart boy" for putting Casey in charge.
Chuck's leading Sarah to a particular Nerd Herd car that he tells her is the perfect get-away car (you know, except for the conspicuous Nerd Herd design scheme), with his all-wheel drive, touch-screen navigation, iPod capability, and a full tank of gas. I love that Chuck thinks iPod capability is an important component in a getaway car. He promises her he won't call it in. She thanks him, and it seems sincere. She gets in the car and asks Chuck to come with her, saying they can still be together. She says, "No secrets, no spies," but he says he can't. He realizes they have chemistry and attraction, but there's one small problem. He pushes a button on the car key remote, and the windows go up on the car, handcuffs come out of the steering wheel exactly where Jill happens to have her hands, and the stereo says the car is in "Detention Mode." I love that they've made a Nerd Herd detention vehicle. Was it in case Chuck ever went rogue while on a service call? Jill pleads with Chuck not to do this to him, as Sarah walks out of the back of the Buy More and watches from a distance. He tells Jill he wanted to help her, and was going to let her get away, but when she was about to kill Sarah in the hall it made his decision easy. Sarah looks moved, and surprised. Chuck says, "You're under arrest, Jill. And I'm breaking up with you." When did Chuck become a total bad-ass?
Chuck and Sarah are headed to Ellie's Thanksgiving, as Chuck apologizes for not listening to her. He says he's too trusting and is just getting used to all of this spying and lying. Sarah tells him not to get used to it, because being a good guy and not like every other spy is what makes him special, and that he can leave the deception to her. He says he's glad he has her and he grabs her hand. Oh, how romantic! He loves her for being the deceiver. She agrees they're better as a team.
Inside, Awesome is putting the turkey on the table and Jeff and Lester look on in awe. Ellie pulls Morgan aside to make sure Jill is not with Chuck. Morgan says that's what Chuck told him, and they both say they hope Chuck's not breaking up with Sarah. Morgan tells Ellie they need a Thanksgiving miracle, and that Sarah and Chuck will walk through the door as happy as can be. Just then, they walk in, and Ellie tells Morgan good job. Sarah and Ellie hug "Happy Thanksgiving," as Chuck looks on sweetly. But then he notices the table and asks Ellie if she realizes Nerd Herders Jeff and Lester are at their table. She tells him she knows, and that the Awesomes couldn't make it. Lester's giving Sarah a way-too-long hug, as Ellie asks Chuck if he's okay and tells him that Morgan told her about him and Jill. She says she was worried about him. He says Jill wanted to see if they could work it out, but Jill and Bryce are a story from his past, and his new story is Ellie and Sarah and "these freakin' yahoos." He puts his arm around her and they join everyone else at the table. Everyone, that is, except Morgan, who's trying to make more "Thanksgiving miracles" come through the door: "Swedish bikini team." "Flying DeLorean." Chuck calls Morgan to the table, and then Chuck toasts and the camera pans outside the window as they all say "Happy Thanksgiving." Is it wrong that I feel sorry for Casey not getting to be part of it? What did he do for Thanksgiving dinner? Just brood alone somewhere?
week, we meet Casey's mentor, Marcus Dixon, who we are to believe is even tougher and meaner and scarier than Casey. And Chuck is not liking that.
DeAnn is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com.
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