Chuck Versus the Pink Slip aka Blame It On the Cheese Balls

Well I guess the wait has been long enough, let’s jump right into this. The “Previously on…” clip shows us Chuck and Agents Hardass and Cheesecake surrounded in what looks like the center of The Matrix. Chuck must have just downloaded Google into his brain, because he quickly learns everything about kung-fu and beats up all the bad guys in the Matrix room.

We cut to six months later in Prague. Chuck has been captured by some goons led by the Prague version of John C. Reilly with a bad 80’s David Hasselhoff perm.

Chuck acts cocky while the Spy Boss communicates in his ear to get a briefcase one of the goons is holding. Chuck naturally Googles “kung-fu” and quickly beats up one of the goons and grabs his gun. Chuck now has Prague’s John C. Reilly at gunpoint, and the Spy Boss is yelling at him to shoot. Reluctant to kill him, he instead kung-fus all the bad guys and escapes with the briefcase.

After the Spy Boss tells him a helicopter is on its way, Chuck immediately runs up to a roof and asks where the helicopter is. The Spy Boss explains that it can’t be there if it’s “on its way” so he’ll have to Google “ziplining” to get off the roof via an awkwardly placed phone line. Chuck’s Google gives him a 404 error, causing him to be surrounded. Mission Failed. Or as Metal Gear Solid 2 would put it:

The Spy Boss calls off the goons and it turns out this was all just a spy training exercise for Chuck. Chuck’s pants drop to add to the humiliation.

She admonishes Chuck for not shooting Prague’s John C. Reilly and Chuck admits he couldn’t do it because he really likes Talladega Nights. Spy Boss also mentions that the government has been training him to be a spy for six months and all he can do is occasionally Google stuff and drop his pants. Due to financial cutbacks, he’ll have to leave the spy agency, Google or not in his head. Chuck says they can’t fire him because he gave up so much, then John C. Reilly makes him watch Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Chuck passes out.

We now cut to six months earlier, and see that Agent Hardass set up Chuck’s six months of super-spy “training.” Hey, maybe this was just his way to get rid of him. Agent Cheesecake says that if he becomes a real spy, it
would defeat the entire purpose of the show. Instead, Cheesecake suggests that if the show’s going to be cancelled, it should at least jump the shark the right way. Out of nowhere, Cheesecake says to hell with the whole spy game and asks Chuck to meet her in three weeks time to run away together. Chuck accepts.

Cutting back to present day, the two unknown people have taken over Chuck’s apartment, relegating him to the couch. They ask where Agent Cheesecake is and Chuck simply says that he lost her. Apparently he lost her to this week’s Cheesecake Moment of the Night: Agent Cheesecake emerges from an outdoor pool in slow-motion, wearing a skimpy bikini and dripping wet.

Turns out she’s undercover as some foreign guy’s arm candy. Cheesecake’s iPhone displays a call coming in from Chuck. Cheesecake throws the iPhone in the pool, costing the American taxpayers about $200.

Intro credits roll. Elusive Connie is now so elusive, she’s no longer in the credits.

Commercials. Right away a bizarre commercial airs of the unknown couple going on a road trip, only to find that Seth Mays has stowed away in the back seat of their Hyundai and talks them into taking him to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Weird.

We come back and Chuck is still camping out on the couch, but now he’s eating a tub of cheese balls that, over time, turn him into The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

The female unknown calls in Seth Mays to try and get Chuck off the couch, but Chuck starts tripping and then passes out. The female unknown sees this as the Lebowski Effect setting in and the unknowns and Seth leave. Chuck eventually wakes up and sees that the tub is empty, but the UPC sticker reads “Big Lots.” That explains the strange effects of the cheese balls – they’re outdated. Chuck should have looked at the “Sell By” date while he was at it.

Still wearing his funky bathrobe, Chuck walks into the Big Lots. A robotic version of Larry directs him to the aisle the cheese balls are in, which looks a lot like the middle of the main showfloor. The nerdy manager (apparently taking Carl Winslow’s job) calls security on Chuck, thinking he is the guy stealing toilet paper from the bathroom. Security snags Chuck on the way to the checkouts, and the nerdy manager teleports right in front of him. He IDs Chuck and gets on the loudspeaker, calling all the customers and employees over to watch him call Chuck a loser. Chuck inadvertently Googles “kung-fu,” but decides to drop his balls instead of kill the nerdy manager. As the manager walks off, two cardboard cutouts of the Token Indian Guy (TIG) and Larry are put up in front of him. TIG’s cutout has a word bubble that reads “Please come back to Big Lots!” Chuck explains that he’s just there for the cheese balls, man. Larry’s bubble reads “Go ahead and be with the yogurt shack girl.” After he sees that Larry’s bubble was written recently, Chuck shows his O-face and runs next door.

Chuck stalks around the yogurt shack, looking for Cheesecake, but instead runs into Agent Hardass. Chuck sees Hardass get a call from Cheesecake, but he keeps ignoring Chuck while he’s on the phone and then plays off the call. Hardass says Chuck is useless because he can’t even use Google right, but in the meantime Chuck has eyeballed all of the obvious maps around the room and sees where the next mission will be. Chuck backs off, but tells Hardass he needs to fix things with Cheesecake.

Chuck decides he has to get serious to sneak onto this mission, so he takes the cheese ball antidote and turns back into normal Chuck, complete with his Big Lots outfit and nametag. He sneaks into the mission location (a latin club) by convincing the bouncers he’s there to deliver a futon. Hardass spots him and shakes his fist at him. Cheesecake sees him and asks him what he’s doing there. Chuck says he’s their backup, to prove he’s cut out to be a spy. Quickly, Cheesecake asks him to kiss her, like in all spy movies when the bad guy is coming. Then she delivers a Rick James-quality bitchslap, knocking Chuck out cold. She explains to the foreign guy from earlier that Chuck is just an ex-boyfriend.

Commercials.

Coming back, Hardass and Cheesecake are in a back room of the club telling Chuck to get out before he ruins the mission. Before two non-speaking-role agents can throw him out, Hardass insured Chuck won’t ruin the mission by telling him everything about the mission. Turns out Cheesecake’s guy is going to meet with a courier from KAOS (what I’m guessing the bad guy organization is called), who the feds will apprehend when he arrives. As he’s getting thrown out, Chuck Googles the guy’s name and finds out he’s actually an international assassin. Trying to break down the back door, Chuck rips off his nametag for some reason and then Googles “kung-fu” to bust the door open. Seriously, you think he would just retain most of that stuff after Googling the same thing for at least the last six months. Anyway, a Mariachi band member startles Chuck and gets accidentally superkicked in the face.

Chuck steals the Mariachi’s clothes and sneaks back into the club. A club employee quickly shoos Chuck up to the stage, much to the dismay of Hardass. Cheesecake tells Hardass to calm down because nothing could possibly go wrong. Luckily Chuck’s search for “mariachi guitar” comes back successfully and he starts to play like a true master. He whispers to Hardass about an assassin, but he doesn’t know who it is. This starts to make Cheesecake’s guy suspicious, so she turns up the heat on the dance floor. When Chuck sees this, he starts to dork out. Suddenly an gigantic laser point moves across Cheesecake and her man and Chuck jumps on her to save her.

Everybody in the club, except for Cheesecake’s guy, all draw guns on Chuck and reveal themselves as undercover agents. Hardass desperately wants to kill Chuck who still swears there was an assassin. Oh, there was an assassin all right, and the Mariachi guy picks up Chuck’s nametag on the way out the door.

Commercials.

Chuck is back at his overrun apartment, eating more Big Lebowski cheese balls and wallowing in self-pity. The male unknown guy asks what happened and Chuck simply says that he was fired. Male unknown guy asks if the feds will have to kill him now, but Chuck shrugs off the question and falls asleep.

HI! SETH MAYS HERE! Seth scares the shit out of Chuck and tries to cheer him up, saying he’s above sitting around eating tainted cheese balls. Chuck says he deserves to turn into a cult movie stoner for having the opportunity to take a job that would send him around the world, but instead getting fired twice. Well, technically, once. That second time he just compromised a federal mission and jeopardized the safety of dozens of government agents.

Seth says he’ll show him what pathetic looks like and takes him back to the Big Lots, where we see that Seth is now living in the furniture department. Nerdy Manager sees this on the security camera and shakes his fist at Seth, but doesn’t kick him out even though it appears he’s been there at least a week. Seth reveals to Chuck that going to Hawaii to become a Benihana cook didn’t work out, mostly because he usually works only with the Big City Slider Station. He also says that he lost Elusive Connie in Hawaii. How? Well, I’ll leave that to you to make your own bogus explanation where she went. Did she:

a) Get a job at a Hawaiian Dollar General, just to rub it into Seth.

b) Hop a plane from Hawaii to nearby Japan to finish her ninja training.

c) Keep disappearing on Seth and eventually he just gave up looking for her.

Whichever reason you picked, I finally get to use this picture in a recap:

Over at the yogurt shack, Hardass and Cheesecake are packing up more of the spy equipment, watching the same security camera feed. Hardass says he’ll miss him – his heavy weapon chaingun that uses no bullets, I mean. Hardass also tells Cheesecake to end it with Chuck to stop the guy from coming around.

Having watched enough security footage for the day, Nerdy Manager decides to call it quits and goes to his car. While singing along to the radio, the manager sees someone walking around the back of the store. It’s the Mariachi Assassin. Something about this guy and back doors, I tell ya. Anyway, he has followed Chuck’s nametag back to the Big Lots. Nerdy Manager gets out of his car and threatens the assassin with a utility belt full of pepper spray. The assassin returns the threat by shooting Nerdy Manager right between the eyes, putting a small piece of this show out of its misery.

Meanwhile, Seth has picked up all his stuff and goes to leave and move in with Chuck. It should be noted that Seth and Chuck are the last two guys in Big Lots with no employees around, so I guess the store was going to close itself. Agent Cheesecake walks in to talk to Chuck. Seth gets an awkward vibe, so he tells Chuck he’ll meet him back at the apartment. With the yogurt shack packed up, Cheesecake has come to say goodbye, but as Chuck tries to get some stuff off his chest he is pistol-whipped and knocked out by the Mariachi Assassin, who then captures Cheesecake.

Commercials.

Chuck wakes up in a rusty prison cell. Mariachi Assassin comes in and takes his shirt off for a fight. Turns out he’s still upset about the cheapshot Chuck gave him at the club and wants Chuck to try it again, now that he’s ready. Google 404s on Chuck so he gets quickly beat up and knocked out again. You’d think at this point Chuck would get the idea and just try to Google something new.

As Chuck starts to black out, he fills in the rest of the pieces of tonight’s backstory. He remembers back to the green-screened train station where he was supposed to meet Cheesecake.

She meets him in front of a CGI train with a fake passport and a kiss, which Chuck isn’t really excited about. Chuck confesses that he’d rather go on with the training to be a super-spy, mostly because the government already shelled out all the money to make the big training facility for him. Cheesecake says that spy life is a fake life, and that he should be with her in this real life. Chuck still turns her down, even while the background song is screaming “SAY YES!!”

At the same time, Hardass is packing up the last of the hidden spy equipment with an unnamed government agent. Even though he’s just an extra, he was smart to wear his official government uniform so he wouldn’t have to help Hardass clean up. Hardass sees the manager’s dead body on one of the security cameras and yells at the extra to check out the footage to see who did it.

Chuck’s Google is still unavailable when Cheesecake talks to him through the wall and tells him to get himself out. Chuck says his browser is down and that he can’t. Cheesecake tells him that he’s an awesome guy and that he can do it. The door opens and it’s Mariachi guy looking to go 3-for-3 on Chuck knockouts and win the Chuck Badguy Boxing Championship via TKO. The assassin says when he’s through with Chuck, he’s going after Cheesecake. This makes Chuck’s Google act up and he sees all the kung-fu marshmallow shapes again.

The assassin gets beat down and Chuck takes his keys and a blinking makeup compact that looks important. He frees Cheesecake, who says they’re in Mexico, and both head to the roof. On top of the roof is another awkwardly placed cable and Chuck Googles “ziplining” correctly this time. They make it down to the ground successfully, but are soon surrounded by the Mariachi Assassin and two goons pointing shotguns.

Things look grim……until Agent Hardass arrives with his favorite chaingun to mow down the bad guys. Not only does this gun not use any bullets in its ammo belt, it also just knocks down bad guys instead off cutting them to ribbons like a regular high-velocity weapon would. With all the bad guys dead, Chuck and Cheesecake jump in the chopper and fly away.

Commercials.

Chuck and the agents are in the hidden basement of the yogurt shack communicating with the Spy Boss. She says that the blinking compact Chuck swiped was actually a KAOS smart phone – the first one ever retrieved by a spy. With that, the Spy Boss begrudgingly rehires Chuck and once again assigns Hardass and Cheesecake as his handlers. Naturally, Hardass sneers. So what will be Chuck’s new civilian cover job?

Yep, it’s the Big Lots. Hardass says putting in the paperwork for Chuck was easy with no manager, who Hardass apparently told Chuck had taken a job in Alaska. Chuck also thanks him for rehiring Seth Mays. Hardass sneers and walks away. Seth walks up with the two cutouts of TIG and Larry to show that the band is back together. Meanwhile, Spy Boss reminds Cheesecake to keep Chuck in check.

Spy Boss: “He’s unstable and could Google anything during a mission.”

Cheesecake: “Anything?!”

Cheesecake and Spy Boss: “….ewwww.”

Chuck and Seth return to their apartment to find the unknowns cleaning out most of Chuck’s stuff. Turns out no level of thievery is worth putting up with Chuck’s cheese ball eating, overreacting ass, so they’ve decided to take what they can and move into another vacant apartment in the complex.

They also tell Chuck to get new friends besides Seth because they’ve already picked over all their good stuff and it wasn’t that good. Seth runs into the apartment to make sure all of his Robot Chicken dolls are still there. Cheesecake catches Chuck before he goes inside, and he apologizes saying the job just sounded too good to pass up. Cheesecake clears up that she only wanted to jump the shark because she thought the show was ending. And to make sure it wouldn’t happen again, the spy agency installed a prime directive in her like Robocop to combat that type of thinking. I love being a spy. There is no place for feelings. I love being a spy.

Chuck looks a little disheartened as Cheesecake walks into a corner like a robot, but Hardass comes out of a random apartment and tells him it’s time. Time to train, that is. Chuck and Hardass have boxing gloves on in a ring and Chuck Googles “boxing” and starts to spar.

What happens next? Well there was a show right after it, so you won’t have to wait long to find out. Just let me watch it first.