The show starts with a flashback of a Honduras military camp in 1989. A young Alex Hardace meets with his commanding officer, who is less than impressed with Alex’s record. The commander says that he’s turning down the young soldier, not letting him enter into special ops training. Alex is shocked and the commander dismisses him.
Walking away from the commander’s tent, Alex runs into a colonel, played by the guy who was the T-1000 in Terminator 2. T-1000 offers Alex a box of Tic Tacs, saying they remind him of home. Alex accepts the box and T-1000 moves on to ask Alex if he’d be interested in joining a special black ops team he’s putting together. Alex tells him it’s a dream come true. T-1000 then ominously asks him if he’s ready to die.
The scene changes to present day with Agent Hardass sitting in his living room. Standing in the shadows behind him is an older T-1000. Hardass looks extremely spooked, like he’s being visited by a ghost. T-1000 clarifies that he was the one on the other end of the KAOS phone in the last episode. He also informs Hardass that soon the Spy Boss will assign him to do a security check on the CIA’s security system in one of their main vaults. He asks Hardass to retrieve something for him while he’s inside. T-1000 sternly tells Hardass he knows that he’ll make the right decision, and hands him a key. Hardass sneers, but obediently talks the key.While all this is happening, Seth is spying on Hardass outside his apartment with night-vision goggles. Chuck sneaks up on Seth and asks what the hell he’s doing. Seth admits he’s checking out what Hardass is up to, curious if he’s getting a mission. Chuck tells Seth if Hardass did get a mission, the whole team would have also gotten it, and creepy stuff like spying on people in bushes is why the agents haven’t been returning his calls.
Chuck tells Seth spy work is serious business and you can’t just goof around about it. Chuck then slips on a banana peel and shots himself in the butt with his tranquilizer gun. Before Chuck loses consciousness in Hardass’ bushes, his front door opens and the T-1000 shakes goodbye to Hardass, who continues to look like a confused robot. Chuck wonders to himself what they were talking about, just before checking out for the evening.The next morning, Chuck and the agents, minus Superman, are in the spy basement awaiting their mission for the week. As spoiled by the T-1000, Spy Boss tells the team they’ll be checking the security system in one of the CIA’s underground vaults. To do this, they’ll have to penetrate 15 levels of the highest security ever imagined.
Hardass asks if Bad Superman is coming with them. Spy Boss says he isn’t even on the show this week. Cheesecake throws her hands up and screams “Woohoo!” Unfortunately, the Spy Boss informs Cheesecake that he’s ordering her to take a flight later to meet him in Washington DC. Chuck wants to know why Cheesecake gets to have a side mission. Hardass responds that this trip is a personal matter. As an awkward feeling of unease feels the room, Cheesecake tells Chuck to just drop it and focus on this week’s mission.
Later at the underground CIA vault, the gang has started to penetrate the amazing security by just walking through a door with a giant “LEVEL 1” painted on it. Chuck and the agents see that the door to the next level is just at the end of a short hallway. Chuck says “easy enough” and walks towards the hallway, but Hardass and Cheesecake stop him. Hardass throws a quarter down the hallway, triggering a couple dozen blowdart shooters hidden in the walls. He tells Chuck to Google a solution to it and Cheesecake reminds him to just relax since there’s no time crunch.
Chuck takes a page from his Juggernaut episode playbook and Googles “gymnastic moves that probably wouldn’t avoid traps anyway”, returning a result. He does a series of flips, avoiding the dart shooters and landing perfectly by the security system’s control panel. Chuck shuts off the hallway traps and opens the door to the next level.
But apparently levels 2 through 14 were either filled with special effects too expensive to show, or they just consisted of the agents and Chuck sitting in uncomfortable chairs for a long time, because in the very next scene, Chuck and the agents walk through the “LEVEL 15” door acting worn out and sore. Level 15 turns out to the be most complex and taxing test of them all – a non-booby-trapped keypad that Cheesecake enters a memorized passcode into. The keypad opens the door to a room filled with lockboxes. Hardass tells Cheesecake to stay behind while he and Chuck go inside. Inside the lockbox room, Chuck asks why he told Cheesecake to stay outside. Hardass explains that she needs to watch their backs, even though there doesn’t appear to be any alarms to trigger and this section of the vault is so secluded, no guards will ever check the hallway for intruders.
Hardass directs Chuck to the right lockbox, which Chuck immediately hooks some techno-lock-cutting tools to. Meanwhile, Hardass wanders to another part of the room, finding another lockbox and unlocking it with the T-1000’s key.
Inside the T-1000 lockbox is a pouch holding a single medicine capsule. At the same time, Chuck opens his locker, finding a congratulatory letter from the Spy Boss.
Chuck walks around the corner, finding Hardass closing the capsule’s lockbox and calls him on it. Hardass denies that he opened the lockbox. Chuck explains he’d been standing there for a while and saw everything. Frustrated, Hardass sneers and draws a gun on Chuck, threatening to kill him if he tells anyone about what he saw. Making his point, Hardass puts his gun away as Cheesecake enters the room. She asks if everything is all right, feeling the tension in the air. Hardass gives Chuck a look, so he tells her that everything is fine.Intro credits. Commercials.
Chuck’s back at his apartment, when Unknown Guy suddenly breaks in through the front door. While Chuck reaches for his baseball bat, Unknown Guy says he needs Chuck’s help talking Unknown Lady into Doctors Without Borders. Chuck replies he thought Unknown Lady was all set, but Unknown Guy says she thought twice about it.
Suddenly Unknown Lady breaks in through the window, looking for Unknown Guy and takes a baseball bat to the arm. As Unknown Lady falls to the floor in pain, she drops a certified letter. Chuck picks it up and opens it, revealing an admittance letter for the Unknown Lady to the Chuck City School of Medicine. Chuck helps the Unknown Lady off the floor and comments that getting into the CCSM has always been her dream. Unknown Lady agrees, but says that’s her problem – choosing between going to Chuck City Med School or joining Unknown Guy, who’s all excited about Doctors Without Borders. Chuck’s prayers are answered when his phone unexpectedly rings. It’s Hardass telling him to get to the spy basement immediately. On his way out the door, Chuck considers his current spy situation and fortune-cookies to Unknown Lady that sometimes your dream job isn’t always what you expect it would be.
When Chuck gets to the spy basement, a drunk cameraman tries desperately to show the Spy Boss on the main monitor. She informs the team that even though their breaking into the CIA vault went off without a hitch, she still has to give them a big ol’...
She tells them the security check must have been too late because the CIA discovered a vault missing the capsule Hardass stole. It’s identified as a prototype drug developed to suppress the emotions of soldiers in battle, making them unfeeling and fearless. Chuck’s ears perk up, thinking this drug will help him calm down and Google better. Cheesecake counters him, saying that on top of calming him down, the drug would kill his emotions and basically make him a robot. But Chuck doesn’t care as long as it stops him from 404ing.
The Spy Boss gets back on track and says the missing capsule must have been an inside job, since only certain CIA agents knew which lockbox it was kept in. Chuck snaps and goes into Full Dork mode, acting like this is just another bogus spy-qualifying test. He points out the missions when he had to unexpectedly fight Stone Cold on a plane and when he had to turn in the Nerdy Beak-Faced Guy and says this is just another test of his will. Except this time, Chuck believes they’re tested whether he’ll be loyal to Hardass or loyal to his country. Knowing what the right answer is, Chuck says “screw it” and turns in Hardass for stealing the capsule.
Hardass stares daggers at Chuck while the Spy Boss asks Chuck if he’s seriously turning in Hardass for the crime. Chuck finally realizes this isn’t a test and starts to stammer that he was wrong. Unfortunately it’s too late and Spy Boss addresses Hardass about taking the capsule. Chuck butts in that Hardass is honest and loyal, but Hardass cuts him off and invokes his Fifth Amendment rights, making him look extremely guilty.
Chuck’s jaw hits the floor as Cheesecake slowly goes for her gun. Spy Boss asks Cheesecake to relieve Agent Hardass of his weapon. Hardass looks like he might put up a fight, but he turns it over peacefully.
Some time later, Chuck runs into the Big Lots and finds Seth. He asks him if he still has his recordings from eavesdropping on Hardass the other night. Seth starts to get worried, but Chuck assures him he isn’t in trouble with the feds. With that said, Seth is excited he gets to help his buddy.
In Seth’s supply-closet-office, he shows Chuck the video of Hardass meeting T-1000 on his iPhone. Chuck watches the video and Googles “creepy T-1000 army commander”, returning the T-1000's application from monster.com in response to a KAOS ad for new agents.
After seeing the T-1000's long list of evil qualifications, Chuck sidelines Seth from anymore spy action this episode.
At the same time, nameless CIA agents are rigorously searching Hardass’ random apartment for the stolen capsule. Cheesecake walks up and tells one agent to be careful and show some respect for his stuff. While they’re searching, Chuck runs in and tells Cheesecake about the T-1000. He also tells her about his KAOS entrance essay from monster.com and how it talked about using Hardass as part of his plan. Chuck exclaims they need to tell Hardass what T-1000 has planned, but Cheesecake says they can’t. She says he’s been put away for treason and since he’s not talking, tomorrow he will be shipped to a military base where torture isn’t just welcomed, it’s allowed. Chuck says in that case, they have to spring him tonight. Cheesecake states the obvious and explains if they try and get caught, they’ll also be put away for treason and the series will come to a terrible ending.
Chuck admits for Hardass he’s willing to take that risk and damn the show for it. Cheesecake smiles and admits she was onboard when he said “damn the show.”Commercials.
After the break, Chuck and Cheesecake are on their mission to free Hardass. To save money on the number of sets the production guys have to build, it turns out Hardass is being held on Level 15 of the subterranean CIA vault from earlier in the episode. Starting out at Level 1 like earlier, Chuck asks if Cheesecake is all right with missing her flight to Washington DC. Cheesecake says yes, mostly because she’d like to go one show without Bad Superman trying to brainwash her. That and his name wasn’t in the show credits this week, anyway.
Looking down the blowdart hallway, Cheesecake mentions that the security measures probably haven’t been updated in the past 24 hours. Chuck gets the idea and brings up the Search History for “gymnastic moves that probably wouldn’t avoid traps anyway”.
Chuck pulls up the same result and starts flipping down the hallway…only to crash into a clear Plexiglass barrier.As Chuck scrapes himself off of the glass, an alert sounds and a short, nerdy CIA officer walks out of a side door with two security guards.
The short nerd turns off the alarm and tells the guards to alert the proper higher-ups about the captured intruders. Cheesecake quickly acts like she and Chuck are CIA officials there to test the security system, and she flatters him about changing up the system so quickly. Chuck plays along and pretends to talk to the Spy Boss on his earpiece, crediting the short guy for the outstanding job.
Just like every other nerd on this show ever, the short officer gets stupefied by Agent Cheesecake (even though she’s not even wearing anything close to Cheesecake Moment attire) and tells the guards to cancel the alert and leave him with her and Chuck. After the guards leave, the short guy immediately kisses up, asking what they really thought of the new Level 1 trap. Chuck butters him by saying he loves it, but really wants to see the Level 15 system. Shorty doesn’t mind, but reminds Chuck and Cheesecake to act really sore walking from doors 1 to 15.Across town in the Unknowns’ apartment, they’re still arguing over Unknown Guy wanting to leave for Africa and Unknown Lady wanting to stay and go to Med School. As usual, they default to using Chuck as a soundboard, which makes total sense considering how indecisive he’s been with his career and love life so far.
The Unknowns pound on Chuck’s door only to find Seth. The couple just shrugs it off and decides to ask Seth instead. They do this by simultaneously yelling their frustrations at him. Remarkably, Seth makes out everything they say and concludes that Unknown Guy is being selfish about the situation. Unknown Guy accepts this by grabbing Seth and carrying him inside, slamming the door on his wife.Unknown Guy tells Seth he can’t let him talk Unknown Lady out of leaving, mostly because Chuck City isn’t safe. Seth counters that Chuck City is the safest place she can be. In a bizarre back-and-forth, both realize Chuck is the reason for their arguments and eventually both figure out that each other knows Chuck is a spy.
Seth says he just found out and thinks it’s so cool. Unknown Guy tells him his point-of-view, which is it’s dangerous and life-threatening to everyone involved, including him and his wife. This snaps Seth back to reality and he ultimately agrees with the Unknown Guy.
The two open the apartment door and start singing the praises of working abroad. Unknown Lady just rolls her eyes over all the crap they’re peddling.Back at the CIA vault, while walking into Level 15, the short nerd breaks the fourth wall and admits that he’s a big fan of the show. He even brings up what sounds like a homophobe-a-rrific episode where Chuck had to kiss Hardass to ingest an antidote. Feeling uncomfortable, Chuck just tells him to drop it and show him where the holding cells are.
Shorty takes them to the main holding entrance and flashes the only keycard with access to open the cells. Cheesecake sternly asks for the card and Shorty starts to realize he’s been set up. While all this is happening, an alarm goes off in the background.
Cheesecake explains the alarm means someone is coming. Frustrated, she knocks out Shorty and takes the keycard.
Chuck uses the card on the control panel and finds the cell holding Hardass on the video feed. Suddenly, there’s an explosion in Hardass’ cell – the T-1000 and two goons have blown open one of the walls in the cell.
Chuck and Cheesecake enter the cell shortly after that.The KAOS goons draw their guns and T-1000 tells the two not to take another step. He admits they just came for Hardass. Chuck shouts to Hardass that the T-1000 is working for KAOS and just using him. Nevertheless, Hardass robotically stands up and leaves with the KAOS crew, while Chuck looks on in disbelief. Most likely because the T-1000 and his squad just penetrated at least fifteen levels of CIA top security the hard way, destroyed a maximum-security quality wall and expect to actually make it back out undetected.
Commercials.
As Chuck and Cheesecake run out of the CIA facility, they’re still both in shock from Hardass apparently joining KAOS. But after they take a couple of steps into the parking lot, the two are quickly captured with hoods thrown over their heads. Chuck and Cheesecake are taken back to the spy basement, which defeats the purpose of the hoods since they both know where it’s at, only to find the Spy Boss in person.
She’s super-pissed all three of her team members were arrested for treason within the same 24 hours. Chuck tries to defend Hardass, but Spy Boss cuts him off and says he doesn’t know jack about “Agent Hardass.” She explains that he’s actually Alex Hardace, a military soldier that faked his own death twenty years ago. This was the same day “Michael Hardass” was recruited by the T-1000 to join his black ops team. Cheesecake deduces the T-1000 must have recruited him again, but for KAOS this time. Spy Boss says she’s freeing them, but only to capture Hardass, dead or alive, and reclaim the capsule before he can give it to KAOS. Chuck and Cheesecake take the mission, but are dumbfounded about the circumstances.Completely out of the loop, Seth returns home from work and surprisingly runs into Hardass, with his face covered, working in his garden.
Considering how painstakingly the CIA went through his place and how desperate the Spy Boss is to find him, it makes no sense that he could just waltz back to his apartment, but let’s just go with it. Anyway, Seth is jonesing for a mission and asks Hardass if he’s working on one. Hardass sinisterly says he is working on one and ask Seth if he wants to help. Seth pees his pants, does a triple-backflip, and screams “yes!!!”In the spy basement, Chuck and Cheesecake are packing gear for their mission. Once again, Chuck says he can’t believe after three years of working with and befriending Hardass, he turns out to be a bad guy. Cheesecake explains in the spy biz, the line between right and wrong starts to blur and sometimes people change. She also tells Chuck she thought he was changing from loveable nerd to someone trying to be the perfect spy. Chuck looks at her and promises to always by the same loveable loser the nerds in the target demographic can identify with.
With people changing in mind, Chuck asks Cheesecake what the hell the deal is with her and Bad Superman. Cheesecake’s altered prime directive forbids her from talking bad about Superman, so she just drops it and gets back to the mission. She asks Chuck where he thinks Hardass stashed the stolen capsule. Since the random apartment has been wiped out and the spy basement is way too obvious, Chuck says it must be at Big Lots, because that’s the only set left.
Cheesecake says what we’re all thinking – it would be impossible for Hardass to stash anything in Big Lots with all the spy cameras, just like in his apartment and in the spy basement. Not to mention he hasn’t gone to “work” once in this episode. Chuck just sticks to his guns and figures the capsule is in Big Lots.
Although Chuck admits he’d have to get a real desperate idiot to risk getting caught and recovering the capsule. As if on cue, Seth appears on one of the monitors sneaking around Big Lots.Seth makes his way to the cereal aisle and finds his target – a two-month-old box of Frosted Flakes. He grabs it and turns it around to discover the capsule taped to the back of the box. Chuck runs into the Big Lots and finds Seth. He calls out Seth on not even liking Frosted Flakes, and besides he knows that TIG and Larry licked all the Frosted Flakes boxes on a dare just under a week ago.
Chuck comes flat out and asks Seth if he’s working a mission for Hardass. Seth denies it, carrying away the box, but quickly snaps and tells Chuck to lay off him. Hardass is the first person to give him a mission and he swore not to tell anyone about it. Chuck asks for the box and in return he promises to answer any questions about his previous missions. Seth asks if he’ll tell him about the time he had to kiss Hardass for an antidote. Chuck gets pissed, grabs the box and just walks off. On the way out of Big Lots, Chuck calls Cheesecake and says he has the capsule.
For whatever reason, Chuck makes like the Unknowns and breaks into Hardass’ apartment, only to get held up at gunpoint by Hardass. He figures Seth turned over the capsule and tells Chuck he wants it back. While he’s getting threatened, Chuck spots Cheesecake creeping in through a window behind Hardass. Chuck confesses to Hardass that he believed in him. He also says he knows about Alex Hardace, and working for the T-1000, and stealing the capsule, but he just needs to know why.
Hardass lowers his gun, spots Cheesecake, and comes clean that Alex Hardace once had a fiancé and KAOS is going to kill her if he doesn’t deliver the capsule.Commercials.
Still in Hardass’ random apartment, he sits down Chuck and Cheesecake, showing them a picture of him and his fiancé from twenty years ago, back when he was Alex Hardace. He gave her up to become a spy and now he regrets that KAOS is going to kill her. Cheesecake insists that won’t happen. Hardass restates if they don’t turn over the capsule by the end of the episode, the T-1000 will have her killed. Chuck finally has enough of overstating the obvious and decides to go after the fiancé. Hardass once again says he has to go immediately to T-1000 and turn over the capsule, or his ex-fiance is dead. Chuck and Cheesecake decide to undermine Captain Broken Record and think up a plan – Chuck will sneak over to the fiance’s house and take her to a safehouse to get her out of the equation. Hardass shrugs it off since Chuck could be arrested for treason if he’s caught. Chuck tells Hardass working for KAOS is making him retarded, because he’s already working under the radar as ordered by his boss. And besides, if he does get caught, he can just act like he did his homework and saved an innocent civilian from KAOS.
Unfazed, Hardass still doesn’t see why Chuck would help him considering he didn’t know anything about Alex Hardace before this episode. Chuck replies it doesn’t matter because he knows who Agent Michael Hardass is, and that he’s part of Team Chuck. Cheesecake brings up that T-1000 is still waiting for Hardass to show. Hardass cocks a gun and says they shouldn’t keep him waiting.
A short time later, Hardass pulls up to the T-1000’s hideout in the woods. He steps out of his SUV and is immediately patted down by a KAOS goon. He confesses to the goon the only thing on him is a Shmuban cigar. He lights it and throws down the matchbook. Meanwhile, Chuck sneaks up to the fiance’s house posing as a worker from the gas company. 
Hardass’ ex-fiance comes to the front door, currently looking like an extra from an Activia commercial, and Chuck convinces her there’s a gas leak in the house and they have to leave immediately. Once Chuck gets Activia Lady outside, he sees some suspicious black cars pull up. Chuck flips what he told her and says the gas leak is outside and they have to go back in. Once they get inside, Activia Lady starts to get weirded out. Chuck realizes this isn’t good, apologizes, and then throws her in a closet trapping her with a chair against the doorknob.
Back at the T-1000 cabin, Hardass walks in and meets him at a table in the middle of the main room. T-1000 asks if Hardass has the capsule, and he turns over the pouch from the CIA lockbox. T-1000 makes a quick back-story-telling jab at Hardass, saying he knew he could count on a good soldier like Hardass to follow orders, unlike twenty years ago when he wouldn’t dump his fiancé and stop caring.
T-1000 opens the pouch and, as we’ve suspected since two seconds into this episode, Hardass has replaced the capsule with a Tic Tac. T-1000 laughs it off and tells Hardass he’ll never get past the five goons outside. He reminds Hardass he taught him to always have someone watch your back. Hardass replies that he hasn’t forgotten.
He’s referring to Cheesecake, who’s slowly dropping out of the bottom of the SUV. Looking at the matchbook thrown to the ground, she sees five matches sticking up, telling her how many goons there are.
While T-1000 overturns his table and starts to fight Hardass, Cheesecake goes to work taking down all the goons with the Cheesecake Moment of the Week – using throwing knives, a silenced pistol, and hot kung-fu moves, all in a tight and dirty white tanktop.Hardass and the T-1000 go back and forth until T-1000 asks for a time out, saying if Hardass kills him, his fiancé is dead. Hardass just grumbles that he wouldn’t call off his goons if he cooperated anyway. Hardass takes the advantage and pins the T-1000 against the wall by his neck. Cheesecake walks in just in time to see Hardass give a sneer and shockingly crush T-1000’s throat, finishing him off.
Hardass just turns to Cheesecake and tells her the rest of the goons are already at his fiancé’s house.OK, so maybe they’re at the house, but they aren’t inside yet, since Chuck has locked the door and they’re still trying to get in. The goons knock on the door also posing as the gas company. Chuck complains that on top of all their evil deeds, KAOS also stole his disguise idea. He calls the agents on his watch and asks how far out they are. Cheesecake replies they’re too far away to give a quick assist, so he’ll have to Google for help. Chuck whines there are too many goons for even Google to help with.
Hardass tells him the capsule has been magically inserted into his gas company uniform pocket. He tells Chuck to take it to shut down his emotions and make him a lean, mean Googlin’ machine.
Chuck downs it and immediately gets held up by a sneaky, gun-toting goon. Another goon breaks down the front door and pistol-whips Chuck to the floor.
The goons open the closet, releasing the Activia Lady and pistol-whip her as well. While the goons celebrate their mad pistol-whipping skillz, Super Chuck automatically brings up the Search History for “kung-fu” and fires up.
He kips up and gets down to business, beating down the two immediate goons and then all the rest of the bad guys sneaking into the house. He tears through all of them with ease…but maybe a little too much ease. 
By the time Chuck gets to the last guy, his face looks like the emotionless Terminator. The goon looks helpless as Chuck breaks his arm and then pins him against the wall by his throat, just like Hardass did to T-1000. Thankfully, before Chuck can crush his windpipe, Cheesecake teleports into the house and calls off Chuck.
Robo-Chuck turns to look at her and snaps out of it. He drops the goon to the floor and looks at his hands, horrified at what he was about to do.Hardass also teleports into the house from being across town in traffic and revives his ex-fiancé. She looks up and asks if she knows him.
A flashback explains that, twenty years ago, a young Agent Hardass called his fiancé and said he had to stay stationed abroad for his country. The pre-Activia Lady understood and said she would see him soon.
The T-1000 hung up the phone and told the soldier “Alex Hardace” would be declared dead that night, and “Michael Hardass” would be joining his crew in return. Flashing back to the present, Hardass lays the Activia Lady down on the couch, playing off any relationship they had in the past. He tells her the authorities have been called and her daughter comes running in past him.
The Activia Lady calls the girl “Alex”, weirding out Chuck and the two agents. Hardass goes to leave, but Chuck stops him and says he can’t. Hardass tells him to drop it because their relationship is dead and the daughter-name thing is creepy as hell.
Commercials.
The show finishes up with the agents and Chuck being addressed by the Spy Boss, who’s still in the spy basement. She tells Hardass even though he got rid of the T-1000, he was the one responsible for mailing the fission by stealing the capsule, not to mention losing the prototype drug by encouraging a federal agent to swallow it. She says for taking the capsule alone, Hardass should be put away for life. But for all he’s done for this country, she gives him the chance to resign.
Chuck and Cheesecake can’t believe it, but Hardass is stonefaced. Chuck defends him, saying he’s given so much as a spy. Spy Boss just replies that he’s a civilian again and dismisses Hardass.
He stands up and salutes the Spy Boss, but she simply offers a handshake. Hardass sadly returns the handshake and Spy Boss tells Chuck to escort his out of the spy basement for the last time.As Chuck walks out with Hardass, Spy Boss commends Cheesecake’s work with Captain Google, pointing out that he needs her less and less. Apparently, the Spy Boss hasn’t been watching the show lately because ever since Chuck dumped Smallville to pursue Cheesecake again, his Googling is in the worst shape it’s been in all season. Playing to her delusions, Cheesecake tells the Spy Boss Chuck is indeed turning into the perfect spy.
Once again, proving she doesn’t watch her own show, Spy Boss brings up Cheesecake asking to get moved off the show, which I think happened all the way back in the Strawberry Cheesecake episode. Anyway, Spy Boss offers Cheesecake to fly with her to Washington DC to discuss the matter. Cheesecake’s left standing there confused on whether she should dignify her with a response or just write it off as jibberish from someone trying to look important.
Chuck returns home to find Unknown Lady pacing in the courtyard. Chuck asks if she’s ok, since she’s been really amped up lately, but hasn’t been around all episode. Unknown Lady admits all the men in suits ransacking the grumpy neighbor’s apartment has kept her inside for most of the day, but she did want to talk to him. She says Unknown Guy finally talked her into leaving for Doctors Without Borders. Chuck asks what about her dream of being accepted into med school. Unknown Lady replies she had to go with Unknown Guy’s plan, since he was the best decision she ever made. Before Chuck can explain that was the mentality of the women who followed Charles Manson, Unknown Guy comes out and whisks her into their apartment.
Inside, Unknown Lady finds a cute “Congratulations” banner hanging from the ceiling. Unknown Guy explains they haven’t been in many scenes together this episode and that hasn’t given them much time to talk. He admits he’s happy about her getting into the Chuck City School of Medicine and tells her to go for it, saying they’ll figure out the rest later. Unknown Lady gives him a big hug.
Across the courtyard, Hardass is with Chuck in his random apartment, which has been gutted by the CIA looking for the capsule. Chuck tries to lighten up Hardass, saying civilian life isn’t so bad. He proves his point by giving him the old picture of him and his fiancé from earlier in the episode. Hardass blows it off, saying it’s water under the bridge now, and he made his decision between love and the spy biz a long time ago. Hardass twists it and asks if it isn’t too late for Chuck to choose Cheesecake. But sources point to yes, since Cheesecake has teleported to a cab in Washington DC.
The cabbie asks her if she’s from DC, but unfortunately her receivers are within distance of Bad Superman and she responses that she intends to move there.So there you have it, an entire episode of the show Chuck explaining why Chuck should choose love over duty. And another example of the hamfisted storyline progression we’ve been seeing throughout this season of Chuck. I’m sorry, but I have to make an example of this show and get this off my chest. So we see the dangers of Chuck fulfilling his “dream” of becoming a spy by way of Hardass – he loses his identity and gives everything for his country, discarding everything he loves in the process. But it still comes back to haunt him, proving he should have chosen love to begin with.
Let’s frame that in regards to Chuck. We’re supposed to see that Chuck should avoid the path of becoming Robo-Super-Serious-Spy-Chuck and let his heart be his guide. Even though Chuck juggled a solid (if perhaps a little unstable from the female side) relationship with Smallville while growing into becoming a smooth Googling machine. In fact, he even had the assistance of Bad Superman and the rest of the team to buff out the rough spots and get him back on track. But now that Cheesecake’s involved, we get this outlandish analogy that Chuck can only pick one or the other. Keep in mind the focus of this season was supposed to be Chuck maturing and being more serious.
Ok, so let’s just say the writers decided to change focus and go with the obvious direction of Chuck – that all roads lead to Chuck and Cheesecake together and out of the spy business, just like they apparently planned last season, considering how the season started. And obviously, they wanted to make a point of that new direction with this episode and how much of an example they made of Hardass because of it. Well that’s fine, but who’s the one character to put the brakes on that direction? Bad Superman. And he’s not even in this episode to wave it off before it starts.
That’s another problem I have with this show so far – if there is a possible other option for any decision on this show, that option is removed from that episode. For example, Chuck decides to dump Smallville, but Seth has a crush on her. So in the episode where Chuck blows her off, Seth’s out of town, so it’s an absolute clean break. If it looks like there’s a mission where Chuck or Hardass would miss going to work that day and blow their cover, Big Lots just isn’t mentioned that episode. And the same thing happened in this episode, where Chuck realizes he should pick Cheesecake. There’s no Bad Superman showing he’s with Cheesecake now and that he too late to pursue her. Instead, you have Cheesecake denouncing her relationship with Superman (albeit to help Hardass) and Chuck seeing she’s the Activia Lady to his Alex Hardace.
It all just kinda gets under my skin, mostly because you know in the next episode Bad Superman will be back on the team as if he never left, and he’ll be making that friction like we all assumed in the prior episode, but Chuck will have to wrestle with it and waste time in the current episode. Or maybe the next episode will take place on the moon. And that’s also part of the frustration. Oh well, see ya next week for another wacky-pants-super-serious episode of Chuck.
