Sarah: How many times do you have to be a hero to realize that you are that guy?
Ellie's wedding day gets off to a good start, with Chuck and Casey quitting their jobs at the Buy More. Chuck is offered a position on the new Intersect project but refuses, so he's issued his final papers, which turns out to include a huge paycheck. Casey gives Chuck his personal number - for emergencies only - before leaving to rejoin his old Special Forces unit.
Chuck drops in on Ellie to give her the good news. She's happy, but also wistful for the simple beach wedding she originally wanted. Chuck talks to Sarah, who checks he definitely has the rings (he does). He asks her to come on vacation with him, but is rebuffed as she tells him she's joining the new Intersect project... with Bryce Larkin.
Chuck goes to the reception area in search of alcohol, but instead has an unpleasant shock: Ted Roarke, with a team of Fulcrum agents in tow. He wants the Intersect or he'll kill Ellie. On the way out, Chuck asks Morgan to stall the wedding, and to tell Sarah that he forgot the rings. Realising something is wrong, Sarah tells Morgan to stall by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Chuck calls Casey.
Chuck reaches Castle and finds Bryce but no Intersect core. Bryce tells him the core is gone, but proposes another plan: he'll hand himself over instead, as Fulcrum think he's the Intersect. Chuck learns something else, too: Bryce knows his father, who reached out to him after he protected Chuck at Stanford, and Bryce sent Chuck the Intersect to ensure their reunion.
With Morgan's stalling tactics - a Jeffster performance of Mr Roboto - underway, Sarah sneaks into the reception room and looks for a weapon among the presents. She finds a set of kitchen knives just as Chuck enters the room with Bryce. A fight breaks out, but just as Team Chuck are about to be killed, Casey's Special Forces team parachute in, shoot the Fulcrum agents and arrest Roarke. The day is saved, but - between the battle damage and Jeffster's use of fireworks setting off the sprinklers - the wedding is ruined.
Chuck is devastated at ruining Ellie's day, but soon finds a way to make it right, and all it will cost is Chuck's CIA paycheck. Bargain! One flurry of activity by a Special Forces team later, and Ellie has the simple beach wedding she always wanted. Bryce, watching from a distance, asks Sarah over her earpiece if she's coming with him. She shakes her head.
In Castle, Casey shuts Roarke in a cell and leaves his teammate Miles on guard. However, as soon as he's gone, Miles opens the cell and shoots Roarke dead. He goes to kill the team as well, but hesitates and sends Casey away first: Casey saved his life once, and this is his way of paying him back. He hits Casey over the head and leaves him unconscious.
At the reception, Chuck and Morgan talk about chasing their dreams. Chuck and Sarah discuss Chuck's future over a dance. Meanwhile, Bryce discreetly approaches Stephen, who asks that the CIA leave Chuck alone from now on, and what's with the changes he noticed to the Intersect programming? Bryce assures him that the CIA is done with Chuck, but refuses to tell him about the programming. An agent arrives to take Bryce to be uploaded with the new Intersect... and Stephen flashes on him. Before he can tell Bryce what he saw, however, he and the agent have gone.
Stephen tells Chuck and Sarah the problem: the agent who collected Bryce is supposed to be dead, which means he doesn't work for the CIA. Sarah leaves to find Casey and go after them, but when Chuck tries to follow her Stephen stops him, protesting that this isn't Chuck's fight. Chuck tells him he loves Sarah, so Stephen accepts that he's going and gives him his wrist-mounted computer. Chuck meets up with Sarah and Casey and they leave for the Intersect facility.
Bryce is shot by his escort as soon as he's input his door codes, but manages to get through the door and seal it behind him. Sarah and Casey get into a shooting battle with the Fulcrum agents, but Chuck uses his wrist-mounted computer to find a way through the vents. He falls into the Intersect room to find Bryce bleeding out. Bryce tells Chuck that Fulcrum aren't the problem as they're only on part of the Ring and tells him to destroy the Intersect before they can get it. He passes Chuck a computer chip and dies of his wounds.
Conflicted between the need to preserve the Intersect and keep it from the Ring, Chuck experiences a crisis between his fears of the world of espionage and his need to do something, finally deciding to run the Intersect and upload it before destroying it. The Ring agents force in just as the destruction of the Intersect is completing, with Sarah and Casey handcuffed. Noting the ruined Intersect, agent Miles decides to kill everyone, Chuck last. However, when he aims a gun at Sarah... Chuck flashes. But it's not regular flash.
One of the Ring agents alerts Miles, who frantically orders the others to kill Chuck now. But Chuck knocks the guns out of their hands before wiping the floor with the agents using advanced martial arts skills. He turns to the stunned Sarah and Casey.
"Guys? I know Kung Fu."
Trope Flash:
- Air-Vent Passageway: Chuck accesses the Intersect using one of these.
- Armor-Piercing Question: People keep asking Chuck what he wants to do with his life. Turns out the answer is "upload the new Intersect and keep fighting the bad guys."
- Big Damn Heroes: Casey and his Special Forces team parachute into the wedding venue to save Chuck and co from Roarke.
- Call-Back: Bryce explains that he knows Orion is Chuck's father, and that he sent Chuck the Intersect hoping it would force a reconciliation. The explanation references Chuck Versus the Alma Mater and Chuck Versus the Predator.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Six Ring agents vs one re-Intersected Chuck = six unconscious agents.
- Foreshadowing: When he flashes, Stephen is visibly staggered and has to clutch the wall before he can move. This reaction is revisited in Season 3, where it's revealed that long-term Intersect use has a toll on the user's brain. Of course, having just escaped captivity, Stephen wouldn't have his Governor on him.
- Godzilla Threshold: Casey makes a warning to this effect when giving Chuck his personal number.Casey: Your fingers better be on fire when you're dialling.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Fulcrum are apparently only one small part of the Ring.
- I Need a Freaking Drink:
- Chuck's quest for alcohol after Sarah's rejection leads him directly to where Roarke is waiting.
- Ellie, with a champagne bottle, in the bathtub after the wedding is ruined.
- Oh, Crap!: Casey, when he sees Roarke has been killed in his cell. Then he hears gunshots...
- Killed Off for Real: Bryce Larkin.
- Pun: Technically more of a double entendre, Roarke has this to say when he has Chuck at shotgun point.Roarke: A real shotgun wedding! [Beat] Just think, that terrible pun is the last thing you'll ever hear.
- Shout-Out:
- At the beginning, Chuck tells Emmet to 'take your flag, and your job, and shove it!'
- Right before their cover of Mr Roboto, Jeff tells the string quartet: "This is in 4/4 time, it's in D. Watch me for the changes."
- After Chuck's Curb-Stomp Battle against the Ring agents.
Chuck: Guys? I know Kung Fu. - Refusal of the Call: Chuck is asked to join the new Intersect program, but refuses. Later, he willingly uploads the new Intersect.
- You Do Not Want To Know: Said to Orion by Bryce when he asks about the changes to the Intersect programming. Turns out it uploads skills, like Kung Fu, as well as information.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Ring agent Miles kills Roarke after he's arrested.
