Casey: General, permission to slap Bartowski? He had a bad dream.
A series of disturbing dreams compel General Beckman to send Chuck to see a psychiatrist, Dr Dreyfus. It turns out that the Intersect is acting on Chuck's brain, causing stress and potentially leading to insanity. Chuck's attempt to prove that his dream was a flash backfires and he ends up in a psychiatric ward after punching a tooth out of scientist Dr Kwambe's mouth in the belief that it's a disguised flash drive.
After returning from Africa with a recovering Awesome, Ellie is approached by Justin, the camp administrator from Doctors Without Borders. This time, however, he identifies himself as a CIA agent trying to find Stephen Bartowski for his protection. He also tells her to watch out for Casey, telling her he's a traitorous NSA agent watching her family to abduct her father. She's not convinced, until she visits Casey on a pretext and gets a look at his many, many guns.
Anxious to prove Chuck right, Sarah tests the tooth, which is... just a tooth. However, the scientist infiltrates Chuck's psych ward with a Ring team and some surprising information: Chuck was right! Dr Kwambe does have a disguised flash drive in his tooth, but Chuck punched out the wrong one. Now Dr Kwambe wants to know how he knew, and shoots Chuck up with a psychotropic drug to make him talk.
Meanwhile, Anna Wu comes back to the Buy More, but Morgan has moved on.
Trope Flash:
- Big Damn Heroes: Sarah, Casey and Dr Drefus reach the psych ward just in time to save Chuck from Dr Kwambe.
- Celebrity Paradox: Chuck mentions Chevy Chase by name while watching television with Sarah, with no acknowledgment of Chase’s resemblance to Ted Roark from the previous season.
- Character Development: Anna Wu drops by to give Morgan some of his stuff back, but he's too busy with spy stuff to talk to her. She decides he's playing hard to get, and is impressed by how he's changed since she last saw him and tells him she'd like to get back together. He refuses, showing much more maturity than his previous self would have, on the basis that that seems like a shallow basis for a relationship.Morgan: If it took me running from you to realize that I'm somebody you want, then I don't really think you're the person I want. So, yeah, you're right. I have changed. See you later.
- Foreshadowing: It's easy to miss, but Chuck's flash detailing the hidden flash drive in Dr Kwambe's tooth shows that it's on the opposite side to the tooth Chuck knocks out.
- Shout-Out:
- Chuck and Sarah discuss Spies Like Us while relaxing on the couch.
- Morgan tells Awesome, "Fear is the mindkiller."
- Christopher Lloyd guest stars as a psychiatrist, whom Chuck calls "Doc"
- You Have to Believe Me!: Chuck is right that the Ring have some nefarious connection to the President of Zamibia's entourage, but as this flash came to him in dream form, and his story keeps changing as his understanding of the situation develops, he just comes off as crazy. It doesn't help that he punched out the wrong tooth (a real one instead of a hidden flash drive).
