Posted April 2, 2022

A/N: The CIA file in this episode said George Fleming. On the professor's desk, his last name was spelled Flemming. That could be a self-deprecating gag, meaning he put the wrong name on his own desk, or either the file or name plate was a bad prop. The professor didn't seem like a funny guy, and it's very believable that the CIA screwed up. Fleming is the more common spelling (and the spelling of the physician-scientist who discovered penicillin), but Flemming is a valid spelling.

"Chuck vs the Alma Mater" (1x07) Recap
Here are a couple things you might need to know or maybe you just forgot.

At Stanford University, a professor conducted a class about the subconscious. He showed an example image that was embedded with hundreds of other images. None of the images were secrets, but it was similar to how the Intersect email encoded images. He said the final exam would have a section on encoded images. A mysterious man, later revealed to be Icelandic spy-for-hire Magnus Einerson, showed up in the back, so the professor ended the class early. The professor ran off, and in his office he called on his cell. He called himself by a code name and reported hostile contact. He said he copied intel that he shouldn't have onto a disc, and they were after him. He escaped through a trap door in his closet.

At Buy More, Morgan complained to Chuck about the "Rules and Regulations for the Buy More Break Room from the desk of Harry Tang." Chuck didn't like being reminded that he lost the assistant manager job to Tang, but when he saw his new boss's monogrammed polo shirt, Chuck said he must be stopped.

Casey signaled to Chuck that he should go to the home theater room. Inside, Sarah was waiting for a video conference with Beckman and Graham. They explained a CIA asset was missing. The screen showed the file of "George Fleming." Chuck didn't flash, but recognized him immediately. It was the professor who kicked Chuck out of school. Graham asked Chuck to use his personal connection with the professor to help find him in LA. Chuck declined because of his bad personal history with Flemming.

When Chuck returned to the Echo Park apartment courtyard, Ellie, Devon, and some of his fraternity brothers were cooking-out, drinking, and playing catch with a football. Ellie told Chuck they were all going up to the UCLA game at Stanford. Devon and Ellie each tried to get Chuck to go, but he said he had no desire to go back to that place. He and Stanford were "officially done" because they kicked him out for something he didn't do.

Chuck went through a box of his old college things and flashed back to 2003, when he was in college. He remembered a low-point, moving out of his frat house after he had been expelled. Some of his frat brothers were sad he was leaving. Bryce Larkin was there and said Chuck did it to himself. Throwing things out, Chuck ran across his student ID and flashed on his own picture. To find out why a picture of his college-self was in the Intersect, Chuck changed his mind and told Casey he would help find his old professor.

After Casey found where Flemming was hiding, he took Chuck with him as a "friendly face." Chuck had another low-point flashback of Flemming accusing him of cheating as an explanation of Chuck getting a perfect score on the main part of the test and very high on the bonus section with encoded images. He said the answer key was found under Chuck's bed, which they found because of a tip from his roommate, Bryce Larkin.

Some Buy More staff gathered to watch a "Fingers of Fury" challenge on the TV wall: Lester vs Morgan. Tang used the Master Remote to shut down the game.

At Flemming's hideout, Casey and Sarah went inside, and Chuck was told to stay in the car. While waiting, Chuck saw Flemming walking back from the grocery store. Chuck ran to stop him, and the professor recognized Chuck. Thinking Chuck was in the Agency, he told him a code phrase and started to apologize, right before he was shot by a crossbow by Einerson. Flemming fell unconscious with a note in his hand, which the Icelandic spy-for-hire, took before leaving.

Back at home, Chuck couldn't remember what was on the note to tell Casey and Sarah. Later, Ellie gave him an overdue library book of his from Stanford. Looking at the end of the book, he realized the code on Flemming's note was a library shelving code. Chuck had another flashback to back in the Stanford library, playing "Gotcha" against Bryce with plastic guns that fired suction cup darts. That reminded him that Bryce had a secret stash location in the library where he hid dart ammo. Chuck surmised that the note's code was a drop location between Flemming and Bryce. Unfortunately, he had to be in the library to remember where, and that meant going to Stanford. Chuck and Sarah went to Stanford with the caravan. Casey joined them on campus, and they went to the library to find the drop hiding spot.

At Buy More, Morgan rallied the staff to fight back against Tang, devising a plan to steal the master remote. Anna distracted Harry by flirting with him, and Lester took his keys. Morgan went to get the remote from Harry's locker, but Lester betrayed Morgan to Harry, telling him the plan. As punishment, Harry assigned Morgan to "The Hole."

At the code location, Einersson had been there, but he hadn't found Bryce's hidden drop location, so Chuck found Flemming's disc. Einersson showed up, and the team ran. Inside another Stanford Building they hid and found a computer, where Chuck started to look at the contents of the disc. On it, Bryce Larkin was shown to already be in the CIA when they were juniors, and Chuck's name was on the disc, even though he had never been recruited by the CIA.

Einersson and his team showed up, leading to a shootout. Chuck escaped and called for blackup, using the names of a bunch of current students on the disc who the CIA had recruited. In the middle of that, Morgan called Chuck for the master remote code to override Harry's control. Morgan used that to force Harry to let him out of "The Hole." Chuck's reinforcements showed up with guns to flank Einersson's team.

The next day, Chuck was about to watch the disc with his recording, when Sarah showed up to get it. She watched the video of Chuck's name with him. It showed Bryce and Flemming concocting a scheme to frame Chuck for cheating on the test so the CIA would ignore Chuck's great results.

Chuck said if Bryce had a good reason for framing him for cheating to "save him," maybe he had a good reason for destroying the Intersect. Sarah took the disc and told Chuck to not tell anyone that it proved he was innocent. In the hall outside his room, she was upset about the revelation.

Chuck had a final flashback of something that wasn't a low-point. He remembered meeting Bryce and that he introduced him to his old girlfriend, Jill.

Chapter Characters: Casey (with Sarah, Beckman, and Graham)

Songs (from 1x07):
- "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis
- "Chelsea Dagger" by The Fratellis

Bonus Song:
(Not from the show, but based on the chapter title)
- "All Right Now" by Free — Stanford's de facto fight song

IMDB: 8.5/10
chuckthisblog: 39/91

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Casey's Apartment

What's taking Walker so long? Casey hated waiting around unless he was looking through a sniper scope.

The General and Graham were waiting to debrief him and Walker. He wanted to do it last night, but by the time Sarah got back from Stanford, it was after 11, making it after 2 in DC. That meant waiting until the morning. When Walker showed up, she didn't have Flemming's disc. After Chuck used the names on the disc to call backup, neither he nor Sarah got the disc back from Chuck, each thinking the other had it. Walker was over at Chuck's, getting it now. Meanwhile, their superiors were waiting.

Casey had thought it would take Walker no more than a minute to get the disc. Ellie and Devon were gone, but Chuck must have seen her. That boy would talk anyone's ears off about anything. Hopefully he wasn't asking her real opinion about sandwiches on a deserted island and convincing her away from roast beef. Casey didn't want to set up headphones and find out when they should have been done several minutes ago. If Chuck started blathering on, Walker should have left him. As the Intersect, Chuck needed to learn to respect the chain of command and not make the people in-charge wait.

If he had known Walker was going to be gone that long, he would have done his expense report for yesterday. It wasn't that complicated: lunch plus gas for the Vic. He got out of going to the game so he didn't have a game ticket. Since he was driving back while the game was being played, he even made it home for dinner, instead of eating out.

About to give up and retrieve Walker from Chuck's apartment himself, there was a knock at the door. It was odd that Walker didn't let herself in. She had been there just a few minutes before. When he opened it, it was the CIA agent, but something was off. "Walker, what's wrong? Did numbnuts lose the disc?"

Walker held it up. "Of course not…and don't call him that." She tentatively held it toward him and said, "Do you have some way of destroying this? We can't simply break it in half because you know Chuck would be blamed, and I don't want that. Maybe we could scratch it to corrupt the data…"

Casey snatched it out of her hand. "What are you talking about? General Beckman and Graham are waiting for our debrief."

"Look at the video first."

Casey ignored the suggestion. Only the General could give him orders—not some CIA skirt. He went over in front of his computer and placed the call to DC. The other two answered immediately. They had been waiting.

Beckman said, "You completed your mission. Good job capturing Einersson and his team." Casey knew they had been lucky that Chuck had called for back-up because they were out of ammo. However, he wasn't going to admit that they were only standing there because of the walking computer who was kicked out of college. The General continued, "And nice work retrieving the intel Flemming stole. Your short message yesterday said you got the disc."

Casey held it up before putting it in the computer's drive. "Here it is. Chuck's name is on it, which would be why his college photo was in the Intersect. It had interview photos of prospective agents, including Larkin. Chuck said he wasn't recruited, but maybe Flemming talked to him, and Chuck didn't know what was happening. I haven't seen it. We can watch it now."

"Proceed."

Walker was silent. He quickly glanced over at her, and she was firmly at attention. She was always formal about doing her job, but she never was that serious. What was she worried about?

The grayscale video started, showing the professor starting the recording. Looking at the camera, he said, "Test subject 0326. Bartowski. This will be his first interview." He turned to face the door of his office and pressed an intercom button. "Send Chuck in." The video must show when Flemming realized Chuck had cheated.

Surprisingly, Chuck didn't walk in the room. It was the dead man. That must be what Walker didn't want them to see. She didn't want to see her dead ex.

"Bryce? This isn't a good time. I'm waiting for another student."

Larkin sat down across the desk from Flemming. "Chuck Bartowski? He never got your message."

"What are you talking about?" Casey was thinking the same thing as Flemming. Why was Larkin on Chuck's video?

"You put Chuck on the CIA recruitment track?"

"It's not up to me, Bryce. They want him for the Omaha Project." What was the Omaha Project? Whatever was going on, Larkin was complaining about things he had no right to complain about when he was still a college student. He was barely an agent. Whatever it was, it was above his pay grade.

"That's a military operation." Whoa. Chuck could barely function as a civilian in the spy world. Larkin protested, "They'll turn Chuck into—"

Flemming cut him off. "I'm required to send all the top test results to the Agency."

"I want my friend out of this." Oh. Not only did Larkin commit murder and treason a few weeks ago, but this was evidence that he was always untrustworthy. He was already trying to commit treason four and a half years ago. Assuming Walker knew what was on the disc, she wouldn't want that evidence getting out. She needed to get over it. Protecting his reputation shouldn't matter because Larkin's a dead traitor in any case.

"He's a perfect candidate. Keywords in his essay responses correlate to 98 percent of the images in the exam." That didn't sound like Chuck cheated. If he did that well on the test, no wonder he could retain the Intersect.

"You don't get it. Chuck's a good person. He's got too much heart for this kind of work. He's no operative. You can't put him out in the field. He won't survive!" Casey knew Chuck wasn't the military type, but that's the point of training.

"The Agency is not gonna let go of a recruit this promising. The amount of information he can retain…" Years ago, Flemming's test showed that Chuck would be good at retaining the Intersect, and it hadn't even been built. Research was underway. The Omaha Project must have been for future candidates.

"They're not gonna give him a choice?" Larkin asked.

"He's in no matter what." Yes, that's how it worked. In America, people aren't drafted anymore and they aren't conscripted. When the government tells good people they need them, they answer the call. Chuck's annoying, but he would've done the right thing.

The video showed Larkin getting an idea. "If he cheated on the exam, copied all the answers… It would invalidate the results, wouldn't it?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now you're going to help me, Professor."

This video was clear evidence that Larkin and Flemming conspired to commit treason by forging test results, hiding them from the CIA. The professor kept evidence of his crime, just like the Nazis.

With the video over, everyone was silent. Graham spoke first. "This is fortunate."

"Agreed," Beckman said. "The Intersect was emailed to someone with an exceptional ability at retaining its data. This is proof that we would have gotten him anyway. Instead of him being an agent or officer with clear rules about how we handle him, we can assert more control over him as an asset. We won't let him refuse to help us anymore, like when he said he wouldn't help with Flemming."

Graham followed up, "The Intersect should never see this recording because it proves he was framed and he might want a clean slate. If he's cleared and has more opportunities, we couldn't control him like we do now." Now, Walker's earlier behavior made a little sense. Wanting to destroy the video was not about protecting Larkin. It was protecting Chuck from CIA and NSA control. It shouldn't matter, though. They wanted to control him before, and now they had no reason to feel guilty because he always should have been someone they could give orders to. The CIA director said, "Sarah, you are not to show this to the Intersect or tell him what you saw."

She broke her silence. "Sir, Chuck has already seen the video."

"He has? Then we might have a problem with him."

"He won't be a problem, Sir. He had the disc and was starting to watch it when I got it from him a few minutes ago, so I was with him when he watched it. He didn't see the video as proof he didn't cheat. He always knew he didn't cheat. Back when he was a student, he didn't protest and went along with the expulsion. His personality is to always think the best of people, so he wouldn't go up against someone he had thought was a friend, even when he thought that friend had betrayed him. Chuck interpreted the video as showing his old friend saving him from dying in a military program that he's not suited for. I encouraged that thinking by saying maybe Bryce had a good reason for sending the Intersect to Chuck."

"That's good thinking. You should encourage that thinking. We've never known why Larkin did what he did. The theory that has always made the most sense was that Larkin was saving the Intersect in someone who he had manipulated before so he could get it again. We didn't understand why he selected Chuck. This video explains why he knew Chuck was a good storage repository for the Intersect. It doesn't explain why Larkin kept Chuck out of the CIA back then, only to put him in the middle of it now. Retrieving the Intersect for himself still makes the most sense. Fortunately, Chuck doesn't realize the ramification that this revelation means he should be awarded a degree and be able to get a better job. Don't point that out. Sarah, make sure you stay close to the asset to ensure our control because going forward, we will order more."

Was Graham suggesting what Casey thought? Casey has been around enough to know they never ordered that. They sometimes implied it though, as a way to assert control for short-term missions. It's too risky over the long term, though, because the agent could no longer be trusted to put the country ahead of the mark or asset. The CIA director didn't actually say Sarah should do that, because it was not secure protocol, and it wasn't even necessary in this case. Chuck had shown a pattern of being manipulated for years. Walker said, "Chuck and I are going on a double-date with his sister and his boyfriend in about a week. That will strengthen the cover."

Beckman nodded and said, "We no longer have any concerns about ordering an American to do what we want because he should have been taking our orders all along. Flemming survived surgery, but he was going to be properly punished for risking national secrets. This new evidence shows him committing treason by falsifying information, so his punishment will be harsher. Good job." With that, she disconnected the feed.

With the call over, Casey turned to look at Walker. During the call, she had remained as serious as he could imagine. She was a spy who never showed her emotions, but Casey was a spy, too, and he was able to tell the difference in her. During the call, she was a soldier. Before the call at the door and now afterwards, she was not all right. "Walker?"

"I'm fine. You know they are never going to let Chuck go now? Initially, they were talking about getting the Intersect out of his head. After he identified Zarnow as someone selling secrets to North Korea, they didn't seem to be looking for new ways. Now, knowing Chuck's ability, they will never let him go."

That was true. It also meant Casey and Walker were going to be there for a while. He'd rather be deployed in the Middle East again, instead of working at Buy More, but you go where you're needed. At the moment, they were needed in Southern California, protecting a walking computer. As Beckman said, they had more control of Chuck this way. Before they tried to give him orders and crossed their fingers, hoping he would obey. Until this time, Chuck did everything they wanted, except to stay in the car and let the professional spies handle all issues. Maybe now, Chuck would realize the Intersect was inevitable, so he should do what he's told as if it was always his job.

Casey stared at Walker to determine if she was still up to this mission. She set her jaw and said, "Chuck is a good guy and deserves better than me." Casey grunted in response. He and Walker understood each other. Chuck always wanted to yammer about these things, but Walker knew saying anything else was unnecessary. She left.

A couple minutes later, Chuck looked out his front window and Sarah was still standing in the courtyard, looking at Chuck's window. What now? He went out to ask her what the problem was. Hopefully she wasn't going to do something stupid and talk to Chuck about this. "Walker. What is it now?" He hoped she wasn't going to tell him that Beckman and Graham planned on ordering him around even more than before."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to say anything."

"Then what's the problem?"

"Do I smell?"

Casey grunted that he didn't understand.

"Yesterday, I didn't take my car because it wouldn't fit anyone else, and it would have stuck out on a college campus. Coming back last night, Chuck and I were squeezed in the back seat together. Chuck said he had my hair in his face the entire ride because we were squeezed together. Was he complaining?" She looked down, resigned. "If our roles were reversed, I wouldn't have minded." She walked off, looking a little sad.

At least she didn't try to "fix it" with Chuck. The CIA agent actually didn't realize Chuck wasn't "complaining" at all. He probably liked what he smelled and the only complaint was he couldn't do something about it. Chuck's feelings for Sarah were obvious, but he was so skittish, he always held back. It was a good thing that there was nothing going on between Chuck and Sarah. With this new information, it would be really complicated if the two of them were involved. Sarah would be looking out for Chuck, instead of doing what Beckman and Graham wanted. Casey hated "lady feelings" floating around everywhere. This was simpler.

A/N: Sarah wasn't all right, but she had to stay on one side of a line. Keep in mind that this was back when Casey was a bad guy who multiple times almost killed Chuck or Sarah because of "orders."

MyNameIsJeffNImLost AU stories:
- "Chuck vs His Former Handler" (chapter 3, "Go, Bruins!")
- "The Bartowskis vs the Spy World" (chapter 7, "All Right Now")
- "Chuck & Sarah vs Trust" (chapter 7, "Choice")
- "Ellie vs the Ninja" (chapter 9, "Ellie vs In Vino Veritas")