I’m excited about this Chuck before it even begins. We’re gonna find out more about why Bryce emailed the database to Chuck, of all people.

At Stanford University, a professor is giving a lecture about mosaic images — images within images. A man who looks very strong and foreign (Russian-ish) walks into the back of the lecture hall and nods at the prof, who immediately dismisses class and runs to his office. He calls his agency (apparently he’s a spy) and tells them he copied info for himself onto a disk — classified intel — and hostiles have shown up to get him. He knows they’re after the info. The strong foreign dude busts into his office and finds that the prof has left through a secret passageway in his office closet.

At the Buy More, Morgan has an emergency. Morgan says they can’t talk here, because “there are spies at the Buy More.” Chuck hangs up the phone, worried Morgan may have found out about Casey or Sarah. Morgan is talking about Harry Tang’s people. He shows Chuck a memo “from the desk of Harry Tang.”

We paused on it so I can tell you what it says (how Frank can see so well, I will never know):

Rules and Regulations Effective Immediately:

No swearing
No expectorating
No fornicating
No drugs (includes Red Bull)
No personal call on the clock
No Green Shirts fraternizing at the Nerd Desk
No eating or drinking on the showroom floor
No leaving food in the refrigerator overnight (OH NOES! What will Morgan do for fun without Mystery Crisper?!)
No swinging from the rafters

Morgan needs Frodo’s help. Chuck: “No fornicating. People been gettin’ freaky in the breakroom?” Morgan: “No, Chuck. But I’d like to know that I have the option.” Harry finds them fraternizing and tells them to get back to work.

Casey calls Chuck into the surround sound room. Sarah is there, and the NSA and CIA bosses are on the giant screen TV. Chuck: “Wow. That new hi-def screen sure shows every wrinkle.” Casey: “They can hear you.” Chuck: “What? Twinkle. Every twinkle. In her eye. Eyes.”

A CIA asset has gone missing without contact for two days. Chuck immediately recognizes him as a professor he had at Stanford. He’s Professor Fleming. Cool name. Chuck is shocked to find out his professor was CIA. NSA/CIA tell Chuck that Fleming knows a lot, and info he has could be very damaging to the agency. They want Chuck’s help in finding Professor Fleming. Chuck says no, they’ll need to find someone else, because, as they know, Professor Fleming is the one that kicked Chuck out of school.

In the courtyard at home, Awesome’s frat brothers are there. Ellie says they’re going to caravan up to Stanford for the Stanford/UCLA game. Awesome throws a ball to Chuck, who misses it and gets hit very hard in the groin. Awesome says he got Chuck two tickets for the game, and Chuck says that he and Sarah have plans, and he’d rather get hit “in the produce section” again than go back to Stanford. Funny, I always find turkey necks and gizzards in the poultry section. Huh. Chuck tells Ellie that he and Stanford are officially done, considering they kicked him out for something he didn’t do.

In his room, Chuck goes through all his college stuff. He looks at a picture, and that is his portkey to his frat house room at Stanford in 2003 when he’s leaving the school for good. His frat brothers are sad — except Bryce. He’s playing pool. Pool for a tool! Chuck asks why he did this, and Bryce says Chuck did it to himself.

Oh, good grief. The NBC logo in the lower left corner of the screen is green. Ok, NBC, we get it — you heart the fake global warming crusade. But changing the color of the peacock? That’s retarded.

In case y’all are wondering, when we were at Kennedy Space Center Friday, we got these completely wicked holographic postcards and bookmarks. One of them showed the two poles and the ways they’ve changed over the last two and a half years. While Arctic ice is melting, Antarctic water is freezing. It sounds to me like when the North Pole got warmer, the South Pole got colder. Maybe I’m reading that wrong, but it sounds like global climate balance to me, not global climate change. See what I did there? I blonded you with science.

Chuck sees his student ID and flashes on himself. He runs down to Casey’s apartment and tells him such and asks why he’s in the Intersect.

This is kinda funny. I don’t know Adam Baldwin’s views on global warming, but I know he’s pretty much a raving conservative lunatic like me. Anyway, he has to do a “Green Tip” with Morgan during the commercials. And “Casey” isn’t saying that global warming is truth, he’s avoiding… he’s insulting Morgan instead. Which I love, because Morgan is being all “We’re the problem, stop being the problem! We should hate ourselves for even living!”

Here’s the ad spot (and yes, it’s not a PSA, it’s a freaking ad for ManBearPig):

MORGAN: Hey there, I’m Morgan, and I was asked to say some stuff about Green Week. Helpful tips of saving our world. [sic — maybe during their strike, the writers should go back to school and learn how to talk the English]
CASEY: You’re too short to play God, you know.
MORGAN: I just… Like for example, I drive a fuel-efficient vehicle.
CASEY: Ya peddle a bicycle.
MORGAN: And I chose an energy-efficient washing machine.
CASEY: Yeah, her name is mommy.
MORGAN: Okay. All I’m saying is we should take care of our planet, because it’s the only one that we’ve got. The other ones are just for show, correct?
CASEY: Real life ain’t sci-fi, huh genius?

I love the Firefly (I assume) reference, and I love that “real life ain’t sci-fi.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about littering and destroying nature just for the fun of it. I’m such a nature freak that I’ve never even taken a rock out of the Grand Canyon, because I respect it (and I’m scared I’ll get searched on the way out of the park and go to jail for my love of geology). But ManBearPig is natural, dudes. It’ll reverse itself. In my non-political opinion about an overblown political tool (you choose whether I’m talking about ManBearPig or Algore).

Casey and Sarah don’t know why Chuck is in the intersect. Chuck says they need to find the professor, because maybe he’ll have answers. One of the students in his class identified an Icelandic spy (Magnus) as being in the classroom when he fled. Iceland doesn’t officially know of his existence, but he sells intel to the highest bidder. The crossbow is Magnus’s weapon of choice. Chuck: “What, the slingshot too ineffective?”

At the Buy More, Morgan shows Chuck the staggered lunch schedule Harry made up. “No more Wednesday-Friday surf-n-turf?” Aww. Morgan doesn’t even get to eat lunch with Chuck. “Harry Tang is drunk with power.” The Asian Geek chick says Harry could have an accident, and she knows a guy. Morgan’s all in. Chuck says he’s not gonna have someone rubbed out just because they can’t have lunch together. Morgan crumples up the lunch schedule and launches it at the trash can. Harry walks in and catches it. Harry says he hopes Morgan was aiming for the recycle bin, because he’s instituting a green policy at the Buy More. “Tree-hugging is all the rage these days.” He says he’s going to exploit America’s burgeoning consciousness, blah blah blah. Then he tells Morgan he’ll be the one to break him, because Morgan is soft like pudding. He pokes Morgan like he’s the Pillsbury Doughboy and walks away. Morgan complains to Chuck, “I’ve been doing all these crunches, man.”

At the Nerd desk, Casey rings the bell. Chuck: “You didn’t offer to kill Harry for Anna, did you?” “No, why? Do you want me to kill him?” He has that murderous Jayne gleam in his eye. Casey has gotten a hit off a traffic camera in Hollywood. It’s Fleming. Casey says they’re gonna go see him, and Chuck is going with them, because Fleming is more likely to talk if there’s a friendly face in the room. Chuck’s like, I’m not a friendly!

Chuck remembers back to getting kicked out of school. Chuck got a hundred on his mid-term, and Fleming is sure Chuck cheated (he keeps a copy of the answer key in his office), because he got a tip from another student. Chuck’s like, I don’t need to cheat, I’m acing your class, because I’m a genius, yo. Fleming says that he unexpectedly aced the part on encrypted images, too. Also, the other student said Chuck was selling the answers to other students as well. And they searched Chuck’s room and found the answers. And the tattletale student was Bryce Larkin.

Casey motions for Chuck to leave the store.

Anna (Nerd) and the Nerd Herders and Green Shirts are playing a game in front of the 100 TVs. They’re playing Fingers of Fury, where they determine who can name the highest number of TV shows in a minute. They go through their game, and all the TVs pause at the same time. (Hey, there’s Smallville!) They think the remotes are broken, but Harry is standing above them on a store ladder — “The one remote… that controls them all! The master remote!” Poor hobbits.

The agents are in the Nerd Herder. Chuck is to stay in the car. Sarah & Casey go into a house across the street. Chuck sees Professor Fleming walking by his car and jumps out and approaches him nervously and loudly. Professor Fleming is like, “So… You’re with the agency now. Why didn’t you code-speak me? Next time ask if I’m going to the toga party!” Fleming asks who will bring him in, and Chuck says his partners Sarah and Casey will do it, but first he wants to know… why did the CIA have a file on him at Stanford. Fleming says he’s sorry and then falls into Chuck’s arms, obviously in shock or dead. It takes Chuck a few seconds of hugging and creepiness to figure this out (he finds an arrow sticking out of Fleming’s back). Fleming has a piece of paper. He tells Chuck to give it to Bryce, and he dies. Chuck sees the numbers on the paper before the archer shoots another arrow through the piece of paper. He reloads (it’s the Icelander). He doesn’t shoot Chuck but instead takes the paper off the ground and walks off. Sarah and Casey come out and find Chuck and Fleming.

And we have our first Christmas commercial. Oy.

Sarah and Casey show up outside Chuck’s bedroom window. The professor is alive but not conscious. Chuck thinks he screwed up the whole thing, and Sarah says it wasn’t his fault. Chuck asks why Fleming would have asked him to take the numbers to Bryce, and Sarah says Bryce must have been one of Fleming’s CIA contacts and hasn’t been notified of Bryce’s death. Chuck is able to name a few of the numbers, but not enough for Casey’s liking. Chuck asks why Fleming said he was sorry right before he fell and also says he thinks Fleming might know why Chuck is in the Intersect.

Why is Chuck in Chuck’s brain? I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Ellie asks if Chuck is okay, because she assumes Chuck is going to the game with her and Awesome. He says he’s not going. Ellie has found in her old things a copy of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a library book Chuck had checked out, and asks if she should return it. Chuck says, what are they gonna do? Expel me? He take the book and leaves the room. Chuck stares at the cover and remembers a game of suction darts he and Bryce played in the library at Stanford. Chuck was counting and was sure Bryce was out of ammo, but Bryce faked surrender and shot him. That Bryce is a trickster, alright! Chuck looks at the book again and sees the Dewey decimal numbers on it. He realizes the numbers from Fleming’s note were referencing a spot in the Stanford library where Bryce used to stash things, and he tells Casey he has to go back to Stanford to figure it out.

At Stanford, nothing has changed for Chuck. He and Sarah find Ellie and Captain Awesome at a tailgate party of sorts. Chuck tells Ellie he’s gonna take Sarah on the Chuck Bartowski Memorial Tour.

Meanwhile Casey runs into a guy spouting global warming crap.
MANBEARPIG: Plant a Stanford tree. A renewable resource for your children’s future.
CASEY [contemptibly]: Mmmm. You wanna save our environment, huh? [Crumbles up the tree-hugger’s flyer] Take a shower, hippie.

Frank and I had to pause for laughter at that. I sooo love it when we have to pause the DVR to laugh. Did he get to write his own lines? we wonder.

Chuck (to Casey, who is dressed in black): Nice job blending in with the crowd. Who you rooting for? Death?

Hahahaha.

Chuck walks toward the library and starts stalling. He’s not ready to face the worst day of his life. He had to tell Ellie about being kicked out… Sarah asks why he thinks Bryce betrayed him. Chuck doesn’t know, but Bryce has betrayed a lot of people.

They get to the library, and Sarah says maybe Chuck should stay there. “Yeah, ’cause that always works out well.” They can’t find the book without him anyway. Chuck balks at the security turnstile. Casey hands him his old student ID, which he “borrowed” to reactivate. “Sorry I couldn’t wipe the idiot grin off your face with Photoshop.” Hahaha.

The trio enter, and some guy at the library sees Chuck’s scanned photo and says into his walkie that they have a situation.

Meanwhile, at the Buy More, Morgan and the others are planning a coup to get the remote from Harry’s locker. Anna says she can get the remote and that the others do not want to know how. She goes and flirts up Mr. Assistant Manager. Physically flirts him up, and while he’s distracted with her feminine wiles, she steals his keys and gives them to the scruffy twiggy Nerd Herder, who hands the keys off to Morgan.

In the library, Chuck has found the aisle where Bryce previously shot him with the suction dart. The books are all over the floor, and they know Magnus has gotten there first. Chuck rewinds his brain and remembers Bryce taking the dart from above the books, under the upper shelf. He reaches under the shelf and pulls out a disc. At that moment, the librarian (the one who said they had a situation) comes up and tells Chuck he owes $295 in fines (for The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, of course). Chuck asks if they take credit cards.

The team see Magnus, and Sarah tells Chuck to run for the back door. Outside, Awesome is telling Ellie, “It’s hard to hate Stanford ’cause they suck so hard. I wish we were playing SC today, huh?” I’m sure that made CTG’s day. :) Chuck runs down the steps, Magnus following, right into the tailgating crowd. He dives under a table, and when he crawls out the other side, Casey and Sarah are there. Someone tells Chuck to freeze, and Casey elbows him in the face, knocking him out.

Magnus’s group has spotted Chuck’s trio, and they take off running through a building to escape.

At the Buy More, Morgan finds the remote in Harry’s locker. The scruffy guy has betrayed everyone and told Harry, who catches Morgan in the act. Bad Scruffy Twiggy!

In a lecture hall at Stanford, Chuck inserts the disc into a computer to see what’s on it. It’s a list of all the students recruited out of Stanford in the last ten years. Chuck’s name is on the disc. Casey says foreign governments would pay a fortune for that info. Magnus and his henchmen bust in and start shooting. Chuck notes that this would be a great time for him to be waiting in the car.

They have a big shootout in the room, and Chuck takes the disc. Sarah tells him to run out the side door and protect it, and she covers him. Magnus is in pursuit. Chuck looks at the disc again and calls several of the people on the disc. “Lots of bad guys are surrounding us, are you coming to the toga party, bye-bye.” The current Stanford students who are spies spring into action all around campus. Morgan calls to interrupt Chuck for comic relief. Chuck gives Morgan the unlock code for Harry’s master remote.

Chuck realizes someone is behind him. Magnus shoots, Chuck ducks, and the computer Chuck is using is destroyed. So I guess that means the disc is out of commission as well. Boo. Sarah tells Casey she has half a mag left, and Casey says he’s totally in. “I hate long goodbyes.” They spring up to shoot at Magnus’s men, just as the student agents come in with guns blazing and tell the bad guys to drop their weapons. Casey says it looks like someone called in the cavalry, and Sarah says that’s good, because she really only had one shot left. One of the girls looks at the guy next to her. “Aren’t you in Econ with me?”

Magnus gets to Chuck, who has the disc. He doesn’t shoot Chuck but takes the disc. A girl CIA student comes in and drop-kicks Magnus. Chuck is glad she checks her voicemail.

At the Buy More, Harry’s remote doesn’t work. He accuses Morgan of reprogramming his remote. Morgan says he didn’t do anything but he may be able to fix the remote . . . for a price. He wants out of the “hole,” the customer service desk. Morgan threatens to reprogram all the stations to “Passion Cove.” This will make Big Mike unhappy. Harry caves.

Back at home, Captain Awesome goes to clean off his face paint, and Ellie and Chuck are left to talk. Ellie asks how painful it was. He reminds her of an evening with Morgan at the karaoke club, where Morgan sang “The Glory of Love” and ruined Karate Kid 2 for everyone.

In his room, Chuck is looking into the desk. Sarah walks in and says, “You didn’t think that we would let you keep that, did you?” Chuck has to know, so he clicks on his own file. It’s a video of an argument between Bryce and Fleming. Fleming has called Chuck into his office, but Bryce has shown up instead. Bryce tells Fleming he can’t recruit Chuck, because Chuck is a good guy, too good to be an agent, he won’t last as an agent. Fleming says Chuck’s test results were phenomenal, and he has to recruit Chuck, period. Bryce says that if Chuck cheated on the test, then the results would be invalid. Fleming agrees. Bryce gets Chuck kicked out to save him from the CIA, save his life.

Chuck says that if Bryce had a good reason for getting Chuck kicked out, he must have had a good reason for breaking into the Intersect. Sarah says that maybe it also means that Bryce had a good reason for sending the Intersect to Chuck. She tells Chuck that for his own safety, no one can know about all this. She walks out of Chuck’s room with the disc and cries.

Chuck goes to the dumpster and digs out his trash from Stanford. He rescues the picture and flashes back to meeting Bryce, who is about to introduce him to Jill, the girl he later stole from Chuck. I’m guessing he stole her because she was an agent.