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Chuck Versus the Truth
Season 01, Episode 08
108Chucktruth
Air Date November 12, 2007
Writer Allison Adler
Director Robert Duncan McNeill
Previous Chuck Versus the Alma Mater
Next Chuck Versus the Imported Hard Salami
"God! Who'd have thought going out to sushi with my sister and her boyfriend would make me so freaked out?"
―Chuck

Chuck Versus the Truth is the eighth episode of Season One of Chuck. It originally aired on November 12, 2007.

Synopsis[]

Ellie treats a man who was poisoned and brings him to Westside Medical. Team Bartowski finds out that the man was a U.S. nuclear scientist who was subjected to a deadly truth serum. Ellie eventually becomes the next target for the poisoner when his search for nuclear codes continues.

Meanwhile, Morgan finds out that Harry Tang was given assistant manager for a shocking reason.

Full Story[]

A man is tied to a chair, being interrogated. The interrogator asks if the man has "the codes". The man replies that he does; then looks confused and asks how come he told the truth when he did not mean to. The interrogator tells the man he has been given a lethal form of truth serum and has only three hours before he dies; and he should find the codes if he wants to live.

Meanwhile, Chuck and Sarah are working out their cover story for the previous night. They hear a knock on the door, and Sarah knocks Chuck to the floor kissing him, as her co-worker, Scooter, at Wienerlicious enters. She tells a dazed Chuck she was protecting their cover.

Later, the man who was being interrogated is shown stumbling down the street in the dark. Attached to the pendant he has is a flash card containing the sought after access codes.

Back at the Buy More, Chuck meets Lou Palone, an attractive deli owner, who comes in to get her phone fixed. Later, after Chuck has fixed it successfully, Lou, who appears attracted to Chuck, decides to name a sandwich after him.

At the same time, on a double date at Kyoto Sushi with Ellie and Captain Awesome, Chuck and Sarah see the man collapse on the sidewalk in front of them. Ellie hands Chuck the man's wallet while she attempts to save his life. Chuck proudly says, "That's my sister Eleanor Faye Bartowski saving that man's life," as they are loaded into an ambulance. Chuck opens the man's wallet and flashes on the identification, a worried Chuck then mutters, "That's my sister saving that bad dude's life". The dying man slips the pendant into Ellie's sweater pocket. He later dies at the hospital.

General Beckman confirms that the man Chuck flashed on is Mason Whitney, who was in development of access codes to the States' arsenal of nuclear weapons. She orders the team to visit the local morgue to discover how Whitney died. They determine that he was injected with a toxic derivative of Pentothal. It causes the victim to constantly tell the truth, until the subject falls unconscious and eventually dies.

At the Buy More, Morgan is assigned by Big Mike to help Harry Tang's wife pick out a birthday gift for him. Morgan meets her in secret by the Video Wall, where Poppy Tang explains she wants the biggest TV they have in stock. Morgan goes to draw up the paperwork, when Poppy gives him a big hug in gratitude for his assistance. Unknown to either, Jeff and Lester are making a recording of the event. The two later show the video to Harry, who thinks his wife is having an affair with Morgan.

Meanwhile, Ellie is interviewed by the poisoner, posing as a police officer, prodding her with questions about whether Whitney slipped anything to her, which she denies. Then, the poisoner, claiming that he wants a photo for the records, place a tracking device behind her ear and doses her with the Truth Serum emitted from his pen.

Later that night, Ellie begins to act strangely and starts blurting out truths in an irritated and irrational manner, even breaking in on Chuck who had Sarah, in his room that night as a cover. Casey soon figures that something strange is going on when he receives interference on his bugs. He goes over to the Bartowski's, using a scanner disguised as a milk carton to find the bug interfering with his. The bug is found on Ellie after she falls unconscious. Sarah and Casey deduce that she has been poisoned with the same chemical that Whitney had been poisoned with.

In the hospital, Chuck confesses to the unconscious Ellie that he really wishes he could talk to her about his secret life as the Intersect. As he finishes, Devon enters, hands Chuck Ellie's lucky sweater, and leaves again. Casey arrives to update Chuck who spots the encased bug and snatches it. He opens the case and says they found the codes on the lady doctor then seals it again. Casey actually approves of Chuck's effort to get the poisoner to come to them. Chuck discovers the pendant with the codes in Ellie's sweater. Meanwhile, Sarah is posing as Ellie to act as magnet for the poisoner, when a man walks in. After Sarah and Casey pull out their guns and confront him, he brags that he has a vial of both the truth serum and the antidote. The man tries to bargain with them for the antidote when Chuck bursts in, yelling that he has found the codes. In the ensuing confusion, the man drops the poison on the floor, breaking the vial and exposes everyone in the room.

In the confusion, the man runs away with the antidote. Casey pitches a crutch at him, hitting him in the back and knocking him to the ground. He drops an electronic tracking device and the antidote, which Sarah catches. The man runs off, and Casey orders Chuck to take the antidote, but Chuck runs off and gives it to Ellie instead.

As Ellie recovers, Chuck notices the electronic device that the man dropped lying on the floor. He picks it up and flashes on it, learning that the man is Riordan Payne, a former Olympic athlete turned dealer in military secrets. The device turns out to be a tracking device, Chuck uses to find Payne's location.

Chuck, Sarah, and Casey track Payne to his apartment, where they burst in and confront him.

Chuck_S01E08_-_The_Truth_Serum_-Full_HD-

Chuck S01E08 - The Truth Serum -Full HD-

Payne offers to give them the antidote, but Chuck recalls that many comic book villains often poison their enemies like this, so he suggests that Payne drink the contents of the vial first. Instead, Payne tries to escape by back flipping across the room. But Sarah shoots him in the knee to stop him. It is the first time Sarah and Casey call themselves partners.

Tied to a chair and dosed with truth serum, Payne confesses that the antidote is in the drawer and the codes are in his right shoe. Before Sarah takes the antidote, however, Chuck asks her if their relationship is truly going to go anywhere. Sarah says no. They all then take the antidote.

Later, at the Buy More, General Beckman is congratulating the team for securing the codes. Unfortunately, Harry bursts in, thinking that Morgan is meeting with his wife, only to discover the debriefing. Casey plays on Harry's ego by telling him they've been watching him for a while and intend to recruit him. They arrange for Harry to move to Hawaii. Later, when Morgan reports to Big Mike, he tells Morgan to change the shipping address and that Harry is gone. Big Mike also admits that while he couldn't stand Harry, he and Poppy were having an affair.

Believing that Sarah had told him the truth when she said that their relationship would never go anywhere, Chuck comes to Weinerlicious to tell Sarah that they need to break up, because the person being most fooled by their pretended relationship is him. He then goes across the parking lot to see Lou. As Sarah watches him go, she receives a phone call from Casey asking her if she compromised any secrets. She answers that she might have, but she had been "trained to withstand pentothal," implying she may have been hiding her true feelings when she told Chuck no. Sarah then appears hurt as she watches Chuck laughing and talking with Lou in the sandwich shop.

Quotes[]

Sarah [offers antidote]: I'm sorry, there's no debate. It has to be you. You're the Intersect.
Chuck: What? I won't take it knowing that Ellie will die without it, that both of you have been poisoned, too.
Casey: You're a good person, Chuck, and I respect that, but I got a job to do. So take it before I shove it down your throat.
Chuck: Okay, okay, fine, fine. I'll do it. I'll pretend to agree to take it, then I'll run like hell to my sister's room and make her take it. Why did I just say that out loud?
Sarah: It's the poison. It makes you tell the truth.
Casey: You do that, I'll give chase, put a gun to your head, threaten to pull the trigger if you don't take it.
Chuck: Would you really shoot me?
Casey: No.
Chuck: Yeah, don't waste the bullet, we're already dead! I'm saving my sister!

~

Chuck [to Sarah]: God, you're so pretty! ...And Casey, your jaw was chiseled by Michelangelo himself.
Casey: Thank you.
Chuck: Oh, yeah.

Trivia[]

  • The sandwich Lou created as her 'happy place' thought, and which was later dubbed the Chuck Bartowski and offered at her deli, was turkey and Muenster cheese on egg bread, grilled.
  • This is, for Chuck, the first time he is unable to disentangle his two lives when he wants to, and an indication that he does not have the degree of control he previously believe, "I'm getting way to comfortable lying and sneaking around, all this spy stuff, okay. I'm starting to feel that is my real life."
  • This is the first time Casey calls Chuck by his first name.
  • Payne's apartment number was, oddly, PH201.
  • When Chuck asks Sarah what his snack of choice was at the movies and she replies, "Sprinkled milk duds over your popcorn" this is what Zachary Levi has said is something he actually eats as a movie snack.
  • The Wilhelm Scream can be heard when Sarah shoots Payne in the knee.

Music[]

  • Britney Spears - “Toxic”
  • The Eels - “Fresh Feeling”
  • The Isley Brothers - “Ain't I Been Good To You”
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