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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
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Chuck Versus the Truth is the eighth episode of season one, which originally aired on November 12, 2007.

Synopsis

Ellie runs across 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 serum when his killer begins searching for a key he hid.

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

Full Plot

A man is tied to a chair, being interrogated by another man. The interrogator asks if the man has "the codes". The man replies that he has; 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 alibi for last night. Suddenly, they hear a knock on the door. Sarah knocks Chuck to the floor and acts like she's kissing him as her co-worker, Scooter, at Wienerlicious enters the room. Later, the man who was being interrogated is shown stumbling around a restaurant patio in the dark, before finally finding a gold pendant under a table. Attached to the pendant is a flash card containing the sought-for access codes.

At the same time, on a double-date with Ellie and Captain Awesome, Chuck and Sarah, at Kyoto Sushi, see the man collapse on the sidewalk in front of them. Ellie hands Chuck the man's wallet while she, being a doctor, attempts to save his life. Chuck says, "That's my sister Ellie Bartowski saving that man's life". Chuck opens the man's wallet and flashes on the man's identification. Then Chuck says "That's my sister saving that bad man's life", which is heard by the poisoner. As the man is being loaded into an ambulance he 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 infected with a toxic derivative of Pentothal, a truth serum. It causes the victim to constantly tell the truth, until he/she 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 on her person, to which she denies. Then, the poisoner, claiming that he wants a photo for the records, at which he can place a tracking device on 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 the truth to everyone. Casey soon figures that something strange is going on when he receives interference on his bugs. He goes over to the Bartowskis, using a scanner disguised as a milk carton to find the bug interfering with his. The other 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 undercover experiences. As he finishes, Awesome walks in, hands Chuck Ellie's sweater, and leaves again. As Chuck is turning the sweater over in his hands, he discovers the pendant with the codes. Meanwhile, Sarah is posing as Ellie 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 truth serum on the floor, breaking the vial and exposing everyone in the room.

In the confusion, the man runs away with the antidote. However, Casey throws a crutch at him, hitting him in the back of the head and knocking him to the ground. He drops an electronic tracking device and accidentally throws the antidote into the air, which Sarah catches. As she gets up, the man runs off. Casey orders Chuck to take the truth serum antidote, but Chuck gives it to Ellie instead.

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

Chuck, Sarah and Casey follow Payne to his apartment, where they burst in and confront him. 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 backflipping across the room. But when he reaches the end, Sarah shoots him in the knee.

Tied to a chair and dosed with truth serum again, 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.

Chuck comes to Sarah's workplace to tell her that he is breaking up with her. Then he goes to see Lou, the sandwich girl from earlier in the episode. Sarah appears hurt and jealous at the end of the episode watching the two of them talking. We also discover that Sarah was "trained to withstand pentathol." Sarah implies she may have been hiding her true feelings when she admits to Casey that she might have compromised herself if she had not been trained to resist the truth serum.

Chuck_S01E08_-_The_Truth_Serum_-Full_HD-

Chuck S01E08 - The Truth Serum -Full HD-

Quotes

Sarah: [about the antidote] Here, Chuck, take it.

Chuck: What? No way, I'm not gonna take it knowing Ellie's been poisoned, and you guys!

Sarah: I'm sorry, Chuck, there's no debating this. It has to be you.

Casey: Right, now take it, or I'll force it down your throat!

Chuck: Alright. I'll pretend to take it, then run like hell to my sister, 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: If you do that, I'll give chase, put a gun to your head and threaten to pull the trigger!

Chuck: Would you really shoot me?

Casey: No.

Chuck: Yeah, don't waste a bullet, we're already dead!

Chuck: [about Sarah] God, you're so pretty!

(Still) Chuck: and Casey, your jaw was chiseled by Michelangelo himself.

Casey: Thank-you.

Chuck: Oh yeah.

Trivia

  • This is, for Chuck, the first time he is unable to disentangle his two lives when he wants/needs to, and an indication that he does not have the degree of control he previously believed.
  • Sarah doesn't drink all of the antidote.

Music

  • Britney Spears - “Toxic”
  • The Eels - “Fresh Feeling”
  • The Isley Brothers - “Aint I Been Good To You”
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