Handler and Handled This show has fallen in love with starting episodes in the past even more than Pushing Daisies. When Casey was cutting his teeth as a hostile young man, he had a sensei, as many hostile young men do, who beat him into submission and taught him to find his calm center. This is presumably how he avoids beating lackeys to a pulp at the Buy More on a daily basis.
General Beckman gathers the team--an especially sardonic Casey and a mopey Chuck and a Sarah with fantastic hair--in the Castle to give them their latest mission. Global Launch Agency works with the NSA on surveillance and weapons tracking technology, and they've received intel that there may be a breach in one of their secure facilities. General B wants Chuck to look around and get cross-eyed, if anything pops up, though he protests that his wounded heart, fresh from the trauma of sending Jill to the Big House, isn't quite up to another mission. He'd rather take some time off and deal with his feelings. You can imagine how this goes over with Casey, while Sarah takes the route of telling him that the distraction might do him good. So they put Chuck in the van, which has always worked in the past, and have him watch the monitors while they poke around inside the GLA site. A white-besuited fellon does indeed make off with some sort of super-machinery-spy-thingie, and Chuck can't override the system fast enough to close him inside, much to Casey's disgust. Casey does, however, overtake the thief outside, only to have his ass handed to him. He manages to get one jab in with his Buy More pen before he unmasks the baddie, who is none other than his sensei (Dixon! from Alias!). Dixon takes off, leaving Casey gobsmacked and Chuck babbling in his wake about what he's just seen. It includes Casey with a bad wig and sideburns, so perhaps babbling is called for.
Sarah and Chuck are rather impressed that Casey trained with Dixon, who specializes in strategy and brute force and, now, going rogue. Casey grits that the dude's a traitor, and besides, he can't talk about it, since it's been classified. No more, according to General Beckman; they want to use Casey's personal knowledge of him to take him down, which is a song Chuck knows the tune to quite well. Casey wants to know why he hasn't been told about Dixon's badnewsness before. It seems that Dixon's gone rogue and is recruiting his former students to work with him. With his team of turned agents, he's been able to steal a lot of stuff to sell on the global black market. This time, he stole something having to do with inertia tracking? That's a weapon when put in a missile? Chuck and Casey bicker, to the point where Sarah has to bring them back to attention. General B gives the team their marching orders: they're to go to Simi Valley, where Dixon's trading the GLA hardware to his buyers, stop the sale, recover the goods, and kick ass. Casey asks if Chuck shouldn't be left behind, because he is special. General B agrees and, despite Chuck's protests, sidelines the Intersect.
Sarah consoles Chuck later by telling him that Casey's even more pointed abuse this week is a result of hurt feelings and betrayal--he's lashing out because his mentor turned on him. And, proving just how right she is, Casey arms himself at home, regards his bonsai with menace, and knocks it off the shelf before saluting his framed photo of Ronald Regan.
Casey and Sarah stake out the construction site where the drop should take place; Sarah snaps a photo of a license plate and sends it to Chuck via their handy 3G iPhones. Casey calls him to take a look, and Chuck sasses him, apparently still smarting regardless of Sarah's psychobabble. And then he hangs up on casey. Hangs up! On Casey! He giggles at his own bravado before realizing that his teammates are on a dangerous mission. He calls back, but without having flashed. Sarah and Casey rush the "buyer," which is only a limo rigged to explode. And that's because Dixon's at Buy More, looking for Casey. Chuck handles this with his usual aplomb, freaking when Casey won't answer his phone. So Chuck does the wise thing and follows Dixon to the parking lot before trying to call again, only to get himself nabbed by Dixon and put in the back of a car. Sarah and Casey track him down, and Casey and Dixon play a dangerous game of chicken in a parking garage before both abandon their cars and play a game of chase. They end up facing off on a rooftop. Dixon asks Casey if he could have survived his military career or become the badass that he is without all the training he had under his sensei. He invites Casey to take his education to the next level and join his team. Casey's like, that's all you've got? Dixon says he must have been mistaken to think Casey would be good enough for his team, and with that, he takes off.
Meanwhile, Emmett has re-instituted the time-honored tradition of Employee of the Month in hopes of getting the peons to perform better. Morgan, not aware that Chuck is dismissing him, takes Chuck's "whatever, I don't care" attitude to heart. "Employee of the month is a scam and working hard is for suckers," he declares. Morgan has a new wager: the Buy Moreians will compete for the lowest comment-card scores. Morgan accomplishes this by being rude; Lester by being disgusting; thankfully, we do not witness Jeff's attempts. Emmett retaliates, saying that those employees with the lowest scores will close every Saturday of the month. Emmett gives them one night to raise their scores. Lester bribes, Morgan pushes dollies twice his size, and Jeff has a mental breakdown.
And, to make up for their absence at Thanksgiving, the Awesome parents descend, prompting a rash of suicidal groans from Ellie. They are like Awesome without any self-awareness whatsoever. They’ve gone overboard planning Ellie and Awesome’s wedding, complete with a tasting dinner, the world’s creepiest wedding planner and prepping the registry at Buy More. Ellie goes along because what else can you do when your future in-laws are Awesome?
Back at the Castle, General B is pissed that Dixon got away again, even moreso when Chuck tells her about chicken-with-Chuck-in-the-trunk. It's become personal, so she's pulling Casey from the mission and putting him on Castle-arrest. She says she's bringing in another team to clean up the mess. Casey's like, I know Dixon, I know how he operates! General B reminds him that his primary directive is always to protect the Intersect. Chuck looks ready to crap his pants that he put this all in motion. Casey growls that if it weren't for the primary directive, he'd kill him.
Casey bitches to Sarah about his predicament, but she agrees with General B. He's like, you're going to talk to me about getting too personal? She replies that she's never let her feelings get in the way of protecting their asset. Casey bites that 20 years of spying have taught him that people let you down. She leaves him in the Castle chewing on that, while upstairs Chuck is feeling guilty. He thinks if he were a true friend, he wouldn't have reacted to what Casey was doing but thought of how he was feeling. Sarah thinks this impossibly sweet and tells him to let Casey cool off downstairs. Which he then attempts to break out of. Unsuccessful, he calls Chuck and demands he come to the Castle. Chuck demurs, and Casey goes for the gut: he tells Chuck he was 23 when he started training with Dixon, and an idiot. Dixon taught him everything he knows about self-discipline and duty. "I don't know what to think here, pal. I'm feeling kinda exposed. I feel like my whole foundation's been undermined here. You know, he was like a..." The wheels, they are a-turning, because he continues, "I can't talk about this over the phone." Chuck's like, No, I'll be right there so we can continue to bond over your pain!
So Chuck goes to the Castle, where Casey gets him in a headlock and forces him to look at photos of Dixon's car from the game of chicken (Chucken?) until he flashes. Chuck recognizes a logo from a dojo that is also the cover for Dixon's base ops. So Casey frog-marches Chuck out into the Orange Orange and handcuffs him to the counter over Chuck's protests that he has the tasting dinner with Ellie, Sarah, and the Awesomes, and also, Casey's sort of being nutso. Casey explains he has to work at controlling his anger, and sometimes looking at Chuck puts him thisclose to losing his top. And if Chuck tells anyone what he's up to, he has a bullet with the Intersect's face allll over it.
Chuck tries to get to his phone by wiggling, and then using the Force.
Mr. and Mrs. Awesome wonder where Chuck is, and tease Sarah and Ellie about what an airhead he is. Sarah, antennae up, says he always has a good excuse. The Awesomes are making decisions left and right about the food and the cake for the wedding, and Awesome can see Ellie starting to fray at the edges. When Mr. Awesome says that, since Ellie's not close to her dad, he can walk her down the aisle, Awesome puts the brakes on. But Ellie's had her fill: she's said yes to the big wedding and awful dresses, but she can't say yes anymore. She scurries from the table, apologizing to Awesome, who's quickly at her heels. Sarah sits at the table and dutifully makes awkward yogurt-related small talk with the remaining Awesomes while Chuck fishes for his phone at the Orange Orange, using twisted up straws. He phones Ellie straightaway, though Sarah snatches his sister's phone from Mrs. Awesome's hand. Chuck lets her guess what Casey did, which she does with almost no hints, and tells her where to find Casey. She tells him to stay put. Not so hard, given the handcuffs.
Dojo. Casey sneaks in.
Orange Orange. Chuck, snacking, realizes he can use freezer parts to break his chains. "Those seven years of watching MacGuyver finally paid off," he congratulates himself.
More sneaking, though not successfully, since Sarah gets Casey in a chokehold, telling him he's not going anywhere without his partner, which would be her. Outside, Chuck pulls up in the Nerd Herder, just as Sarah and Casey are about to repossess the inertia thingamajig. They bust into the room only to find Chuck being held hostage. "I was waiting in the car!" he protests faintly.
Dixon greets his visitors. Casey says that he can run and hide, but Casey will always find him. Dixon pulls a gun to dispatch him, and Casey taunts that as a man of honor, he should be able to fight him without the gun. Dixon announces to his watching students that he's about to give them a lesson on how to kill a man with honor. It will happen quickly, he says. "Eye of the tiger," Chuck encourages Casey. Casey draws a deep breath. They fight. Casey takes the first fall. It's sort of contrary to nature. He gets up, takes a bunch more nasty hits, and Sarah decides he's outmatched. Casey falls again, and Dixon starts in on him for losing his calm. "Your center is still conflict!" Dixon shouts. Chuck has a voila! moment and tells Casey to get to his feet. Casey mumbles for Chuck to run. Chuck looks at Casey, sincere-pup-face at the ready, and says that Casey is just scared. He's scared to be notice and let people in. "You are seriously damaging my calm," Casey grits. Sarah's like, stop talking about feelings, you're going to wake the beast! Chuck gives her a "duh" nod and keeps going, telling Casey how much he cares about everyone, especially Chuck--he is warm and mushy about Chuck. He loves Chuck! Casey grabs him by the collar and growls he's going to kill him. Chuck stops him: "Not me! Him!" And like a junkyard dog told to sic balls, Casey lets loose.
Sarah compliments Chuck on his fast thinking, and Chuck says that Casey has less a calm center than an angry one. With nougat and caramel. Casey quickly has Dixon on the floor. He glares at the assembled students, asking who's next. And then arrives the SWAT team. "Who called Beckman?" Casey asks. "What?" Chuck chirps. "It's not my fault! She guessed!"
Emmett awards the Employee to the Month to a no namer. His incentive gift? A 65" plasma screen. Oh, how the masses, they are so quick to turn on Morgan.
Chuck and Casey walk home, Chuck ventriloquizing Casey's heartfelt thanks, only to get an actual thank you that he misses. Inside, he apologizes to Ellie for missing dinner. She tells him the Awesomes are on their way back home. Chuck feels really awful about missing the dinner and making a good impression. Ellie says that she's never been the girl to dream about her perfect wedding or perfect husband, but she has always wished their dad could walk her down the aisle. She knows it's not going to happen, she says, but it's hard to let go of. Chuck lets her lean on him, but the first thing he does is go to his room, unearth a box of old birthday cards, and find one his dad inscribed (in very feminine handwriting) with a phone number. It's not in service, but the iron has entered Chuck's soul. He marches right back down to Ellie and tells her that their dad will walk her down the aisle. He's a smart guy, and he can find their father. Ellie sadly doesn't think he'll really make it, but Chuck tells her that he'll make it happen for her.
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