Chuck Versus Phase Three is the ninth episode of Chuck's fourth season.
Held prisoner by the Belgian, Chuck is subjected to mental torture as his captor attempts to extract the Intersect's secrets. As Chuck fights to remain himself, Sarah and Casey cross lines to find him. In L.A., Ellie and Awesome uncover a family secret.
This episode provides examples of:
- "Ass" in Ambassador: Anad Chenerad, the Thai ambassador Sarah and Casey kidnap for answers about Chuck. He's an associate of the Belgian and presumably had some hand in Chuck's abduction, given that he knows where Chuck is being kept.
- Badass in Distress: Chuck spends the entire episode strapped into a dentist's chair, being subjected to hallucinations designed to play on his anxieties to unblock the Intersect.
- Blatant Lies: No, General, Sarah and Casey know nothing about a kidnapped ambassador. The ambassador for Thailand, the same country where Chuck was being held? Gosh, yes, that is a strange co-incidence.
- Call-Back: Lester mistakes Orion's laptop for a Roarke 7.
- Death of Personality: In a last-ditch attempt to unblock the Intersect, the Belgian orders Chuck lobotomized
- The Dreaded: The reputation Sarah creates as she tears her way through Thailand has hardened mercenaries fleeing into the jungle at the sight of her.Mercenaries: THE GIANT BLONDE SHE-MALE!!
- Enhanced Interrogation Techniques: Sarah gets downright scary when interrogating the Thai ambassador by threatening him with a syringe full of ammonia.Anad: It's amazing what a woman would do to find a husband. Even the toughest spies in the world are just racing against that biological clock. Tick, tick, tick, tock.
Sarah: You got me. I'm just a needy love-crazed girl on a husband hunt... [Jabs needle into his neck] Who's trained in over 200 ways to kill you. Afraid yet? - Innocently Insensitive: Morgan accidentally pushes Sarah's buttons by letting slip about Chuck's plans to propose to her, and then confronts her with the knowledge that Chuck might die never knowing that she loves him, not the Intersect. As Casey later lampshades, this was like throwing gasoline on a fire.Morgan: I mean, since he lost the Intersect, the proposal plan got put on hold.
Sarah: Why? Did he think I wouldn't want to marry him without the Intersect? Is that how I made him feel?
Morgan: No. No! Chuck knew that - Chuck knows that you love him, Sarah, okay? It's just, you're kind of a big fish, you know? And to a regular guy with no supercomputer in his brain, I gotta think that's pretty intimidating.
Sarah: That's not the reason why I love Chuck! I want to spend the rest of my life with Chuck - with or without the Intersect.
Morgan: That's fantastic! That's great. Yeah, and he knows that right? Because you told him? [Beat] Oh. - Mind Rape: Chuck is subjected to a series of induced hallucinations designed to play on his insecurities, specifically the fear that no one will want him if he can't flash. When this doesn't work, the Belgian orders that his personality be erased to "make room" for the Intersect.Adelbert de Smet: Don't take this the wrong way, Mueller. But you are boring me. Push harder!
Dr. Meuller: Then we go to Phase 3. We wipe out everything in his head but the Intersect. We lobotomize him.
Adelbert de Smet: So there would be no personality. No memories in the way of the Intersect. All right, let's do it. - Morality Chain: With Chuck missing, it's clear that he fulfils this role for Sarah, who becomes terrifying in her efforts to find him.Casey: I was wrong about you. You're not acting like a worried girlfriend. No, you're acting like a spy I used to know - before Chuck. Langston Graham's wildcard enforcer. I didn't like that Sarah Walker. You know why? Because she was unpredictable.
[...]
Sarah: You're not going where I'm going. I'll do anything to get him back. And I'm not going to take you down with me. You were right. I am different without Chuck, and I don't like it. [...] I need Chuck. - Oblivious to His Own Description: Played for Laughs when Casey finds Sarah in a Thai Bad Guy Bar looking for answers.Casey: Walker, what are you doing here all alone? This place is nothing but scoundrels, assassins, and warlords. The scum of the Earth.
Waitress: Ah, Mr. Casey! Your usual? - Violently Protective Girlfriend: Sarah kidnaps and interrogates a diplomat, then tears her way through half of Thailand searching for Chuck. Anyone who gets in her way finds themselves on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle, as some jerk who hits on her instead of coughing up answers finds out.Sarah: [Rests foot on the jerk she's just beaten] Anyone else wanna be my boyfriend?
