Trama

A new mission has Chuck and Sarah posing as a married couple and interacting with some odd neighbors. The Buy More crew help Big Mike out after his wife files for divorce.

Time for another exciting adventure of the Chuckster. Speak of the geek, he is standing watch at the Buy More when Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) approaches. She mentions the "whole Valentine's Day thing." Chuck (Zachary Levi) notes it would be weird if the faux couple DIDN'T do something. Sly dog, that Bartowski. But something tells us all won't go as planned.

Big Mike (Mark Christopher Lawrence), meanwhile, is on a rampage. "Who crapped in his box of chocolates?" Emmett (Tony Hale) asks. Good question. So Chuck inquires. "What kind of woman delivers divorce papers on Valentine's Day?" Big Mike asks. His soon-to-be ex-wife, apparently. Bad news for the Buy More dudes as Mike plans to work through his pain.

We cut to Casey's apartment (he's watching military documentaries on this day of love, naturally). The general (Bonita Friedericy) soon appears on the screen. She wants Casey (Adam Baldwin) to investigate the case of a former agent who has apparently gone loony. Turns out the man had been living in a nearby neighborhood. "Our best guess: He chose this location for its proximity to a sleeper cell," the general says. She needs a normal couple. Like Chuck and Sarah, whose date is (predictably) interrupted. "You're going to the suburbs," Casey says.

So agent Bartowski puts on his best sweater vest and heads to the land of identical homes sitting along a tree-lined street to pose as Sarah's husband. The femme fatale, in the meantime, has made potato salad. It's a welcome-to-the-hood barbeque! "Don't forget that one of our neighbors is a suspected terrorist!" Sarah whispers. They soon meet Brad, a cheerful stationary salesman living next door, and Sylvia, an aggressive cougar living across the street. The pair are perfectly constructed stereotypes. A little too perfect?

Casey, in the meantime, has discovered a bug in the appetizers. Chuck has a INTERSECT moment! "That was one of ours," Chuck says. It was stolen from an agent and now belongs to Fulcrum! Quips Casey: "These people creep me out." Us too, Major Casey. Us too.

The next morning, Chuck comes downstairs to find sexy Sarah cooking breakfast. It's domestic bliss! "Are you enjoying this whole Martha Stewart thing?" a mystified Chuck asks. Amazingly, she is. Casey, in the meantime, has done some "old-fashioned spy work" and discovered that Sylvia's husband has bought way too much high-tech cable line. For tapping into government agencies, perhaps? The plan: Chuck will pursue willing cougar Sylvia and search the home.

Seconds later, Sylvia has poor Chuck's pants down around his ankles. She then handcuffs him to the bed before leaving to grab "Charles" a glass of Scotch. Chuck springs into action! He unlocks the handcuffs and heads to Mr. Cougar's computer. He immediately has an INTERSECT moment -- one of the most intense EVER! How intense? For starters, his eyes roll to the back of his head. Secondly, he passes out. And it gets worse: hubby is home! "Have you tested him yet?" the man asks. Says suddenly diabolical Sylvia: "I've got him cuffed upstairs."

But Chuck isn't upstairs! He has awoken and is crawling in his boxers on the roof. Unfortunately, the other neighbors notice him escaping from Sylvia's house. Sarah, playing the part of the angry wife, has no choice but to slap her "cheating husband." Back inside the cougar den, the evil couple notices the computer screen flashing. "He ran the test!" Sylvia says. "He survived. We found our subject!" And we've found our bad guys.

But now onto more important things. The Buy More gang has set Big Mike up with an online date. The boss is posing as a 200-pound shipping magnate instead of a 250-plus pound big-box store manager. Should he come clean to his Internet gal pal? "I'm not so sure I'm the best role model," Chuck says. "Do you really want to be part of a relationship that is founded on lies?"

Says Morgan (Joshua Gomez): "The answer is 'yes.'"

Chuck retreats into the break room and notices a flier for his suburban neighborhood. INTERSECT MOMENT! Armed with new information and in a panic, Chuck calls Sarah -- but it goes directly to voice mail. "The company that built the neighborhood is a front," Chuck says. "It's not just a house. The entire neighborhood is Fulcrum!" Sure enough, nice-guy Brad tasers Casey, who poses as the cable guy. Sylvia and another female neighbor take Sarah into their custody. Just then, Chuck arrives at "home," frantic and yelling for his fake wife. Brad smiles and zaps agent Bartowski to sleep as well. Suburban hell, indeed!

Chuck wakes up to find himself strapped to a very scary machine in some sort of subterranean suburban lair. "You have a very special brain," Brad says. Sylvia explains the inadvertent test Chuck experienced earlier was a screening process. It appears Chuck is about to be brainwashed ("A Clockwork Orange" style) into joining Fulcrum -- if he doesn't die in the process, of course. The test soon ends. It seems (seems!) Chuck is now successfully brainwashed. Sylvia announces that it's Sarah's turn.

Casey isn't going to stand for it, though. He quietly escapes from his handcuffs and covertly moves to the computer, tapping a series of codes. Chuck, who was only faking being brainwashed (a special brain, indeed!), tells Sarah to "close her eyes." At that moment, Casey hits "return" (while wearing a protective glasses)and we realize the testing process has been reversed! Now, all the Fulcrum agents undergo the washing while Chuck, Sarah and Casey are okay. It's kind of like the ending of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but without Nazis or evil spirits.

Sometime later, Casey directs agents to remove the brainwashed and, it appears, brain-dead Fulcrum agents from the lair. Chuck and Sarah, meanwhile, reconvene at the yogurt shop. She asks him to give up his ring, which he does reluctantly. She seems reluctant too. The dream, as it were, is over. No more playing house. Maybe forever. Back at the Buy More, Big Mike introduces his new Internet girl to the gang. She confesses to having a 26-year-old son named ... Morgan. "Mother?" a shocked Morgan asks. Big Mike doesn't look happy. The moral of the story: Always tell the truth or you could end up dating the mother of your loser employee.