Original air date March 22, 2010

Season 3 episode 11

Synopsis

Chuck is chasing a man through a train station at night. He corners him and aims a gun at him. The man pleads for his life. Chuck tells him he had his chance, and then we hear a shot.

Three days earlier, Chuck comes into Castle after telling Casey he is going to try to get him reinstated. Sarah, Shaw, and Beckman tell Chuck he will be administered his final test— a solo mission to determine if he is ready to be a spy. 

The next morning in his apartment, Sarah gives him a message from Beckman. Chuck is to track down a former agent who is a traitor and provides information to the Ring. There is an information broker (Zevlovski) he has to track to get the identity of the agent.

Chuck and Sarah meet to stake out a hotel where the broker is staying. Chuck takes the opportunity to try to woo Sarah and explain about Prague, asking if they could still be together. Sarah leans toward Chuck for a kiss when Shaw interrupts and orders Chuck to focus on the mission. The broker is in the hotel steam room with two of his men. We see him get a written message, which he crumples and throws on the floor.

Chuck arrives and finds the paper, but the man’s guards see him. Chuck flashes and defeats them, then follows Zevlovski to a hotel room and climbs out on the balcony of the room next door. He sees the mole with Zevlovski and is able to catch a glimpse of his face after he kills the broker. Sarah and Shaw are watching through Chuck’s spy glasses and identify the mole as Hunter Perry.

Casey is struggling with his new life, assaulting Jeff and Lester when he sees them goofing off. Big Mike tries to smooth things over for Casey and offers to get him a new suit. Jeff and Lester agree to let it go after they humiliate Casey by making him buy lunch.

The next day, Chuck goes to the Orange Orange to see Sarah, and she invites him to dinner. He accepts, thinking they are going on a date. They will meet at a restaurant in Union Station that evening. Chuck tells Casey about his spy test, bragging about passing it. He thanks Casey for all the help he has given him. Casey seems dubious about the test, and Chuck gifts him with a weapon he took from Castle.

Sarah talks to Shaw about Chuck’s spy test in Castle, and he tells her Chuck has to pass his red test by killing Perry. Sarah argues with Shaw and tries to refuse to be involved. She doesn’t want Chuck to do this, but Shaw forces her to follow orders and give Chuck his red test.

Chuck meets Sarah at the restaurant, and Sarah tells Chuck it’s not a date. She explains he has to kill Perry. 

Chuck is shocked; he questions Sarah about his options, and she tells him he has to kill Perry to be a spy, and there are no options.

Sarah walks away and Perry arrives, acting nervous. He excuses himself quickly to use the bathroom, and Chuck follows him. They fight in the bathroom; when Chuck wins, Perry says Chuck is just like the people out to get him if he shoots him.

“I am not one of them; I will never be one of them. And for that very reason, I am going to arrest you!” Chuck walks Perry out at gunpoint, but when Perry runs, Chuck chases and doesn’t shoot. Sarah follows at a distance, gun drawn. They run through the train station; Chuck only firing a warning shot to stop Perry.  We then pick up where we left off in the start of the episode. 

When Chuck hesitates to shoot as Perry reaches for a gun, the shot heard earlier rings out, and we see that Casey, hiding in the shadows, has shot Perry. Chuck turns to see Casey, but when Sarah runs up, she only sees Chuck standing over a dead Perry with a gun in his hand. Sarah looks stunned. She tells Shaw on the phone that Chuck is a spy.

Later, when Chuck and Casey meet, Casey warns Chuck to tell no one that he shot Perry. He is no longer an agent, and what he did was murder, and Chuck failed his red test. 

Chuck calls Sarah to talk, but she refuses his call and then tells Shaw she no longer loves Chuck. She believes Chuck is no longer the man she knew. She tells Shaw about her traumatic and emotionally scarring red test, killing an unknown woman on the street in Paris. Killing her after seeing her reach for something, assuming it was a gun, and never knowing. It was the worst night of her life.

Chuck receives orders from Beckman to fly to Washington DC to be inducted into the CIA and receive his first assignment. A driver arrives to take him to the airport.

Points of Interest

• Chuck plays Private Eyes by Hall and Oates in order to take Sarah back to their first stakeout together (Sizzling Shrimp) but he was in the van alone when he played that song.
• This is the last episode to feature the Orange Orange or Sarah in her cover job. She no longer needs a cover job, she isn’t a handler anymore.
• Sarah is in a no-win situation. If Chuck passes his red test he is no longer the man she loves, he is a killer like every other spy she has known and failed in his pledge to her, to never change. If he doesn’t kill Perry he can’t be an agent and their lives are incompatible, or worse, he is dead. Either way, there is no future for them and she is devastated.
• Shaw and Beckman confirm the trip to DC was about finalizing Chuck’s training. Did Sarah have an intimate relationship with Shaw and then come back just to give in to Chuck emotionally?
• Shaw and Sarah have a hostile discussion regarding Chuck’s red test. Shaw is brutal and cruel, knowing she is emotionally invested in Chuck.
• Sarah’s last look to Chuck as she leaves the train station is that same look of longing we see many times during the show. 
• Sarah’s red test was the end of her innocence. She killed in cold blood without knowing whether the person was pulling a gun on her or not. Chuck’s red test is a different situation, we know Perry is guilty. But Chuck killing him is in response to an order, just like her situation. It’s an execution and will be the end of the man she believed him to be.
• Sarah goes full circle, back to the life she had before Chuck. Being a spy with no real life, throwing back to the same situation she had with Bryce. Partners with Shaw but not a real relationship. Only now she knows the difference. That was why she said that it was different with Shaw, “not like you.”
• “It looks like you’re going to get everything that you always wanted.”- an erroneous line if there ever was one. Sarah knows this isn’t true. All Chuck wanted for their first two seasons of the show was to have a normal life with a normal girl. He didn’t want to be a spy until Intersect 2.0 happened and he had the chance to be a “real” spy.
• What we see with his episode is that despite what Sarah has decided in her head, her heart continues to betray her. She loves Chuck and can’t resist him when he woos her. Whatever relationship she has with Shaw, it is mostly on a professional level.
• The music of Chuck has always been so meaningful in our reaction to and interpretation of the story. Many of the songs either comment on or advance the feelings, or the actual story. None more than the song that plays while Sarah gives Chuck his red test orders. She is saying goodbye to the man she loves, the life she had been hoping to have and can do nothing to stop it.