Chuck Versus the Alma Mater
Encyclopedia
"Chuck Versus the Alma Mater" is the seventh episode of the first season of Chuck
. It aired on November 5, 2007, and finds Chuck returning to Stanford to track down a data disk, and answer questions about his past. Meanwhile, Morgan must lead a revolt against the tyrannical Harry Tang.
Chuck confronts Casey as to why he's in the Intersect, but Casey does not know. Chuck agrees to accompany them to pick up Fleming, and though told to stay in the car while Sarah and Casey go inside the safehouse where Fleming is staying, he gets out when the Professor arrives. Fleming is pleased to see Chuck, and teaches him a secret phrase: "Are you coming to the toga party?" to use if he's in trouble. Chuck asks him why the CIA has a file on him. Fleming apologizes, but before he can say more is shot from behind with a crossbow by Magnus Einar, an Icelandic agent. Fleming tries to give Chuck a scrap of paper with a cryptic number code written on it and asks him to give it to Bryce Larkin, but Einar takes it first.
Fleming is taken into surgery, while Sarah and Casey ask about the numbers. Chuck is unable to remember them all, however, and once again declines joining them to follow-up on the lead at Stanford. Ellie gives him a copy of Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire that he checked out before being expelled, and while looking at the spine, he realizes that the numbers Fleming gave him was shelving code for a book at the Stanford library. He quickly passes on this intelligence to Casey and Sarah, and realizes that Fleming must have hidden the data in the library, where Chuck and Bryce played games of Gotcha
! There was a particular location Bryce used to hide spare darts, but Chuck realizes he has to go there to find it.
Chuck, Sarah and Casey join Ellie, Awesome and his frat brothers at Stanford. Leaving his family at the tailgate party, Chuck and the team head to the school's library, where Chuck finds Bryce's hiding place and the disk. However Magnus has followed them and the three flee from him and his henchmen but are eventually pinned down in a lecture hall, where Chuck discovers the disk contains a list of students recruited by the CIA, including him and Bryce. Chuck escapes out a side door while Casey and Sarah hold off Einar's men. He finds a computer and begins calling in backup from the students on the disc using the code Fleming taught him. Most arrive at the lecture hall with heavy firepower to relieve Casey and Sarah, while another student ambushes and incapacitates Einar before he can kill Chuck.
Back at home, Sarah allows Chuck time to review his file on the disk before confiscating it. In it, Fleming was about to record an interview with Chuck when Bryce enters and reveals that Chuck never got the message. Fleming says that Chuck is ideal for the Omaha Project, and touts his high rate of retention of subliminal information; he further states that, because the promise Chuck shows, Chuck will drafted rather than recruited and he will be "in, no matter what." Bryce fears that Omaha, a military project, would destroy his friend and that he's too good of a person to be forced into that life. With no other options, Bryce requests that Fleming help him falsify records to show Chuck cheated on his exams, invalidating his test scores and sparing him from recruitment. Chuck realizes Bryce sacrificed his friendship with Chuck to save him, and that if Bryce got him expelled to protect him, maybe there was a reason for him destroying the Intersect as well (And Sarah notes that maybe there was a reason he sent the Intersect to Chuck).
With Chuck away visiting Stanford, Morgan leads a revolt against Harry. The staff decides the best approach is to steal the One Remote. While Anna flirts with Harry as a distraction, Lester steals Harry's locker key and hands it off to Morgan. However when Morgan attempts to remove the remote he is caught by Harry after Lester tips him off. Harry confines Morgan to "The Hole," where he is forced to deal with angry customers and returns. He calls Chuck and gains the access code to Harry's remote. Morgan locks Harry out, and barters his way out of the Hole.
textbook, and their mutual interest in computers and programming was apparent from the beginning. Zork
, which played a key role in "Chuck Versus the Intersect
," was also mentioned, and as mentioned in the pilot, Chuck and Bryce would go on to create their own special version of the game together. The episode also reveals that Jill was a friend of Bryce's, and that he was the one who introduced her to Chuck. No other details of the relationship between Bryce and Jill would be revealed until Chuck Versus the Gravitron in Season 2. The episode reveals Chuck was expelled in 2003.
Previous episodes vilified Bryce for getting Chuck kicked out of school. The revelation that he only did so to protect his friend, even at the cost of losing that friendship, was an unexpected twist. The purposes of Bryce's actions would be further explored in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis."
Professor Fleming mentions Chuck is an ideal candidate for the Omaha Project, however no explanation of what this project was given. Omaha also resurfaced in a quip by Bryce later on, which Casey offers could be a possible code word for Sarah. Whatever the nature of the project, Chuck's high retention rate of subliminal data made him an ideal choice by Fleming for the project to the extent that Chuck would not be given the option of refusal (basically a drafting as opposed to a recruitment.)
This episode is also the first to offer a possible explanation for how the Intersect functions. One of the images in Fleming's presentation to his class is a picture of a flower that also appeared prominently in the Intersect data in "Chuck Versus the Intersect." The picture of the flower is actually composed of hundreds of smaller images tiled
together to create the main picture. As Fleming explains, the eye only sees the entire image, but the mind subliminally recalls the smaller pictures that make it up. Chuck's unprecedented recall rate would allow him to remember these images.
Also, Ellie and Awesome are revealed to have attended UCLA.
Chuck (TV series)
Chuck is an action-comedy/spy-drama television program from the United States created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak. The series is about an "average computer-whiz-next-door" named Chuck, played by Zachary Levi, who receives an encoded e-mail from an old college friend now working for the Central...
. It aired on November 5, 2007, and finds Chuck returning to Stanford to track down a data disk, and answer questions about his past. Meanwhile, Morgan must lead a revolt against the tyrannical Harry Tang.
Main plot
Professor Fleming is in the lecture hall, giving a lesson on subliminal imagery, when he sees a sinister figure enter the class. He hastily calls an early dismissal and flees, grabbing as many papers as he can and calling for help: He had made a copy of intelligence he should not and now someone is after it. Chuck and the team attend a briefing with General Beckman in the Home Theater room of the Buy More, where Chuck is stunned to learn that Fleming, the professor that had him expelled, was working for the CIA. Beckman wants Chuck to use his connection with Fleming to facilitate his extraction, but Chuck declines. Awesome, his frat brothers, and Ellie are preparing for the UCLA/Stanford game and are asking Chuck to come with them, but he again refuses to return to the school. However, while cleaning out boxes of memorabilia from college, Chuck flashes on his old Stanford ID.Chuck confronts Casey as to why he's in the Intersect, but Casey does not know. Chuck agrees to accompany them to pick up Fleming, and though told to stay in the car while Sarah and Casey go inside the safehouse where Fleming is staying, he gets out when the Professor arrives. Fleming is pleased to see Chuck, and teaches him a secret phrase: "Are you coming to the toga party?" to use if he's in trouble. Chuck asks him why the CIA has a file on him. Fleming apologizes, but before he can say more is shot from behind with a crossbow by Magnus Einar, an Icelandic agent. Fleming tries to give Chuck a scrap of paper with a cryptic number code written on it and asks him to give it to Bryce Larkin, but Einar takes it first.
Fleming is taken into surgery, while Sarah and Casey ask about the numbers. Chuck is unable to remember them all, however, and once again declines joining them to follow-up on the lead at Stanford. Ellie gives him a copy of Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire that he checked out before being expelled, and while looking at the spine, he realizes that the numbers Fleming gave him was shelving code for a book at the Stanford library. He quickly passes on this intelligence to Casey and Sarah, and realizes that Fleming must have hidden the data in the library, where Chuck and Bryce played games of Gotcha
Assassin (game)
Assassin is a live-action game...
! There was a particular location Bryce used to hide spare darts, but Chuck realizes he has to go there to find it.
Chuck, Sarah and Casey join Ellie, Awesome and his frat brothers at Stanford. Leaving his family at the tailgate party, Chuck and the team head to the school's library, where Chuck finds Bryce's hiding place and the disk. However Magnus has followed them and the three flee from him and his henchmen but are eventually pinned down in a lecture hall, where Chuck discovers the disk contains a list of students recruited by the CIA, including him and Bryce. Chuck escapes out a side door while Casey and Sarah hold off Einar's men. He finds a computer and begins calling in backup from the students on the disc using the code Fleming taught him. Most arrive at the lecture hall with heavy firepower to relieve Casey and Sarah, while another student ambushes and incapacitates Einar before he can kill Chuck.
Back at home, Sarah allows Chuck time to review his file on the disk before confiscating it. In it, Fleming was about to record an interview with Chuck when Bryce enters and reveals that Chuck never got the message. Fleming says that Chuck is ideal for the Omaha Project, and touts his high rate of retention of subliminal information; he further states that, because the promise Chuck shows, Chuck will drafted rather than recruited and he will be "in, no matter what." Bryce fears that Omaha, a military project, would destroy his friend and that he's too good of a person to be forced into that life. With no other options, Bryce requests that Fleming help him falsify records to show Chuck cheated on his exams, invalidating his test scores and sparing him from recruitment. Chuck realizes Bryce sacrificed his friendship with Chuck to save him, and that if Bryce got him expelled to protect him, maybe there was a reason for him destroying the Intersect as well (And Sarah notes that maybe there was a reason he sent the Intersect to Chuck).
Flashbacks
Part of the episode is revealed in flashbacks. When asked why Bryce turned him in, he tells him he brought it on himself, even though Chuck did not do what he was accused of. It was Fleming who revealed that Bryce turned him in for cheating. Chuck also recalls when he first met Bryce at Stanford.Buy More
Harry Tang has been on a campaign to restructure the store to his own satisfaction. He implements several policies that have become unpopular, including scheduled lunches and breaks. Morgan finds that he and Chuck can no longer share their lunch hour, to which Chuck laments the loss of "Surf and Turf Wednesdays and Fridays." Harry also institutes a "Green" program, but the final straw comes when Harry hijacks the Buy More video wall during one of the employees' competitions—a race to identify as many television programs in a minute as possible—with a universal remote that gives him control of all the TV sets on the wall: "One Remote to control them all."With Chuck away visiting Stanford, Morgan leads a revolt against Harry. The staff decides the best approach is to steal the One Remote. While Anna flirts with Harry as a distraction, Lester steals Harry's locker key and hands it off to Morgan. However when Morgan attempts to remove the remote he is caught by Harry after Lester tips him off. Harry confines Morgan to "The Hole," where he is forced to deal with angry customers and returns. He calls Chuck and gains the access code to Harry's remote. Morgan locks Harry out, and barters his way out of the Hole.
Music
- "Chelsea DaggerChelsea Dagger"Chelsea Dagger" is a song by The Fratellis and their second single. It was released on 28 August 2006. It is taken from their debut album Costello Music, which was released in the United Kingdom on 11 September 2006...
" by The FratellisThe FratellisThe Fratellis were an indie rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. The band consisted of lead vocalist and guitarist Jon Fratelli , bass guitarist Barry Fratelli , and drummer and backing vocalist Mince Fratelli .The band released 2 albums during their career, Costello Music in 2006 and Here We Stand in... - "ManeaterManeater-Music:* "Maneater" , a 1982 single by Daryl Hall and John Oates* "Maneater" , a 2006 single by Nelly Furtado-Film and television:* Maneater , a 2007 U.S...
" by Hall & OatesHall & OatesHall & Oates are an American musical duo composed of Daryl Hall and John Oates. They achieved their greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s. Both sing and play instruments. They specialized in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed "rock and soul."... - "Don't Look Back In AngerDon't Look Back in Anger"Don't Look Back in Anger" is a song by English rock band Oasis, released in 1996 as the fourth single from their hit second album Morning Glory?. The song was written by the band's guitarist and main songwriter, Noel Gallagher. The song became the band's second single to reach #1 in the UK...
" by OasisOasis (band)Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs , Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher... - "Drama QueenDrama Queen"Drama Queen" was the Danish entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, performed in English by DQ. This was the first appearance of a solo drag act in Contest history ....
" by Switches - "Trendsetter" by GooseGooseThe word goose is the English name for a group of waterfowl, belonging to the family Anatidae. This family also includes swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, which are smaller....
Production
Although Chuck had referred to his experiences at Stanford, Bryce's betrayal, and their friendship several times over the preceding six episodes, "Chuck Versus the Alma Mater" was the first to explore this history in detail. Chuck and Bryce are shown meeting in the school quad in 1999 when Bryce notices Chuck's C++C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
textbook, and their mutual interest in computers and programming was apparent from the beginning. Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
, which played a key role in "Chuck Versus the Intersect
Chuck Versus the Intersect
"Chuck Versus the Intersect" is the pilot episode of the American action-comedy television series Chuck. The episode was directed by McG and written by series co-creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak...
," was also mentioned, and as mentioned in the pilot, Chuck and Bryce would go on to create their own special version of the game together. The episode also reveals that Jill was a friend of Bryce's, and that he was the one who introduced her to Chuck. No other details of the relationship between Bryce and Jill would be revealed until Chuck Versus the Gravitron in Season 2. The episode reveals Chuck was expelled in 2003.
Previous episodes vilified Bryce for getting Chuck kicked out of school. The revelation that he only did so to protect his friend, even at the cost of losing that friendship, was an unexpected twist. The purposes of Bryce's actions would be further explored in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis."
Professor Fleming mentions Chuck is an ideal candidate for the Omaha Project, however no explanation of what this project was given. Omaha also resurfaced in a quip by Bryce later on, which Casey offers could be a possible code word for Sarah. Whatever the nature of the project, Chuck's high retention rate of subliminal data made him an ideal choice by Fleming for the project to the extent that Chuck would not be given the option of refusal (basically a drafting as opposed to a recruitment.)
This episode is also the first to offer a possible explanation for how the Intersect functions. One of the images in Fleming's presentation to his class is a picture of a flower that also appeared prominently in the Intersect data in "Chuck Versus the Intersect." The picture of the flower is actually composed of hundreds of smaller images tiled
Tessellation
A tessellation or tiling of the plane is a pattern of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of parts of the plane or of other surfaces. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Tessellations frequently appeared in the art...
together to create the main picture. As Fleming explains, the eye only sees the entire image, but the mind subliminally recalls the smaller pictures that make it up. Chuck's unprecedented recall rate would allow him to remember these images.
Also, Ellie and Awesome are revealed to have attended UCLA.
Production details
- Ironically, although set at Stanford, filming of the episode — with the exception of stock footage — actually took place on the campus of rival UCLA. The two schools were playing each other in football in this episode.
- Captain Awesome remarks that instead of Stanford he'd rather see UCLA play SC (the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern CaliforniaThe University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
), the Alma Mater of series creators Josh SchwartzJosh Schwartz-Film school at USC:In 1995, Schwartz realized his boyhood dream of attending film school to study screen and television writing at the University of Southern California...
and Chris FedakChris FedakChris Fedak is a co-executive producer of Chuck. He has also co-written several episodes with Josh Schwartz.Chuck is Fedak's first television credit.Schwartz says that the idea for Chuck originally came from Fedak:-External links:*...
. - Chuck's old fraternity at Stanford is Gamma Delta Phi.
- The Library of Congress ClassificationLibrary of Congress ClassificationThe Library of Congress Classification is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress. It is used by most research and academic libraries in the U.S. and several other countries; for example, Australia and Taiwan, R.O.C. It is not to be confused with the Library of...
code for the copy of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire seen in the episode is incorrect. - The number on the paper (219 F5U922) given to Chuck by Professor Fleming does not correspond to a Library of Congress Classification code nor a Dewey Decimal number.
- The "One Remote" used by Harry in this episode appears to be a Logitech Harmony 880 or 890 model remote. Since only the Harmony 890 can use RF (as opposed to IR), it is presumed that the remote must be a Harmony 890, as only RF capability would allow such broad-sweeping ability to change channels from a distance.
- The ending of this episode contradicts the story of how Chuck and Jill met that Chuck told at the beginning of Chuck Versus the IntersectChuck Versus the Intersect"Chuck Versus the Intersect" is the pilot episode of the American action-comedy television series Chuck. The episode was directed by McG and written by series co-creators Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak...
. The Pilot describes Chuck and Jill meeting in class, whereas this episode seems to indicate Bryce introducing Chuck to Jill. However, Bryce's introduction of Chuck does not occur on screen, and might not have happened that day, as Bryce says Jill was "on the quad," but might've gone elsewhere by the time the two showed up looking for her.
Flashes
- Chuck discovers that there is a file on him in the Intersect when he flashes on his old Stanford student ID badge.