- Chuck and Sarah call in her con-artist father, Jack Burton, to help recover the wedding funds they lost. Morgan talks Casey into meeting with Alex's mother.
- McCALL, ID - 1988
A Girl Scout makes her way door-to-door to sell cookies. At one house, she manages to get an order of $84 worth of cookies, much to the surprise of the woman. But her cute charms work and she has the money. Weirdly, it was all the lady had in her purse. But when she walks out and gets into her father's car, it makes sense. The father, was con artist Jack Burton (), and the little girl was his daughter, Jenny. Whom we know today as Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski). They look over their haul for the day: over $2,000, of which Jenny gets her 5% cut of $100. Dad asks her what she would want to do with that money, and she says she wanted to take a long trip far away with him. However, it may not have been a good idea, since Jack dropped her off at her grandmother's, where he was certainly not welcome to see his wife.
ECHO PARK, CA - 2011
Chuck (Zachary Levi) and Sarah have finalized the last details of their wedding with their wedding planner, Daphne Peralta. They hesitate, but they push forward and hand a check for $26,230, which was a 40% discount because they paid up front. If you smell something wrong here, you would be correct. Chuck tries to call her back because Morgan (Joshua Gomez) thought Casey (Adam Baldwin) wouldn't appreciate the red-and-black motif as their wedding colors (the Helvetica font didn't help, either), and Daphne's number was disconnected. As was her office. Sarah was, you might imagine, ticked off to no end, especially given she spent her youth conning people.
SARAH: Daphne Peralta chose the wrong couple to con!
CHUCK: (hesitates) Uh, that's us. Right, honey?
Speaking of un-marital bliss, Morgan and Alex (Mekenna Melvin) corner Casey at the Buy More and ask him if he's ready to meet with Kathleen, Alex's mother and the woman Casey left behind when Alex Coburn became John Casey. He wasn't, because he feared she would not appreciate finding out he left her to stay in the military. It probably would have been a good idea not to invite Kathleen to the store. Morgan and Alex shoo her out of there, but she caught a glimpse of Casey first and thought something was amiss.
Unfortunately, Daphne Peralta was off the grid, and asking Beckman to allocate resources to find their wedding planner didn't sound like a good idea, so Sarah consulted the one person she could about such matters: her father. Jack, down in Miami pulling the Lichtenstein on some potential clients, couldn't tell her any more information about her "party planner." Although he was happy she was still with the schnook, he wasn't so happy she was working for the CIA. Apparently, you can lift Sarah Walker's wallet if you're careful. Jack told her to con her way into using the CIA's resources to help, as they managed to stay in the Governor's Mansion in Savannah for an entire summer once. Sarah remained cryptic about what she was doing and headed back to Burbank, but she piqued her father's curiosity enough to head west himself.
Back home, Sarah decides to take her father's advice to "fake it until you make it" by convincing Chuck to "flash" on Daphne. She wants Chuck to fake one for General Beckman (Bonita Friedericy), but Chuck's fake flash looks a lot different than when he actually does it...as does Sarah's imitation of it. (Actually, there's a YouTube video that describes it well, but I can't talk about it here. You'll just have to live on your lonely island and ponder.) This sounds like a good idea...until Chuck accidentally pulls Peralta's name with that of Arthur Novokov, a known escaped terrorist. Then it worked WAY too well, as Beckman puts a high-priority task out to the CIA, NSA, and FBI to find Daphne Peralta. Sarah is livid, but Chuck points out they now have every defense, police, and intelligence database at their disposal.
A little lesson in parenting: never let Jack Burton play Three-Bottle Monte with your baby. Of course, Devon (Ryan McPartlin) did not know Jack wasn't invited to the wedding but does stop himself from spilling the beans. Of course, having the wedding plan book in the house does no good, and Devon isn't too subtle at covering it up. Jack admits not being able to read Sarah very well, but he taught her to be that way and not let people in to avoid getting hurt. Devon texts Sarah to let her know Jack was at their apartment. Sarah is upset, but all she could do is concentrate on a lead they got from a satellite image of Daphne taking a shuttle somewhere. That somewhere was along the highway. Chuck was able to slip on to the van and apprehend Daphne, but Beckman had Casey and an FBI team ready to intercept Peralta, and only Sarah disabling the satellite feeds was keeping them out of trouble. Daphne started screaming bloody murder, claiming Chuck was her ex and was exposing himself to her on the packed shuttle. Interestingly, the shuttle driver was more determined to get all of them to the airport. With Casey and his team bearing down on the van, Chuck plays the crazy role and threatens to expose himself to everyone in the van if the driver didn't pull over. That worked, only Daphne thought they were conning her into believing they were with the CIA. However, the net Casey shot at her to take her down would sort of invalidate that. As you may have expected, enough steam was coming out of Beckman's ears to elect a new Pope, and the lovebirds were suspended. Chuck tried to plead his case, going through the list of people Peralta conned. Only he flashed on a name. The Klug family were scientists working for the Iranian government and would be at one of the conned weddings. But Chuck only got to cry wolf once: Beckman didn't buy his legitimate flash, although she did concede the flash face looked a little more convincing this tie.
Back in Idaho in 1988, Jenny's grandmother is sending Jack away because he wants to borrow money again. But Jenny slips out and brings her piggy bank, where she had been saving to have an adventure with her father. He didn't want to take her money, but she insisted on having an adventure with him. He agrees, "because all we need for an adventure is you and me." In 2011, Jack and Sarah use Jack Daniels instead of ice cream for their talk. Jack wanted Sarah to know he was worried about her. But Sarah is hoping to get back into the good graces of the CIA by capturing the Klug brothers and the Zephyr, a drive where they keep Iran's nuclear secrets. Sarah thought the "in" would be by throwing the wedding Peralta conned them out of, but without CIA resources, she couldn't throw a $100,000 wedding in just 24 hours. But that's what Jack is for. At the Grand Ambassador Hotel Ballroom. Step 1, infiltrate the Bat Mitzvah being held there for Tammy Katz. In goes Sarah as Daphne Peralta. It was easy...just watch a hundred episodes of and she's all set. The theme of Tammy's Bat Mitzvah? Hungarian Wedding. Step 2, a fake cake (with real frosting, obviously), a few Chuck mix tapes, and about a hundred fewer Stars of David later, and the place looked ready for a wedding. Except Casey arrived. Sarah apologized for keeping him out of the loop and talked him into helping them apprehend the Klug brothers. Sure enough, Jack even had a job for Cop Face. (Sorry, he wasn't DJ Casey tonight, dammit.)
Chuck, at the controls to the music, tries to stall the wedding until the Klug brothers arrived. Jack finds Sarah in the crowd and dances with her. ("It could be the only chance I get to dance with my daughter at a wedding.") Sarah was upset about not telling him, but he agrees it was the right thing not to invite him. He always thought she'd end up more like him, not getting tied down or close to anybody. Sarah said she found a home in Burbank with Chuck. But the father-daughter talk would have to be put on hold for the arrival Klug brothers. Sarah convinces one of the brothers to go to the back to cancel his credit card on the open bar. Of course, one tray later, and one brother is cancelled. Morgan draws the second one to the back, and Sarah takes him out. (MORGAN: "Spy high five!") Casey closes in on the last one, only Kathleen walked into the reception hall. Casey darts away, so Jack corners the third Klug brother. Unfortunately, Casey didn't get away fast enough. Kathleen finds him. She followed him from the Buy More. She was at his funeral and was even given a flag. Casey didn't want to reveal anything, especially since they had to wrap the mission up, but Kathleen wanted to know why Alex already knew and thought he was some sort of hero working for the government. Casey tells her to go, but Kathleen insists Casey tell Alex the truth.
One tiny problem. Three Klug brothers on ice but no Zephyr drive. And the father of the bride is about to have his daughter cut into a styrofoam cake. But Jack figures it out: it's Three-Klug Monte. The Zephyr was never on any of the Klug brothers; they were the distraction. And Mr. Heffring is very upset his daughter just cut into a styrofoam cake. And Morgan trying to stop them from doing that clued him in on what was going on. He takes Morgan out, but the Bearded One tips off his location over his earpiece to the team. Chuck, Sarah, and Casey surround Heffring, who is holding Morgan hostage. (Not sure what Epic Win's tiny giraffe was doing, though) Jack gets in between and talks to Heffring, convincing him to not ruin his daughter's life by dying on her wedding night from one of Casey's bullets. Heffring gives up. Casey flashes his badge to the local police and hands Heffring over. And Kathleen sees what John did from her car.
Beckman lets Chuck and Sarah off the hook for finding the Zephyr, and they take the win. At home Jack is ready to go, but Chuck wants him to wait for Sarah to come home. Chuck asked Jack to walk his daughter down the aisle, but he has to turn her down. He admitted to breaking Sarah's heart too many times in the past to deserve to walk her down the aisle, but Chuck convinces him to stay for a while longer. Unfortunately, he leaves before Chuck can get back. He left without saying goodbye to Sarah, either.
SARAH: That's what he does. Once you know all the cons, you can't be a sucker.
Which is true, as 1988 Jack Burton takes his sleeping daughter back to her grandmother's house and takes off on her without saying goodbye. He even took her piggy bank. But he returned it to Sarah in Burbank, never having taken a dime out of it, even adding quite a bit to it. Enough to pay for the wedding and more. He also leaves her a note.
JACK: I hope you can have all the adventures you ever wanted with a man far better than me.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content