John Casey (Chuck) - Series

Series

Casey was on-hand when Bryce Larkin stole the Intersect data, and participated in the pursuit to apprehend him. He shot Bryce during his escape attempt, apparently fatally, but not before Larkin was able to successfully send the contents of the Intersect to his old college roommate, Chuck Bartowski. The National Intelligence Director (Wendy Makkena) dispatched Casey with a team to clean up the operation. He was to find the Intersect data and capture Chuck to determine what Chuck knew and who he worked for. CIA agent Sarah Walker simultaneously attempted to recover the Intersect, and in their independent missions, Casey and Walker ended up in a standoff for control of Chuck. After Sarah proved Chuck was not a threat and both agents discovered that he contained the Intersect secrets in his brain, Casey was assigned to protect him.

During an assessment to determine whether the Intersect could be removed from Chuck's head, consulting Dr. Zarnow was apparently killed by a bomb planted in his car. Sarah and Casey each secretly blamed the other for murdering Dr. Zarnow after investigating the wreckage. Sarah showed Chuck the detonator she recovered, and the flash identified it as a NSA device. However later, Casey and Chuck were both nearly killed by another of the same device, implicating Sarah as the assassin. After a confrontation between Chuck and Sarah it was revealed that Zarnow faked his own death. The doctor kidnapped Sarah in hopes of torturing the identity of the Intersect from her. Casey and Chuck pursued, and Chuck was subsequently captured and loaded on a helicopter. However Chuck resisted and the pilot was knocked unconscious. Casey attempted to talk Chuck through landing, but quickly lost his patience at which point Sarah took control and helped him down.

Despite their frequent antagonism, Casey revealed his respect for Chuck's honesty and good nature while under the effects of truth serum. Sarah while under the effects of the truth serum calls Casey her partner, their working relationship improves. However given Sarah's admission to having trained to resist such drugs it's possible Casey has as well.

As part of his cover Casey is given a job at the Buy More where he works as a "Green Shirt" selling appliances. Despite poor customer service skills, Casey is nonetheless an effective, if aggressive, salesman, and he is ruthless in dealing with shoplifting. When interviewed for a Buymore instructional video, it was revealed that he nearly eliminated shoplifting from the Burbank, California branch. Although most of his coworkers are afraid of him, they also know to come to him in dangerous situations. In the transition from Season 2 to Season 3, Casey quits his job at the Buy More at the same time as Chuck, only to be re-hired along with Chuck and Morgan less than a year later when it once again becomes a useful cover. When Morgan needs help to put down an employee revolt led by Lester, a visibly gleeful Casey remarks, "Insurgents? I hate insurgents!." Promoted by Morgan to "Lieutenant Assistant Manager;" Casey intimidates the staff by putting out a burning a cigar using his arm and not flinching a muscle, and (without fully disclosing to Morgan) ultimately brainwashes Lester, and for his success Morgan rewards him with a raise.

Casey spends much of his downtime monitoring Chuck's home with listening devices from his apartment in the same complex. His preferred listening device is the EM-50. When Chuck discovers the bugs after a tipoff from Laszlo and confronts his handler, Casey shows little reaction despite it being one of the first times Chuck directly stands up to him. Casey also keeps a "Chuck diary", which he keeps hidden in his Buy More locker. Chuck later admits to being a fan of Casey's work.

Casey is forced to face a painful chapter from his past when Chuck flashes on a list of Russian mobsters staying in Los Angeles, and one of the names, Ilsa Trinchina, pointes directly to "Sugar Bear," a name Chuck realizes was her pet name for Casey. Chuck innocently teases Casey over it and Casey's temper nearly drives him to strangle Chuck. Sarah then reveals to Chuck that Trinchina was apparently killed by a bomb in Chechnya. Later, Chuck and Casey learn that Ilsa is a French spy and had faked her death in the blast. Chuck convinces Casey to fight for her, and although they rekindle their relationship, Casey and Ilsa ultimately part ways.

He meets with a very personal betrayal when he discovers his old mentor and sensei, Ty Bennett, had turned rogue and is building a criminal empire with former students, even inviting Casey to join him. The mission to capture Bennett nearly proves fatal to Chuck when Casey allows the vendetta to distract him. As a result, Beckman orders Casey to stand down and pulls him off the case to apprehend Bennett, bluntly telling him that he was never told Bennett went rogue because they knew he would go after him. After being confined to Castle, Casey takes advantage of Chuck's empathy and compassion to facilitate his escape, then goes after Bennett himself. Casey duels with Bennett, who taunts him over his lack of focus and calm. Chuck, realizing that Casey's anger is his strength, tricks Casey into instead channeling his anger to defeat Bennett. For this, Casey shows a rare moment of sincere gratitude to Chuck.

Despite his long service, including in many dangerous hot spots spanning three wars, Casey had never lost an appendage in the line of duty. However, this changes when Ned Rhyerson, a Fulcrum agent posing as a frightened amateur criminal, takes the Buy More hostage as a setup to discover what the CIA and NSA were protecting there. When Ned discovers Casey, secretly knowing that Casey is with the NSA, he feigns an inexperience with firearms, pretended not to know how to uncock his revolver; when the weapon "accidentally" fires, the bullet severs a substantial part of Casey's left pinky toe.

Unknown to Sarah and Chuck, who believed that Chuck would be allowed to return to his civilian life once the Intersect mission is finished, Casey was under orders to execute Chuck to prevent the data from falling into the wrong hands once Chuck's Intersect became redundant. After recovering the Cipher, a key component of the rebuilt Intersect, the command to terminate Chuck is given. Casey attempts to appeal the decision, but Beckman and Graham believe there is no other choice; Graham specifically asks Casey if could remove the Intersect from Chuck's head and guarantee that Chuck would not be kidnapped and tortured, and Casey admits he could not. However, before Casey could carry out his orders, the Trojan horse Cipher explodes, killing Graham and destroying the new Intersect. This turn of events retracted his terminate orders since Chuck still is the only copy of the Intersect, and the orders naturally become moot after Chuck's father removes the original Intersect from Chuck's brain. The order appears to remain rescinded following Chuck's decision to implant the Intersect 2.0 into his brain. After failing his spy training, Chuck is dismissed from the agency, and Casey appears ready to pull out of Burbank without any mention of execution orders.

Despite his aforementioned hatred of Alejandro Goya, Casey is forced to save the Premier's life from an attempted assassination by The Ring. As he had the same blood type, his blood is also used to save the premier. Goya is so grateful he acknowledges Casey for his great skills, and gives him a gift of pre-revolution cigars. Later in the series, Goya is deposed in a coup d'état led by his wife, Hortencia, causing Goya to flee his homeland, Costa Gravas; Goya decides that the safest place for him to stay is with Casey. Casey reveals that Goya's trusted advisor, Turinni, is infatuated with Hortencia, and exposes him as one of the driving forces behind the coup. To save Casey's life, Goya knocks Casey out and agrees to go back to Costa Gravas. Casey, who has extensive knowledge of Costa Gravas and Goya's palace, leads Sarah and Chuck through Costa Gravas' sewers in a mission to save Goya. As Chuck and Sarah successfully mediate between Goya and Hortencia, Casey captures Turrini, and the three prevent a nuclear attack on the States. Goya addresses Casey as the man that saved Costa Gravas from civil war and leads him from the nuclear control room to the palace where he had a more fitting reward for the Angel of Life.

In "Chuck Versus the Tic Tac," Casey is coerced by his former commander, Col. Keller, who is now a Ring spy, to steal a combat-performance-enhancing pill. Keller threatens to have Casey's ex fiancee, Kathleen McHugh, killed unless he cooperates. Despite General Beckman's orders to stand down, and facing charges of treason, Casey does everything he can to save Kathleen, eventually getting help from Chuck and Sarah. In the end, Keller is taken down, Kathleen is saved, and instead of going to prison for treason, Beckman gives Casey a something of a "second second chance", dismissing him from the Marine Corps and NSA service, and allowing him re-enter civilian life without his pension.

Casey finds readjusting to life as a civilian difficult, and nearly ends up sued for assault by Jeff and Lester after he catches them goofing off in the store. Big Mike successfully mediates the situation in an effort to "smooth" Casey's jagged edges. He is surprised to learn Chuck has been called in for his "final exam," and later breaks the law by killing Chuck's "red test" target when Chuck himself hesitated. Casey subsequently warns him not to reveal what happened, as Casey had committed an unsanctioned murder and in the process defrauded the government.

In "Chuck Versus the American Hero," Casey sees Chuck as his opportunity to get back to spy work when he learns Chuck is authorized by Beckman to choose his own team. After Chuck announces his intentions to win Sarah back first before making any other decisions, Casey agrees to join forces with Morgan and Devon to help. Unfortunately their efforts are not entirely successful and the three of them end up in jail for the night. Later, Casey helps Sarah escape Castle when Chuck locks her in while going to rescue Shaw. After the mission, with Sarah packing to meet Chuck at the train station, Casey meets her at her apartment, admits that he killed Perry, and wishes her a good life.

Casey is reinstated by General Beckman following the events of "Chuck Versus the Other Guy," after he apprehended Ring head The Director while Chuck stopped the now-rogue Shaw and rescued Sarah. Recognizing the part he played in the operation, Casey also vouches for Morgan with Beckman and arranges for him to be officially hired on to Team Bartowski.

When Chuck and Sarah go AWOL yet again while in Paris in the episode "Chuck Versus the Honeymooners," Beckman orders Casey to track the two with Morgan's assistance. Although initially reluctant to accept Morgan's help, he is eventually forced to acknowledge that Morgan was more useful than he first considered; as Beckman had noted, "Mr. Grimes and the Intersect have a strangely co-dependent relationship." After tracking down his missing partners and helping them apprehend a defecting Basque terrorist, Casey decides to let the two run away to leave the spy life. The mission nearly ends disastrously when two Interpol agents coming to take the prisoner into custody are revealed to be members of the terrorist ETA, but Casey and Morgan are rescued by Chuck and Sarah. After the mission, Casey personally vouches to General Beckman for Morgan's role in locating Chuck and Sarah and his decisive actions in securing the Basque prisoner.

In "Chuck Versus the Tooth" Casey is unwittingly involved in a Ring plot to seize Stephen Bartowski, when a Ring operative named Justin Sullivan, Ellie meet in Africa identifies Casey as a double-agent attempting to get his hands on her father. She becomes convinced when she sees Casey's cache of weapons. In "Chuck Versus the Living Dead", Casey is told by Chuck to keep and eye on Ellie and he tails her. However, when he finds her attempting to meet with her Ring contact, Casey presumes that she is having an affair and tells Morgan to question Devon. Casey later attempts to plant bugs around Ellie's apartment, thinking that she would not be home for a while. When she arrives back and heard him upstairs, Justin tells her to use the gun inside set of speakers he gave her to deal with Casey. Ellie cannot bring herself to do it and instead bludgeons Casey with a frying pan before running to Justin, who secretly holds her captive.

At four years, Team Bartowski is the longest assignment Casey has ever had, and he has effectively put down roots. Consequently, he initially refuses an offer to leave the NSA to command a CIA National Clandestine Service team because he does not wish to leave Burbank; NCS Director Jane Bentley (Robin Givens), however, then shows him to the new section of Castle from which he would be based. He is retired or dismissed again after he and his team go rogue in "Chuck Versus the Cliffhanger" to save Sarah's life; he and Morgan are then hired by Chuck and Sarah's new private spy operation.