Strickler makes Michael an offer he's actually interested in: helping Michael get Back In. While pressuring his contact point, Diego Garza, to look into whether Strickler could actually make that happen, Michael gets a client that hits him where he lives: A mobster's brother named Erik Luna is beating his wife and kids, and when Michael's called upon to intervene in the custody battle, he and the team are powerfully motivated to scare Erik away. Michael poses as customer who bought the wrong hot car from Erik, and even stages a fake drive-by attempt, but it's not enough. Plus Michael has to deal with the older kid's clumsy attempts to resolve things himself, but at least he gets to hit Erik a lot as part of his cover. As the final move, Michael "hires" Sam and Fi to take out the fictional assassins, only so all three of them can pretend to get shot in front of him. It works perfectly, until Erik's mobster brother gets involved to keep him from fleeing. But fortunately, fixing that is just a simple matter of gaslighting Erik in front of his brother, and the rest takes care of itself.
Meanwhile, Michael has satisfied himself that Strickler has the connections to come through on his promise, but Strickler will only deliver if Michael accepts a job from him, sight unseen. Michael does. He'll just have to hope it's nothing he can get paid for.
It's a busy night at the club below Michael's loft, but as he and Fi come home for the evening, he VOs about why he and other spies aren't really into that scene: "In a career where hearing loss is a serious operational concern and crowds of strangers have to be constantly monitored, they just don't seem like much fun." That doesn't seem to keep Fi complaining about not getting to go in and shake her narrow ass for the masses. When they enter the gate to Michael's courtyard, there's a blonde at the bottom of the stairs to the loft, and she looks pretty friendly. Michael thinks she's a lost clubgoer, but she assures him she's there for him. She presents Michael with a fancy gift bag, which she says contains "rejuvenating body lotion. A gift from a friend. I can apply it if you'd like." Michael politely declines the service, and hands the bag off to Fi as the woman leaves. Fi wonders who Michael's friend is. "He's not a friend. He's a recruiter," Michael reminds her. "Oh, Strickler," Fi remembers, and offers to apply it herself. Okay, a straight dude sending another straight dude a bottle of body lotion is a little creepy, no? Is that just me? Fi seems pretty impressed with the way Michael shot that bimbo down. As though we didn't already know he has the sex drive of a captive giant panda THERE I SAID IT.
day, a lot of helicopter shots of Miami accompany Michael's morning VO: "Training a covert operative takes years and costs a lot of money. In theory, it's all for the taxpayers who paid the bills. In practice, it's worth a lot on the open market. And when something's that valuable, there's always someone trying to sell it." That someone, of course, is Strickler, lounging on the sun deck of his yacht with that same blonde from last night, until Michael appears and tosses the unopened lotion bottle into his lap. "Strickler -- Agent To The Spies," the subtitles remind us, in case we don't remember last week. Shading his eyes, Strickler talks up the lotion, which he says is 40 percent aloe vera. "They say it's great for burns." Yeah, still creepy. Michael's not amused, so Strickler offers him a mimosa, and a story that might interest Michael. It's about an NSA logistics guy who was involved in a career-ending scandal, but got a second chance thanks to a fortuitous conversation on a ski lift in Aspen. "I know, because I was there," Strickler boasts. He used to be a ski lift? Strickler's point is this: "If we were working together, I'd be there for you, too." In other words, he might be able to help Michael get what he really wants, and let's say it all together now: Back In.
Then we're back at the airport, which is, you'll recall, the home base of Miami-based spy Diego Garza, the poor bastard Michael glommed onto a couple of weeks ago and got drafted into becoming his contact point. As Michael sneaks in the back entrance of Diego's hangar, he VOs, "Spies hate drop-in visits. Any questionable contact has to be reported to superiors, a process that involves hours of paperwork and uncomfortable questions. If you're a questionable contact, that gives you some leverage. If you know where a spy operates, even a guy running a lowly import-export cover business [Michael sneaks up behind Diego and hisses his name, I guess because he figures that if this doesn't work out he might as well commit suicide by spy], you can make someone's life miserable." When Diego isn't happy to see him, Michael asks, "What, I can't just drop by and say hi to my favorite 'point of contact?'" Michael's air quotes have the power to call down subtitles, which currently read "Diego Garza -- Michael's Point Of Contact." Michael asks Diego a favor: check out the name Tom Strickler. He even writes it down on Diego's desk notepad and tears the sheet off for him. "Maybe you should Google him," Garza suggests. "Or find someone who cares." Michael's way ahead of him on that, because he's just turned Garza into that very person. As he leaves the sheet on Garza's desk, he informs him, "I let the local Homeland Security office know that I was dropping by and leaving that document there." Heh. Poor Garza.
Michael and Fi are walking across the grounds of a schmancy condo complex, Fi doing her contractually-obligated Complaining About What Michael's Up To This Week. "In my experience, if something's too good to be true, it's best to shoot it, just in case," she says, which is a good line if not really in context. Did Christopher McQuarrie write this episode? She's still arguing when they approach the entrance, which is showing clear signs of a break-in. They ditch the groceries and go quiet, briefly making me wonder if Michael left those clues himself just to shut her up for thirty seconds. She draws her gun and they go in carefully, Michael looking naked without a weapon. He VOs, "If you want to stay alive, you have to recognize the signs of a break-in. The most skilled operative in the world won't last long if he walks into an ambush carrying a box of cereal." I think that depends on what the prize in the box is. If it's a loaded Uzi, you're probably good. Michael isn't carrying anything at all, at least not until they get inside the front door. Fi nods at the umbrella stand, and he pulls an automatic out of it and racks the slide. He should have known that was in there; why the fuck else would Fi own an umbrella stand? They split up, and Fi rattles the French doors into her bedroom while Michael covers the other exit from the room, VOing, "When a target is cornered, the best strategy is to flush them into a chokepoint where they have two options: surrender or be shot." When a figure bursts into the hallway, Michael snaps, "Drop it!" Down goes another gun, in pieces on the tile floor. Oh, and about the person who was holding it... "Of course, if your target turns out to be thirteen years old, carrying a dismantled pistol, it changes the tactical response somewhat." That must be why the kid has time to duck into the bathroom and lock the door. Michael hands his gun back to Fi and busts in, only to see the boy dropping out through a window that's too small for Michael to follow. Michael darts out the back door, not letting a conveniently-timed pickup truck backing out of a garage stop him from cornering the kid against a high fence. The kid apologizes and says he was just going to "borrow" the gun, which Michael doesn't believe. What I don't believe is that the only weapon the kid could find inside Fi's apartment was disassembled. Someone like Fi would have dozens of weapons mounted on spring clips to every available surface in her home. She probably stirs her soup with a .357 Magnum. Anyway, Michael says he'll have to call the kid's parents. But the kid protests, until Michael gets him to tell him what's happening: "I have to kill my stepdad." Michael's eyes narrow like somebody just blew a dog whistle that only he can hear. Which, in a sense, is pretty much what just happened.
After the titles and the ads, Michael and Fi are sweating the kid in Fi's living room, while Michael enjoys a cup of yogurt. He's going to spoil the dinner that Fi was going to make for him. Eventually they get him to start talking: the kid is trying to prevent his stepdad from winning custody of him and his brother from their mom. Fi points out some of the impracticalities of his plan: "Even if you could reassemble a Colt M1911 and fire it, what happens after you shot him? Did you have a plan to dispose of the body?" Michael offers a deal: tell them who his mom is, and they'll try to help. "Joey -- The Client," the subtitles say. They can do that one in their sleep.
With Michael in the shotgun seat, Sam pulls his Buick up to the curb across from Carlito's and complains about the gig. "So, Mikey, we're doing domestic disputes now? Is that a good idea?" Before Sam can even remind Michael that the last time he got involved in a case like this the helpless mom turned out to be freaking Xena, Michael gets a little owly, saying he said he'd help and offering to let Sam sit this one out. Sam backs down. "A little kid, abusive dad, kind of hits home, so I'll give you that one. But when the time comes to rescue a bunch of rich women trapped in a brewery, you better step up." I can't wait for that episode. For now, the mom's inside with Fi. "The idea was that she'd feel more comfortable talking to a woman," Michael explains. "I'm not sure Fi counts, Mike," Sam quips, already getting out of the car to join them. Even Michael has to admit that Sam's point is drenched in validity.
When we catch up to them inside, all three of them are talking to Joey's mom, April, who's explaining that the custody hearing is in a week, and her ex is "connected." She gives his job as "businessman," plus he's apparently on a lot of boards and commissions. "That all there is to it?" Sam asks cannily. She admits that his brother Quinn is a gangster, and Erik only married her to give the family a respectable face. Too bad he got violent. They listen to her rather upsetting story about how she went to the police and left him when he turned on the boys, all to no avail. She's about to get up and leave when Fi asks, "Where can we find him?" "What can you do that the police can't?" she wonders. With a very determined set to his jaw, Michael understates, "You'd be surprised." Yeah, no shit. I'll see if I can keep a list going.
thing we know, Sam and Michael are at a poolside table at a country club. From where they're sitting, they have a view of a little golfing party on the course, one of whom is apparently Erik Luna, a smug, golf-shirted douche. Sam informs us, "He's on every local political board with an extra chair. He's a big deal down at the docks. I guess he even owns part of this golf club. He's a sorry excuse for a man, but he's got a lot of friends." "Erik Luna -- Sorry Excuse For A Man," the subtitles confirm as Erik celebrates the drive he just made. But Sam is more worried about the guy at the bar in the gray suit. That would be Erik's brother Quinn, a shady character who's built a small criminal empire. "But none of it means anything without Erik's pretty face and clean record, so he's a little protective." "The guy behind the guy," Michael sums up, and the subtitles swoop in below the face of Nicholas Lea, a.k.a. Alex Krycek, to let us know that this is indeed "Quinn Luna -- The Guy Behind The Guy." Seems a shame not to publicize a moniker like "Quinn Luna," though. "Between Erik's connections and Quinn's muscle, these guys are damn near untouchable," Sam warns, in a sad attempt to make us think Michael might find this difficult. Michael says they'll just need to divide and conquer, and any doubts Sam might have harbored are now a thing of the past. "He's smacking his wife and kids around. I'll plant a five-iron in his freakin' skull if it'll help." Now, see, that's something the police couldn't do.
Over at the clients' house, Fi and Madeline are bundling April, Joey, and a little toddler (aww!) into Madeline's old dark-blue box-mobile so they can stay with her, presumably in the "Michael's Current Clients" suite. April's still got her doubts, but Madeleine assures her, "For two little boys who are being knocked around by their father, Michael would take on the Chinese army, honey." She omits the fact that he would probably lose. Fi pulls April aside to ask if there have been any issues between the two Luna brothers, since Michael's plan is to split them up. April says Erik's got a side business he really doesn't want Quinn to know about, and Fi asks her about that. April's reluctant to share information that Erik told her he'd kill her for revealing, but I can't imagine he'd be cool with her hiring freelance secret agents to defeat his evil plans, either.
By the time we meet up with Sam and Michael in Madeline's garage, Sam has it all figured out as far as how they're going to get to Erik: it turns out that despite the fact that his entire part in the criminal organization is to not be a criminal, he's got a shady side business of his own going on. Apparently he grabs seized contraband off the docks and sells it off the books, pocketing the cash, "anonymously." I don't know how saying "anonymous" makes it so, but it seems to work for him. "So if I showed up as an unsatisfied customer..." Michael suggests, as they notice Joey lurking in the doorway. "He'd never know the difference," Sam finishes. He takes off to "put together a name and a game" for Michael's cover while Joey asks for a word with Michael. Joey takes in the magnifying stand and the soldering iron Michael's working with and asks what's going on. "I'm turning a cell phone into a listening device so I can keep tabs on your stepdad," Michael explains. When Joey asks how he learned that, Michael stammers, "Sort of, special school. Hard to explain." Especially the part where he got picked up by a short bus in the morning. He does let Joey help out by holding a wire for him to solder. Joey voices a few doubts about whether Michael can pull this off, but Michael knows he can make Erik run. "It's gonna be my pleasure."
Stepping out of Fi's Saab at the country club and sliding a black suit jacket on over a dress shirt and gray slacks, accessorized with a flashy new pair of square sunglasses, Michael VOs, "When you're undercover, you often fight your emotions. If the operation demands you be a target's best friend, you do it, no matter what you're feeling. But there are times emotions can help sell a cover ID. If hitting a guy reinforces your cover, you give it all you got." With that, Michael storms all the way back into Erik's office and interrupts his rug-putting practice with a sock to the gut. Which I think is the first thing on this week's list of things the police can't do. Using an angry high-class lockjaw voice, Michael claims he bought a car from Erik that nearly got him killed. He gives his name as Peter. "I bought a Lotus from you a while back. One day, it disappears, replaced by a note which informed me that I'm a dead man. I go home, my house is torched. day, I'm nearly killed in a drive-by. All of which made me curious to know: where the hell'd you get that car from?" Erik says that was an anonymous transaction (doesn't seem to have worked, though), and picks up the handset for his desk phone. Which Michael smashes the keypad of with Erik's putter (that's number two). "I'm trying to stay a step ahead of a death squad!" he grits. "I need my money back." When Erik balks, Michael knees him in the gut a few times (that's three, four, and five), yelling, "Didn't anyone ever tell you the customer! Is always! Right!" While Erik's on the floor gasping, Michael drops that modified cell phone into a handy potted plant (six, without a warrant). Michael writes a contact number on the pad on Erik's desk, giving him one day and warning him, "If they're after me, you can be damn sure they're after you." That was a pretty intimidating display. Here comes this big, scary guy into his office, warning Erik about the people he's scared of. Effective. That would totally work on me. In fact, I now have absolutely no plans to go to Miami
After the break, Michael and Fi are at Madeline's house, assuring April and the kids that it's all going according to plan, even though Erik called her to yell at her. April says he sounded more angry than scared. "Well, that's about to change," Fi says. Does the toddler really need to be present for these little briefings?
"99 percent of controlling someone's behavior is controlling their environment," Michae
l VOs. "All the conversations in the world won't have the same impact as turning off the right light at the right time." Which must be why Michael is at the country club, dressed like a maintenance man and opening up a circuit box in broad daylight. "If you want to kill a street light without the mess and inconvenience of breaking into the pole with a cutting torch, you need to access the circuit breaker." Michael does just this, inserting a cell phone inside the box and hooking it up. "Connect lines from the breakers to an exposed cell phone wire, and with a quick call, you can short the circuits." Why, that sounds almost too easy! I think I'll go try it now. Oops, I am dead. The end.Okay, not really. At the same time, Fi is out in the parking lot in her own undercover outfit of tennis whites, as Michael explains, "A similar trick can be used to temporarily disable a car. It doesn't take much to trip a few electronic safety mechanisms and make a vehicle impossible to start." But if you're wearing white, be sure to throw down a yoga mat before sprawling down on the pavement like Fi does. Sam is also on the premises, in a de-branded Ford megavan and brandishing some kind of device with four antennas sticking out of the end. Michael tells us what that is: "If you want to make sure you're the only one making calls, a hundred-dollar cell phone jammer will block all calls within a one-block radius." Michael meets up with Fi in the parking lot, as she complains about not being able to wire the car to explode. Michael says April would be the prime suspect in Erik's death. Is that really April's MO? "We need him running, not bleeding," Michael reminds her. By now they've reached the back of the van, which Sam throws open from inside. "We've got firearms and we've got snacks," he says by way of inviting them in. Sounds like a party.
Apparently they hang out there for the rest of the day, even changing their clothes at one point, because they're all dressed in dark colors by the time we've rejoined them after sunset. "When you want to create fear, it's best to keep it simple," Michael VOs. They're watching Erik walk out of his building to the abandoned parking lot now. "The same things people are afraid of as kids [Michael hits a button on the cell phone in his hand, and a rank of streetlights goes out behind Erik] scare them as adults." Erik walks on, slightly more unnerved when the streetlights directly above him go out . "Fear of the dark, for example." He gets into his car, and Michael hits the button again, killing Erik's dome light and deactivating the starter. Erik gets out of his car to dial his cell phone, but Sam's ready with the jammer. "Fear of being alone," Michael VOs as Erik fails to get a signal. "And above all," the VO concludes as Fi readies a BFG, "fear of the unknown." Something wrong with fear of getting shot? Sam revs the engine and triggers an entire deer-blinding light package, then pulls out as Fi fires bursts of live ammunition out the window. Erik sprints for the cover of the building, pursued by ricochets off the pavement, and dives back inside. While Fi goes out to "collect the toys," Michael gets a call from Erik, which he answers as Pete. They agree that they have to talk, now that they're both being pursued by the worst drive-by killers in history. I'm not sure how many of those things we just saw count as separate, individual things that the police can't do, so I'm just going to round it up to a dozen.
day, Michael meets Erik at a seaside restaurant, and gets to listen to the end of a call haranguing his lawyer about getting the kids from April. You know, just in case we forget what Michael is doing this for. Of course Michael is feigning disinterest in the whole thing, as much as he might want to feed Erik his cell phone right now. "You have my money?" Michael asks as soon as Erik hangs up. Erik doesn't, and says they came after him too. However, his plan is not to refund "Pete's" money as requested, but team up with him to find out who's after them. Michael insists that they run, but Erik's not budging. "You'll get your money when we figure out the problem." Michael is completely disgusted and frustrated by this idiot, which is good, because once again, he gets to use his real emotions as part of his cover.
After the meeting, Michael calls Sam to let him know what Erik wants to do. "I guess we're gonna have to make him regret that decision," Sam says, pulling a bag of groceries and a six-pack of new product-placed beer (not his usual brand) out of the trunk of his Buick in Madeline's driveway. Michael back-burners Erik for the moment and brings up the B-plot involving Garza. Sam's on that: a friend of his who works at the phone company plans to park his cherry-picker in front of Garza's hangar and take a two-hour lunch. "That's all I need," Michael says as he hangs up. Sam says the same to his product-placed six-pack.
We then meet up with Michael, perched high in a phone company bucket truck, watching unnoticed in sunglasses and hardhat as Garza leaves his hangar for lunch. Good thing Garza isn't eating in today. Michael VOs, "With today's powerful encryption, it's usually a waste of time trying to decipher encoded communication. Tap the data stream of even a low-level spy, and you're just going to get incomprehensible garbage." With the coast clear, Michael lowers himself to the ground and goes to his second outdoor junction box of the hour. "Just because it's garbage, doesn't mean it's worthless, though," he VO continues. He picks the lock on the access panel, and pulls out a device about the size of a portable DVD player. In fact, I suspect that's what it actually is. His VO tells us, "A network analyzer can tell you how much information someone's accessing and how encoded it is." He hooks up the DVD player to the guts of the panel, except it turns out to have a keyboard when he opens it up. I shouldn't have underestimated the prop department. "If someone starts using heavy-duty crypto and changing their security protocol, you know you've touched a nerve," Michael's VO concludes. "And sometimes, that's enough to tell you what you need to know." Or, alternatively, end up with that spy pointing a gun at you. Which may actually mean the same thing.
His work done here, Michael gets a call on his Pete-phone from Erik, who's freaking out because he thinks the bad guys are there right now. Michael looks around like, "No, I'm not." But Erik has seen the same old, dark-blue box-mobile drive by three times. Michael tells him to stay put until he gets there, and dials his mom's house as he gets into Fi's Saab. Yep, Joey took Madeline's car. "Let's hope that's all he took," Michael says darkly. Why? He can't be worried that the kid took Madeline's cigarettes. He wouldn't be able to carry them all.
After racing over to the country club, Michael pulls in behind his mom's car, which has been parallel-parked rather sloppily and had an open box of shotgun shells left on the seat, which is even sloppier. Looking around, Michael sees a small figure in the nearby trees leveling a shotgun. He hurries into the woods. Erik, meanwhile, has started wandering around in the parking lot with a handgun of his own, which, honestly, is never not a good idea, right? He's totally oblivious to what's going on in the trees bordering the parking lot, which is that Michael comes up behind Joey, telling him to put down the gun. Instead, Joey points it at Michael, saying he's made things worse. Michael says it only seems that way because the plan is working. Michael should probably get in the habit of warning people that's going to happen, if only to avoid situations like his clients pointing guns at him. Joey says his father made him promise to protect the family before he died, and Michael says this isn't what he meant. "You didn't know my father!" Joey snaps. "He used to make me kill people all the time!" Okay, not really. Michael mildly agrees, "No, but I know that shotgun." For one thing, it's loaded with birdshot. Then there's the plug in the barrel, which, when Joey goes to look at it, a
llows Michael to wrestle the gun away. Even then, Michael still feels the need to talk him down. "You see your mom hurt and you want to help. I get it. But Joey, not like this." Then he offers to let Joey help push Erik over the edge. "Get back in my mom's car and drive out of here as fast as you can. Burn some rubber. Make some noise." Joey agrees, and Michael adds, "Don't get caught, all right? I don't want to explain why I let a thirteen-year-old drive a car." Indeed, the last thing he needs is for Detective Paxson to come back and resume fixing him with bored looks. Which reminds me, I think we just added another item to the list of things the police can't do. What are we up to now, thirteen? Joey dashes off, leaving Michael wondering what he's going to do with that shotgun in his hands.A moment later, Erik sees Madeline's car peel out into the road, and he dives behind a low wall at the edge of the parking lot. That's where Michael finds him and socks him in the gut (fourteen!). Michael berates Erik for scaring off the assassin with the "hand cannon." The stress is getting to Pete, but he's still not ready to run; he wants to call for help. But not from Quinn, obviously. Michael mocks the idea, but then says that he himself "knows some people." Just then, Erik sees Quinn's SUV squealing into the parking lot, and runs back toward his office to meet him. But before leaving, he tells Michael to make the call, whatever it costs.
Michael goes and meets Joey a few blocks away, where he told him to wait in the car. Joey slides over to let Michael in and starts to apologize. Michael says they'll talk about it later, as he dials his phone. "Remember that bug that you helped me make? Well, now we're going to do some listening."
One splitscreen later, we're listening to Quinn yelling at Erik for being seen in the parking lot with a gun, and how that threatens some possible deal at the docks. Erik makes lame excuses, and Quinn cuts to the chase: "Are you using again?" Huh, you'd think April would have mentioned that Erik's an ex-druggie. Erik denies it. Quinn reminds Erik that he doesn't mind doing the dirty work, as long as Erik does his part and behaves himself. Erik insists that he's fine. With an unspoken threat, Quinn leaves. Nicholas Lea makes a better heavy now that he has, in fact, gotten a bit heavier.
Having heard the whole thing, Joey is happy to hear his stepdad "totally freaking out." Michael says Joey has to promise to stay at Madeline's until they're done. Satisfied, Joey promises. Now instead of going to jail for attempted murder, he can do what any other normal thirteen-year-old would do in Madeline's house, which is get started on some gnarly lung tumors.
Michael and Erik wait in a seedy underground parking lot as Michael VOs, "When you push someone to the point of desperation, there's always a chance they'll go looking for help. Which could be a problem, unless you're the one providing the help." Right on cue, Sam and Fi drive up in the Charger, wearing suits and oozing dangerous cool. Sam declines to give either his and or Fi's name (he's saving "Chuck Finley" for later, apparently), but says they can easily find the would-be killers and take them out, for a price Sam quotes as "forty to start, forty to finish." Erik says fifty flat, and Sam and Fi start to walk. Erik gives in, and takes a lunch bag full of cash out of the trunk of his car and holds it out to Fi, saying he wants to be there when it goes down. Fi agrees. Now, I've heard of police officers going undercover as hit men, so this is all perfectly kosher. But then, After Fi and Sam leave, Michael treats Erik to another body blow (fifteen!) and yells at him for negotiating with their lives. "If this doesn't work, we've got two options: run or die." He doesn't add that Fi's more than fine with helping Erik put that second one into effect.
Michael returns to the loft with a bag of groceries to find Sam and Fi waiting, back in their civvies. Sam remarks that he walked as slowly as he could when it looked like Erik was going to blow the deal, but Michael says it worked, and that's all that matters; Erik's convinced that he'll have to run if this fails. "And fail we will," Sam promises. He's even found a good location: a storefront church belonging to an ex-Navy chaplain buddy who's now in Guatemala. Which is not really necessary for what they have planned, but it's going to turn out to be vital for their backup plan (spoiler!). Michael starts unpacking the groceries.
Sam mixes up a batch of fake blood out of corn syrup, food coloring, gelatin, milk, and God knows what else. You can tell Bruce Campbell has moved up in the world, because he's stirring it in a mixing bowl instead of a 55-gallon drum. Michael VOs, "If you want the appearance of a gunshot without actually dying, you need to create a high-powered burst of blood." Sam's got the stuff ready, while Michael and Fi are busy with the delivery system: "A bottle cap packed with a bit of plastique explosive does the trick nicely." Oddly, we don't see Michael or Sam warning Fi to make the explosions smaller this time. They fill tiny Ziploc bags with the fake blood and attach them to the even tinier bombs, sealing the edges with duct tape. Now they've got a small arsenal of homemade squibs. "Rig a few remote charges to create the sound of a firearm, [Michael and Fi tape one of the squibs to the wall and hold up a plastic dropcloth to protect the furniture] "And you've got everything you need." Michael hits a remote, and the squib pops, spattering the plastic with red. Good thing they remembered to set them up to only blow one at a time, or else they would have run into rather a setback, not to mention a large mess, when every squib in Michael's kitchen went off at once. "Looks like we're good to go," Sam says, and calls Erik on his cell phone. "I believe we've found the person that's been trying to kill you," he reports in a businesslike voice.
In a charmingly (not to say condescendingly) "ethnic" neighborhood of Miami, Erik and Michael meet Sam and Fi, who are casually waiting at a sidewalk table. Of the four of them, it's worth mentioning that Erik's the only one not wearing a white shirt. Sam points across the street to the abandoned storefront church, saying that's where the shooter is holed up. Erik wonders how they found them so fast. Sam and Fi share some fake details of their "investigation," which you don't need to know about except that the made-up original owner of the fictional car that Erik supposedly sold to "Pete" was none other than the busiest man in South Florida, Chuck Finley. "We'll hit them around the back, through the alley," Sam says. "Easy-peasy."
Sam and Fi get a weapons bag out of the trunk of the Charger and head up the alley as Michael and Erik follow. "Getting the target to do what you want requires a delicate touch," Michael VOs. "Sometimes you're a bully, and sometimes you're a friend." Sam tells his "clients" to wait behind the corner while he and Fi go on ahead with their weapons at the ready, full of confidence. "You have to know when to give the target help and comfort," Michael VOs, nodding reassuringly at Erik, "and when to take it away." With that, he reaches into his pocket and squeezes a button.
The front of Fi's white blouse pops redly three times, and she goes down, giving every appearance of being mortally wounded. I watch it in slow motion several times. "Get back!" Sam yells at Erik and Michael. "Where are they? Where are they!" Then his squibs go off, front and back, and he tumbles backward into a pile of garbage, twitching theatrically. "Run!" Michael roars to Erik, and they take off down the alley. Now it's Fi's turn. She presses a remote in her supposedly dead hand, and as Erik looks back without slowing down, Michael turns into Warren Beatty at the end of Bonnie & Clyde. Erik keeps running, looking back in wide-mouthed panic. Somehow he makes it out alive, though. The fake bad guys must have run out of fake bullets f
or their fake guns.Our three heroes get up, and Fi and Sam immediately start bickering about each other's falling technique. Fi thinks Sam overdid it, while he in turn snipes, "You looked like you were shot with a bow and arrow." Heh. Maybe week. Michael says that's all beside the point; it's mission accomplished. "Let's clean up and get out of here." Good plan. They really do look like the walking dead right now. As far as whether the police could do this, I think it's secondary to the extremely low likelihood of whether they would.
But as Michael's VO warns, "When you work as a spy, follow-through is crucial. Even the best-executed plan can fall apart. You don't score if you spike the ball before you're in the end zone." For that reason, Sam is sitting in his Buick, enjoying listening to the Erik Luna show on the Cell-Phone Bug Channel. In today's episode, currently in progress, Erik freaks out while trying to close a satchel of cash. Just then his brother Quinn walks in, wondering what's going on and telling him he can't leave town. "But I saw three people killed this morning!" Erik wails. Quinn says they'll all head over to check it out. Sam switches lines to tell Michael what's going on. "Not good," Michael says. With Fi in his shotgun seat, Michael pulls a bootlegger's turn to get back to the scene of the fake crime. Which the police would totally do, but they'd probably flip on a siren first.
Luckily, Michael gets a full commercial break to come up with a back-up plan. "Remember Moscow, '99. Colonel Prokov, the one with the drinking problem?" he says into the phone as he drives. Sam doesn't think they have time to pull that off, but Michael says they'll have to, and hangs up. So it's settled, then. "When a plan goes wrong," he VOs, "You have two basic options. The first is to accept failure and abort the mission. That works best when you have the resources and time to remove personnel from the field. When you don't have resources and time, you're left with option two. Get back in there and salvage the situation any way you can." With that, the three of them return to the neighborhood -- where there's no sign of anyone having just witnessed a staged triple homicide -- and actually enter that narrow storefront church for the first time, to find bare, dusty floors and a cross on the otherwise bare wall. Fi and Sam have their doubts about the plan. "If it doesn't work, you're going to be here alone with Quinn's guys and all their guns," Sam warns. "Guess it'll have to work then," Michael chirps.
So they get to work, cleaning the place up, arranging the chairs, and making it look not so much like an abandoned, dingy, sad little storefront church, but a dingy, sad little storefront church that's actually in use. "There's a long tradition in spycraft of making enemy assets appear unreliable," Michael says. "Make a loyal operative look like a traitor, for example, and if you're lucky, your enemies take him out for you." Hmm, that seems familiar. Who have I seen do that? Oh, right, Michael Westen, about a dozen times. While Fi gets busy scooping up gravel to cover up the fake-blood spills in the alley, the VO continues, "Better than making an enemy look disloyal is making him look insane." Well, more of a departure from Michael's SOP, anyway, so I approve. Sam tears the newspaper down from the church's front window and hangs the neon cross as Michael finishes, "It takes some doing, but when you pull it off, it's more devastating than a bullet." Then Sam goes out on the street, and uses a wad of cash and some bad Spanish to buy a hat, apron, and cross necklace from an eager fruit vendor.
Everything is in place for when the Luna brothers arrive with Quinn's bodyguards. Quinn and his guys seem skeptical, given the lack of forensic evidence on the scene, and Erik's choice of this moment to tell him about the drive-by attempt earlier in the episode isn't helping. Quinn wants to see the actual hide-out where the assassins are supposedly secreted, and Erik leads them up, but balks at going in. "If they're in there," Quinn says, drawing his gun while his bodyguard does the same, "We'll be fine." He's using the pronoun "we" a bit loosely here.
The little group enters the pleasant little church, only to find just Michael standing there, reading a Bible. He turns and asks in a warm, friendly tone, 180 degrees from his Pete-voice, "May I help you?" Quinn and his guard quickly tuck away their guns, totally fooled, as Erik flips out at the sight of Michael. After all, Michael has made no effort at all to disguise himself, other than to put on a priest's collar. "I saw you die!" Erik freaks. Michael acts sympathetic. "Oh, no, Erik, has it gotten worse?" He introduces himself to Quinn as "Father Peter," and Erik sputters that this isn't the guy. "I mean, that's Pete, but..." Addressing Quinn by name, Michael says he does homeless outreach, and tried to help Erik after finding him on the street "in a daze. Has he been talking about the killers? He sees assassins everywhere, and now he claims to be hiring killers of his own to go after the other killers. I've tried to help him." Aw, Michael seems so sad on Erik's behalf. Erik leaps at him, forcing Quinn and the goon to pull him off and out of the church. With a heavenward gaze, Michael follows them out on the street, as Erik comes more and more unglued. He yells even louder when he sees Sam looking over from his fruit cart, and Fi flouncing down the street with some shopping bags. Screaming about conspirators everywhere doesn't really help convince Quinn that Erik is all there. Quinn has his men force Erik into the waiting SUV. "He's lucky to have you for a brother," Michael tells Quinn. Quinn looks upward himself, then joins his brother in the car. Michael's farewell to Erik is a sign of the cross and a wink. Done and done!
So things are nicely wrapped up. Later, April tells Fi that she's gotten full custody, what with Erik being locked up in the mental hospital. Fi gives her the $40,000 of the hit fee that Erik paid in advance, in its entirety, minus ZERO for commission and ZERO for expenses. I hope they're not counting on actually collecting the second forty grand from him at this point. April thanks Fi and looks over to where Michael and Joey are leaning coolly against the Charger, the latter carefully imitating the posture of the former. Michael asks Joey if the kid will be all right, and Joey says that his mom thinks he's a delinquent. Well, Joey, you have tried to steal not one but two guns in the last hour. Michael assures Joey that it's possible for "delinquents" to turn out okay, in such obvious terms that Joey asks, "So you're saying I should eat a lot of yogurt?" Joey asks. "Can't hurt," Michael says.
In the tag, there's some more denouement exposition, and Sam reads from the newspaper that Quinn's under investigation. They notice that Michael's been unusually pensive, which Sam tries to help by advertising the low-calorie beer we just saw another commercial for during the break. I'll skip that part, since I don't recap commercials. Michael heads out to "follow up on that Strickler business." Sam, meanwhile, sells some more beer.
Michael returns to Garza's hangar to retrieve his network analyzer, but when he closes the access panel, Garza himself is standing there, pointing his gun at him and telling him to put it down. Michael is not fazed. "Find out anything about Strickler?" he asks in a friendly voice. Well, Garza did and he didn't. "I've spent the last four days dealing with reporting procedures for six different U.S. intelligence outfits. Including one I didn't know existed. That's in between the calls, e-mails, meetings." Michael repeats the question, and Garza threatens to transform Michael from "the burned spy I hate to the anonymous burglar I shot. I've got a career to think about here." Michael hands over the device. "I just needed to know how connected Strickler is," he says. "I'm pretty sure you just answered my question." And earned a free network analyzer into the bargain.
Over at the marina, Strickler's ready to open a bottle of champagne to share with Michael to celebrate their new friendship, but Michael tells him to hold off. Strickler says they both know Michael looked into him, so now it's just a question of what to do . Or, as he puts it, "a take-it-or-leave-it moment." Michael can take a job from Strickler, and Strickler can put things in motion regarding getting Michael Back In. Or, Michael can say no, and Strickler will never contact him again. Michael asks about the job, but of course Strickler isn't sharing any details yet. "It won't offend your sensibilities. Trust me. In or out?" As he opens the champagne anyway and fills two glasses, Michael's final VO goes like this: "As a spy, you often have to do things you don't like for people you don't trust. You don't always get to choose who you do business with. When the devil himself is offering the thing you want most, sometimes you dance with the devil." Michael puts on his sunglasses and intones, "I'm in." But then he gets up and leaves without touching the champagne. Let's hope the devil doesn't mind a rude dance partner who walks off the floor in the middle of a song.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.
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