By M. Giant
Michael tells Carla what he's found out so far about his would-be killer, but conspicuously leaves out the part where it's Victor, because he wants to make friends with him. While he's getting his life into lockdown mode (which includes temporarily moving his mom in with him), who should show up but his ex-fiancée, Sam. Yes, her name is Sam. She wants Michael to help her trade a military component she stole for her kidnapped son, without actually giving up the component. But when the trade goes through, Michael's determined to get it back so Sam doesn't have to spend the rest of her life on the run. He and Fi approach the bad guy -- as themselves, for a change -- claiming the chip isn't all there. When the bad guy busts them lying, they're just lucky enough to have Victor show up at the right time to help convince the bad guy they're for real. That puts them in a position to blow the deal and return the component at the bad guy's request. Which they do. No harm, no foul, although there's a teeny bit of harm.
With that done, Samantha gone, and Fi and Madeline duly apologized to, Michael goes for a meeting at City Hall with Victor to try to get some answers. But when Victor is the opposite of forthcoming and in fact starts some shit, Michael tasers him and wheels him out unconscious. Should have known better than to tangle with a guy who can get his hands on a wheelchair that fast, Victor.
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"Let me tell you a story," Michael says. Not in voice-over, but speaking directly to us, with his nose practically pressed against the camera lens, while lullaby music tinkles on the soundtrack. In some kind of weird previouslies sequence, he tells us all about the bomb that almost killed him, which he traced to the bomber, whose money he traced to a fake Cayman Islands bank manager, which led...nowhere. "Whoever tried to kill me is paranoid, careful, and he knows I'm close." And it's Victor, but Michael's leaving that part out. Probably because, as we now see , he's been talking to Carla, in one of their little meetings in public by the water. I choose to be glad to see her again, because even though the two episodes she's been in this half-season were pretty weak, it's probably not Tricia Helfer's fault that they shot scripts that needed another round of punch-ups. Anyway, she says she wants to believe him, but she has doubts about why he's suddenly become so talkative with her. Michael says he has to be careful, and he wants Carla's people to back off. "I can't draw him out with the suits-and-sunglasses crowd following me around." Because Michael kind of blends in with them, after all. Carla considers it, and says they'll do it his way if they can confirm his story. But she warns, "If you hold back on me, Michael --" "You'll go after my family? Kill me?" Michael finishes, bored. "Talking with you is always such a pleasure." Indeed. My boss never says things like that to me, but my old one did.
Michael returns to where Fi is waiting by the Charger, pissy that Michael didn't tell Carla about Victor. "He's the one enemy I know Carla has," Michael explains. "I'd like to at least talk to him before I turn him in." Fi has her doubts, because that's what Fi does.
Back at the loft, Michael gives Fi a photo of Victor that he got from somewhere, somehow, and asks her to show it around. "I'll tell people he's wanted in connection with a dog fighting ring," Fi offers. "They'll call." Just then Madeline slams into the loft, and she's got her grump on about having been spirited away from her house by Sam. Michael breezily says he's just "trying to lock things down as fast as I can." He tries to put a good face on it, saying she doesn't have to leave town this time; she can stay with him. You'd think his mom would love that, but she's too spun up to do anything but call his place a dump. Michael shushes her -- not just because she's rude and noisy, but because he hears someone coming in the front gate, which Sam says he remembered to lock. He, Michael, and Fi all draw guns in preparation for invaders, and Madeline grabs a bread knife. Don't ask me why Michael owns a bread knife. Michael whips open the front door, and there stands B-movie queen Dina Meyer of Saw, Starship Troopers, and Bats fame. "Sam," Michael whispers. "Yeah, Mike?" asks Sam. "He was talking to me," says Dina Meyer as she steps inside. Fi asks who she is. "I'm Samantha," she says. "Michael and I used to be engaged." That shuts everyone up, except the subtitles, which swoop in with a helpful, "Samantha -- Michael's Ex-Fiancé." I think they mean "fiancée." Dina Meyer may have a strong jaw, but I don't think anyone's going to mistake her for a dude.
During the titles and the first commercial break, I'm going to take the time to make a correction: Clarence Williams III did not play Claude Laurent in last week's episode; that was Basil Wallace. My only defense is that I'd never actually seen Clarence Williams III in anything, or at least not for a very long time, and I made the mistake of assuming that the most recognizable name in the opening credits would be a match with the biggest age-appropriate guest role. How was I to know that they'd put him on the air for like ten seconds as Jean-Pierre Duman's dad? Well, they did. This correction has been brought to you by IMDb being slow.As Michael walks down the exit stairs with Sam -- ex-fiancée Sam, that is -- Michael VOs, "For a spy, compartmentalizing is second nature. Information is given on a need-to-know basis. In your professional life, this approach keeps you safe. In your personal life, it can be dangerous." Yeah, no shit. Sam -- famous original Sam, that is -- steps back into the loft, where he's the only one not in a foul mood at this revelation. "So, another Sam," he chuckles. "This is gonna be confusing, huh?" Madeline asks, "Have you ever been secretly engaged to my son?" "No," Sam answers, a wee bit too quickly. "Then I think we'll be able to tell you apart," she grumps. Easy for you to say, Cancer Lady, you're not the one who has to recap it. So from now on, Sam will be Sam and Samantha will be Samantha, unless there's an easy joke in it for me otherwise. Fi's completely checked out, staring blankly at the far wall while Madeline bitches. Sam tries to defend Michael: "These things just happen sometimes." Says the guy whose last serious girlfriend dumped him for being married. Sam offers drinks, and then opts out of the...well, I wouldn't call it a conversation, exactly.Down in the courtyard, Michael checks the gate and the street to make sure no one else is around, while Samantha wonders why he's being so paranoid. He says it's just not a good time, while he wonders what happened to the padlock on his gate. Samantha's holding it, as it happens. Which would explain how she got in. As she hands it back to him all flirty-like, he asks how she found him. Turns out Madeline's in the phone book. And Michael's address is in Madeline's kitchen drawer. My God, why does Madeline even own a front door? She apologizes, but tells him, "I'm in a lot of trouble, Michael. I could use all the help that I can get." Or, failing that, she's prepared to pick the wrong guy's lock and get shot in the face.
But all the help she can get means not just Michael, but Fi and Sam as well. We catch up with the four of them sharing a table at an outdoor restaurant while she introduces the team to a black market trader named Tyler Brennen. Except she introduces him spy-style, which means she nods up towards a guy in a gray suit on the balcony of a nearby apartment building. Michael peers through his spy scope so the subtitles can swoosh in as Brennen lights a cigarette: "Brennen -- Black Market Trader," they say. "Evil son of a bitch," Samantha adds. "Brennen -- Evil Son of a Bitch," the subtitles agree. Samantha backstories that Brennen offered her a job. "What line of work are you in, Sam?" Sam asks cheerfully. "Acquisitions," she answers. ""No need to be coy," Fi says. "You're a thief. Say you're a thief. You're among friends." Whatever, Fi. Samantha continues that Brennen wanted her to steal a spy drone guidance chip that was being developed by AFC, a local defense contractor. This suddenly gets too heavy for Michael and Sam, as Samantha pulls out a framed computer component and sets it on the table. Sam kind of freaks: "I thought this was a get-to-know-the-ex lunch, now it's a nineteen-government-agencies-are-chasing-me lunch?" Samantha assures them that she got away clean and nobody's after her -- at least until the chip turns up missing, at which point she'll be the obvious perp, having used her access card late at night to get into the building. "I didn't' have time to do it any other way," she explains. "Brennen kidnapped my son. This is the ransom." "You have a son?" Michael asks. "Charlie's nine," she answers without looking at him. Fi tries to do some biological math, but she's missing an important variable, like the time period that Michael and Samantha were together. Michael does have access to that variable, and the camera zooms around him as he prepares to have his world rearranged. "Is he--?" Samantha says he isn't, unconvincingly and after a long pause. "But he needs you." Michael's ready to help, and asks what she needs. Samantha says she doesn't want to hand over the chip, but she needs her kid back. Hmm, sounds suspiciously straightforward.
"The site of a deal can tell you a lot about who you're doing business with," Michael VOs as he scopes out the Bayfront Park Amphitheater and the surrounding, wide-open spaces. "If it's private, they value control. If it's public, they want to get in and out anonymously. If they've somehow found a site that gives them both, you're dealing with somebody who knows what they're doing." Security at Bayfront Park watches this and says, "Oh, shit." Sam and Fi meet up with Michael, and while nobody evil is around now, they all recognize that it's going to be tough to take control of the swap. "We got so many approaches we'll never see him coming," Sam points out. He and Fi start arguing about how they're going to do this, until Michael puts a stop to it with his own, fully-formed plan: "Sam, you go with Samantha to oversee the handoff. Brennen won't expect you, but he won't blow the deal over a little backup. Fi, you set up with a view of the meeting. When you see that Charlie's safe, give me the signal. I'll take Brennen down on the way out." Not sure why both Sams need to be at the exchange, but it's going to be one of those things that turns out to have been a pretty good idea in hindsight.Later, walking through the park with Fi, Michael broaches the awkward subject of Samantha. He says he knew her in St. Petersburg, before he met Fi. "She was helping me on a job and things moved quickly. Then I realized we didn't have what we needed to make it last." "What's that, trust?" Fi snarks. She offers to drop it so they can focus on the job, but Michael lamely says he wanted to tell her but was waiting for the right time. Poor showing, Michael, and Fi knows it: "It wasn't the right time when we met. It wasn't the right time when we started dating. It wasn't the right time when I moved to Miami. No, it was the right time to tell me when she showed up on your front step. That about right?" With that, she stalks off. Retcons are hard on everyone, Fi.
Later, at Carlito's, Sam finds Michael camped out in front of four empty iced tea glasses and accuses him of hiding out. And at a restaurant with crappy table service, no less. "Madeline still pissed?" Sam asks. Michael doesn't want to talk about it. So, to cheer him up, Sam waves a manila folder around and says he's going to "do a little show and tell." It contains what he's found out about Victor Stecker-Epps. "He's got a last name like a female middle-distance runner, but this is a bad man, Mike," he says. I don't know what to be more curious about: how Sam got it or what the manila file folder budget on this show is like. "If Carla's people burned him, it's all fiction," Michael says, and asks how Victor got burned. Sam says it was in connection with a series of hits in Mexico in '03, and he was burned by Philip Cowan. Not that Michael reacts visibly to that familiar name. "Five years working for Carla alone," Michael muses. "I have a hunch he's ready to make a friend." Sam warns Michael to watch himself. "I mean, if half this crap is true, Victor's a lot like you. Only with, you know, rabies." I used to think Bruce Campbell's talents were kind of being wasted on this show, but that was before he was using some of them.
Michael finally lets himself into the loft late at night and finds Madeline still up, in her PJs and with her hair all relaxed, having just lit up another heater. In fact, the entire loft is filled with more smoke than on the day it got blown up. The shaft of light from outside when the door opens is so defined you could walk on it. Makes the place look even more like a music-video set than normal. Anyway, he says he wasn't expecting her to be awake. "Obviously," she says tartly. Michael apologizes that she has to stay there, but that's not what's bothering her; if anything, she's more pissed about Samantha than Fi was. That is just not healthy. Michael gives his mom a similarly lame excuse: "It just never came up. It was a long time ago." Madeline's not giving up that easily. "I want to know about the woman who almost married my son, she hectors. Michael says, "She's a Pisces, she does 'security,' and she hasn't been in my life in a decade." Madeline asks about the son Sam mentioned to her (because Sam's a big old gossip), and whether it's his. "I don't know," Michael admits, "but I'm gonna get him back." And then Charlie will be his, and the question will be moot. Oh, that's not what he meant.
Michael's cell phone rings. It's Victor, calling from Miami's one nightclub, and it's pretty noisy there. In his usual faux-friendly way, Victor asks why Michael didn't take a shot at him the other night. "What's going on in that pretty head of yours?" Michael replies, "Vic, we have so much in common. So much to talk about. Let's get together." Victor says he loves the idea, but he wants the time and place to be a surprise. For Michael, at least. "I'll see you soon, Sport," he says. "I promise." Michael looks tense, but at least if Victor kills him he won't have to put up with being called "sport" any more.
day, everyone's in position for the trade. Over cell phone and Bluetooth, earpieces, Michael asks Fi what's going on as she uses her opera glasses to watch the two Sams wait for the rendezvous. "Old Sam looks sweaty," she says unhelpfully. Then she reports that Brennen has just arrived. "I'm in position," Michael says. "If he doesn't leave this way --" "He'll have to get past me," Fi finishes, cocking a handgun. Yes, Fi, you're a bad-ass. As Brennen walks up to the Sams with a briefcase, he gives Samantha a hard time for not coming alone like he said, and asks her, "Who's your friend, Sam?" "Call me Chuck," Sam deadpans, deploying his one alias. "It'll be less confusing. I'm just here to make sure everything goes smoothly." Brennen's kind of a bitch about it, and asks to see the chip. Samantha wants to see her son first. And Michael VOs into the standoff, "Most black market transactions tend to go the same way. First payment is inspected, then the goods are brought to the table." Samantha gets the chip out of her purse and hands it to Brennen as Michael's VO explains, "This standard sequence is meant to ensure both parties against a blown deal." "Curley!" Brennen calls. A big, bald bodyguard type raises a nearby door to reveal himself, with Samantha's son at his side. The kid's pretty small for nine, and his right arm is in a fresh cast. So if the kidnappers broke his arm, they were at least nice enough to patch it up. "But that doesn't stop some people from bringing a little extra insurance," Michael's VO finishes, as though he has any room to talk. While Samantha and Charlie run to each other, Brennen assures her that the kid is fine, including his arm. "Sam, be careful, that's not just a cast," Sam warns as he spots the end of a little black antenna poking out of the top of the plaster. Brennen confirms it as he pulls out a little transmitter and cheerfully explains it to them: "See, you can't drag a kid out in public with a bomb strapped to his arm." At least not in this neighborhood. Unless of course you hide it with a fake cast. Brennen's radio detonator has a one-mile range, and they can cut the cast off as soon as he's clear. Brennen thanks them and leaves with the bodyguard and the chip. And here's why Sam needed to be there with Samantha: he turns in the direction of where Fi is hidden and starts urgently waving her off. She's trying to warn Michael in turn, but he's got such a hard-on for this guy that Fi has to get pretty insistent about letting him go. Kind of weird to see Fi being the one to call Michael off. Fortunately the commercial break hits before the earth and sky invert themselves.
Michael drives Samantha and Charlie to a random spot to talk. Or rather, lecture. "The guidance chip you stole isn't just expensive," he says. "It's worth lives. And when they realize it's gone, you're going to have every security service in the Western Hemisphere after you." Samantha says nobody will notice it's missing until Friday, when the engineer who developed it comes back from Tokyo. Which she sees as a potential head start. "What about him?" Michael asks, as though Charlie isn't sitting right there between them in the front seat, Sean Preston-style. "You want Charlie celebrating his eighth birthday in a hut in Nicaragua? You really didn't think I'd notice he's not old enough to be mine?" They argue about that for a moment, until Samantha says it's too late to get the chip back like she planned. Michael doesn't see it that way: "I'm gonna get it back and help you return it." "How do you propose to do that?" she asks. "Don't say propose," he says. Oh, har har.
Michael returns to the loft to find Sam and Fi getting some fresh air in the courtyard, the latter using a little pocket fan to either cool off or attempt to blow herself away. "Your mom's a chimney, Mike," Sam says, and adds that Fi's up for an armed assault on Brennen's place. "He strapped a bomb to a kid," Fi points out, and asks about Charlie. Michael says that he's going to Chicago to be with family, and Samantha's driving him to the airport in the Charger. "Oh? You think she'll bring it back?" Fi asks. "She is a professional thief." "Jealous, Fi?" Sam prods. Fi denies it. "You think you could pretend to be?" Michael wonders. Fi tries to give it some thought, but there's more power going to that fan than her brain.
Brennen and Curley return to Brennen's condo to find the control panel for the security system hanging out of the wall by its wires, signaling that they've been invaded. They both draw guns as Michael VOs, "Some cover IDs are about blending in, others are about making a splash. It all depends on whether it's more important to fool your target or impress them." At this point, Curley has spotted Michael and Fi over the balcony, as the former lines up a shot on a gorgeous black-felt pool table. Brennen calls his guard off and holsters his weapon. "These two are just showing me they're mysterious, dangerous types who can break into my apartment. I should take them seriously. That's the idea here, right?" Michael's VO continues, "Of course, if your target has a background in intelligence, you often can't fool or impress them. In that case, the best cover ID is none at all." Finally, a job of the week that doesn't put Michael up against a gullible moron. With that, Michael introduces himself and Fi as Brennen removes his jacket to lounge on the sofa with a drink, while his shoulder holster flops around showily: "I'm Michael. I used to work in covert ops. This is Fiona." Michael says that their mutual acquaintance (or, as Fi scoffs, "acquaintance") Samantha is planning to steal the chip back. Brennen wonders why he's being told this. Michael explains that he and Samantha once worked together ("slept together," Fi corrects) and he taught her everything she knows. "We're willing to help for the right price." Brennen is not only not convinced, but not interested. Fi says that Samantha told them she kept a piece of the chip, and Brennen's going to be in trouble when he tries to sell it in its current condition. Michael offers to hook him up with someone who can test it for him. Brennen thinks this sounds like a really good plan -- for Michael, if Michael is planning to steal the chip back. Michael advises him to do some homework and check them out. "I'm Michael Westen, she's Fiona Glenanne, and you need our help." As they leave, Fi adds, "If you're as smart as you think you are, you'll call us," as she hands over Michael's business card. Michael has business cards? And they're not just bubble gum trading cards from Miami Vice or, better yet, Shane?
At Carlito's, Michael and Fi discuss the plan with Samantha, and explain that Brennen's too deep into this transaction to dismiss the threat out of hand. "He'll call," Michael says confidently. "I think." Fi brings up her perennial plan B, which of course involves tear gas and a battering ram. Michael sees his escape from what threatens to become kind of an awkward scene when a black SUV pulls up outside. "Michael's other woman beckons," Fi says. "I never actually thought I'd look forward to this," Michael says as he bails on them. Before he goes, Samantha gives him back the wallet she lifted off him, and tells Fi it's a game they used to play. "It's charming," Fi lies, not remotely charmed. Samantha starts to ask, "Are you and Michael...?" "No," Fi says flatly. Oh, if only it were that simple.
At Michael's latest meeting with Carla, she's impressed. "You keep this up and you may just be employee of the month," she says. Even her smile doesn't look like she's about to eat his head, for once. Michael casually asks for his life back instead. "You think you're kidding," Carla says. But in fact, she's acting like she's open to it, if Michael can find her guy for her. Of course, I'm calling that she's full of shit. Michael retorts, "Show me you can keep your promise. I've started to see guys like those in my sleep," as he nods toward a couple of men in black nearby. "Back off, and I'm telling you, this guy will make his move." Carla agrees to give him some space, but not much more time. "Management's getting anxious." Michael ends the meeting by walking away and taking a cell phone call. It's Brennen on the other end, and he wants Michael and Fi to stop by at four. "Knock this time," he adds.
When they return to Brennen's place, he and his guard Curley soon have their guns out and pointed at them. "I checked you out," Brennen says. "Some of the stories I've heard, I should probably have a higher caliber, actually." Brennen has indeed decided to have the chip tested, but with his own guy, and he wants Michael and Fi there with him when it happens. As he confiscates their cell phones, he tells Fi, "For the record, Pumpkin, I'm exactly as smart as I think I am." Unlike some people. Pumpkin.
The four of them turn up at an airplane hangar, where a gloved nerd is waiting in the back of a van filled with tech equipment. "Testing guy, spies. Spies, testing guy," Brennen drones by way of introductions. Michael questions the wisdom of keeping the chip in the "Carribbean," and Brennen toolishly corrects his pronunciation as he takes the case from the pilot of a small plane, boasting, "It's in the air, 23 hours a day." Well, that sounds expensive. I hope he's selling it for a real lot of money, if only to pay for airplane fuel. He carries the chip over to Testing Guy, who gets to work. "I know what you're thinking, Fi. Not yet," Michael mutters. "That's not what I'm thinking," Fi mutters back. "We've got a visitor." Michael looks out toward the fence that borders the airport. Beyond it is Victor, watching through binoculars as he stands to a blue pickup wearing a lavender cowboy shirt that's a crime against nature. Fi remarks that Victor has great timing. Indeed, it's conveniently great. One might almost call him a dude ex machina. By now, Testing Guy has confirmed that the chip is all there. Brennen dismisses him, hands the case with the chip back to the pilot so it can be returned to the safety of ten thousand feet, and tells Michael and Fi that since they lied to him, they're kind of screwed. "Samantha lied to me," Michael says smoothly. "If you knew her, you wouldn't be surprised." Brennen isn't buying it, and he clearly intends to shoot them both. Michael says that Brennen's still got another problem: the guy watching them now, e.g., Victor, who's obviously not on Michael's side. "My friends don't watch me get executed," he says, which is kind of a bold claim given Fi's mood half the time. Michael claims Victor is working for Samantha and scoping him out. So at this long range, Brennen and Curley open fire on Victor, who fires back before getting into his truck and driving off while Michael and Fi take cover behind Brennen's car in a fairly leisurely manner. "You believe me now?" Michael asks. "Not really," says Brennen. "Get in the car." He's displaying the classic textbook reaction of someone who's just been in a firefight: deep annoyance.
Back at Brennen's place, however, it's clear that a truce of sorts is in effect, because Michael and Brennen are playing pool as they negotiate. Michael is offering to provide security for Brennen for five percent of the chip's sale price. He tries to get him to change the location of the sale, arguing that Samantha now knows where it's going to happen, but Brennen isn't budging. "Lock down the hangar," he orders. "You said you taught her everything she knows? Think about what you'd do, and then what you'd do to stop that." Except imagine him saying that as condescendingly as possible.
Back at the loft, Fi and Michael give Samantha an update on the plan, which is now a simple snatch-and-dash. "Brennen's going to have the hangar locked down tight," Samantha points out. "Well, at least I'm in charge of the lockdown," Michael says. "We might be able to sneak in some special construction materials." "Like we did in Dublin," Fi says, grabbing at the chance to make Samantha feel left out. "Yeah," Michael agrees, happy to see that she's warming up a bit "Is she talking about that thing you and I did in St. Petersburg?" Samantha asks, causing Fi's little gambit to backfire. "Yeah," Michael agrees, rather less happily. Samantha and Fi exchange Mean Girl smiles, and Fi beats a retreat. Because it's not like she'd be able to beat Samantha, I'm thinking.
Luckily for Michael, he gets a cell phone call from Victor, who's now hanging out at a pool somewhere. "Well, you are an enigma wrapped in a schizophrenic, aren't you, Sport?" he asks. "First you don't shoot at me, then you set up a little firing squad." Michel says it's nothing personal. "Oh, we do have some fun, don't we?" Victor laughs, actually jumping up and down with glee. He brings up the idea of a meeting, and Michael asks for until Friday. "I think I've got a way to make sure guns stay out of the equation," he offers. And he thinks Victor will consider that a selling point?
Inside, Samantha gets a beer out of the fridge, and is startled to see Madeline sitting right there behind her when she turns back around. "Now I know where Mike gets his stealth," Samantha says. Madeline offers to take Samantha out for a lunch and a talk. "Now that he didn't get from you," Samantha says. "He's not exactly the chatty type, your son." She wouldn't say that if she had to transcribe his voice-overs. As Michael eavesdrops from outside on the balcony, Samantha confides that back in the day, she was the one who proposed to Michael. "Then one day it was just over. Never knew why. He just said goodbye and he was gone." "Yeah, that sounds like Michael," Madeline says. Well, at least that's something everyone can agree on.
Fi and Michael back a panel truck into Brennen's airplane hangar and get to work as he VOs about certain basics of security that have remained constant for four thousand years: "Get a better view of any danger headed your way [which involves scaffolding and video cameras attached to the outside wall, which of course necessitates a close-up shot of Fi climbing a ladder in her short-shorts]. Make your walls sturdier [which involves Michael welding metal plates over the windows]. And arm yourself well enough to fend off attacks [which involves a locker full of shotguns]. Hardening a target against attacks from outside is pretty straightforward. Which is why it's usually best to attack, if you can, from the inside." And as Fi, Michael, Brennen and Curley drive away from the hangar, leaving the truck inside, the false back inside the trailer falls open, revealing Sam and Sam hidden inside. So Fi actually thought she and Michael had invented the Trojan Horse? Now I'm just sad for her.
Later, at the hangar again, Brennen and his security people (which is to say Curley, Michael, and Fi) are ready for his buyers. And as they stand outside the hangar on the tarmac, he starts closing the hangar door. Inside, where he's about to be trapped with the other Sam, Sam points out that this kind of messes up the plan. "If that plane doesn't come to us, we gotta go to it." "What if the buyers show?" She wonders. "We improvise," says Sam. "We're gonna need a car." Okay, that's a lot of improvising. Also, these scene where a man and a woman keep calling each other Sam is giving me flashbacks to old Silk Stalkings episodes.
Outside, the small plane pulls up and the pilot delivers the case to Brennen while Michael tries to argue against doing the transaction outside. Brennen's not hearing Michael's warnings: "Either your security worked and it scared Samantha away, in which case I don't need it; or it didn't scare her away, she's ready for it, and I don't want it." Wow, with that argument, why isn't security a lot cheaper? Meanwhile, Sam is outside the hangar and getting into position behind a handily-parked front-end loader, his gun at the ready. And here come the buyers; a black sedan shows up and four Latinos climb out so Brennen can greet them obnoxiously in poor Spanish. "Now what?" Fi asks Michael quietly. Now? Sam starts shooting from his hiding spot. He starts by plugging one of the big bags of cash the buyers are carrying (which liberates just enough money to cover Michael's expenses on the hangar), then the headlights on their car. The buyers run back to their car with the money, yelling dark threats at Brennen, who they assume is betraying them. Brennen and Curley run back to Brennen's hangar with Michael and Fi and the chip, Michael I-told-you-so-ing the whole way. Samantha drives a car around to pick up Sam, making sure Brennen can see her behind the wheel before he ducks back inside the hangar. That was a surprisingly effective show, considering they never had a chance to rehearse it or even agree on a script.
Once he's safely inside, Brennen freaks out about what's going on and why Samantha didn't pull off the robbery. Michael says that since she couldn't actually steal the chip and put it back, she brought Brennen down with her. "Your money just left with your buyer," Fi says, and Michael adds, "Good luck finding a new one." Plus which, Brennen's about to be very wanted, for possessing this chip that a lot of powerful people don't want him to have. Brennen suddenly gets an idea that will at least solve half of his problem: "You can put the chip back at AFC and nobody will notice it's gone." Michael puts on a little show of thinking about it, but he oversells it for his audience. Brennen suddenly realizes that this is actually what Michael wants and points his gun at him. Rather than denying it, Fi and Michael just tell Brennen that it's not like he has a lot of other options right now. Brennen gives in, but he warns Michael that if he decides to keep it or steal it or use it to upgrade his TiVo instead of putting it back, "No clever story you're gonna tell is going to stop me from blowing your brains out the back of your skull." Sounds like they have a deal. Brennen hands over the case, and as Michael and Fi leaves, he gives Brennen a smile that I think he intends as reassuring, but it doesn't really work. I think we've already established that Brennen's not the type to be reassured easily.
At the loft, Samantha unrolls a blueprint of the AFC building, using her best industrial-film voice to announce, "Welcome to AFC Industries. We manufacture satellite and missile tracking systems, we design U.A.V. guidance chips, and sometimes we accidentally hire thieves." They remind us that they need to return the chip to the building's clean room by 3:00 tomorrow. They can easily get past the card reader in front, which Samantha still has a card for. There's also a handprint reader, which she can work around, but then the door to the clean room, where the chip has to be returned, is protected by a keypad with a 9-digit access code that took her 45 minutes to hack at night. During the work day, they'll only have five minutes. "There's no way we can get out clean in that kind of time." "Then I guess we'll just have to get out dirty," Michael shrugs. You know she likes the sound of that.
Later, as the two of them approach the building in business attire, Michael VOs that there's no such thing as 100% security. "Doing business requires flexibility to deal with visitors, repairmen, contractors, et cetera. Getting in, then, requires using that flexibility." They present themselves at the front desk, and use Samantha's access card and a bit of banter to get past the guard. Michael literally yawns for the guard's benefit, or else he's really totally bored to be breaking into a defense contractor's building. It's hard to tell sometimes.
As they walk through the halls, he watches a guy get access to a restricted area by putting his hand on a print reader and VOs, "Even advanced security measures are useless when people leave their keys lying around. And surprisingly often, that's what people do." So their stop is the break room, where Michael happily scores a yogurt from the fridge and they wait around for a scientist on break to dump his soda can in the trash. The minute he's gone, Samantha retrieves it and transfers the handprint from the damp aluminum onto a sheet of plastic film, and somehow gets a perfect print. Who holds their soda like that, pressed into their palm, after they're six years old? Whatever; the fake print is enough to get them into the ante-clean room, where sterile white coveralls are hanging on racks Or at least they would be sterile, if the hooks they were hanging on were high enough to keep the pants cuffs off the floor. "Shall we don our bunny suits?" Samantha invites. She facetiously offers to break into a different changing room so that they don't have to do this together, but Michael declines. So the music gets all porny as they undress. I would have thought those coveralls would fit over your regular clothes, but I guess if you're the USA Network you don't hire Dina Meyer and then not have her take her clothes off. They're technically changing with their backs to each other, but keep sneaking peeks at each other until they're properly bagged up.
But if the sight of each other in their skivvies turns them on, the outfits they put on should more than counteract that. The suits come with matching caps, is what I'm saying. As they walk down the hall, Michael VOs, "Past a certain point in a clearance facility, you stop seeing security cameras. Lowly security guards don't have the clearance to see what's on the cameras, so there's no one to monitor them." Meanwhile, Michael's leaving a trail of little buttons with tiny red lights on them in their wake. I don't think they're candy. "Usually in the top security areas of a high-tech facility, it's less about monitoring and more about fortification," he VOs. By now they've reached the door of the clean room, to which Michael attaches a "shape charge" -- actually a line of detcord covered by a section of flayed firehose to shape the blast. He pulls her clear and starts hitting the button on his remote detonator, which not only blows the clean room door open, but ignites all the little explosive buttons he's been leaving behind. He VOs, "In a high-security situation, most people try to create the smallest disturbance they can. The thing is, high security is built to deal with small disturbances. Trip one sensor and you're toast. Trip 100 sensors, though, and nobody knows what to do." Which is why people in clean suits are suddenly running around in panic at all the cheap little CGI explosions going on around them. That leaves Michael and Samantha clear to enter the clean room, where she replaces the chip she stole under a storage hood like it was never gone. "These look expensive," Michael says, grabbing a case of lenses and stuffing them in his bag. "It's got to look like we broke in for a reason," he explains as they make for the exit. Okay.
By the time they reach the front lobby, where everyone is being evacuated but thoroughly searched on their way out, they're back in their street clothes. While waiting in line with Samantha to be wanded and to have their bags checked, Michael dumps the lenses into a trash bin. She wonders if they'll believe the story Michael's telling with his little trail of evidence, but he doesn't care. "Hopefully they'll double the security, keep people like you out. Speaking of which, the bag?" She plays innocent, badly, but she confesses that she grabbed a spool of platinum wire, just for good measure. "It's worth like, what, eight grand?" she downplays. But that goes in the trash bin too. Michael is just no fun at all sometimes.
Outside and in the clear, Michael calls Brennen on his cell phone to say the job is done. Brennen promises/threatens, "One day, I'm gonna figure out exactly what game you were playing here." Michael suggests Brennen worry more about getting out of the country before his buyers find him. "See you around, Michael," Brennen signs off. I suspect that is true. Samantha, meanwhile, has just gotten off the phone with her son, who she says wants to know when she's coming. Michael tells her to leave town today. "If [Brennen] were ever to confirm that we were working together, he wouldn't take it well." But Michael's not done being bossy. "You need to give up this life," he lectures. She says she knows, and just wishes her last job hadn't gone down like this. Well, actually, her very last job was eight thousand dollars worth of platinum that Michael just threw away, but let's not bring that up. "You have your life, you have your freedom, and you have Charlie," Michael points out. She non sequiturs, "You know Charlie isn't yours, but he could have been." "A lot of things could have been," he answers. She kisses him, gently, and he doesn't exactly duck out of the way. And then she leaves. Maybe on the way to the airport she'll break into someplace and steal something, just to cleanse her palate.
That night, when Michael comes home, Fi is standing in the balcony doorway, staring out at the river. She's either keeping watch over Madeline or just taking up a few square inches of floor space. On his way over to talk to her, Michael pauses to pull the covers up over his sleeping mom. Michael decides to try to explain himself to Fi regarding Samantha. He talks about why his relationship with her worked, and how easy it was. "And then I met you. And it was different. It was never easy." No shit. "You knew a part of me she never did. And I left her, because you don't marry someone when you love somebody else." He sighs, and then goes upstairs to bed, leaving us wondering who it was that he loved.
The morning, Madeline is awakened by Michael's latest workbench project: a taser gun, hidden in the shell of a disposable camera. He tests it noisily, dropping it like a big spazz when his finger gets too close to the sparks. "Want to play with that somewhere else?" she bitches. He claims he's "fixing a camera," which Madeline doesn't buy for a minute, but she's glad to hear that she'll be able to go home if Michael's meeting goes well. He busts her for eavesdropping last night, but lets her off the hook when she tries to apologize, and even apologizes in turn. "You picked the right girl," Madeline says. "I just hope you're not waiting for her to propose, too." Before leaving, Michael smiles at his mom instead of displaying the more reasonable reaction of shuddering in horror.
Michael arrives at Miami City Hall. Before going through the metal detector at the entrance, he sets his sunglasses and the taser-camera in the little plastic basket and gets in clear. For some reason, the guard doesn't look twice at the camera with two big electrodes sticking out of one end.
Inside the men's room, Victor is getting way too into the process of urinating. In fact, almost to the point where I hope that's all he's doing. Michael comes in, and as Victor zips up, he tells Michael to turn around. "It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't trust you," he says. Satisfied that Michael's unarmed, he makes his "one time, expires immediately offer: You tell Carla someone else went after her operatives and we're friends. The kind of friends who don't go bowling, don't go for beers, don't even really speak, but also don't try to kill each other." I have lots of friends like that. Michael says he's hoping for more: answers, specifically. Which Victor mocks him for: "All life's mysteries revealed in the men's john of the Miami-Dade City Hall and Municipal Building?" Michael grins that that's what he wants, and Victor says that's not happening. Somehow during this conversation, they've gotten squared off, and neither of them is budging. Until Victor attacks Michael. It looks like a pretty even match, with Victor's superior size against Michael's greater speed, but then Michael busts out the taser and zaps him, which allows him to bangs Victor's head against a sink when he goes limp. With Victor laid out on the floor, here's the finishing touch on Michael's plan: he unwraps a strip of gauze from around his ankle, hidden under his sock, and wraps it around Victor's foot. So that way, nobody suspects a thing when Michael pushes an unconscious man out of City Hall in a wheelchair, because he's got a flimsy little length of gauze around his foot. Which is more conspicuous than nothing, if you ask me. And where did he get that wheelchair from, anyway?
Michael's last VO of the week goes like this: "Spend a career in covert ops and you learn a lot about yourself. Will you lie to learn something important? Yes. Will you betray someone to serve a higher cause? Maybe. Will you trade another man's life for your freedom? You don't really know the answer until you face the question." Does the question get any easier if the guy whose life your trading your freedom for is kind of a dick?
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, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com
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