By M. Giant
While trying to track a mysterious figure Jesse insists on calling "Cobra," the team comes upon a problem at the port: security guards are getting squeezed by the mob, who have been stealing from shipments. Jesse drags the team in on it, and Plan A calls for Michael to go undercover as a traitorous Fed who wants to clue Tony the mob boss in on a fictitious investigation. When that doesn't work, Sam comes up with Plan B to bait Tony into taking part in a heist himself by making him think he's marked unless he can bring in a big score. Jesse puts Sam in a position where he has to sell the idea using one of his old war stories about leaving no man behind... which backfires when the plan calls for Tony to leave Sam behind so Tony can get busted by the cops. Nothing for it but Plan C, then, which is to make Tony think he's got the full resources and firepower of Chuck Finley behind him as he confronts his boss. And then Chuck -- that is, Sam -- leaves him hanging.
As for Cobra, all we learn about him is that he owns a cargo plane that he likes to fly to the Bahamas and drop people out of. And someone learns that it was Michael who burned Jesse. It's not Jesse, but it's almost as bad.
Watch this episode here, discuss this episode in our forums, then read some of Michael Westen's Most Useful Spy Tips!
Want to immediately access TWoP content no matter where you are online? Download the free TWoP toolbar for your web browser. Already have a customized toolbar? Then just add our free toolbar app to get updated on our content as soon it's published.
Michael and his two original sidekicks are sitting at the Carlito waiting for Jesse, who is late. Michael VOs about how all spies are unfailingly punctual, which leads into Sam bitching about not only Jesse's lateness, but whether they need him at all. Michael argues that Jesse's looking for the same people they are, and Fi adds that they did kind of get him burned, after all. Plus she's got a bit of a crush on him, although she keeps that part to herself. Enter Jesse from the back room, with drinks for all compliments of Carlito himself, and the subtitles remind us that he is "Jesse -- Recently Burned Spy." He sits down and gives them the bullet on his project: a year ago, he was working with the Defense Department looking into some kind of global crime wave. He had some phone conversations with a mysterious character connected to the port whom he calls "Cobra," due to the fact that his voice sounded all mysterious and whispery. Sam roundly and rightfully mocks Jesse for this code name, and I have to agree; "Dr. Claw" would be better. Anyway, Jesse's lead has something to do with shipments to Algeria, but you don't watch this show for those kinds of details. So they'll be staking out the dock, but before letting Jesse join the Scooby Gang, Sam starts grilling him: "What kind of snacks do you like?"
The team hits the docks, staking them out and chatting up the dockworkers, but not finding any of the Algerian connections Jesse's looking for. What Jesse does find, however, is a couple of thugs beating up on a wimpy-looking security guard, slamming his hand in the door of a shipping container. Ignoring Michael's warning to leave it alone and not blow their surveillance, Jesse goes up to them pretending to be an aggrieved 'roid-head, first chasing away the battered security guard and then mixing it up with the thugs. When one tries to draw on him, Jesse takes away the gun and scares them off. Watching from the Charger, Fi tells an annoyed Michael, "I like this guy." You'd think she'd feel a little more threatened, having another loose cannon around.
After credits and ads, Fi and Michael join up with Jesse, who is just telling the guard (whose name is Hank, like the security guard on The Office, but he's played by Max Perlich and thus looks like the complete opposite of Hank on The Office) that they're undercover people for one of the shipping companies and is already offering to help with the trouble they've been having at the docks. Before Michael can shoot that down, Hank says that these are mob guys who have been intimidating the guards into helping them steal from shipments. Their boss, Tony Carroll, even had one of them killed and then shot up his house with his widow and orphan inside. Jesse pushes the point, and Michael suggests Hank take some time off to let his squished hand heal. "You guys really gonna help me?" Hank asks doubtfully. "Apparently," Michael growls. Hank is now "Hank -- The Client." Because even though these are multinational corporations that are getting ripped off, we need to put a vulnerable, human face on the victim or whatever.
On the way back to the Charger, Michael's bitching at Jesse about getting them into this, and potentially getting Hank in over his head. "You know what happens to people who are not trained in the field? They die." Jesse makes the point that Hank could be a useful asset in their search for Cobra, and when Fi backs him up in that, Michael agrees to look into it. I would suggest he also look into why Fi likes Jesse better than Michael, but that's probably the best thing that's happened to Michael since he got burned.
thing we know, Sam and Michael are in the Charger staking out the local mob bar. Sam's got a thick file that tells him Tony Carroll is the local boss for a New York crime family. Tony is played by Nestor Serrano, because this show just can't stop raiding the ranks of 24 alumni. Sam says Tony's been a suspect in seven murders but was never charged. "The guy's Mr. Clean," he says. "Tony -- Mr. Clean," the subtitles agree, which seems like a bit of an overstatement for a rather weak joke. "Maybe it's time we threw a little dirt on him," Michael suggests. Always turning his enemies' strengths into weaknesses. I should learn how to do that. If I ever get any enemies.
Over at Madeline's house, she's letting Jesse make some hummus from scratch in her kitchen while politely grilling him for information about who he is. Not that she hasn't noticed a few things about him herself, like how he's always changing up his routine. She leaves the room when Michael comes in to see Jesse, who admits to Michael that she's no slouch at counterintelligence herself. "I'm surprised she hasn't broken you yet," Michael says. Jesse says he can handle it, which is going to prove a bit of an overstatement. Jesse asks about the plan to deal with the mob, and Michael says Jesse isn't going to be in on that, since they've seen his face. He came all the way over to tell him that? No, the plan is for Michael to bug them. "Good luck with that," Jesse says.
Michael is constructing a bug in his loft, and as his VO explains that if you can't make a bug invisible you should make it look like something you don't want to touch, he's disguising it as something gross by coating it in gum, tissue and dryer lint. Which I'm sure will also enhance its acoustic properties. Sam enters with a file on a suspended FBI agent named Ned Gordon, whose identity Michael can assume for his approach to Tony. "Now all you need is a cheap sports coat and some ugly shoes." Notice how he's aware that Michael doesn't already own those things.
According to his VO, Michael has apparently spent some time offscreen talking about wanting to see Tony, and apparently that's all it takes for him to be strong-armed into Tony's restaurant just as he's rudely having some supplicant ejected. We're really going out of our way to make Tony a dick, to counteract one kind of cool thing he's going to do later. Tony sees Michael and asks what he wants. Michael plays the part of a loserish guy pretending to hypothetically know something about an investigation into something and wondering how much it might be worth to Tony. That's got Tony's attention, to the point where his goon slams Michael's head down on the table, a position where Michael has a commanding view down the barrel of the hand-cannon Tony suddenly has in his hand. But it also gives Michael cover to drop the gross bug on the floor and kick it under the booth. Tony is not pleased to see Michael's fake FBI badge. Michael gives his story about being suspended from the FBI for drinking, and Tony writes down a place for them to meet at 4:00. And Michael's out of there with one more table-pin and a warning to never come back there again. Don't think he'll need to, until it comes time to change that listening device's batteries and maybe slap on a fresh coat of lint.
Later, Michael's waiting under a bridge while Fi and Jesse stake it out from a distance with their respective scopes. Fi's is attached to her sniper rifle, of course. Two of Tony's goons show up, but not Tony himself. It seems they've found out that Michael isn't Ned Gordon, and they commence a beatdown to get him to reveal who he really is. Jesse tells Fi to shoot, but she's the reticent one all of a sudden, and she wants to give Michael a chance to get himself out of this. And that's what Michael does. While one goon pulls out his gun and Michael pretends he's going to talk, he instead kicks the leg of the guy holding him from behind, then hurls him at the other. This works pretty well, because both guys have the reaction times of slime mold. Fi and Jesse watch, impressed, as Michael leaves them both lying on the ground and walks away. Because God knows there's no need to run from those two. That would just be piling it on.
Later, Michael, Sam and Jesse are back in the Charger outside the mob bar, and Sam plays back a bit of tape from the bug in which they learn that Tony has a guy at the FBI who told him that Michael wasn't for real. Plus there's the bonus that Tony's pet Fed is going to make him tougher to bring down. But Sam's new plan has to do with the guy the subtitles identify as. "Gio -- New York Guy," who's currently standing over Tony in a declamatory posture. Sam turns on some live audio so the other guys can hear Gio putting pressure on Tony to come up with more money, which Sam thinks might make Tony desperate enough to do something stupid. Meaning Sam needs to get Tony to do some of his own dirty work for once. "Time for him to meet Chuck Finley," Sam says. "Now that's a code name." Yeah, but by now it's so overused it looks like Michael's lint-bug.
Later, Jesse meets with Hank, who's getting worried, but he still hands Jesse a thick sheaf of papers having to do with some of those Algerian shipments Jesse's been looking for. Helping people is so much more rewarding when they help you back.
Back at home, Madeline comes upon Jesse going through the file in the garage. She's more curious about the photo of Jesse's mom, who she can tell is dead by the photo. Jesse matter-of-factly says she was killed in a convenience-store robbery when he was nine. It's a pretty grim story, but Madeline smiles sweetly about his partnership with Michael to save the world. Jesse's rescued by a phone call from Sam, so he's got to go. Maybe Madeline can make use of this time to learn how to read a fucking room.
Off to one of those red-lit Miami nightclubs. Someday a club with green lights is going to open in South Beach and it's going to blow the lid off that town. Michael VOs about the difficulty of grabbing someone who has protection, which turns out to actually not be all that difficult. You just do it in the bathroom when he's about to drop a deuce. Sam, in his Chuck Finley suit and hair, grabs Tony from behind and injects him with something that knocks him right out, and Jesse's also there to help him drag Tony right past the bodyguards outside, disguising him with a hat and pretending he's a passed-out drunk. Whether he's drunk or unconscious, he's no less sharp than Tony's bodyguards. Jeez, I want to fire them.
thing Tony knows, he's in his underwear and tied to a hotel bed while Sam cheerfully sharpens knives, pretending to have been sent by the Family. Tony desperately offers to have his guys pull off a big job at the docks, and give "Chuck" a nice big cut. If you'll pardon the pun. Sam acts reluctant, but lets Tony sell it to him. He cuts Tony loose and threatens, "If I have to find you again, I'm not gonna be so friendly. And neither will Mr. Slicey."
Jesse shows up at Michael's loft, having tracked Cobra's shipment to the Opa Locka Airport and being defensive about the name "Cobra." Sam calls with an update on Tony -- unfortunately, Tony's planning on having his guys do the job instead of pulling it himself, so they'll need to convince him that they can't be trusted. Apparently Sam and Mr. Slicey couldn't do that part on their own.
So it's going to be Fi's job, which she does by planting a loudly beeping bomb on the underside of Tony's car. When he goes to get in it -- having fired his bodyguards, apparently, and good riddance -- she gives him a chance to notice the bomb and run away before she detonates it from inside her car up the street. But the message is received and understood.
At the marina, Tony meets up with Sam to say he was right about his guys, so now he wants to do the job with Sam, and even doubles Sam's share in exchange for supplying the crew. Sam agrees, but remembers to threaten him some more. And as soon as Tony leaves, Sam calls Michael to report, "Looks like I'm Tony's new partner."
Time for the mid-episode update with the client. Michael, Jesse and Fi are explaining to Hank how they're baiting Tony into trying a job at the docks, and Hank gets to be the one who stops it. "You just go to work, everything will be fine," Michael says, which is pretty vague. Good enough for Hank, though after he leaves, Michael says they need guys for Sam, and suddenly it can't be Fi. "Looks like I'm coming off the bench, then," Jesse says. Yes, good thing they took the guys who know Jesse out of play.
Off to the docks, where Tony is telling Sam and Jesse about the microprocessors they'll be stealing, which supposedly have a "street value" of five million dollars. What kind of Neal Stephenson cyberpunk fantasy world does Tony live in, anyway? That's of less interest to Sam than Tony's fantasy that he's not going to be doing any of the actual stealing. Sam starts to disabuse him of that idea and it seems like the usual threats are going to do it. But then stupid Jesse has Sam tell Tony a story about a mission where he saved a SEAL buddy of his in El Salvador. Sam tells a whole "no man left behind" yarn, and Tony's convinced, not to say moved, not to say totally fished in. Even though Tony is all those things.
After they put Tony in a cab, Sam's pissed at Jesse for bringing his actual history into this. "I don't pimp my past to bad guys, you understand?" he says angrily. "It worked, didn't it?" Jesse shrugs. Always a solid argument.
Jesse has just had a breakthrough with the manifest on Madeline's dining room table, and he calls Michael to say they're heading over to the airport to break into Cobra's hangar. Jesse's just about to leave -- leaving the papers right there on the table -- when Madeline bursts in with some chocolate chip cookies she made. Jesse reluctantly takes a cookie (he's heard the stories, it seems, and even if he hadn't the stone-on-stone sound effect the foley guys throw in there when he picks one up is a nice touch) and makes for the door. But since Madeline is still fishing for info on him, Jesse comes clean about being a former spy who was fired when someone used his clearance to steal a file, but luckily for him, Michael was there to help. You know, when he puts it that way, it's kind of shocking that he hasn't connected those two facts yet. Madeline, however, has no such blinders, as we can see from her face. "We" meaning you and me, that is. Jesse still doesn't have a clue. Or else he's wondering how soon he can move out from under the roof of a woman who smiles at a story of a shot-up mom and looks pensive and serious after being told, "You raised a good man."
Over at the airport, Michael and Jesse sneak into a darkened airplane hangar to snoop around. Michael wishes Cobra himself were there, "just so we could ask him what he thinks of the code name 'Cobra.'" The right plane is there, but it's empty. Yet there is a clue -- an overscrubbed spot under one wheel that leads Michael to notice blood on the landing gear, which in turn tells him that a body was dumped from a high altitude. Now all they have to do is find out where this plane has flown to. Oh, is that all?
Sam, Fi and Hank are at the dock. Sam is getting off the phone with Tony, who has turned into a bit of a fan of Sam's. This makes Sam almost as uncomfortable as Hank is. Sam encourages Hank to stick with the plan. Yeah, it's not Hank who's going to have trouble sticking with the plan.
It's broad daylight when Sam, Tony, Jesse, and Fi show up outside the fence to make the incursion into the dock complex. For Tony's benefit, Sam uses a walkie-talkie to check in with all of his various "teams," all of whom are of course Michael using different voices. As the sniper team, he shoots out the tires of a security vehicle, which is Fi's cue to start cutting through the fence, using spray-on insulation and a pair of bolt cutters with fiberglass handles to keep from frying herself. Soon the four are inside. Then they use a small keyhole charge and a hydraulic spreader to bust through a concrete wall into a warehouse, while the clueless security guards are trying to figure out how they had a blowout at three miles per hour. Tony goes right to the truck with the shipment and hotwires it, and as he drives it out of the warehouse he's actually pretty jazzed to be the wheelman. Now Sam goes to Hank's guardhouse and pretends to force him to open the gate. But then the plan is for Hank to hold Sam at gunpoint as soon as Tony's clear of the gate and its one-way tire shredders. Sam yells at Tony to go on ahead, because Tony's unaware the cops are waiting for him a mile down the road. From his sniper perch, Michael watches Tony's truck departing, until he comes to a stop. Looks like that "no man left behind" story got to him, so he's coming back for Sam. Nice move, Jesse. Thinking fast, Sam warns Hank that he's going to hit him, whereupon Hank will need to run away. This he does as Tony crashes through the electric fence, shredding his tires. Now all Sam can do is run away with Tony. Are there no cameras at this port?
But they're still inside the compound after the ads. Sam tries to get Tony to run, but Tony has decided that he wants Sam's help to take out Gio and his whole crew. Because the one job they've done together went so well. Sam's reluctant act is pretty convincing, partly because it's not an act, but Tony seems to think it's a done deal.
"Okay," Sam announces that night at the loft. "I am now officially the closest friend of a total psychopath." He's even off his beer. So what to do now? Jesse suggests they let Tony go ahead and start his gang war. Of course Fi loves the idea, to the point where she's willing to come up with the army they're going to need.
So she holds an open casting call for some thug types to follow Sam and Tony to a meeting with Gio, which has the added benefit of giving her an excuse to look at lots of beefy arms. When they all get in the road in a caravan of rented SUVs, Sam, driving the lead car, gives Tony a machine gun that he'll pop out of the car with once his snipers take out Gio's engine block. Which Sam and Fi do, from their hiding spot adjacent to the meeting place in a wide-open field. Michael VOs about how it's a tried and true tactic to get rid of an adversary by getting him to attack a much stronger target. Sure enough, Tony gets out and opens up with the machine gun, and bullets ricochet off Gio's grille. They put live ammo into that thing? Tony orders Gio out, and as Gio demands to know what Tony thinks he's doing, Tony starts talking big while the squadron of SUVs quietly drives away behind him. And so does Sam, leaving Tony twisting in the breeze and facing Gio and his guys alone. Tony raises his gun as the cinematographer raises the camera. Looks like he's going out Butch & Sundance-style, only stupid.
That night, at the docks, the team wraps it all up for Hank: there have been a shitload of arrests, Tony's in a prison hospital after killing Gio (and the team better hope no one traces that gun Sam gave him). As for the team, Jesse advises Hank not to say anything about it. And then they do a hero-walk into the sunset. Yeah, best for Hank to keep it to himself. Nobody would ever believe the hero-walk bit.
Now to Carlito's, where Sam reports to the rest of the Fearsome Foursome that Cobra's last flight was to the Bahamas, and then a John Doe washed ashore the same day. These clues are coming together so easily, it seems like they would have found Cobra already if they weren't limited to searching for him in 20-second bursts. Fi offers to have Jesse smuggled to the Bahamas in the cargo hold of a cigarette boat. Jesse says he can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday. Not even putting up with Madeline's questions and cookies?
Actually, Madeline is someone else's problem right now. Michael comes home to see her standing in the courtyard, loaded for bear and wanting to talk about what he did to Jesse. "I don't know what he told you," Michael begins. She says he didn't tell her anything, except how he got fired last month. Michael plays innocent, and although he's getting better at lying to her, she's also getting better at seeing through it. She says that when Michael showed up with Jesse, he was wearing that same guilty "I'm fucking somebody over" face he was wearing when he joined the Army, leaving little brother Nate to fend for himself at home. Michael starts to make excuses about his situation, saying he can't explain everything to her, but she angrily accuses Michael of pretending to be Jesse's friend. Michael says that's for reals, since he's helping Jesse. "You're lying to him," Madeline says. "Take it from me, lies get out." Especially on TV. "Thirty years with your father told me that." She stomps off, leaving Michael standing there alone in his courtyard. Well, even if he wanted to follow, I'm not sure he could with those giant clodhopping sneakers he's got on. Seriously, has he been galumphing around on those surfboards this whole time?
Watch this episode here, discuss this episode in our forums, then read some of Michael Westen's Most Useful Spy Tips!
Find out why some fans are falling out of love with Burn Notice.
Want to immediately access TWoP content no matter where you are online? Download the free TWoP toolbar for your web browser. Already have a customized toolbar? Then just add our free toolbar app to get updated on our content as soon it's published.
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.