Burn Notice TV Show - Who's the Victor Now? - Burn Notice Photos & Videos, Burn Notice Reviews & Burn Notice Recaps | TWoP

Aired 03-05-2009

While Michael, Sam and Fi have Victor in captivity, he starts sharing. He tells Michael his story: he was burned and his family was killed by Carla, so his attempts to kill Michael were really attacks on Carla's organization. Satisfied with the veracity of Victor's story, Michael takes him on as a client. But Carla figures out that Michael has Victor, and she's pissed enough to send in the big guns. Not big enough, but we're getting to that.

It's Sam's job to get Madeline out of town, but she picks this moment to get curious, and refuses to leave with Sam until she has some answers. But by then, the house is surrounded and he has to blow it to shit to effect their escape. When that's done, Madeline insists on disappearing into the woodwork so Sam can be free to help Michael.

Michael's actually doing pretty well with Victor and Fi, as they get their hands on a blackmail file that Victor's been keeping on Carla. But just when Michael and Victor are about to escape to Cuba on Victor's boat, Carla shows up ready to literally blow them out of the water. Sam and Fi take Carla out with a sniper rifle and make their escape just as some major paramilitary backup is arriving, but Victor's not so lucky; wounded, he takes the fall so Michael can take the credit with Carla's management. And by "fall" I mean "bullet in the chest."

With all of that over, Michael finally meets "Management," a man in black played by John Mahoney. During a helicopter ride, Michael turns over Victor's file on Carla and, instead of accepting the implied offer for Carla's old job, demands to be left alone. Management asks if Michael's sure that's what he wants, and if he's ever wondered what happened to all his spy enemies, and what'll happen to Michael if Management quits looking out for him. For added effect, he opens the chopper door a hundred feet over the Caribbean and invites Michael to use it. For even greater effect, Michael does. And there's your finale, and your setup for Season Three. See you in June.

Season finale. Let's go!

As Michael strolls through a Miami shopping district, he VOs about how the most dangerous time in any operation is when it's all coming together. "You never know whether you're about to get a pat on the back or a bullet to the back of the head." As though they're mutually exclusive. He reaches an appointed street corner and checks his watch, just before a stretch limo pulls up. As he climbs in, he VOs, "Of course, there's not much you can do but act like everything's fine." In the back of the limo is a hump in a suit and sunglasses, and also Carla, offering him chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds and some tea. As the limo gets moving, she pours him a cup and says this is to serve as a reminder of his old life, "when Michael Westen was just a carefree spy in the deserts of Afghanistan." Carla claims that she used to be like Michael. "Lived for the job. Then I discovered the job doesn't love you back." He realizes she's telling him she was burned too, back in the day. She says she was angry about it at first, but then realized she didn't miss the old gig, and that Michael might yet come to the same conclusion. But she's still pretending to be open to cutting him loose. "Anything's possible if you do your job," she says as he lets her pop a seed into his mouth. With the carrot thus administered, it's now time for the stick. She gets serious as she warns him that "management's not happy," and they're coming to town. "Remember, there are worse things than being blacklisted," she says darkly. "Oh, I know," Michael snarks. "I could be this guy." As the limo stops and "this guy" fails to display any reaction whatsoever, Michael hops out, a few minutes older and a few blocks further west.

Later, Michael takes a much longer drive, out into the country at the wheel of his Charger. Soon he's back at the same abandoned concrete factory they used earlier in the season. He drives right in, and Sam greets him with a beer in one hand and his gun in the other (always a winning combo), wanting to be sure Michael wasn't followed. "Unless she's got an invisible helicopter, I think we're fine," Michael says. As Michael hands his own weapon to Sam, presumably so Victor won't be able to take it from him, he asks about their guest. Stationed outside a locked holding-tank door with a shotgun, Fi tells Michael that Victor's asleep. "Kinda tough to sleep when you're cable-tied to a chair," Michael says. Can't be worse than sleeping on an airplane. "How long's he been in there alone?" Fi tells him a few hours, as per Michael's instructions not to open the door. She adds that her shotgun is loaded with a beanbag round. "At this range it'll break a few ribs," she boasts, and gives it a one-handed pump for dramatic effect. Better not brace the stock against your ribs, then, Fi. Oh, wait, that's not what she meant.

By M. Giant

Michael enters the rusty old tank with chains hanging from the ceiling and looks down at Victor, smiling up at him from his chair. "Nice place. I stayed in a bed and breakfast like this once," Victor says. The sad thing is, so have I. As Michael suspiciously descends the stairs, he VOs, "When you're dealing with a trained operative, you have to assume they're as good as you are. If you'd have cut through the restraints given a few hours alone, chances are he had the same idea." Michael notices the loose pipe bracket and a little pile of broken glass on the floor, so he's more or less ready for it when Victor jumps out of his chair and swings it at him. A brief fight ensues, which stops when Fi steps in with the shotgun and fires a beanbag into Victor's shoulder. That knocks the fight out of him. "That's enough roughhousing, boys," Fi lectures. "Yaaaah, it's always fun 'til someone gets hurt," Victor gasps from the floor. Michael does a double-take, surprised that someone would actually still use that line.

With Victor secured back in the chair after the titles, Michael starts asking questions: "Why don't we start with why you tried to blow me up?" Sure, it's all about Michael. Victor's still sporting a bruise on the right side of his forehead where Michael conked it against that bathroom sink, but it's going to be waxing and waning throughout the episode. Just wait and see. Victor takes exception to Michael's personal take on it. "I was removing operatives from the field," he says innocently. "You were cogs in a machine. I just hit that machine with a baseball bat." Michael rephrases the question, but Victor's not in the mood. "If there's one thing everyone knows about Michael Westen, it's that he wants his job back, and here I sit, your shot at getting that... so wake me when Carla gets here or shoot me now and save everyone some time." Michael keeps asking, and tells Victor that his only shot is to trust him. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain." After a long pause, Victor decides to spill. "I was CIA. My family was stationed with me in Mexico City. An op went bad and... I lost my wife and son. The burn notice went out the same day." Suddenly Michael's prolonged pissiness at the way he lost his job seems a little petty. Victor continues that that's when he heard from Carla. He adds that he was more into it than Michael was, as a chance to get some payback. Which he did. Then he starts laughing maniacally. "And then the punch line, the really, really funny part was, it was Carla. She had my family killed as part of my recruitment." Oh, that's hilarious. Michael says he's sorry, and Victor says that by the time he learned the truth, he was already inside. "And I figured, hey, while I'm here, why not gut the entire organization? Well, I took my shot, and here we are."

By M. Giant

So now it's Michael's turn to share. "Carla doesn't know you're here," he says. "If you're telling the truth, maybe we can work on this together." After a moment, Victor tells Michael where he's got a boat docked, warns him that the cabin is booby-trapped, and tells him to check under the bed for proof. I hope Michael is less worried about the possibility of getting blown up than getting a load of what someone like Victor has stashed under his bunk.

When Michael emerges from the holding tank, Fi is getting a late start on her usual early-episode exposition-by-argument duties as she wonders why Michael is trusting Victor. Even Sam gets in on it, telling Michael a little story as he returns his gun to him. "When I was a kid, I adopted a dog that I found. He had these big eyes and I used to rub his belly, and I thought we had something special. Right up until he bit a chunk out of me." Grinning, Michael promises to be careful, and Fi says she's coming with him. As they walk to the car, Michael suggests Sam use the time to try to get some more info out of Victor. "Rub his belly if you need to," he suggests. I don't know, I doubt Victor would let anyone but Michael do that.

Michael's car pulls into the parking lot of a small, secluded marina, just as the credits tell us that this episode was directed by Tim Matheson, who of course played Michael's old buddy Larry. Interesting. Aboard Victor's boat, Fi opens the cabin door just enough to reach in and clip a length of fishing line attached to it. When it's safe to go inside, Fi is impressed to see a rather elaborate explosives rig set up on the dashboard, with weights, pulleys, a couple of claymore mines, and a car battery. "Victor should probably teach a class or something," she says as she disconnects one of the terminals. What the hell did he need Derek Poole for, then? As Michael hauls a duffel bag from under the bed and opens it up, he VOs, "Spies are supposed to travel light, with nothing that could identify them. Some do, but most find that staying sane requires staying connected to something that reminds them why they do what they do." Finding a stash of Victor's old family photos, and a box of papers that he hands off to Fi, he adds, "Pictures are particularly dangerous to carry. Unless the people in them are already dead." Looking through Victor's papers, Fi reports that Victor's son was only four. M. Edium's age, in other words. That's the kind of shout-out I can do without. "I never knew you could feel this bad for someone on the edge of sanity," Fi murmurs. She doesn't get along with her neighbors? "People don't get there on their own, Fi," Michael says in defense of Victor, adding that being under Carla's power could make anyone nuts. Fi points out that Michael's doing okay, but he says that he never lost everything he cared about. Well, not for lack of trying on Carla's part.

Sam transfers Victor into a big chain-link cage inside the factory, and sets him down behind a desk that's got a vise and a wrench the size of your femur on it. That's a pretty intimidating pair of props right there, but I can tell you right now that they aren't going to come into play. Saying he wants to talk, Sam tries a few familiar opening techniques that Victor already knows about, chapter and verse. So he decides to drop them and go with the direct approach, asking who Victor works for. "Is this a government agency, a foreign power? What are we up against?" Victor doesn't know much more than Michael does, because what fun would that be? Sam asks why they're based in Miami and Victor says they're all over -- although maybe not in Miami for a while after today. Sam doesn't like the sound of that. "You shouldn't," Victor says. "If Michael doesn't hand me over, Carla's going to cut her losses. Starting with Michael's family. She's going to be a busy girl." How big does Victor think Michael's family is, anyway?

Michael and Fi return in the Charger, and Sam starts talking about what might happen if they don't hand Victor over. Fi says they're not doing that, because suddenly she's firmly on Victor's side. "I'm just saying we could have a war on our hands," Sam points out. Fi offers to cancel her meeting, but Michael declines, telling her they have to act normal. So Sam should go get Madeline and take her to Orlando, which sounds like a totally normal thing to do.

Madeline's doing a Jack LaLanne workout in front of the TV. Of course, looking at that old Quasar, it's entirely possible that it was a Jillian Michaels DVD she put in the machine and this is how it's coming out. Oh, and she's smoking, obviously. Still wringing the maximum comedic mileage out of that ever-present cigarette I see. Sam comes in, not knocking until he's practically in the living room behind her, and apologetically says that it's "time for an emergency trip to Disneyworld." She asks why she would want to go there. "Because it's a magical kingdom with lots of witnesses and great security," Sam says, "so if you can just get your bag, we'll go." But out of all the times Madeline's been bundled out of her house at short notice, she picks this time to put her foot down and refuse to budge until she knows what's going on. Poor Sam. Season finales are a bitch for him.

Michael gets back to Victor, saying it's hard to sympathize with someone, "when they've tried to kill you. Four times." "Four? That seems high." Victor says thoughtfully. "Oh, come on, you're counting earlier, with the chair!" He tells Michael to relax, since this will soon be over for both of them anyway. "What time is it? 10:30 or so? I've been off the grid long enough for them to get suspicious. They'll have gotten the go-ahead to hunt you. Set up a perimeter around your last known location." I thought Michael's last known location was the corner where Carla's limo dropped him off, but he seems to think this means the bad guys will be showing up any minute. So he produces a switchblade. Victor babbles, "Oh, you're gonna kill me yourself, hell yeah. Well, if you're going to step to the bell, you might as well ring it, huh?" But instead, Michael cuts Victor loose and says, "Let's get out of here." As Victor gets up, he asks mockingly, "I get to be one of Michael Westen's clients? One of the desperate people to whom you lend your razor-sharp mind and fists of fury?" "Lucky you," Michael says and leads Victor out of the cage as the subtitles swoop in: "Victor -- The Client," they say. As they head for the Charger, the first black car comes into view outside, ahead of schedule. "You drive," Michael says, tossing Victor the keys. They run for the car in slow motion as Michael VOs, "You don't last long as a spy if you don't trust anyone. If you're looking over your shoulder to see who's coming after you, you can't see where you're going. Sometimes you just have to trust your gut." And with that, Victor pulls the car out of the building. So now Michael gets to show off his big, new, juicy, plump, trustingness, plus he's going to be out on the surrounding roads as a passenger with someone who doesn't know them as well as he does, or indeed at all. Win-win!

By the time the commercials are over, the chase is on, and the pursuit has been joined by a couple more cars. Even more alarming, Victor's face has spontaneously grown a pair of sunglasses. He's having trouble shaking their pursuers, who apparently actually know how to drive. "I'm flattered," Michael says, checking his gun. He VOs, "In a firefight on the road, you've got a few options. Without something high-caliber, you're not going to be able to penetrate the radiator or the firewall behind it. That leaves two options: the windshield [as Michael spiders that of their pursuer with a couple of rounds], or ricocheting bullets off the ground up through the undercarriage, which is one of the least reinforced parts of a car." As bullet holes appear between the driver's feet, Michael adds, "For sheer panic, it's hard to beat bullets coming up from the floorboards." It works; the driver crashes into a convenient pile of junk, which in my book is vastly preferable to taking a round in the taint.

But now there's another car rushing to meet them, and while Michael pulls a couple of containers out of the glove compartment, Victor veers back into the factory and wonders what Michael's doing with a bottle of brake fluid. "Won't burn fast enough to do anything," he warns, talking more than fast enough to make up for it. Taping a glass jar full of white crystals to the bottle, Michael says, "It will when it's mixed with chlorine dioxide and some other stuff." It's that "some other stuff" that keeps Burn Notice from getting sued. Sure enough, when Michael tosses out his homemade bomb out the window, it creates a fireball that the pursuing car drives through, and up onto an embankment that rolls the car right over. "I like you, have I ever told you that?" Victor says to Michael. Oh, you didn't really have to. Another car swoops in, and Michael tells Victor they need to get out of there. Except it's either looped in later or he says it telepathically, because I don't see his lips moving. But he remembers to use his mouth when he says they need to get to a parking garage and get a new ride. As Victor gets on the main road, Michael's cell phone rings. "Carla, not a good time!" he answers. Calling from a marina, a pissed-off Carla tries to warn Michael about Victor. Michael is a smart-ass about having met someone special (although he's not entirely kidding), until Carla snaps, "It's time you learned actions have consequences." "Funny, I was thinking it was time for you to learn the same thing," Michael says. After he hangs up, Victor warns, "As someone who's doled out a lot of those consequences over the years, she'll go after your family." "That'll be harder than she thinks," Michael says. Yes, because he thinks Sam is spiriting Madeline away, and it's been so long since we've seen Michael's brother Nate, there's some question as to whether he still exists.

By M. Giant

By now they're in town, and Michael directs Victor into a parking garage. As they head up the ramp, Michael fires a few shots behind them to dissuade the pursuers from following them up into the structure. Instead, they just pull their car in across the entrance to block it off. So...problem solved?

Up on the second level, they hop out of the Charger, which Victor hasn't bothered to pull into a proper parking space. Victor jokingly (and, I suspect, flirtingly) suggests a little convertible, but then contents himself with breaking off the fuzzy pink rearview mirror when Michael says, "Looking for something with a little more horsepower." They hide behind a support column, while Victor uses the mirror to monitor goings-on down below. "Here comes the second car," he says. "This should get interesting." Hey, it's been interesting so far.

Back at Madeline's house, Sam has told Madeline everything he knows, which admittedly isn't much. He's getting more and more agitated about the time it's taking to get out of there, and she's not getting it, until she offers him a beer. "No, Madeline, I don't want a beer!" he snaps, slamming the fridge door shut. Seeing Sam Axe turn down a cold one tells Madeline, "Okay, this is serious." She goes to pack, but when Sam peeks out the kitchen door, there are already visitors: two cars, with at least three guys, dressed in Miami casual-wear instead of the expected suits. Sam pulls his gun and goes around to the front to close the shades. When Madeline comes back, and he tells her, "Change of plans. Where's your shotgun?" While she goes to get it, Sam fires a couple of shots through the front door to scare the bad guys off the porch, and starts moving the furniture around to withstand a siege. "I guess this means we're not going to Disneyworld," Madeline pouts. Nobody's fault but your own, stubborn lady.

While Michael uses a chunk of concrete to break into a pickup truck, Victor continues monitoring his mirror and reporting what their pursuers are doing, which is "Setting up a perimeter and waiting for backup." Michael says they can get some of their own. "Careful with that phone, chances are it's a party line now," Victor warns. Michael gets Fi on the line. She's all flush from just having completed a gun deal, and he has to say her name a few times, not shutting her up until he hisses, "Fiona Glenanne!" That stuns her into silence. "Remember that drive, past the factory where we first met? Do you think we could do something similar where we picnicked last month?" Fi confirms that this will be happening soon, then hangs up and puts her cell phone under her car tire before backing out. Yet another use for the product-placed Saab is thus put on display. At the same time, Michael drops his chunk of concrete on his phone. "They're setting up a spike strip," Victor tells Michael. Maybe so, but with Michael's and Fi's phones both squashed, ain't nobody going to be triangulating shit.

Cut to the guys and cars at the bottom of the ramp as Michael VOs about the similarities between a security perimeter and a defensive line in football. "You've got a couple of options. Try to punch through the line with brute force..." The pickup truck comes tearing down the ramp, blowing its tires on the spike strip and crashing into a couple of cars at the bottom. But when the guys converge on the truck, the only occupants are the concrete block on the gas pedal and the seatbelt that's looped through the steering wheel to keep it pointed straight ahead. While they're making sense of that, Michael continues, "...or you can soften it with a little misdirection." Which is when another car comes down the ramp at full speed. This one's a yellow Corvette, and it's got Michael and Victor inside it. Apparently the spike strip is all used up, because Michael is able to maneuver through the opening the truck made, and they're back on the road. Okay, so, what did they accomplish with Michael's parking ramp gambit? They have a new, more visible car; Michael's down a Charger, which is certain to be towed; and two innocent Miami motorists are stuck with damaged vehicles. And three of the black sedans are in close pursuit, so they have more cars behind them than they did when they entered the ramp in the first place. Victor's with me on this: "I'm liking your plan less and less," he complains. Michael says they'll be fine as long as they can keep their pursuers behind them. "Relatively fine," he amends, glancing in the mirror.

Meanwhile, on a nearby road in an industrial area, Fi is just finishing attaching a remote bomb to the bottom of a parked car. She runs back to her own car and rests her hand with the remote detonator on the roof, waiting. Michael leads his pursuers down that road, and just as he passes a parked car, Fi hits the button and it explodes. It flips, and the first chase car crashes into its flaming carcass. The sequence repeats itself with another car, but this time, after the second car crashes, the third car crashes into it. The pursuers thus thwarted, Michael stops and waits for Fi to pull up to him in her Saab, which she's somehow found time to lower the top on. She gives the boys in the Corvette a flirty look. "Where did you meet her?" Victor asks in amazement before both cars drive off into the commercial break. She may seem impressive now, Victor, but look around you at this street. Even before it started raining burning cars, only Fiona Glenanne would consider this a decent spot for a picnic.

Later, after they've ditched the 'Vette, Fi has parked the Saab along a seaside boulevard. As the three of them walk away from it like they're just going to enjoy the ocean view, she expresses her disgust with Michael and Victor's plan. "We're doing all this so we can throw some paperwork at Carla?" She's also wondering why Victor never used the file before, if it's so potent. Victor says Carla isn't his main target. "I want the guys who call the shots...If this was just about putting a bullet in Carla it would have been over a long time ago." Fi likes that idea just fine. "If it comes to that, you'll have to get in line," Victor says. Meanwhile, Michael is scanning across the street with his opera glasses, and seeing a couple of cars on stakeout. "Your safehouse? Not so safe," he tells Victor. Yes, those are top operatives over there, apparently unable to notice when the people they're after show up across the street and start looking at them through binoculars. Victor has a look for himself, disappointed that Carla figured out his hiding spot. "Sometimes I wish she'd get a hobby," he says. Michael asks where in the building it is, and Victor says it's not; it's actually on a utility pole. Looking up, Michael VOs, "A fake utility box isn't a bad hiding place. People don't touch things labeled, "High Voltage." But what about actual utility people? "Repair crews leave them alone too; they're not real, so they never need servicing." Oh, okay, that makes sense. "Too bad Carla's surveillance is parked right in front of it," Michael tells Victor, but Victor has a plan to deal with the four guys. "We each shoot one and roshambo for the other." Michael points out they don't even know it's Carla's guys, and they could be completely innocent. "Oh, please, no one's completely innocent," Victor scoffs. "Is that what you told yourself when you tried to kill me? Let's go," Michael says. Aw, and they'd been getting along so well. Maybe Victor should rub Michael's belly.

Michael gets back in Fi's car and borrows her OnStar so he can ask for directions to a hardware store. "I'd like to avoid major intersections and government buildings." Directions will be forthcoming from the godlike voice in the rearview mirror. OnStar: the most convenient accomplice you'll ever have.

Sam sees that reinforcements are arriving, so it's time for him and Madeline to go. He asks if she's ready. "Does it matter?" she asks nervously. "Not really," he admits. They head for the back. As Sam watches though the kitchen window, the large team of heavily armed men moves in on the house, apparently completely unnoticed by any of Madeline's neighbors. She needs to move into a neighborhood with more telecommuters. Up on the front porch, someone shoots the front door open with a shotgun, and I'm expecting the Christmas gunpowder to go off one shell at a time, simulating a volley of shots as though from a small army. But instead, when the electrical current flows through the string of lights and into the exposed filaments covered in boom-dust, it all goes up at once, creating a fireball that looks big enough to blow the front off of Madeline's house. Of course, if I ever tried this, half of the string wouldn't explode unless I wiggled it and the other half wouldn't explode at all. Plus the front of the house would stay blown up until the snow melted in April. Meanwhile, Madeline and Sam duck through the back gate, and Sam drools over Mrs. Reynolds' shiny red 50s Buick parked in the back alley. "Whoa, if I'd known that baby was here I would have gotten us out of there a lot faster." This show does like its vintage cars, doesn't it?

By M. Giant

After driving for a while, Madeline makes Sam pull over. I'm thinking he's going to rip him a new one for blowing up her house, season finale or no, but she's just mutinying against Sam's plan. "You really think the best use of your time is a three-hour drive to Orlando?" she asks. She's got a better idea: "I take care of myself and you go save my son." Sam's skeptical, but she tells him, "The one thing a woman my age can do in Miami is blend in. If they can pick me out of 10,000 other sixtysomething women with bleached blonde hair, I guess I'm done for." They could also follow the trail of cigarette smoke. Sam admits that he can probably meet up with Michael at one of their rallying points, and Madeline puts on her white-framed sunglasses -- which immediately make her more visible by several thousand candlepower -- and gets out of the car. "Mike's gonna kill me," Sam says as Madeline disappears into the crowd. Mrs. Reynolds isn't going to be too pleased, either.

By M. Giant

Back at Victor's safe...pole, the little team watches from the end of the block as a utility guy gets out of a truck. "One of the most common cover IDs for a spy is service personnel," Michael VOs. "Of course, anyone who works in intelligence knows to check service personnel. So a quick phone call to the gas company and you've created the perfect distraction." Sure enough, when two of the four guys watching the building decide to follow the gas company guy into the building to check him out, it's time for the team to move. As Fi drives them over in the Saab, Michael tells us what the active ingredient in pepper spray is. You don't need to know what it's called, but apparently you can mix it up with alcohol and oil, "pressurize it in a paint sprayer with CO2, and you have a homemade pepper grenade." Which Michael tosses into the open window of the stakeout car. While the driver's struggling with that, Michael and Victor hop out and seal the doors shut with a nail gun. For once, Michael has cheaped out, buying only one nail gun so that Victor has to toss it over the car to Michael when he's finished on his side. Apparently this "blocks the lever bar, making it impossible to open. Leaving you free to do pretty much whatever you want." Which in this case is Victor climbing up on a parked car, grabbing his box off the pole (good thing he didn't have it screwed into place), and hopping back into the open-topped Saab so Fi can drive away before anyone knows what's hit them. Besides a pepper grenade and a nail gun, obviously.

Later, out by the beach at a safe distance, Michael flips through Victor's file and gives a low whistle at how Carla's been misusing company resources. And not just stealing Post-Its, either: "She'd send a black ops team to deal with a parking ticket." Victor says the management types have two rules: "Don't screw up and don't get caught. They don't get involved unless things go very, very wrong." He adds that Carla's got enemies from both before and after the time when she was burned. "And then she made the mistake of vouching for you, big guy. This file should be more than enough to earn her a retirement bullet." I hope it's at least a golden bullet, with her name engraved on it. Michael asks what their move is, and Victor says that if they can get to his boat, he has the means to contact people above Carla and get her to back off. "Then we get out of town. Maybe Cuba." Fi loves the idea, so Michael pulls her aside. "I'm not invited to Cuba," she realizes. Yeah, Cuba's like, "Sorry, Fi. Got an embargo here. Nothing we can do." Actually, Michael says she needs to help Sam protect his family. "Can't Sam do it on his own?" Fi whines. Michael says, "I know you don't like to hear this -- you and Sam are a good team." And if this weren't enough to ask of her, he also wants to borrow her car. Which she's okay with, as long as he brings it back clean with a full tank of gas. She kisses him goodbye. "It's not goodbye, it's just in case," she says. Okay, so she kissed him something else. And then she smacks him, hard. "And that is to remind you to be careful," she says. And maybe to help him not miss the little nutbar so much. She walks off, and Michael and Victor get in the car.

Despite not having been in a position to hear Carla's end of the conversation, see her go down, or indeed do anything beyond bleed to death, Victor has assessed the situation admirably. "You have to get out there and get on top of this before her body cools," he tells Michael, which sends my mind involuntarily to a rather nasty, necrophiliac image. Victor even supplies him with a cover story. "You lured her here, had your team take her out, and then killed me." Michael doesn't like that last part, but Victor insists. "Help me out. I'm dead one way or the other. They get me alive and they're going to take me apart. You know it has to be like this." Michael helps Victor reach the gun, and still has his hand on it as Victor raises it to his own chest. "It was good playing with you, Sport," Victor says. "Get out while you can." Who says he can? Hasn't that been the point of the whole show? Victor is still staring into Michael's eyes when the gun goes off, and he doesn't stop even when he's dead. Freaky. Michael reaches up and closes Victor's eyes. And I always give this show a pass on its chronic continuity issues like how often someone's looking in a different direction from one shot to the , but given that this time it's a dead dude, I can't let it slide. Michael sits there for a moment with tears in his own eyes and the gun in his hand. He sits there for a minute, fiddling with the gun suspiciously close to his face, then pulls himself together and gets to his feet. He even remembers to grab Carla's file and his sunglasses before stepping outside.

Interesting: Victor's boat is called Solitude. Michael comes out, putting his gun down on the aft deck and greeting the armed soldiers who search him. "Could have used you guys earlier," he says, completely himself again. Or at least pretending to be. He refuses to give them the file, instead walking over the helicopter while barely sparing Carla's body a glance. Michael reaches the open door of the chopper, and in the back of it is yet another guy in a suit and sunglasses staring out at him. But this time it's an older guy. John Mahoney, in fact, looking rather thin and pale in this tropical setting. So I guess backup did come from Seattle, sort of. The subtitles are typically helpful: "Management," they say. Thanks, subtitles, for clearing everything up. Smiling, Michael climbs into the seat of the helicopter facing Management and another guy, hands Management the file, and puts his sunglasses down on the empty seat to him. And the door closes and the helicopter lifts off. Somehow, despite having just been running for their lives through dense woods, Sam and Fi are able to see all this. "Good luck, Mike," Sam says from the ground. Yeah, I think you two had better go find Madeline now.

While the helicopter cruises out over the Caribbean, Michael VOs, "In intelligence work, your most important tool, more important than any combat technique, any technical skill, is your ability to twist the facts of a situation to your own advantage. The worse the facts are, the more you've got to sell it." Management finishes the file and takes off his shades, congratulating Michael, "Two rogue operatives in one day? Lucky us." Michael suggests Management talk to HR. "You have some staff issues," he understates. Management agrees. "What do you think I should do about our new recruit, Michael Westen? Wonderfully effective, terrifically resourceful, truly the best I've ever seen, but he just doesn't seem happy." Michael plays along: "Maybe it's the threats against his family. Maybe it's the people trying to kill him. Maybe it's the fact that he had to use his people to clean up your mess. Your operatives --" "Are dead, and you're not," Management interrupts. And he offers Michael a job, asking what he wants. "I want you people out of my life!" Michael roars. Oh, way to lose your cool there. Management doesn't think Michael actually wants that at all. He asks, "All your old enemies from your spy days, all the people who have scores to settle with Michael Westen...Where do you think they've been?" Well, there was that one they almost let through during the first season. Michael clearly hasn't thought about this, but he isn't about to admit it. "You think you've been under our thumb?" Management continues. "You've been under our protection! Think about that!" Michael insists that he'll be fine, and Management tells him, "You want out? There's the door." This is not merely a symbolic remark, either; he has literally opened the helicopter's literal door, giving Michael a view of the clear, turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea, some one hundred feet below where the helicopter is now hovering. "But hear this," Management bellows over the noise of the rotors. "You have no idea what hell will rain down if we stop watching over you!" Michael reaches for the door as though to close it, then says, "I'll take my chances." And he leaps.

Despite the long fall, shot from every imaginable angle at several different speeds, Michael spares us the VO about how to survive a high fall into water. The camera closes in on the sunglasses he left behind in the chopper. Management puts his own shades back on and closes the door, and the helicopter heads back towards the city. As Michael takes his time surfacing so we can all have a moment to take in the dreamy song on the soundtrack and have a nice long think about symbolic baptism, he VOs what may be second thoughts.

By M. Giant

"Finally," Fi says from behind her sniper rifle in the trees. She totally cut in line. to her, Sam says, "Look, I know you want to savor the moment, but we gotta get out of here." Especially now that the sniper is shooting back at them. Michael peers out the window of the boat to see his friends fleeing through the woods, as black jeeps arrive on the scene and start disgorging some black-clad paramilitary types. The shooting's still happening when they give the helicopter clearance to land, which seems a little cavalier on their part. Michael finally seems to remember Victor, and goes over to help him apply pressure to his wound. "We gotta talk, big guy," Victor says. And then a commercial break goes here, because one always happens at this time. Nothing to be done about it.

By M. Giant

"As a spy working for the government, you're protected. You may work solo, but you have agreements with other spy agencies. Even when you're surrounded by your enemies, that protects you. When your entire career consists of making enemies, there's no greater danger than being totally cut off. Alone." So why'd you jump, brain trust? He surfaces, and he turns out to be quite a long way from shore. Good thing he hasn't eaten in the past hour. Surrendering his suit jacket to the ocean so he can start swimming, he says, "When you find yourself out in the cold, all you can do is put your head down and try to survive." So that's what he does, and the camera pulls away from his tiny figure disappearing into the ocean. The screen goes black, with the singer still whispering, "Tick...tock...tick...tock..." Which is an oblique way of saying that Season Three starts in June. See you then.

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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.

Burn Notice TV Show - Who&#39;s the Victor Now? - Burn Notice Photos &amp; Videos, Burn Notice Reviews &amp; Burn Notice Recaps | TWoP

Burn Notice TV Show - Who's the Victor Now? - Burn Notice Photos & Videos, Burn Notice Reviews & Burn Notice Recaps | TWoP