By M. Giant
Michael goes back to his old frenemy Seymour the arms dealer to help him track down Derek Poole the door bomber. Seymour rediscovers his man-crush on Michael and is willing to help, but he's going to want some money. So Michael takes a gig as a security consultant for an art gallery owner named Chandler who wants to know who's spying on him. Michael ends up busting the gallery's receptionist, who claims Chandler killed her artist father, and she's just trying to prove it. So Michael takes over the receptionist's investigation for her, which involves jacking up Chandler's paranoia to try to get more access to his files. What happens instead is that Chandler sets a trap for the receptionist that she walks right into, forcing Michael to rescue her by making Chandler think he's marked for death and turning his hitman against him. Chandler ends up dead and Michael not only recovers a valuable painting, he actually accepts payment this time.
Which is good, because surprisingly, Seymour has come through for Michael, finding his bomber's hideout in the woods. But since the whole place is wired to blow sky-high, Michael and Fi have to get a little creative to get in and grab the guy. Which they do, and Michael contents himself with getting an account number from him, which he hopes to track to an individual. And through it all, Michael's being a total girl about how Fi loved him and left him last week, while she's being a total... Michael.
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Michael VOs about how intelligence gathering is all about blending in. "If you're hunting for intel in the Middle East, that means a beard and a djellaba. If you're doing it on South Beach, you're probably wearing a swimsuit and flip-flops." Yes, our leads are once again dressed for a pool party, but this time they're making a return visit to the palatial home of Fi's arms dealer friend, Seymour. You remember him, don't you? "Hope he's still not mad about the faceful of gunpowder last time he dropped by," Michael reminisces. "Well, he was pretty enchanted with you once upon a time," Fi reminds him. "Yeah, he showed it when he attacked me with a baseball bat," Michael recalls. Now you remember him, right? Fi asks Michael to put sunscreen on her shoulders (too late), and he offers to talk about "what happened the other night." Fi acts like it was nothing: "We were just blowing off some steam, right?" Oh, look who's playing hard to get all of a sudden. Michael lets it drop, possibly because he's wondering who this person is who's pretending to be Fi, and how she got into the costume.
Out back, Seymour's got a pool party in full swing. It seems to be him, his bodyguard/smoothie maker Jackass, and about 50 bikini chicks. I do not understand the demographics of this. Michael VOs about how you can't hold grudges in intelligence gathering: "The guy who hit you with a baseball bat could be an information source today." Especially if the slugger is an entertaining character who's popular with the viewers. Michael and Fi walk in unnoticed, and she positions herself near Jackass while he approaches Seymour... who freaks out and screams "Security!" the moment he lays eyes on Michael. Jackass draws a gun, but Fi gets it away from him and has him on the deck with a knee to the groin almost before the subtitles remember they have a job to do. "Seymour -- Arms Dealer," they read, over a shot of Seymour. He says that since Jackass demonstrated his uselessness the last time he tangled with Michael and Fi, Seymour has taken his security into his own hands. With that, he pulls a gun on Michael. "You have hollow-points in there!" Michael marvels. Seymour is surprised that Michael can tell just by looking, but it's just a ploy to distract Seymour so Michael can snatch the weapon from him and grab him around the neck from behind. Michael tells him to calm down; he just wants some help tracking someone down. "You are such a bad-ass," Seymour tells him, totally turned on by Michael's display of prowess. "It's kind of awesome." Seymour agrees to help, if Michael will teach him some moves. "Sure," Michael says, and everyone's friends again. After letting Seymour go, Michael has to remind him that he's looking for an explosives expert named Derek Poole. Seymour's on board for the manhunt, but asks for some cash to "open doors." Michael shakes his head, but that doesn't seem to be a deal-breaker for Seymour: "Okay, I'll front you, because I know you're good for it." And of course he'll want to be in contact with Michael at all times, because he's in love with him. "You and me, bad-asses, in this together." Then he turns to Jackass and says, "See how they just laid you out again? That is called teamwork, people, and it's a beautiful thing." And when Seymour orders up some mango smoothies, we've gotten Seymour's whole shtick reestablished in three efficient minutes. If you don't remember Seymour now, you have only yourself to blame.
As Fi and Michael leave the party, he tells her he'll be needing some cash. "Seymour's not the type of guy I want to owe money to long-term." "If you need cash, you can get a job like the rest of us," Fi smirks at him, like she's on her way to a shift at Waffle House or something. Alternately, Michael could try taking money for the jobs he does do. But he only whines that he can't fill out a W-2. "If the people who burned me find out I'm looking for a job, they'll wonder why I need money." Uh, for rent? Yogurt? Your growing tab at Radio Shack? Lots of us need money for completely legitimate purposes, Michael. Even I'm not doing these recaps for free. Fi tells him that she just passed on a boring job for an art dealer, and suggests Michael take the job under a cover ID. Sounds simple enough, right? That's how we know it won't be.
At Carlito's, Michael explains to a skeptical Sam why he's working with Seymour: "He's connected, and he doesn't mix well with government types." As far as we've seen, the only type he does mix well is the type that walks around in a bikini. Sam hands Michael a folder containing the resume for his new cover ID, Miles Parker, who has a background in corporate espionage. Michael answers his phone, and Sam hears Michael talk to Fi and just casually suggest dinner later. Not casually enough to avoid setting off Sam's radar, though. "Just to debrief," Michael assures Sam. Sam barely represses a "That's what she said."
As Michael buttons his suit jacket on the way into "MIAMI ART COLLECTIVE," he VOs about the advantages of taking a job under a cover ID. "You can tailor your resume to the position and it gives you a lot of flexibility." And you don't have to wear a tie to the interview, apparently. "You just have to get used to the idea of lying to everyone you meet." With that, Michael presents himself at the receptionist's desk and announces, "I'm Miles Parker." "Hi, Miles Parker!" she smiles up at him. She's a natural. She's also played by Marla Sokoloff, who is one of those people I've vaguely heard of but have never seen in anything. Until now, obviously. The gallery owner, Scott Chandler, comes out to meet Michael and lead him to the back office, which he accesses by punching a number code into a door keypad. Once inside, Chandler seems impressed with Miles Parker's resume. Michael's not really feeling an accent this week; so he's just using his normal voice except a bit more closed off, with body language to match. He asks about Chandler's problem. Chandler has begun to notice odd things like computer files being moved and systems being logged into at odd times. And then he found a listening device in his phone. Michael impresses Chandler further by describing the bug before he even sees it, and Chandler pushes the tiny chip across the desk to him, saying he wants to know who planted it. As of now, he has no idea. Really, it could be anyone. You know how art dealers rack up enemies.
Chandler gives Michael a little tour of the gallery, saying it's under 24-hour video surveillance. We can even see the cameras hanging from the ceiling and swiveling around, so we know it's for real. And then there are the keypads controlling access to the back offices. "Nobody gets in here without me knowing it," Chandler boasts, which is kind of rich under the circumstances. Michael asks if anyone works late a lot, and Chandler says he's first in, last out every day. "Think you can find whoever's doing this?" he asks Michael. Well, the subtitles seem to think so; they say, "Chandler -- The client." Michael asks for a floor plan of the office and promises to get back to Chandler, just as his cell phone rings. "Alpha, it's Bravo," whispers Seymour excitedly. He tells Michael to come over -- he's got good news.
"Over here" turns out to be one of Miami's millions of sidewalk cafés, where Seymour shares what he's learned about Derek Poole: "He does demo for the city, but he moonlights for the Russian mob," a couple of shaven-headed members of which just happen to be sitting at a nearby table. Seymour doesn't know where Poole is now, but he does know that he has a girlfriend who he sees pretty regularly for "together time." He says it, and Michael reacts, like this is some kind of off-puttingly filthy expression. Seymour turns this into a tangent about Michael and Fi that grosses Michael out so much he has to tell Seymour, "We're not together," and reminds him, "Bomber's girlfriend. Stay focused." Seymour starts to point at a white car being driven into a parking space by a pretty blonde, and Michael grabs his hand, telling him not to do that. Then he covers it by clasping Seymour's hands together romantically over the table and smiling, which Seymour seems more than fine with. Seymour says her name is Bianca, and she just happens to work here at the Russian mob hangout. Michael congratulates Seymour on his nice work. The subtitles back Michael up by saying, "Bianca -- The bomber's girlfriend." Seymour adds that he's having Jackass put a tracker on her car. Irritated, Michael asks, "He's gonna put a tracking device under her car in front of the Russian mob?" Well, not the whole Russian mob. Michael thinks Jackass is going to screw up and tip the girlfriend off -- like, if you can't trust a guy named Jackass, who can you trust? -- so he gets up to go fix it.
As he walks through the parking lot, he VOs, "To protect someone without blowing your cover, you have to come up with a story. One that explains what they're doing, explains what you're doing, and gets everyone out in one piece." Even Jackass. As he meets Jackass coming the other way, he holds up a set of keys, loudly telling a confused Jackass that he forgot them on his wife's dresser. And he sells it by popping him in the stomach. Man, it sucks to be Jackass. "Of course, not everyone is a born storyteller," Michael VOs. True, but not everyone can make a good smoothie, either. "Go with it, run," Michael says quietly to Jackass. Jackass protests that he has his orders from Seymour, so Michael punches him in the face (to the amusement of the Russian mobsters hanging around) and pushes him on his way. "And don't let me catch you near my wife again!" he sobs.
At the loft, Michael is going over blueprints while Sam voices his appreciation of corporate espionage. "No guns, no explosions... it's like going on the kiddie rides at the carnival." He asks if Michael's figured out how Chandler's spy got in, and he speculates that they followed the cleaning crew in, circumnavigating the cameras and piggybacking through the security doors. Suddenly, from over on the bed, Fi gives a theatrical yawn and wonders why she was called over. "It always helps to bounce ideas, Fi," Michael says mildly. She sits up and stares at him like that's not all she wants to bounce, prompting Sam to sense something's up and say, "I'm gonna grab another beer. And drink it on the balcony." It's good to be Sam. Once he's gone, Fi asks if this has something to do with her not staying for breakfast after the other night. Michael tries to deny it, but can't pull it off. Because it's not like he's a highly trained covert operative or anything.
Back at the gallery, Michael tells Chandler that his spy might have been picked up by security cameras in the parking ramp. He also wants to give Chandler's office a bug sweep to see if there's anything else in there. Chandler lets Michael into his office to check it out and takes off, leaving a guy he just met that day alone in his inner sanctum. It's hard to believe such a conscientious fellow could be the victim of a spy.
Alone in the client's office, Michael waves a frequency scanner around like a divining rod, hoping to find another bug. The image goes all staticky for a minute, which I hope is not how a real frequency scanner works. It looks uncomfortable. Michael tracks it to Chandler's computer keyboard, which he then opens up while VOing about the "wireless key logger circuit" he's found which transmits passwords. The problem with all surveillance devices, he says, is that they break. "More spies get caught changing batteries and fixing wires than any other single activity." I'd be interested in reading that study. Michael calls Chandler on his cell phone and tells him, "I'm going to need to work late tonight." Does he get time and a half?
That night, after the cleaning crew has left, someone with a flashlight walks into Chandler's darkened office and goes straight to his desk. Michael hits the light, to reveal the gallery's receptionist. "Hi, Miles Parker!" she doesn't chirp this time. She starts to make an excuse, then makes a run for it, then makes a stab at Michael with a letter opener. He thwarts all of these attempts, of course, and she begs him not to tell Chandler. "He'll kill me." "That sounds a little hardcore for an art dealer," Michael scoffs. She doesn't think so: "He killed my father." Prepare to die!
Michael has called Sam over to Carlito's for an emergency meeting with him and the receptionist, whose name is Melanie. She tells them her father was J.D. Blake, a name that means nothing to Michael but impresses Sam, thanks to his ex Veronica. "You know, you could stand getting out to a few museums every once in a while, Mike," he lectures. Melanie says that Chandler used to be her father's art dealer, and was pressuring him to finish up a multimillion-dollar painting called "Lady in White" even as his health was declining. Her dad got sick of Chandler's whining and decided to change dealers (depriving Chandler of a huge commission, as Sam points out), and a month later someone broke into his loft, beat him to death, and burned down his studio. "Lady in White" was reported destroyed. She's sure it was Chandler. "And he never put it together that you're J.D. Blake's daughter?" Michael asks. She says she never actually met her father in person, and just came down to get a job with Chandler after hearing that "Lady in White" was being moved on the black market. She doesn't explain how she knows from the black market. Michael warns her that he's going to have to check the footage from the security cameras on the entrance she used. She starts to stress out, but Michael assures her he'll take care of it. "If your story checks out," he caveats.
At the loft, Michael's either doing a workout with his heavy bag or tenderizing two hundred pounds of steak hung from the ceiling. Sam comes in with some paperwork. Apparently a lease from 1985 is enough to convince him that Melanie's for real. So Michael decides to have Sam tell her he'll take on her project. "But tell Melanie she has to stop spying. I'll handle it." Too bad Melanie's not around so the subtitles can swoop in and identify her as "Melanie -- The New Client."
Michael gets to work on some more homemade electronics; this time it's an electromagnet that runs on a car battery. "Of course, you have to be careful to use a heavy-gauge wire if you don't want a fiery explosion that covers you in battery acid." Whew, he told me just in time. "But do it right and you've got a magnet powerful enough to wipe any magnetic media you can manage to get close to." And, as Michael demonstrates, you can also use it for sliding a wrench across a workbench without touching it.
morning, the building manager at the gallery leads Michael into the room where the security system lives. While Michael asks him to copy some footage onto DVD, he sets down the big backpack he's carrying onto a stack of CPUs and quietly presses the button on the handle. [Unless you're on your way to a high-school trigonometry class, that's a suspiciously large backpack. - Zach] So when the guy goes to pull up the footage, he just gets a screen full of snow. Michael convincingly acts surprised and confused. "I better tell Chandler about this right now," he says, grabbing his backpack and walking out. He's just leaving a trail of blank security camera drives all over town, isn't he?
Michael bitches to Chandler that this is much more serious than Chandler let on. Chandler is wondering how the footage could have been wiped in the first place. Michael says it could be anything: "A crooked security guard, a hacker? Hell, for all I know it could have been some guy walking in with an electromagnet." Helpful. Chandler asks how they stop it, and Michael wants to get into Chandler's computers to see if they've been breached. When Chandler balks, Michael mocks, "Are you hoping he walks in that door, stands in front of you, and says, 'Hi, I'm your spy?'" You know, like he just did. "Call me when you're serious," Michael says as he heads for the door. "When you're playing the role of spyhunter and the person you're hunting is yourself," he VOs, "the trail of evidence can lead anywhere you say it does. And no one can create more fear, more paranoia, than the spyhunter." Chandler calls Michael back in, and Michael warns him, "It could get a lot worse before it gets better." Or not get better at all.
Back to Carlito's, where Sam hasn't been able to find anything that points to "Lady in White" in Chandler's files. However, he cross-referenced his phone records from the week Melanie's dad died and tracked down a guy named Jacob Orr, a "security consultant" who has a record for manslaughter. "Chandler's wetwork guy," Michael figures. He tells Sam to go make a new friend. "You can take Fi." "You sure know how to sweeten the pot, Mike," Sam carps. But since the subject of Fi has come up, he asks Michael what was going on between them at the loft earlier. Again, Michael suddenly becomes a terrible liar, and Sam figures out that Michael and Fi had some "together time." Sam asks Michael, "How many times do you have to touch the flame before you figure out that it burns?" I just bet it does, especially when Michael pees.
At some swanky hotel lounge, Sam and Fi sit sipping drinks and watching Orr, a beefy guy with a gray Vandyke [a.k.a. Mr. Friendly from Lost! - Z], putting away shots at the bar. Even the subtitles come through with the scare quotes as they say, "Orr -- 'Security consultant.'" Sam hands Fi a bug for her to install in Orr's cell phone, which she tucks down the front of her dress. Sam asks if she's sure she's up for it. "You think I can't get a guy to go up to his room?" she asks. "No, I'd say you have a gift for getting men to make bad choices," Sam meows. "Don't look at me. He started it," Fi protests mildly. Sam basically tells her to get to work. Oh, girls, Michael likes each of you in your own way.
As she flirts with Orr at the bar, Michael VOs that "for a female operative, picking a guy up at a bar is harder than it might seem. Most men have a sense for when a pickup is going too well. If it's too easy, they get suspicious." Well, why send Fi, then? She's got two speeds: Fi, and Feel Me Up. Of course, she gets Orr to ask her up to his room in about ten seconds flat.
As we see Sam filling an ice bucket in the hallway upstairs, Michael VOs, "Once an operative has a guy on the hook, she needs backup to make sure things don't go to far." Hence Sam, positioning himself outside the door. Inside, Fi mixes Orr a rum, coke, and chloral hydrate, but suddenly he's not thirsty enough to have another drink before, you know, "together time." In such cases, Michael VOs, "You have to induce unconsciousness some other way." Fi gets Orr to take his shirt off, and when he has it half over his head, she clubs him with a liquor bottle, just hard enough to piss him off. Hearing the crash, Sam starts banging on the door, and Orr realizes he's been set up. Fi kicks him in the goolies and breaks another bottle over his head, which actually does knock him out this time. She then takes a moment to bug his cell phone and lift his wallet while Sam is still trying to break the door down. Finally she opens it and strolls out, asking him, "What?"
After the ads, Melanie comes charging into the loft to find Sam alone there, since Michael went out for yogurt. She's all stressed out because Chandler is having the drives with the erased footage rebuilt. Sam tells her that's going to take a while, and they already have a fresh clue. He plays her a recording off of Orr's phone bug, in which Orr told Chandler that he was attacked, and he suspects more than a simple robbery. "If someone found out about the holding company..." Orr said. [Perhaps it's Big Brother? - Z] "Look, I've got all that stuff locked up in my office. Just relax," Chandler reassured him, incidentally providing our heroes with a clue. Sam stops the playback and says they're working on putting together something they can take to the cops. But in the meantime? "I think it's time for Chandler's spy to be more aggressive," Sam says, which makes Melanie nervous until Sam clarifies, "I mean Mike, not you."
So that's what he does. Michael goes to Chandler's house, pretending to be all upset because someone broke into his house. Or Miles Parker's house, more accurately, which doesn't actually exist. Chandler freaks out about whether any of his info was taken, but Michael assures him it's safe. He does add that witnesses in the neighborhood saw a man and a woman. Chandler makes the connection to what happened to Orr, and Michael freaks on him for not telling him about this before. "Maybe I'm not being clear: I need to know everything that is going on, because now I'm involved." He acts all worried about what they're up against, and Chandler asks who it could be. "Could be anyone," Michael says. "Some spy gets blacklisted, goes freelance, he could be standing right in front of you and you wouldn't even know it." Cute. [Seriously, is he tryingto throw suspicion on himself? - Z] He tells Chandler that he needs to know what the spy is after, as though he doesn't already know. "It's the only way I can protect you." Chandler denies being anything other than squeaky clean. Michael wants Chandler to let him upgrade everything, which means giving him access to the whole security system. And by this point, he's got Chandler paranoid enough to agree to it.
That night, Sam sits in the car, watching the security camera feeds from the gallery live via laptop. Michael's inside, and as the cameras sweep the room from side to side, Sam directs Michael through the no-coverage windows. This does require them to overcome some confusion regarding Sam's left versus Michael's left. As Michael reaches Chandler's office door, he complains in VO about the difference between a spy and a thief: "A thief gets to take what he wants and run. A spy has to go back to the scene of the crime the day and act like nothing happened." Once he's in Chandler's paper files, he's not finding anything incriminating. He gets to work with his flashlight, VOing, "When you're a spy, you spend a lot of time looking for people's hiding places. It's always good to start by searching where your target has the easiest access." And if that doesn't work, "You look for signs of moved furniture, marks on the carpet, scuffs on the walls. Anything out of place." By now, Michael has spotted a tiny pile of sand on the carpet, but the sculpture in the little sand-bed is several feet over. Michael moves it aside and discovers a hidden wall panel, which slides open to reveal an armored file cabinet. Since a cutting torch is off the table, as the flame would burn any documents inside, Michael needs a "diamond-tipped drill bit with a cooling system." Well, that doesn't sound like something Michael can build himself. Sam oofs that it'll take a couple of days to get their hands on one. "Let's get on it," Michael says, shutting the panel so he can leave empty-handed.
day, Michael assures Melanie that they're getting somewhere. She's worried about how weird Chandler's acting, and Fi tells her they want him paranoid so he's more dependent on Michael. "Just act completely normal," Michael tells her. "Pretend like nothing's going on." Melanie goes to do just that, and Fi tells Michael, "You know, pretending nothing's going on is easier for some people than others." Wow, that was almost relevant. Before Michael can ask what she means, his cell phone rings. "Tell Fiona to fire up the Saab, dude, we're gonna need room for three," Seymour gushes in his ear. Almost literally.
Later, Fi, Michael and Seymour are sitting in her Saab, which is hidden in the woods at the edge of a clearing, in which a little green cottage is situated. Seymour says he followed Derek Poole's girlfriend there this morning, on her way here to have some "together time." As if to prove it, Poole himself sticks his head out the front door to look around. "Derek Poole -- Bomber for Hire," the subtitles confirm through Fi's opera glasses. Fi also notices the explosive booby traps on the front door, which always makes for a romantic love nest, as Poole kisses his girlfriend goodbye. Seymour suggests using some breaching rounds to punch through the walls themselves, but Michael points out that there are other triggers, like the one on the living room window. He gets out of the car to scope things out up close, mouthing to Fi, "Watch him." When he's gone, Seymour gets his 'ship on as he asks Fi about why she's not with Michael any more. "As a practitioner of tai chi, let me tell you something, Missy. Go with the flow of the universe. All right? It's destiny, you two. Forces bigger than us. Don't argue with destiny. It will kick your ass. Believe me." Seymour speaks with the authority of someone who's had his ass kicked many times. And not just by destiny.
When Michael and Fi return to the loft, Sam offers to drink his beer outside to give them some alone time. Not to be confused with "together time." Fi declines, so now they can talk about the bomber's booby-trapped place, and the drill Sam might be able to get a deal on from one of his ubiquitous buddies. Michael's cell phone rings; it's Melanie, calling from the office, because she heard that Chandler's secretary was shredding stuff, but left some behind for Monday, and now Melanie is rifling through it. "You're at the office on a weekend?" Michael duhs. "If you used your employee security code, Chandler will know you're there." Melanie says she couldn't let the files get destroyed, and Michael says Chandler never would have left anything useful lying around in the first place. "It's a trap. He knows you're there. You need to get out right now." She goes to the window, and sees Chandler's car pulling into the parking lot. "Oh, my God, he's here," she panics into the phone." Michael wonders why he swapped the smart client for the dumb one.
While walking out of his loft, still on the phone with Melanie, he gives her some instructions: "Get a box of paper, some duct tape, and an extension cord. Tape the cell phone to the top of the box, run a wire behind it, and put it in the gallery entrance. Do it now, I'm on my way." He hangs up and asks if Fi has explosives. "I'll pretend you didn't ask that," she says. [Does she keep them in the Saab? Isn't that dangerous? Those things are born from jets! - Z] As he gets in the Charger, Sam offers to accompany Michael, but Michael wants him to contact Orr instead. Everyone clear on what they need to do? I hope so, because I'm not.
At the gallery parking lot, Chandler has just finished tucking a gun into the back of his pants when his cell phone rings. "It's Miles Parker, where are you?" Michael asks him. Chandler says he's at the gallery, and Michael sounds like a fugitive as he asks, "Are you all right? Did they come after you?" Chandler doesn't get it, and explains to Michael how he trapped the perp using some shredder-destined papers as bait. Michael just laughs as he drives along. "They tried to kill me!" he says. "You don't think the spy who's doing all this would be stupid enough to come by your office and use a security code on the weekend?" That would be one stupid spy, all right. "It's a trap, Chandler!" He tells Chandler not to go inside, and he'll be right there. I'm starting to get confused on who's trapping whom.
When Michael arrives, he and Chandler approach the gallery entrance as Michael claims that he spotted a bomb planted inside his house before going in. And when they get to the gallery entrance, there's the paper box with the cell phone taped to it and a cord running out of sight, just like Michael told Melanie to do. So she can do something right after all. "There it is right there, "Michael says, pointing it out to Chandler., with the "detonator" wired to the doors. Excellent: Michael just made Melanie a terrorist. He makes another bid to get Chandler to spill: "Tell me what this guy's after, or I walk away and you handle this alone." Chandler finally cracks and tells Michael about the painting. Michael acts like this is the first he's heard of it: "What do you think is cheaper for him, paying seven million or having us killed?" Michael says that at this point, there's nothing for it but to trade the painting for their lives. As he follows Chandler to his car, he VOs, "When you're playing the spyhunter, the goal is to get the target to trust you completely. To think of you as his only ally." Chandler beeps his key clicker, and his car blows to hell, sending both him and Michael sprawling on the parking lot. The VO continues, "Convince him that he's on the brink of disaster, and he'll tell you whatever you want him to." As demonstrated by the fact that Chandler just told Michael the painting's at his house. From the bushes, Fi admires her handiwork. This was a pretty subtle explosion for her; at one time, Fi would have nearly brained Michael with a flying door handle.
Back at the lounge in Orr's hotel, Sam gets a text message: "Chandler's house." He grins and goes to the bar, where Orr is ogling a blonde, and warns him, "Careful. Last time I saw you, you got your ass kicked by a girl smaller than her." Orr starts to make a move, but Sam subdues him by grabbing and twisting his thumb. Sam holds up a tiny vial of what is probably table salt and claims it's arsenic, which Chandler gave him after hiring Sam -- who again claims his name is "Finley" -- to kill Orr. But Sam says he figured, "I'm only getting $10,000 to hit you. A lousy ten Gs and that guy's pocketing millions? And I said to myself, 'That's not fair!'" Sam suggests that instead, Orr will tell him where Chandler is selling the painting and cut Sam in on the deal. "Otherwise we can go back to Plan A. $10,000 is better than nothing, right?" Sam releases Orr's thumb, and Orr asks where Chandler is now.
At Chandler's house, Michael helps him pull a large painting off the wall to reveal the "Lady in White" hidden behind. I'm no art critic, but seven million for that? It looks like a Nagel as interpreted by Lichtenstein. And it's not even that big. Chandler asks how they find the spy to give him the painting. And when he lowers it, he sees that Michael's holding a gun on him. "He's already here," Michael says. Dude, he tried to tell you. [Like, nine times. - Z] Chandler makes a grab for the gun, and instead of shooting him, Michael pistol-whips him into a nap. "That's the thing about spies," Michael tells the painting. "You never know who they are." As he leaves, he calls Sam, who tells him that Orr is on his way.
Sure enough, when Orr arrives, he finds Chandler holding an icepack to his head and a bare spot on the wall where the painting concealing "Lady in White" used to be. Michael VOs, "One of the problems with running a criminal conspiracy is that there's no real way to avoid trust issues with your coworkers." Orr asks where the painting is, and Chandler says "the spy" took it, and hit him on the head. That spy's VO continues: "If you steal with a guy, he knows you're a thief." For some reason, Orr doesn't believe Chandler's story, and pulls out a gun. "You rip me off, you try to kill me and you can't come up with anything better than that?" Chandler starts begging for his life as Michael VOs, "If you kill with him, he knows you're a killer." Orr threatens Chandler one more time, and as the camera goes outside, we hear Chandler desperately repeating his story, and a gunshot. "It's a serious management issue," Michael's VO concludes. Wow, that's kind of cold. Usually Michael doesn't get the bad guys killed until he's given them a chance to play nice.
At Carlito's, with Michael, Sam reports to Melanie that Orr got arrested trying to dump Chandler's body in the Miami River. She gives Michael a small envelope of cash, which he tries to decline, saying, "I'm pretty sure you just lost your job." Besides, he ended up not needing to buy that diamond drill after all. She assures him that her father left her some money, so she's covered, and Michael has to suffer the humiliation of actually accepting payment for work he did. I don't know how he can bear the shame. But Melanie's not done; she gives Michael a small butterfly painting that her father did the year she was born. "Thank you," Michael says softly. Okay, I'm done bitching about Michael's income for a while, now; that little doodle should keep him in yogurt and cell phones for some time. Melanie takes off, and Michael hands Sam the painting. "Do me a favor: drop this off at the loft. I have to go kidnap an explosives expert." Don't blow it.
Out in the woods, Michael and Fi load up with a pair of shotguns Seymour brought. He offers to come along as backup, and gets shot down. Not literally. "They're loaded with the shells that I made specifically for this job," he mutters when they're long gone.
Fi and Michael get close enough to the house to see the blinking detonators, which would of course blow up Poole as well, as he sits there watching pro wrestling. Fortunately, Michael and Fi are properly equipped. "Favored by bomb squads, disruptor shells are a specially designed shotgun round filled with water." Disruptors are also favored by Klingons, of course. As Fi fires one through Derek Poole's living room window, sending the bomb flying, Michael explains, "The blast can blow an explosive device apart without igniting it." And as Michael steps into place outside the shattered window with his own shotgun leveled at a very worried-looking Poole, he continues that the shells are only lethal at six feet. At ten feet, they just hurt a lot. Michael fires, and a high-velocity water balloon knocks Poole to the floor, unconscious. [Last week, they were shooting people with bean bags. week? White rice. Delicious! - Z]
In the tag, Poole has been brought to Seymour's house that night, where he's tied to a chair with a burlap sack over his head. Seymour and Jackass are in the background when Michael pulls the bag off Poole's head. "Recognize me?" he asks. Poole does, and starts to say it was nothing personal. Seymour suddenly turns around, brandishing a blowtorch and advancing with it, trying to look scary but really just coming off like a big dork. "Seymour, I don't think we need that," Michael says calmly, and Seymour shuts it off with a frustrated shrug. "Answer my questions and I'll get you and your girlfriend out of the country, deal?" Michael asks. Does Poole...wantto get out of the country? Poole agrees to Michael's terms, but he doesn't know the answer to Michael's first question, which is who hired him. Seymour gets all threaten-y with the blowtorch again, and Poole says it was someone he'd never met. "How did they pay you?" Michael asks. Poole says it was done by transfer into an account in the Caymans. He supplies the account number while Seymour and Jackass fumble with a notepad. With the info secured, Michael asks Seymour if he has any shipments going to Suriname. "Every other week," Seymour answers. This is not what Poole thought Michael meant by "out of the country." Michael replaces the bag as Poole whines, "I don't even know where that is!" At least you should have plenty of "together time." You know, Carla is not going to be happy when she finds out about this. Assuming she ever comes back. Eventually, Michael's going to have to either come clean or give up someone as his bomber, and if he goes the latter route, I don't envy whoever the baddie-of-the-week is that episode.
Michael comes out of Seymour's house to meet Fi waiting outside. I'm hoping the sight of her will cause him to slap his forehead and say, "Shit, I forgot to punish him for almost immolating you!" He simply tells her he got the account number. "I just need to turn it into a name." Sounds like a project for week. Suddenly Seymour comes rushing outside with gifts for both of them. "It's in honor of our first operation together," he says shyly. Michael and Fi open the cases to find matching throwing daggers. Seymour points out the engraving on the blades that means "destiny." "It's a symbol of your bond," he explains. "Our bond, actually." He had one made for himself, as well. He runs back inside, leaving them standing there with daggers pointed at each other. Michael tells Fi what's been bugging him: "The morning after we, uh... I brought you a Spanish omelet. Egg-white only. But you were gone." Aw, Michael didn't get to cuddle. Fi says, "Maybe time I'll have to stay." And then they walk off in separate directions. "time?" Shit.
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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.