Burn Notice TV Show - Pay It Forward - Burn Notice Photos & Videos, Burn Notice Reviews & Burn Notice Recaps | TWoP

Aired 06-03-2010

Michael doesn't learn much about the people who burned him or the people who are holding him, except that they're the same people. He does, however, get a new handler, a fellow named Vaughn who doesn't seem like a complete nutbar. In fact, he convinces Michael that they're on the same side, up against whoever it was who paid to have Simon sprung from the clink and turned loose on an unsuspecting populace.

Also sprung from the clink: Michael himself, who doesn't even have time to kick his shoes off before he finds himself joining in on Sam and Fi's Job Of The Week, already in progress. It seems some chivalrous lawyer offended a biker gang, and now he's marked for death. With Barry's help, Michael and the gang fake a bunch of financial records showing that their client is mixed up with the gang; enough so that if he dies, the gang goes down, too, in a federal investigation. The biker boss has to quell a minor mutiny within his ranks to call off the hit, but of course Michael and the team are there to help with that, too.

Back at his new day job, Michael has helped Vaughn track the activities of an implicated arms supplier who is being investigated by the government. Obviously it's going to be Michael's job to steal the file on that investigation, and obviously he succeeds. The downside is that in the process of doing so, Michael gets another spy burned. Yeah, that's a karmic debt he wants on his conscience.

After some previouslies -- which almost seem incongruous, given that the breaks between seasons of this show are shorter than the breaks in the middle of them -- we pick up where we left off, with Michael in a well-appointed library after being rendered to some black site somewhere. Michael's voice-over can tell from his lavish surroundings that he's not in some facility that's on a government budget, and the $1200 shoes on the man who walks in all friendly-like are a dead giveaway as well. This gentleman, who reminds me of a younger, taller Andre Braugher, is grateful to Michael for both rescuing Management and helping recapture Simon, and he toasts Michael, "Friends at last." The subtitles dutifully identify him as "Vaughn -- Michael's new friend." Michael says he's not his friend. In response, Vaughn tosses a thick folder into Michael's lap; a little light reading to pass the time. Whatever's in there, I'm sure it's a faster read than anything by James Michener. Never again with that dude, I'm telling you.

Back in his dark cell, Michael starts going through the papers, while VOing about how there's a trick to reading intelligence files. At first they seem like a bunch of random documents, but after a while they come together into a coherent whole. Much like the editing in this scene. Once he's got some kind of picture, he calls for the guard.

Out in the yard, Vaughn explains to Michael that all of the violent activity described in the file -- all of it connected to a few large bank accounts -- is stuff "they" are trying to stop. Of course that gives Michael an opening to ask who "they" is, and Vaughn explains about how while the government may be good at things like running a military, there's some stuff that ex-government types do better than the government. Like burned spies, for instance. But where's Vaughn going to find one of those? Vaughn says that whoever let Simon loose was deliberately attacking "them," and now Michael's on the same side as them, whether he likes it or not. Michael is obviously resistant to the idea, but Vaughn keeps working on him and buttering him up until Michael tells him how he'd start: find the weapons supplier listed in the file, a guy named Gregory Hart, using the satellite phone he uses for all his banking. Vaughn says they can go do that together. On the job training, I guess.

Suddenly Michael and Vaughn are in a paramilitary helicopter that's setting down in some South American forest crawling with guerillas. Vaughn remarks on how this is the first time Michael's been out of Miami in a while, and I guess we'll have to take his word for it even though this could be the Everglades for all we know. Vaughn hands Michael a machine gun, and when Michael takes a raincheck on Vaughn's invitation to shoot him, Vaughn leads him through the trees to a very large tent. Someone's glamping.

Inside is none other than Michael Ironside, who looks resigned about being found despite this sweet gig he's got sitting at a desk that monkeys frolic on. The subtitles identify him as "Gregory Hart -- Gun Enthusiast." Very dry. Michael and Vaughn start quizzing him about who he works for, and all he'll say about his employer is that it's "A sixteen-digit Swiss bank account and an anonymous e-mail address." And he doesn't get any more forthcoming when Vaughn shoots him in the leg. Michael is more in observation mode, first noticing that there's an official-looking file on Hart's desk, and then that there's some kind of aircraft approaching. He tells Vaughn they have to go, and his VO tells us that unmanned drones are a very anonymous weapon; all it tells you about the person using it is that they have a lot of money. Which, honestly, they already knew or they wouldn't be here. Michael VOs about how the secret to surviving a drone attack is to escape the primary target area. Which they do, barely, as Hart's tent is first strafed and then obliterated by an antitank missile, with Hart still inside. They cast Michael Ironside for that? After the drone passes overhead and the two visitors pick themselves up, Michael sees that Vaughn's been wounded in the shoulder. "Are you in or out?" Vaughn asks. Well, after a taste of this kind of fun, who wouldn't want more?

Back in Miami, in the hotel suite that Vaughn's apparently staying in. Michael remarks on the government file he noticed on Hart's desk. He figures it means Hart was the target of a government investigation of some sort. This is enough to impress Vaughn -- or at least enough to prompt Vaughn to pretend to be impressed -- and he sends Michael to the car waiting outside. "Say hi to your mother for me." I'm sure Madeline will be touched.

At Madeline's house, they have an emotional reunion. Apparently Madeline got a call saying he was on his way back, but the caller was so vague she wondered if Michael would be delivered in pieces. Like she needs more boxes cluttering up the place. Michael asks if she's heard from Fi. She hasn't, and suggests Michael go see her. Michael offers his mom a broad apology and heads over to Fi's.

He walks right into her apartment, which is a good way to get shot, even as he VOs about how it can be unpredictable when you walk back into someone's life after being missing for weeks. She quickly and gratefully hugs him before quickly briefing him on the job of the week. Apparently they're up against a biker gang. It seems a lawyer ran afoul of the "Breakers" in the course of helping some woman or another. The details don't really matter, and anyway this new weecap format allows me to write about it in such a way as to reflect Michael's obvious confusion. Rather clever on my part, no? After helping her load a small arsenal, he's quickly led out to the car, which Sam drives the two of them off in, promising to get a beer with Michael as soon as "this little disaster of Fi's is over." Cue the bickering between the two sidekicks, until Michael shouts, "I have a machine pistol in my hand and I have no idea what I'm doing!" Plus he doesn't drink beer anyway. Sam quickly explains that a member of the Breakers named Hunter and a couple of his goons are at the home of their client, a lawyer named Winston, and Winston called them freaking out. "This situation could use a little Michael Westen," Sam says. Good thing he showed up then.

Over at Winston's house, the poor dude's place is under siege. He's desperately throwing cash out at them, and "Hunter -- Outlaw Biker" (per the subtitles) is just burning it while screaming threats in through the window. Michael VOs about how being marked for death by a criminal organization isn't about the individual, but about the honor of the group, which makes it very difficult to change their mind. Yes, Michael, your job is very hard.

As the car pulls up, Michael tells the others to hang back, because his plan is to bluff them rather than trying to shoot this out. He gets out of the car with two of the machine pistols, saying if things go bad, "It was nice seeing you guys again." Hunter is just counting down from ten when Michael stomps up behind the three bikers, firing off bursts from the machine pistols into the air. The three bikers draw on him, but Michael points out that his two MAC-10s outgun their three semiautomatics -- which means he can take down at least two of them before they drop him. After issuing some obligatory threats, Hunter backs down and leads the men away, promising to be back. "Okay, so who was that guy again?" Michael asks Sam and Fi as they run up to join him.

n't know whether I should be more concerned about where you were or why you're back," Fi says. So Michael explains about the thing with Vaughn and Simon and the war-for-hire thing he's looking into, which totally pisses her off. Yep, here they go again.

Inside the loft, Sam and Winston bring Michael up to speed on the Breakers. All Sam knows about them is that the top boss of the whole gang is someone named Big Ed. "Apparently he's quite large." Michael says they'll need to talk to him to call off the hit, saying they'll just need to make it worth the Breakers' while to do so. After Winston gets the official "Winston -- The Client" subtitle, Michael says, "Call Barry."

At the Carlito, Barry is explaining how biker gangs work -- they own everything that belongs to the bikers, apparently, which I guess makes it easy for Barry to fake stuff. Michael wants to go with the option where it looks like Winston was doing gunrunning for them, so that if he dies, the FBI will have an opening to investigate the Breakers. All they need to do to get the info Barry needs is break into the office above the bar where the Breakers hang out. And how hard could that be?

Not hard, I guess, because they're giving that job to Fi. She walks into the raucous place wearing an amount of eyeliner equal in mass to her leather chaps, and as Michael VOs about how infiltrating a violent culture flooded with testosterone is a lot easier if you're an attractive woman, a big biker named Earl chats her up and offers to introduce her to Big Ed, who's macking on some chick over a pool table. Fi listens in on a conversation about Winston and how he "punked" the Breakers between Hunter and Big Ed, who threatens, "I don't care what he's packing, the guy that steps between you and that lawyer gets a bullet in the face." Here are the subtitles: "Big Ed -- Big Problem." Earl offers to buy Fi a drink, and she nods, but dashes up the stairs instead of waiting around for him to bring it to her. Smooth, that -- waiting to sneak off until someone's expecting her to be there. He follows her up to the office and busts her, but she plays it off by acting slutty and asking, "Want to see what I brought to play with?" That would be her trusty taser, with which she zaps him unconscious. While he snoozes on the floor, conveniently blocking the door with his inert bulk, Fi grabs some papers from a file cabinet and goes over them with a pocket scanner, because as Michael VOs, digital cameras suck for taking clear pictures of documents. By now another biker is outside the door trying to get in, and Fi finishes up and sneaks out just in time -- through a hole she makes in the wall by pulling out a 12-inch ventilation fan. I'm not even making that up.

Back at the loft, the gang is explaining to a skeptical Winston how this is going to work when Michael gets a call from Vaughn wanting him to stop by. At Vaughn's hotel suite, he tells Michael he was right about Hart being targeted by the government. And now he wants Michael to break into the facility of the agency that's doing it. He hands him a card key and some paperwork, and cuts him loose to get back to his biker gang. "Don't get shot. We have a lot of work to do." He's a lot more flexible than Carla was. Perhaps he'll even live longer.

Michael, Sam, and Winston are outside the house of Big Ed's girlfriend, synchronizing their watches. Michael reminds Sam, "And remember, we just want to have a nice, polite conversation with him after we kidnap him." They move in while Winston watches from the car.

Sam and Michael burst into the house from separate entrances, because as Michael VOs, you want to make them have to choose which front to defend. They've got the drop on them, but Big Ed and the girlfriend don't give up, and give them a pretty good fight before they manage to subdue them. Michael takes down Big Ed by riding him like a bronco while administering a sleeper hold that seems to take forever to work, whereas Sam has to get over his reluctance to hit a woman. This probably would have gone a lot more smoothly if Sam and Michael had been willing to actually fire their guns instead of just wave them around.

After things settle down and they've gotten their captives to some place near the shore, Michael calls Fi to establish that she's staking out the biker bar. Then he introduces Winston to Big Ed. Big Ed makes the standard threats about how Winston's dead no matter what, even if they kill Big Ed. "Okay, let's say he's dead," Michael says agreeably, and starts going through the stack of fake documents that will bring the feds down on the Breakers if anything happens to Winston. "It's your call. Destroy everything to kill a man you never met [even though he just met him, thanks to Michael], or call Hunter off and you all continue to ride." Big Ed asks for a phone and tells Hunter to meet him at his girlfriend's house, alone. "I'm calling off the green light on the lawyer," he says. He maybe shouldn't have said that on the phone.

Cut to Sam, Michael, and Winston in the Charger, watching from a distance as Big Ed waits for his minion. Michael VOs about how the start of peace negotiations is dangerous, before terms have been agreed to. And as three bikes roll up, he adds, "You know negotiations are off to a bad start when people can't even agree on terms with their own side." Indeed, it looks like this is about to be a mutiny. Hunter even pulls on Big Ed. "Start the car, Sam," Michael says. When Hunter fires and wings Big Ed, a gunfight commences. Fortunately, none of these idiots can shoot in the open at point-blank range, let alone hiding behind all the bikes in the driveway. Michael tells Sam to "Get in there," and they swoop in to rescue Big Ed. Winston's the one who has to get out of the car to pull him out of the crossfire, which I guess is one way to help Michael feel like he's earning his usual fee of nothing. Sam drives off with the mutineer bikers in pursuit. Michael says it's time for plan B, and when Winston asks what that is, he says, "I'm...working on it." Hey, it's been a while. People get rusty.

The chase continues after the ads, with Hunter shooting at them. Big Ed says Hunter's committed now, and can't back down. "Are the Breakers with you or are they with him?" Michael asks hunter. "They're with me," Big Ed says. "But they're not here and he is." A tactical mind after Michael's own heart. Michael both dials his phone and starts returning fire out the window, telling Fi to get all the bikers over to Biscayne highway. "Things have changed," he yells at her when she protests.

So Fi walks up to the bar, hits one of the bikers in the face with a helmet, and steals a bike and rides off on it. They pursue, obviously. I guess it would have been too easy to say, "Hey, guys, follow me!"

The car chase continues at length, Michael's VO tells us how hard it is to shoot at a car from a motorcycle and vice versa, which I guess is his way of explaining why this is going on for so long. Sam shakes off one of the pursuers by making him crash, but Michael's out of bullets. When Sam sees Fi rushing up the road to meet them on her stolen bike, he spins the car around to head back at Hunter and his sidekick, then pulls to a stop in just such a way as to bounce Hunter off the trunk and into the road. Once everyone comes to a stop, Sam's a little nervous, but Michael says it'll be fine; they made a deal. Sure enough, when Big Ed gets out of the car and tells everyone to stand down, they do. Then he kicks Hunter around some and puts Hunter's biker vest on Winston. So Winston is officially under the gang's protection now. Of course, there is that matter of all the documents tying Winston to any number of illegal activities, but I guess that's the lesser of two evils, at least until Michael and the gang ride off into the sunset. Speaking of which, Big Ed turns to them and says, "You three. I don't know who you are or where you came from, but I never want to see your faces again." They quickly agree, and all four of them jump into the car. Looks like Hunter's beating will continu

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e, however.

Later, Winston's just finished getting a Breakers tattoo on his arm while Sam and Fi look on, and he's wondering how he'll explain it to his mom. "You can tell her it was that or certain death," Sam shrugs. Winston apologizes for doubting them and advises them to keep Michael around "You make a great team." Yeah, yeah, all for one, blah blah blah.

Driving over to his mom's, Michael VOs about how one of the nice things about being a spy is you can disappear for a month and no one's surprised. As a civilian however, "eventually, people expect a good explanation when you disappear, whether or not you have one." Indeed, Madeline's gotten over the initial relief of seeing Michael alive, and is a little grumpy and sarcastic when he comes in. She says she's gotten used to having him gone, so that wasn't as bad as "having an FBI agent in my house telling me that you're a monster. I still don't know what's going on." Michael explains about how he was after Simon, who did all the stuff Michael was burned for. Madeline brings up the more recent accusations that Michael blew up a bridge and shot at the police. "I had to get Simon," Michael said. "I did it because I had to." Madeline asks if it's that simple, and Michael admits he doesn't know. "When I caught Simon, he laughed. He said it was a matter of time before I was just like him." The thought is clearly getting to Michael, and he looks so vulnerable that Madeline obligingly gets up and hugs him, telling him Simon was wrong. "That's not the son I raised." No, that would be the son who blows up bridges and shoots at police.

Fi drives Michael, in a suit and tie, up to a big white building. They argue a bit about this, as they do, but Michael's going ahead with it because whoever let Simon go needs to be stopped. She reminds him that she's driving the getaway car, so he at least thanks her before heading inside.

As Michael is inside the building, going through security, he VOs about how military bases have a civilian admin center nearby. "They're simple places, just office buildings filled with cubicles. Still, they're not places you just want to walk into causally as a burned spy." But his card from Vaughn gets him through the interior security door. So far so good. He ducks into an office, punches some access codes into a computer terminal, and starts downloading some files while on the phone with Fi. She says there aren't any alarms going off, but tells him to get out.

When he rejoins her in the car outside, he's in a hurry to get going, but she notices all the black government cars pulling up outside and says, "Uh-oh." Not that they're busted. As Michael VOs, "One of the problems with stealing information is that it's usually someone else's job to keep that information safe." And it looks like that person is getting arrested already. "It doesn't matter how clean your getaway is. There's always a chance someone else will get blamed for what you did." And you think Michael's just going to let that go?

Back at the loft that night, Sam finds Michael perusing a printout of the file he stole. Sam did a little research on the guy who got nabbed, a counterintelligence agent named Jesse Porter. Sam says the government can't prosecute him because then they'd have to declassify the file. All they can do is blacklist him. Sam ruefully declares, "Mike, you just burned a spy." The camera zooms in on Michael's stricken face, which telegraphs one overriding thought: Ooops.

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By M. Giant

When Michael and Fi return to the courtyard, he's clearly in a bit of a mood. Apparently his feelings are hurt, since he disappeared and then came back to find the two of them acting like nothing happened. Fi socks him in the face -- and we all knew it was only a matter of time before that happened -- and says they kicked in every door they could find. "We took a client out of respect for you," she claims. Then she kisses him properly and welcomes him home. I'm sure Michael missed his bipolar girlfriend desperately. "I don't know whether I should be more concerned about where you were or why you're back," Fi says. So Michael explains about the thing with Vaughn and Simon and the war-for-hire thing he's looking into, which totally pisses her off. Yep, here they go again.

By M. Giant

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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 - Pay It Forward - Burn Notice Photos &amp; Videos, Burn Notice Reviews &amp; Burn Notice Recaps | TWoP

Burn Notice TV Show - Pay It Forward - Burn Notice Photos & Videos, Burn Notice Reviews & Burn Notice Recaps | TWoP