By M. Giant
Michael inadvertently helps Gilroy steal a .50-caliber machine gun, but then he has trouble getting anyone to take an interest -- even his old FBI shadows. And Gilroy still isn't sharing much about the job Michael's helping him with, aside from coming clean on how they're busting out an inmate, which Michael already knew. He didn't, however, know that the inmate requested Michael by name.
Meanwhile, Fi finds herself wrapped up with a dangerous and paranoid kidnapper played by Tony from 24. He keeps subjecting her to various tests, which Fi endures in hopes of reuniting a kidnapped scientist with his family. She doesn't pass them all, and is about to get her skinny ass killed, but after learning that Tony is acting out of revenge for the death of his daughter back in Argentina, she wins him over with a sad story about the death of her own sister. As Fi continues to learn more about Tony's plan -- getting the tech company that the scientist works for to shut down the factory that poisoned his hometown -- she goes undercover to attempt to nab another company official. Michael scotches that with a well-placed grease fire. Tony, thinking he's about to be busted, tries to kill his initial hostage, and when that fails, himself. The team saves them both, even as the building blows up around them. And then Fi ends up facilitating a little whistleblowing against the polluting company, so even the imprisoned kidnapper gets a happy ending, sort of.
As for Michael's job with Gilroy, it ends up being a gig where he blows up a bridge to keep the cops away while that black flight lands on an abandoned stretch of road. After doing that, Michael goes to meet Gilroy -- only to find him shackled, wounded, and chained to a large bomb. Whoever that maximum-security prisoner is, we just found out what he wants: Michael's head.
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Between this and that other show I recap, I sure see the last five seconds of a lot of House episodes these days. That's some bad hat, Harry.
Michael's at a boatyard -- the kind with boats out of the water and stacked up on racks four deep -- as he VOs, "If someone calls a meeting in a deserted location, they want control. They can tell if you're alone, and if you try anything, it's easy to take you out with a sniper." I know we're supposed to be impressed with how much Michael's been able to learn about Gilroy from all these meetings, but I'd be more impressed if he'd learned much about him beyond that. "So if someone wants a chat in the middle of nowhere, it never hurts to bring a sniper of your own." Which is why Sam is perched high atop one of the racks, looking through a scope from the stern of one of the boats. Michael notices that Sam's quiet, even though they're both wearing Bluetooths (Blueteeth?). Sam's like, "What do you want me to say? That I'm worried Gilroy got wind that you're double-crossing him? Or that I got a bad feeling about this mystery man that he wants to jailbreak?" See, unlike Fi, Sam is at least aware that all the naysaying and second-guessing that exposition requires of him starts to sound tedious after a while. Michael tells Sam to calm down, but Sam keeps fretting about the kind of people who rate the kind of transport Gilroy's prisoner is getting. "People with forked tongues, Mike. People with hair on their palms." He wants Michael to bail, but we all know how Michael feels about bailing. Sam says something about holding a snake by the tail, Michael corrects that to tiger, and Sam says, "Either way, you let go of it before it eats your face off." Just then Gilroy comes around the corner in a black Range Rover. Sam warns Michael, "If that evil Limey mastermind offers you a ride, you treat him like a stranger with candy." Gilroy rolls down his window, and without getting out, brags about how much his ride cost. "But she's armored like a tank," he adds The subtitles are now calling him "Gilroy -- Evil Limey Mastermind." Gilroy wants to go for a drive, and with Sam warning him in his ear not to get in, Michael grins, "Why not?" "Why am I still surprised?" Sam wonders. Good question.
Some fancy editing brings us across town, where a crappy little "compound" (actually it just looks like a house with a covered picnic area to one side) sits out in the sticks. It's got a Confederate flag in the window and a shooting range out back, as well as armed guys in fatigues patrolling the perimeter with machine guns, so it's clearly not a day care center. You'd think they might invest in a wall or something, though. Gilroy pulls up in front of the house. "Curtain's about to part for our grand finale, but there remains one minor detail to address," he feys. He tells Michael he's looking at the compound of the "Knights of Resistance, a group of right-wing separatists." "White supremacists?" Michael asks. Gilroy potato-potahtos, and tells Michael to buy "an item" from their armory. Michael asks what he's buying, and Gilroy tells him, "It's a Browning .50-caliber machine gun. Happy?" "Thrilled, partner," Michael lies. Gilroy tells him to ask for Duke, hands Michael a metal briefcase, and sends him on his way.
Once inside the compound, Michael subjects himself to a pat-down and some blather about "our white brothers." "The only color I care about is green," Michael PSAs. Duke leads Michael and his briefcase into a back room with another guy and closes the door. Duke cheerfully says they aren't actually arms dealers, but freedom fighters. "But we'd like to thank you for your donation." It kind of looks like this is going to be the sort of thanks Michael could do without. But then Duke walks around Michael to join the other guy, not only failing to flank him but leaving the path to the door clear, and both men whip out telescoping batons instead of guns. All of which is incredibly reassuring vis-à-vis the tactical capabilities of racist militias. It's also Michael's cue to initiate some briefcase-fu. "Fighting two against one is never ideal," he VOs as he uses the case to deflect the incoming blows. He'd much rather go up against four or five. "But there are ways to even the odds. Jam your opponents into a corner, and they won't have the room to use both arms." Which is what Michael does. "It's like fighting one person with two angry heads. Which makes them easier to engage, and easier to disengage." After he's subdued his very stupid attackers without ever letting go of the briefcase, Michael comes running across the overgrown yard back to Gilroy's truck. "Didn't go as planned!" he yells as he scrambles into the shotgun seat. Gilroy corrects him that in fact it did: "You still have the money; I have a new toy." I'm kind of surprised there's even really money in the case. Michael suddenly realizes there's now a gun muzzle poking into the space between his seat and Gilroy's, and the gun attached to it not only goes all the way back to the tailgate of the truck, it has feet. That right there is a Big Fucking Gun. "How'd that [now badly dented] case treat you, by the way?" Gilroy asks. "Handy," Michael admits, although he doesn't quite have the grace to thank Gilroy for not sending him in there with a duffel bag. Or worse yet, a check. I doubt the list of martial arts Michael knows extends to killer origami. They both roll up their windows as the Knights come out of the house in force and start shooting at Gilroy's car. "It's never fun to be used as a diversion," Michael VOs, "But it is an effective way to get the drop on an enemy with superior numbers and firepower. And it's all about making a clean getaway. If you can't do that, it never hurts to be in an armored car." That'll sure come in useful later, all right.
Gilroy returns Michael to the boatyard, and Michael's kind of pissy about being used as a decoy. "Honestly, Michael," Gilroy lectures, "if you couldn't survive a go-round with Duke and Jimbo, you deserve to get killed." He covers up the BFG in the back as Michael fishes for clues on what Gilroy wants it for. "I find that .50-caliber rounds," Gilroy muses smugly, "have a delightful way of making one's problems... die." Gilroy promises that Michael will get everything he needs to know at tomorrow's dress rehearsal. "Until then, ta-ta." I'm not sure the "Killer Theater Geek" persona Gilroy's cultivating here is as scary as he intends it to be. But at least it's original.
Back at the loft, Michael finds Sam washing dishes to work off his nervous energy, and just generally being a bigger mom than Michael's actual mom: "You have any idea what you put me through, getting in that car with Jack the Ripper?" He asks what Michael found out, and Michael admits that all he did was help Gilroy steal a BFG. "Well, forgive me if I don't pat you on the back," Sam grouches. He might if he knew who Michael helped steal it from. Michael asks if Sam can get him in touch with his old FBI contacts. "You know, the ones you used to inform on me to?" Sam is just saying yes when Fi bursts in, bitching about not having been able to reach Michael and ganking the beer right out of Sam's hand. Fi wasn't actually worried -- she was just hoping Michael might come along for a meeting with a low-level but well-paying hustler named Coleman, whom she calls a "harmless weasel." Michael says he's meeting with the FBI instead, even though it's not actually on his schedule yet, and pawns her off on Sam. Who must already be plenty tired from washing all those spoons and empty yogurt cups.
Cut to a restaurant where Fi and Sam are sitting across the table from Jonathan LaPaglia, whom the subtitles ID as "Coleman -- Harmless Weasel." He flatters Fi a bit, which Sam cackles about. Coleman asks who Sam is, and Fi says he's her gofer. They're both rude to him for no reason, and he doesn't get up and leave, also for no reason. Coleman says he can't tell Fi anything about the job, other than to show her an envelope with 10,000 dollars in it. Fi tries to get him to double it, and he gives her an address to meet him at, adding, "Do me a favor. Leave Mr. Chuckles at home, will you?" Guess what Sam does? He chuckles.
On an abandoned stretch of shoreline, Michael is trying to tattle on Gilroy to "Agents Lane and Harris -- 'Old Friends' at the FBI." They always seem so put out when Michael calls on them, even though I never see these actors anywhere else. When they don't seem interested, Michael suggests passing it off to the CIA, since they'll be more likely to listen to them than to him. Lane and Harris just mock him, so Michael tells them about the .50-caliber machine gun in Gilroy's limp-wristed hand. The agent who wears too much hair spray and makeup asks Michael where Gilroy's keeping it, and Michael doesn't know. "So we just have to look under every rock from here to EPCOT Center, is that the idea?" the Latino one asks. No, just the big ones. They get back in their car, telling him to cry wolf at a South Beach café time, "when you're buying." All Michael can do is watch them drive away. He should also leave; it won't do for him to hang out for too long beneath Agent Hairspray's personal hole in the ozone layer.
Sam and Fi are hanging out in Madeline's house, not that Madeline is anywhere in sight. Apropos of nothing, he tells her, "You know how some people promise never to call the cops on their friends no matter what?" Uh, no. That's one conversation I haven't had with most of my friends. Anyway, his point is, "You and me, we're still up in the air." Fi says Coleman probably just wants a babysitter at a gun deal, and Sam grabs her cell phone out of her hand in mid-text to futz with it. She asks if he's bugging it, and Sam says she and Michael are both on his shit list. "I already watched one of you wander away with a psycho today. I'll be damned if it happens again." Ah, so that's where Madeline is; she's the one in the Sam suit.
Fi parks her SUV across the street from a large hacienda, where Coleman is waiting outside with his envelope of cash and no further information on the gig. As they go to the front door, he says he'll let the boss, Gabriel, fill her in. One thing Coleman does tell Fi is how he made some shit up about their history together, specifically a claim that they worked together in Madrid a few years ago. "Don't worry, it won't come up." "Oh, you gotta be kidding me," Sam says, monitoring this via Bluetooth from his own car, because Fi should, and it will. Coleman asks a plainly annoyed Fi if she wants to change her mind. "Fi, do not go in that house," Sam warns, whether she can hear him or not, but she doesn't listen any better than Michael did earlier. "I really need some new friends," he says. But what about all the ones in law enforcement who share resources with him? Are they just imaginary?
Inside the house, Coleman greets Gabriel, who is just coming down the stairs. It's Carlos Bernard, Tony from 24, wearing a skanky comb-over across his forehead and doing a vague "Latino" accent. I'd speculate that this rules out an appearance from Tony this season, but Clayne Crawford's role a few episodes ago didn't stop him from also being my least favorite character on 24 as well. The subtitles unhelpfully inform us that Gabriel, the boss, is "Gabriel -- The Boss." He smarms at Fiona, leading her into the living room, but not without her noticing that there's a door at the end of one hallway that has a padlock on it. That certainly doesn't attract attention. In the living room, they're still having their first drink when Gabriel brings up the Madrid thing. "For my money," he comments, "there's nothing quite like an evening stroll down La Rambla." Which is so obviously one of those tests that bad guys always do, at this point it's safer for the good guys just to say they don't know what the bad guys are talking about. But of course Fi has to show off by pointing out that La Rambla is in Barcelona. "You sure you need another drink?" she taunts. What Gabriel wants is to see Fi's passport, and right now. Fi says she doesn't have it on her, like most people don't. "Wherever it is," Gabriel says mildly, "it had better be stamped Barajas Airport, Madrid, 2006. Or we're going to find ourselves a very uncomfortable situation." [What if she took the train? Or used an alias? Or entered illegally? - Zach] As the very large goons in the background somehow become more conspicuous, Michael VOs, "Operate in the field long enough, and you'll find yourself getting tested by very dangerous people." Gabriel wants to know where the passport is now. Fi readily tells them they can find it in her bedroom dresser, in a false bottom in the third drawer, under the alias Kelly Minch. She tosses her keys to the nearest goon, and to her credit, it's not until then that she cuts a dirty look at Coleman. Sucks to be the one whose sidekick's impetuosity and short-sightedness gets you into trouble, isn't it, Fi?
As Sam starts driving his SUV, Michael VOs, "The more immediate and unexpected the test, the more likely they're up to serious trouble. And the more likely they'll kill you if you don't pass." Sam, who heard the entire conversation about the passport via whatever kind of wire Fi's wearing, reaches Michael on his Bluetooth and tells him to get the ID kit Sam conveniently keeps at the loft and bring it to Fi's place. Michael asks if she's okay. "Yeah, as long as you get there like ten minutes ago," Sam says. "I'll buy you some time but you better skedaddle." By now Sam is on a narrow residential street, and he skids the vehicle sideways so it blocks both lanes, then gets out as cars stop behind him, trapped and unable to get past. So he's helping save Fi's life, but he's accomplishing it by doing something he should be killed for.
Ten minutes ago, I guess, Michael roots through Fi's incongruously frilly underwear drawer and quickly finds Fi's passport. As he starts paging through it, he VOs, "Between matching holograms and color-shifting inks, altering a page in a modern passport is virtually impossible." Even with that whole tackle box full of gear he has? Oh, well, we tried. Tough luck, Fi. Meanwhile, Sam sees the black SUV carrying Gabriel's goons join the queue behind him. "So if all the pages are full and you have to adjust someone's travel in a hurry," the VO continues, "it's better just to swap out the page entirely." Luckily Sam's kit has some fake passport pages, which he stamps profusely before pulling out some thread to sew it into the binding. "It's as easy as pulling out the stitching on a cheap t-shirt. You just need the skill to put it back together." Meanwhile, the black SUV hops the curb and passes Sam's SUV on the sidewalk. He tells Michael what's going on, and hopes he's nearly done. "I'm doing the best I can, Sam," Michael says through a mouthful of thread that he's biting off, because the one thing not in that kit is scissors. As he continues working quickly, his VO continues, "There's no saying 'I'm sorry;' in the field," which we remember from a few weeks ago, thanks. "So if it feels like a gamble's about to come up short, you put on a smile and try to put your hands on a weapon without anyone noticing." I guess that's why Fi makes sure she has the bottle in her hand, under the pretext of pouring more drinks. Either that or she's really thirsty, or just wants to die drunk. Michael wraps up his counterfeit work, replaces the altered passport and the false drawer bottom, packs up the kit, and hides in Fi's shower just as the bad guys come in and raid her underwear drawer. Back at Gabriel's, he answers a cell phone call, but not without first saying "Excuse me." Just because you've sent a couple of Golems to a guest's home to dig through her underwear so they can inspect her personal documents, that's no reason to be rude. After hanging up, he apologizes to her. "In my line of work, you can't be too careful." Fi knows the feeling, and they drink to Madrid. Fortunately Coleman doesn't try to extend the topic by reminiscing about Thailand.
Later, Michael comes over to Fi's place to find her and Sam already there, looking over a newspaper clipping. He asks what's going on, and Sam disavows any involvement. "She gets an idea in that little Irish skull of hers and that's the end of it." Well, there's plenty of room for it to spread out. Fi says she's going back in, and Michael says ten grand isn't worth it. Fi would normally agree, except for how Sam showed her that newspaper clipping that reports how a scientist named Alan King was kidnapped right after Gabriel arrived in town. "Okay, so maybe I had a little something to do with it," Sam admits. Michael tells Fi to call the cops then, but she isn't about to do that, even though Gabriel didn't say what the job is. "So you're meeting with a paranoid thug with no idea what he's up to," Michael says. "Yeah, that sound's like a great way to get yourself killed." Fi asks if they're talking about Gabriel or Gilroy, which is a good point. She shows Michael a photo of the missing man's wife and daughter and tells him, "The caption says, 'Please give me my daddy back,'" " Fi says, because apparently she thinks everything in the paper is directed at her personally. "I'm not letting her grow up without a father if I can save him by going to a meeting." Right, because that's all she'll be doing. More specifically, she wants to search the room in Gabriel's house with the padlock in the door. "I don't need your permission," she adds. Just his help. Michael warns that Gabriel will test her again, and they might not be able to save her time. Which, as we'll see, is actually true. She just asks for ten minutes alone in the house. I think everyone needs to have more faith in Fi's natural ability to clear a room.
Back at Gabriel's, Fi submits to a rather intimate pat-down and the removal of her fanny pack before she gets to sit down with Gabriel again. She wants to find out about the job, but he's got another test for her first: he ejects the clip from a Beretta nine-millimeter and slides it across the table to her. "Beretta nine-millimeter," she says, which is how I identified it just now. For the most part, all guns look alike to me within the most general categories (revolver, automatic, shotgun, machine gun, BFG, etc.), and the only individual names I know come from playing Goldeneye on Nintendo 64. Gabriel tells her to break it down and reassemble it within a minute. "I'm sorry," she says, "You want me to do this with my eyes open or closed?" She gets to work on it as he says, "You can tell a lot about a person by the way they take a pistol apart." That's true. Take me, for instance. I would have shot myself in the nards by now. In the middle of it, the goon in the room comes at Fiona with a knife, which she quickly takes from him before thumping him on the head with the handle. "You don't scare easy," Gabriel observes, impressed. The disassembly completed, Fi quickly gets the gun back in one piece. "Not bad," Gabriel says. He doesn't even deduct points for leaving out the magazine. Which is still in his possession, but even so.
Sam and Michael are both in the Charger outside, Sam making Michael crazy with his gum-popping, saying it calms the nerves. Sam wonders if it's go time, but Michael says it'll look suspicious if they move right away. "She knew what she was getting into," he adds, and asks Sam for some gum.
Inside, Fi asks where Coleman is, and Gabriel says Coleman got himself fired, apparently by forcing himself on the woman Fi replaced. Not sure how that timeline works, but it's probably best not to give Coleman too much more thought, LaPaglia or no. Gabriel confesses his fear of risk, and asks if he can trust her. He wants to know why she's here, and she says it's for the money. He opens up a thick folder he brought over to the table -- her Interpol file. He's wondering why she joined the IRA to blow up cars in Belfast in the first place. "We didn't have girls' soccer?" Fi quips. Her real answer: revenge. More on that soon.
Outside, Sam is wanting to clarify the signals: one button undone on Fi's blouse means "everything's groovy," whereas two buttons means there's a problem. Which of course seems totally backward to Sam. Michael's phone rings with a call from Gilroy, and Sam takes that as his cue to grab a jacket and a thick bound manual from the back of the car before getting out. Gilroy tells Michael that "It's the big day before the big day." Michael goes along with the play metaphor: "I can't work on my lines without a script." Gilroy tells Michael to get a pen. "I'll give you die-rections to rehearsal." Oh, please let there be more of this kind of dialogue waiting in the wings.
Gabriel is still going through Fi's file like this is a job interview where you could get shot at the end, asking why she moved to Miami. "I followed a man here," she admits, saying it didn't work out the way she hoped. Me, either. "question?" "You had a sister named Claire," Gabriel says. Fi looks like she wishes she could go back to the last question. Gabriel prompts, "One moment she's out shopping, the an English soldier fires into a crowd. She chokes to death on her own blood. Tell me, what was the first thought that crossed your mind when you got that news?" What is he, Barbara Walters? Before Fi answers, one of the huge goons comes in to summon Gabriel outside. Gabriel tells Fi he'll be right back.
Gabriel joins his three goons outside, where Sam's in the yard wearing a semi-official-looking jacket and cap, introducing himself as Chuck Finley (of course) from the Shady Glade Homeowners Association. He shakes Gabriel's hand and brandishes the manual he's been holding. "Now, if you'd taken a couple hours to read appendix seven, well, I might not be here right now, sir." He starts giving Gabriel a hard time about his lawn maintenance, while inside, Fi gets up and goes to that padlocked door. She pulls a bobby pin out of her hair, even though she's been wearing it down, and picks the lock. As she finds herself in an office with a bulletin board plastered with papers, Michael VOs, "As a covert operative you learn that not every locked door leads to the secret you're looking for." Well, how could it? That would be a lot of secrets. "You may be searching for a hostage, but find something just as important. Like what your target is obsessed with." All those documents on the board do seem to have the word "Apex" on them. And in a desk drawer are some family photos featuring Gabriel. "Like what your target loves," the VO adds. Fi takes up way too much time looking at the pictures and the jewelry. Outside, Gabriel tries to get rid of Sam and turns to go inside. Why do all four of them need to be outside for this conversation in the first place? "Sweet Georgia with a fiddle!" Sam suddenly exclaims, pretending to spot some crabgrass. He says if it were to spread, "We're going to have to ask you to get out of the neighborhood. We'd have to come right up to you, yell in your face, 'get out.'" Fi belatedly gets the message in her earpiece as Gabriel orders his goons to escort Sam off the yard, while he chatters away bureaucratically the whole time.
Gabriel comes back into the house and sees Fi on her feet instead of where he left her. "Ladies room," she claims lamely. In a house full of guys? Doubtful. Here's hoping she at least found time to put a seat down. Not fooled at all, he decides they should take a ride. She agrees, and as she turns to pick up her bag, she undoes a button on her blouse with her back turned. Sam gets back in the car with Michael, and they see Fi come out with two buttons undone and Gabriel behind her. "She's in trouble," Michael says. This is not a terribly clear signal they've arranged; the three buttons at the neck of Fi's "blouse" all fit inside an inch of space. You'd think Michael wouldn't be hard up enough to want an excuse to stare at his girlfriend's boobs through his binoculars. The two of them get into Gabriel's Audi with the dealer plates still on it. He drives out of there like the proverbial bat, blowing a stop sign and everything. "If he's driving like that, we can't follow him," Sam obviouses. What about just calling the cops, then, and getting Gabriel busted for speeding? I guess involving the Miami-Dade PD is something they only do when it's on their Outlook calendars. Fortunately, Sam knows a back way parallel to Gabriel's route. Michael leaves tracks in the grass getting to it.
Speeding along the road, Gabriel asks Fi if his house is too warm, since he noticed her buttons. She flirts, "Since you're looking, you want me to undo another?" Yes, by all means, let's see another few millimeters of the t-shirt she's wearing underneath it. Hubba hubba. Gabriel just punches the throttle and starts telling her his story. It seems he was a doctor in Argentina. "One day, an American company came to my little town to build computer chips," he says. Then people started getting sick. The adults tended to recover, but the children weren't so lucky. Maybe some of them had to ride in a car with Gabriel, whose speedometer is now pushing eighty. Gabriel says he did his best, "But what can you do when a company is dumping chemical waste into the water table? What can you do?" How about keeping your eyes on the road, Dr. House? Especially at 95 MPH? He takes out a gun -- even now, I'm not positive it's the same Beretta nine-millimeter from before -- and puts it on his lap while he drives. Finally he pulls off the road and comes to a stop on the grass to a bridge that passes over a river. Before they get out is where he tells Fi about his late daughter, Eva. "Yes, I saw the pictures in the desk drawer inside your locked office," Fi doesn't say. Apparently Gabriel couldn't save her, either. Well, now we know Gabriel's motivation, but we don't know how he's financing all this, with the big house and the expensive car and the envelopes of cash and the Interpol files and the hired behemoths. Let's just assume he passed the hat around his disease-stricken Argentinean village and leave it at that. Time to get out of the car anyway. He walks her all the way over to under the bridge and raises his gun. "If I can't trust you, I cannot work with you," he says. Well, after all the hoops Fi has jumped through for him, that's starting to look more and more like his problem.
Michael and Sam's back road has taken them to a small marina, about a half-mile from that bridge. The view is distant but unobstructed, and Michael can see Fi and Gabriel through his binoculars. And Gabriel's gun. "Damn," he says, darting back toward the car. Sam grabs his arm and tells him to be cool. But Michael pulls out his own gun and raises it, which Sam says is futile at this range. "She's better off handling this on her own. It's like you said, she knew what she was getting into." Finally, Sam makes his move to get rid of Fi. What's taken him so long? As Michael gives up on the idea of intervening, he VOs, "The hardest thing to do when an operation goes bad is nothing at all. It's pure torture. But if it's the only way to give a team member a chance at survival, you have no choice but to stand by and watch." Gabriel tells Fi he's sorry and raises the gun to her face. "Bread pudding," she non sequiturs. "My first thought when Claire died," she explains. She tells Gabriel that they'd had a terrible fight after Fi had spilled cranberry juice on Claire's sweater. Couldn't the writers have thought of anything girlier? Getting weepy -- or pretending to -- Fi says she made Claire's favorite dessert to apologize. It was a disaster, but then Claire got killed. "My little sister died angry at me." She empathizes with him about the people who killed his daughter. "I felt the same way about the men who kept Claire from trying my awful dessert. I never told anyone that before." Gabriel totally buys this whole story and lowers the gun. In turn, Michael lowers the binoculars. See? He was right. Fi was tested again, and he wasn't able to save her this time. But she was, alas.
Gabriel has been so convinced by Fi's little tale that now he's taking her out to lunch. Be sure and try the bread pudding. He says he trained with Colombian rebels for two years after his daughter died. It was a knowledge exchange -- field medicine for combat and survival training. Fi says she knows Gabriel kidnapped someone. "It was in the paper, I can do the math," she explains, because it's not like she's going undercover as a moron. Gabriel says Alan King is a scientist working for Apex Industries, and he told that company to shut down their factory in Argentina if they want King back. "The deadline's in five hours," he explains. He admits they're not negotiating this time (probably because Alan King is actually a comedian who's been dead since 2004), but he thinks they will time. He gives Fi an envelope containing a surveillance photo of Apex's head counsel. "Always travels with security, but like all of us, he has a weakness. He's going to meet an escort tonight." Fi figures that's where she comes in. "Negotiators tend to be a little more flexible when they're the hostage," Gabriel reveals. The Colombian rebels must have taught him that. Fi asks what happens to Alan King, and reminds Gabriel that King has a daughter. Uh, yeah, so did Gabriel. Rather than pointing that out, Gabriel lectures, "Sometimes to do something good, we must first do something terrible." Fi looks around and sees a cell phone poking out of another diner's purse, and a server approaching with a tray holding a teapot and a cup. "Anyone with a little tradecraft knows spilling a drink on yourself is a common excuse to leave a table," Michael VOs. "So to convince a pro it's truly an accident, then, you have to sell it with more than iced tea." Fi engineers the spilling of the water on herself, and reacts like it's lukewarm. Which I'm sure it was, but maybe a little acting would be called for in this situation. As it is, she looks more annoyed than hurt. As she leaves the table, careful to hold her napkin to her chest, Gabriel signals to one of his goons to follow Fi. That way his back is turned when Fi snags that cell phone. But how is she going to put it back?
In the ladies room, Fi ditches the napkin so her damp girls can stand at attention, as though she didn't remember until just now that she's on cable. She calls Michael to tell him the hostage wasn't at the house. Michael tells her to get out, but Fi says Gabriel is insisting on her help with a kidnapping, after which he'll kill the current hostage. "How long before he kills the hostage?" Michael loudly asks for Sam's benefit. Fi says three hours. First, Gabriel will take her back to his house to change, and she wants Michael's help scuttling this second kidnapping. Michael asks what's in her bag (sunglasses, duct tape, and lipstick, the three vital elements of Fi's beauty regimen). Michael says that'll work. "I'm going to leave you a package at the house, same way we used to do the drops in Dublin. I'm not gonna risk losing you again, Fi." They hang up. Sam volunteers to drop off the package while Michael goes to see Gilroy. "If there's one thing he's good at, it's getting your mind off of things." Michael gratefully takes Sam up on that, and takes off without bothering to tell him how they did the drops in Dublin. So I hope Sam doesn't go to the drop without first reading the complete works of James Joyce.
Over at Madeline's, she brings Sam her lipstick tray at the dining room table, and wonders what he wants with them. "That's sort of NTK," Sam says. Even Madeline can figure out that means "need to know." Still, she can tell Sam's going to plant a bug on Fi, probably because the crafts tray of miniature listening devices Sam has open is kind of a giveaway. Madeline recommends "Midnight Shadows" for its heft. As Sam gets to work, Michael VOs, "Planting a surveillance device inside an existing item is all about working with what you have. If the battery necessary to power a bug is too big, you can't use it. A tracker with a ping system, on the other hand, can send your location in bursts and doesn't suck a lot of power, making a terrific accessory for any lady on the go." Or Fi.
Back in his blazer and cap, Sam heads over to Gabriel's. He sets the lipstick on top of Gabriel's right front tire (so I guess Gabriel and Fi are back, and let's hope he doesn't pop out for smokes before he and Fi head out to do crime) and then pretends to inspect the grass some more until a goon emerges from the house to eject him from the premises yet again.
Michael and Gilroy are at a low bridge in the woods somewhere as Michael remarks that he thought they'd meet nearer the airport. Gilroy says to let the flight records go, already: "Your stage is here." He explains that he'll be driving through there tomorrow, and it'll be up to Michael to keep it clear, until Gilroy picks him up at a rendezvous point. Michael asks when he gets to play with the .50-caliber -- which for some reason Gilroy has pulled out of the back of the Range Rover right now -- and Gilroy says that's all his, to take care of anyone who gets past Michael and the bridge. "Of course one prefers not to use such things in populated areas, the rounds go for miles," Gilroy muses. Michael is a little grumpy about how this is going. "You said we were partners," he complains. Gilroy agrees. "I'm the partner who tells you what to do, and you're the partner who does it." "Hilarious," Michael says. "Have fun on your own." As Michael starts to walk away, Gilroy says it's about a man. "An inmate. He hand-picked you for this job. I'd say he was rather obsessed with you." Just what Michael needed, another red flag. But Gilroy won't reveal the man's name. "He'd kill me if I spoiled the surprise." And we certainly can't have that. Michael keeps walking. But then the transformer on the pole to where he parked the Charger explodes spectacularly. As he turns, a semi-dazed Gilroy steps away from the smoking BFG, removes his ear protection, and says, as threateningly as he can manage, "Tomorrow, don't come for me. Don't come for the obscene fortune we're going to make. Come for all the people I have to kill if you don't do your job." Wow. Clearly Gilroy does not want to resort to an understudy for this performance.
Fi precedes Gabriel out of his house in a little black dress as he briefs her on the plan. None if it is actually going to happen, so I don't need to get into it, except for how he slips her a switchblade. "Silence is golden," he says. Especially when the alternative is a cliché. She snags that lipstick off his tire before they get in his car. So now she has a pair of sunglasses, duct tape, and two lipsticks. Gabriel will suspect nothing.
In the Charger, Sam has a street grid up on his laptop showing Fi's location. Giving Michael directions for following, Sam brings up Gilroy. "At least you don't have to hijack a plane." Michael figures that must be someone else's job, so he needs Sam to hang out at the airport, "with some of your cop buddies." We did know that Gabriel has at least one other person working for him, unless he can operate a hidden sniper rifle by remote control while talking to Michael. By now, Fi's signal has become stationary -- at the same hotel where Gabriel took her to lunch earlier. "Gabriel used the lunch as a scouting trip," Michael realizes. As Michael pulls up and gets out, Sam asks what the move is to prevent the kidnapping. "Figuring it out as I go, Sam," Michael says.
"Like con men, spies know that in the workplace, a clipboard is as good as a skeleton key," Michael VOs. Fi sits at her table sipping a martini as Michael charges in furiously waving said clipboard, a hapless hotel employee scampering along behind him. Apparently Michael's posing as a surprise health inspector. Spouting threats, he leads the employee into the kitchen, ranting, "We've been getting more letters than the North Pole ABOUT THIS KITCHEN!" That sudden-yelling thing he does gets less scary if you just think about Austin Powers coming out of hibernation unable to control THE VOLUME OF HIS VOICE! He starts yelling at the chefs to pull lettuce heads and check expiration dates on all the meat. They've already abandoned their stations when the employee says Michael can't make them stop working without the manager present. Michael yells, "WELL THEN YOU SHOULD GO -- you know, go get the manager." Whoa, he switched it up there! A second later, he's got the kitchen to himself. Just now, out front, that guy from Gabriel's surveillance photo enters the restaurant dining room flanked by bodyguards. "Gabriel's Target" is how the subtitles identify him, which should tell us all we need to know about how this is going to go. Meanwhile, Michael sniffs a measuring cup, then throws its contents onto a burner, where it flares up nicely. "Restaurant kitchens have grease fires all the time," he VOs. "A little oil on a burner and you can clear out a restaurant without raising too much suspicion or causing too much damage." Or incinerating your girlfriend. Exiting the kitchen, Michael informs the employee and the newly arrived manager, "Hey, you got a grease fire in there," and heads. "Still, it's best not to stick around too long after you've set a kitchen on fire," his VO concludes. Michael walks on past Gabriel's Target, who Gabriel watches leave. And now he's Gabriel's Ex-Target.
thing we now, Gabriel's doing more lead-footed driving, telling Fi the operation's been compromised and he's shutting it down. And even though the "operation" seems to consist in its entirety of himself, Fi, and three walking Easter Island statues, it doesn't seem to occur to Gabriel that she might be the mole. They pull up at some abandoned industrial facility, and Gabriel tells her to leave her stuff in the car. "We can't risk leaving any evidence behind." But he can risk taking her along as a witness to the murder he's about to commit? She has to ditch her purse in the car, with the tracker inside. Sam and Michael are now two miles away, according to the tracker. Regarding Alan King, Michael realizes, "Gabriel's going to kill him. Or have Fi do it for him" Potato, potahto.
Inside the building, Fi wonders why the hostage isn't under guard. "The most careful bad guys don't just watch for tails and wipe off fingerprints," Michael VOs as Gabriel and Fi approach a steel mesh cage. Inside is an unconscious guy in a wheelchair, and right outside the cage is a car battery whose lead wires are hanging over a trough full of gasoline that runs around the outside of the cage at waist level. "If you want to be extra sure you can't be traced, you rig all the evidence against you to start going up in flames if anyone starts looking somewhere they shouldn't," the VO adds. So these booby-traps are eye-activated? Gabriel undoes the padlock on the cage, explaining to Fi that he's got his hostage hooked up to a sedative IV. "You want to end it all, all you do is increase the dosage. Completely painless." That's one he taught the rebels rather than the other way around. As he inserts a full syringe into the IV bag, Michael VOs, "There's a risk with being too obsessed with countersurveillance. Spend your life paranoid, always looking for threats, and it makes it easy for someone to find them for you. Pros call it 'seeing ghosts.'" That's a pretty fancy explanation for the old, "Hey, look out behind you!" trick. Fi pretends to see something in the tall grass outside. While Gabriel goes out to investigate, telling Fi to stay behind, she enters the prisoner's cage, takes the bag off the stand, puts it in King's lap, and wheels him on out of there. Much better that he die of an air embolism than a sedative overdose.
Just now, Sam and Michael are pulling up outside, fortunately on the opposite side of the compound where Fi sent Gabriel. "So where's Fi?" Sam wonders. She's in a hiding spot in the warehouse, watching Gabriel return, and pulling that switchblade out of a pocket in one of her thigh-highs. Gabriel sees the empty cage and angrily starts calling her name. She does the almost-as-old "throw something over there" trick to distract him just long enough to jump out with her knife at his throat, take his gun, and push him away, holding the gun on him and saying she can't let him kill an innocent man. Gabriel yells, "My daughter was innocent! The children his company is killing, they are innocent! Who's protecting them, eh?" A bereaved man employing questionable means to pursue his own version of justice? How did they ever think of Carlos Bernard for this role? Fi makes him get inside his own cage as he asks what she would have done for Claire, and he claims they're the same while Claire locks him in. She doesn't bother to argue, just saying the police will be there soon. He says he can't go to jail. "I only have one thing to live for, an now that's gone!" he hollers. So he bangs on the inside of the cage until the battery leads spark, igniting the gasoline that's laid out in troughs and trenches all over the place without ever seeming to evaporate. In seconds there are fires everywhere as Fi demands the key from him, and he refuses to give it to her. She pulls out her bobby pin and gets to work picking the lock, while he kicks at it so she can leave and tell his people back in Argentina how he blew it and they're on their own. Shit is starting to blow up all around them now. Michael and Sam run into another part of the warehouse, because if you're looking for Fi, it never hurts to follow the trail of explosions. Which are multiplying now. Michael insists on going in after Fi while Sam wheels King out of there, even though Sam says Michael will suffocate. He even drops a "Goddammit" in there, which is a word you don't hear very often in this country on channels you don't have to pay extra for. Michael tries to pull Fiona away, but she's not leaving without Gabriel. Now who's the kidnapper? Finally she gets the lock open, and Michael carries the half-conscious Gabriel out over his shoulder while the place continues blowing itself to shit. Blow, Gabriel, blow.
Back to Fi's place, where Sam and Michael are settling down to do some whiskey shots while they wrap up the A-plot. Gabriel was picked up by the cops at the warehouse, which is where the team apparently left his smoke-inhaled ass. Alan King is not only awake, but has pulled together some files on Apex and their Argentinean activities. "Fi gave him a talking-to," Sam says. "Goodie bags are going out to all the media types right now. So if I had stock in Apex, ooh, I'd sell." Fi's a regular Erin Brockovich, isn't she? Madeline comes in just then. "Brought some chicken soup for Fi," she announces. "Don't worry, I didn't make it." Michael says Fi's "resting," and Sam offers Madeline a drink, which she gladly accepts, having run out of smokes on the way over. They all tip back another one, and Michael and Sam head out, Michael asking Madeline to hang out there for a while. "Cavalry should be headed to the airport now," Sam says indiscreetly. "Long story," Michael tells his mom. "Whatever," she says. "You play nice, boys!" she says as she prepares to down another shot. She's a lot easier to get along with if you put a bottle in front of her.
Michael gets to the bridge, his Bluetooth in place to go with the fresh shots in him, and gets busy. With a VO as well as some demolition prep: "Like new parents, spies take preventative measures to ensure a safe environment. Only instead of baby-proofing cabinets and electrical sockets, they use more extreme methods." Like detcord, gasoline and C-4 all over the length of this little bridge. Worst baby-proofing ever. "When you're creating an explosion to keep people back, you can't go halfway. It's never ideal, but for their own protection, you have to make sure they know you mean business. Then the only trick is to set it off without blowing everyone to kingdom come." His work done, Michael watches and waits, the remote detonator in his hand.
And now we're at the airport. It's a busy scene. A commuter jet taxis. A Cessna burns on the tarmac. Fire crews are busy. Wait, what? Sam dials his cell phone, claiming to have been trying to get a hold of Michael for the last half hour. "A fuel truck crashed into a Cessna on the runway. They're rerouting flights all over Florida." Michael realizes Gilroy isn't hijacking the plane, but diverting it. Sam figures, "You're not stationed at some pass-through in the sticks." A plane files low over Michael's head as he realizes, "I'm guarding Gilroy's landing strip!" Sam says the cops are following a stray plane, as we see a whole column of them leaving the airport with their flashers going. Michael realizes they're going to run right into Gilroy's BFG. "He's gonna pick me up in a few minutes. You gotta tell 'em to stay back until he does." Sam doesn't think that's going to work.
That plane's already parked on a stretch of road, and Gilroy approaches it from his Range Rover right across the street with a briefcase in hand. A guy comes off the plane and Gilroy hands him the case as he is greeted with a friendly, "Buenos dias, mis amigos." A man in an orange prison jumpsuit accessorized with handcuffs and leg irons is led down the steps of the plan as Gilroy answers his phone with a hearty, "Westen!" "Gilroy, hearing lots of sirens over here, "Michael says. Wouldn't have anything to do with a lost plane, would it?" Gilroy tells Michael that's why they rehearse. So "stop your belly-aching and do your job, or I'll do it for you." I hope the scary-ass prisoner who's now right in front of him doesn't think Gilroy's talking to him. Gilroy removes the burlap bag covering the ex-prisoner's head, but between the camera angle and the backlighting, there's no way to see the man's face. The only thing we can tell for sure is that he's big. "Our guest is so keen to meet you," Gilroy says. "See you soon, Michael." Michael now sees the cop cars coming around the bend on the far side of the bridge, and hits the detonator. So long, bridge. Yes, it's a small bridge, but I'm still kind of impressed that the show actually blew it up. The cops screech to a stop on the far side of the river, and Michael jogs on up the road. Remember not to look back!
When Michael reaches Gilroy's Range Rover, he jumps in, saying. "Gilroy, we need to leave now!" But Gilroy is not himself. Behind the wheel, in a voice full of blood, he gurgles, "They say if you live long enough you'll see everything." Stunned, Michael asks what happened. "Paid me ten million dollars," Gilroy says. "Turns out his plan was to shoot me. Come after you." Michael asks who. "His name is Simon," Gilroy says. "Apparently I'm not his only friend in Miami." I knew it would be somebody familiar. But is it Rick or A..J.? Suddenly we hear a quiet beeping. "Sorry," Gilroy says. "Did I mention I'm attached to an explosive device?" He did not. He's also wearing the prisoner's shackles. Gilroy grabs Michael's wrist and says, "Perhaps you should run along." Ah, to die in character. That beeping accelerates as Michael jumps out of the car. And then it blows the hell up. That armor Gilroy was boasting about so much doesn't seem to do much against an explosion from inside.
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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, follow him on Twitter, or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.