By M. Giant
After cooling his already-cool heels in the back of that tractor trailer from the season-one finale for a while, Michael gets put right to work: he gets disgorged into what looks like the aftermath of a small battle, while Tricia Helfer instructs him over the phone to bring back the guy Michael finds bound and gagged on the scene. After barely escaping the arriving cops, Michael brings the guy, a computer geek named Jimmy, back to Miami and back to Michael's own regular life: back in his apartment, hanging out with Sam and Fi, and trying to deal with his mom's hair-trigger freak-outs. The anticlimax of Michael strolling back to town after nobody expected to see him again is hard on everyone, including me.
So The Job Of The Week is on behalf of both Jimmy and Tricia Helfer's organization; she's extorting Jimmy to steal some data from a private security firm (read: evil mercenaries), and she wants Michael to help Jimmy with the job. So after Michael cases the joint by donning a gratuitous Vinnie Jones accent [Gratuitously awesome! - Zach] to go undercover as a fake customer, he and Jimmy pull off the heist. But it goes poorly and now the mercenaries want Jimmy dead. That is, until Michael helps Jimmy fake his death and leave the country, setting up the heist victims in connection with that earlier shootout in the process.
On the relationships front, Sam tries to figure out how to explain to his girlfriend all the damage done to both himself and the CadillAxe (which Michael is pretty hard on), and Fi dumps Michael for choosing his burn notice over her in last season's finale. Both Michael and I seem pretty fine with that, although Fi makes it clear she's not leaving the show. But Michael is still impatient to meet Tricia Helfer in person, and isn't happy when he realizes too late that she was the one flirting with Sam in a bar they're at, moments after she takes off in a cab. That'll learn them both not to watch Battlestar Galactica. But she leaves him a clue: a half-finished newspaper crossword with the message, "Enjoy the puzzle. See you soon." A little sure of ourselves, aren't we, Burn Notice?
To get the scoop on what happened in Season 1, check out our Burn Notice Primer! Then discuss this episode in our forums!
So what is this Burn Notice, only the second USA network show to be recapped by TWoP? Is it Monk without the quirkiness? Psych without the dorkiness? The 4400 with a different Campbell? Or Law & Order: Criminal Intent without the kicked-off-a-real-network stank? It's actually none of those things, as you probably know if you're reading this. And if you don't know, maybe you should read this. A quick reminder: last season ended with Michael Westen following the trail of the mysterious people who "burned" him -- that is, sabotaged his spy career by faking evidence that he had been compromised, leaving him persona non grata and stranded in Miami -- right up into the back of a semi trailer.
And how is that cliffhanger from the end of last season being resolved? Brace yourselves: Michael's still sitting in his friend Sam Axe's Cadillac, inside the trailer. Looking bored. Well, this is riveting so far. "As a spy, you get to spend a lot of time alone," Michael VOs as he turns on the CadillAxe's headlights. But even being as used to solitude as he is, he's getting a bit restless, to the point where he's about to start working on a way to burrow out through the trailer's roof. That's when he starts hearing the sounds of battle coming from outside -- gunshots, explosions, that sort of thing. Michael pulls his gun, and then his cell phone rings. It's the voice of Tricia Helfer, who agrees with Michael's assessment that they're "having quite the party out there." "And you're the guest of honor," she adds, as the truck's tailgate opens of its own accord, causing Michael's trademark sunglasses to magically materialize on his face. That makes them so much cooler than those prescription lenses that turn dark in sunlight.
Weapon at the ready and phone to his ear, he steps out onto a remote airstrip, with a small plane burning merrily on the tarmac. Tricia Helfer assures him the shooting's over, and realizing she can see him (by super-hi-res spy satellite, apparently), Michael wants to see her. "I thought we were gonna meet," he says, disappointed. Seems he still wants to know why he was burned. Always with the questions, this guy. He at least wants to know her name, and she tells him to just call her "Carla." Which is good, because one grows weary of typing "Tricia Helfer" all the time if one does not count oneself among her stalkers. Carla instructs Michael to head over to a car parked nearby, because she has a "favor" to ask. Michael correctly guesses that the "favor" involves the guy who's lying on the ground to the car, accessorized with duct tape and zip ties while trying to squirm away from the big scary black-clad guy with the gun (I'm referring to Michael, in case that's not clear). Michael checks out the two dead bodies lying on the ground nearby as Carla explains that the live guy, Jimmy, was supposed to do something for her but decided to try skipping town instead. And now we see how that worked out for Jimmy. As does Michael, which is certainly no accident. Carla tells Michael that he needs to help Jimmy, because she's got Jimmy's wife and daughter. "If you don't help, what happens to them?" she asks, as if she didn't know. And the remote field briefing ends with one last salient fact: Jimmy managed to dial 911 on his cell phone the minute he saw Carla's people coming, which would explain the three police SUVs currently visible approaching from the distance, their sirens screaming. Michael takes the time to confirm that he'll get to meet Carla after this. "I keep my promises," she says ambiguously. Good enough for Michael, especially in light of his time frame. Michael addresses his first words to Jimmy at gunpoint: "Don't move." And the freeze-frame subtitles whoosh in over Jimmy's terrified, duct-taped face: "JIMMY -- THE CLIENT." See, that's one of the things about Burn Notice I didn't mention before: all of the main characters in each episode get a little subtitle explaining who they are. They're here to help us keep everyone straight, but they aren't above having a little fun once in a while, as we'll see later.
Cut to Michael stashing his new client in the trunk of the CadillAxe and laying tracks out of there. As he drives, he VOs a lament about the advent of airbags and the difficulty they cause for certain evasive maneuvers: "Gone are the days when you could run through a stand of trees without a faceful of nylon." You can still do stuff like that, he continues, and as the Caddy backs through a stand of trees, Michael admits, "It's a little hard on anyone who's stuffed in your trunk." But soon enough, Michael is out on the main road, leaving the cops far behind. Which is good, because one of them might have been Horatio Caine and Michael certainly wouldn't want to meet up with that guy. Would he?
After the credits -- which are still not so much "credits" as "a single splashscreen with the show's title" -- we catch up to Michael and Jimmy as Michael drives to an abandoned pier in full dark to let Jimmy out of the trunk. Despite his bonds, Jimmy endeavors to take a swing at Michael with the tire iron, which only annoys Michael as he tells Jimmy he's there to help get his family back from the people who are pressuring them both. And Michael has more good news for Jimmy: "If you can be good, you get to ride up front."
They must have been a long way from Miami, because it's the morning by the time some skyscraper-porn reintroduces us to the city. Jimmy is in the shotgun seat, explaining how this all started with a phone call from a strange woman. "Smoky voice, lots of attitude?" Michael correctly guesses. Don't forget her assurance that someone quite powerful has a plan for him, either; that's very important. Anyway, Carla instructed Jimmy to break into a place where he did some computer work a year ago and steal some data for them. The place is called Security Associates, which Michael recognizes as "private military." "Corporate guys, but really scary," Jimmy agrees. Anyway, since Jimmy is a computer geek and not a B&E guy, he tried to tell Carla to go pound sand, and then hired a guy with a private plane so he and his family could run away. But when they showed up for the flight, guys with guns and helicopters swooped in and nabbed Jimmy's wife and little girl. He's starting to break down as he begs Michael to help him. "We'll figure something out," Michael assures him. Michael doesn't seem like he entirely believes it himself, but after twelve episodes of doing the seemingly impossible, I like his chances for success. Of course he's going to do it. We're just here to see how.
Michael returns to his loft and enters the place alone, with his gun at the ready. Someone is clearly making breakfast in there, and when a couple of slices of toast pop up, Michael jerks his weapon in that direction. Michael, my friend, your toaster problems are just beginning. The mystery breakfaster turns out to be none other than Sam, who's so relieved to see his friend again that he's busting out of one of Michael's shirts even more than he was before. After the abuse Sam took at the hands of those heroin smugglers who were holding him, I don't know why he chose to punish himself further by attempting to button one of Michael's dress shirts over the Sam-belly. "How do you fit into these little shirts?" he wonders. "They're like doll clothes." What's Sam doing there, anyway? Well, he explains that he didn't want to go home to his girlfriend Veronica looking all busted, so he's holing up at Michael's place for the time being. Suddenly Sam remembers about Michael's meeting, and asks how it went. Michael has to admit that all he got is a job, and not even a paying one: "More of a, 'we'll kill you if you don't do it' type of thing," Michael says. "Never liked those," Sam deadpans, and asks about the job. Michael explains that he's been enlisted to help with a heist, and figures that he might as well go along with it on the grounds that seeing what Carla's people want stolen might be a clue as to who they are. Michael adds that Jimmy's waiting outside in the Caddy. Sam's flooded with relief upon learning of the return of his car, but his face crumples when he looks out the window and sees its condition: scratched, caked in dust, with a busted taillight and branches still stuck to it. And I wouldn't be surprised if Jimmy had an accident in the trunk. "It's gonna need a little work," Michael admits. And a new paint color and license plates, I'd suggest, depending on how much of a gander the cops got back at the airstrip.
Down in the courtyard, Jimmy wants his phone back from Michael, but Michael nixes that, since Jimmy used that phone to call 911 on a double homicide, which means it's being tracked by the cops. This will be important later. He sends Jimmy in to freshen up, and gets to work hosing down Sam's car. This is how his girlfriend Fiona finds him a bit later when she rolls up. "Hey, Fi," Michael says casually. But she's going to be a big pissed-off drama queen about how they thought they were saying goodbye forever and now he's calling her about a job, like nothing happened. Yeah, Fi, we all kind of thought that finale was going to be a game-changer. It's going to be an adjustment for everyone. "You couldn't start with 'I'm alive?'" she asks. "I thought the fact that I was calling covered that," Michael says reasonably. She takes a swing at him, which fortunately he catches because otherwise her arm might have shattered on contact with his eyebrow. His cell phone rings and he lets her go to answer it, because he knows perfectly well that she's not interested in popping him if he's not going to pay attention. Sure enough, she backs off.
It's Michael's mom Madeline on the other end, calling to bitch about how worried she is, stuck in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale, and demanding to know when she can start making calls on her cell phone again. Besides the one she's making now, that is, because "Hotel calls cost a dollar." Michael unwisely tells her the heat's off, so she can come on home and make all the calls she wants. Which officially makes him a better man than I, because I would have sent that gravel-voiced pain in the ass to Alaska and let her do her chain-smoking to an oil pipeline. After he hangs up, Fi gives him a hard time about not calling his mom before now. "I was going...to...wait a bit," Michael protests weakly. You'd think being on the contact list above Michael's mom would make Fi feel better, but then she wouldn't be Fi, would she? She flounces upstairs as Michael quietly thanks her for coming.
Michael, Sam, and Jimmy are sitting at sidewalk café table discussing another aspect of the upcoming job, namely, why can't people with the wherewithal to blow up a plane steal the data themselves? Michael figures that Carla's people just don't want to get their hands dirty. Because blowing-up-a-plane dirt and kidnapping dirt and extortion dirt are entirely different from cybercrime dirt, I guess. Sam whips out a dossier on the target company's boss, Ryder Stahl, who is apparently a high-powered mercenary. Michael says that Jimmy's going to need to introduce him to Stahl. Jimmy's scared at the very thought of even facing Stahl again, but Michael assures him that Sam and Fi will be there for backup. Jimmy assents, oblivious to the dirty look Sam's giving Michael, for no reason I can determine other than that Bruce Campbell is really good at giving dirty looks.
Later, Michael and Jimmy walk toward the Security Associates building. Michael goes over the plan for Jimmy one more time: "We go in, you introduce me, you leave." Michael has said in episodes that he likes to keep the involvement of amateurs to a minimum, and it certainly sounds like that's what he's doing here. As they walk past the camera, we can see the CadillAxe on an upper-level parking spot in the background, with Sam and Fi staked out inside.
Inside the lobby, a Michael VO lets us in on what private security companies do in addition to bodyguard work: "For a big enough check, they'll rain hot lead down on whoever you want." Ryder Stahl himself emerges from the elevator, and Jimmy introduces "the guy I told you about." Michael extends his hand and gives his name as "Terry Millar." And it suddenly sounds like Michael spent some of his time in that trailer practicing his accents. Last season he did Jersey, Redneck, and Thurston Howell III, just to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head; now he's doing Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Whatever happened to making your cover ID as much like yourself as possible? Bloke's got bollocks, I'll give him that. Michael cockneys to Stahl that he needs a mercenary. "We're security consultants, not mercenaries," Stahl corrects stiffly. Cue the freeze frame and subtitles: "RYDER STAHL, MERCENARY." Oh, those subtitles. How they do get into mischief. Michael dismisses Jimmy with a curt "Oi...Piss off, then," and asks to talk to Stahl in private.
Up in a conference room, Michael claims to be a mining guy who needs a Kenyan village "dealt with." Stahl's suspicions are aroused, especially when one of his employees hands him a note alerting him to the presence of Michael's backup team across the street. "Are you a cop?" Stahl demands. Barely fazed, Michael claims he's got enemies, and whoever is across the street isn't with him. Ryder and his security guy want to take Michael over there with them to find out.
Inside the CadillAxe, Sam is defending Michael to a still-pissed Fi, saying he nearly got himself killed saving Sam. "I can count on one hand the number of buddies I got who would stage an armed assault to save my butt, okay?" Sam says. He counts Michael, and then Fi smirks as Sam realizes he won't even need the whole hand.
As Michael and the two Security Associates guys come up behind the CadillAxe, Michael VOs that a cover ID is all about commitment. "You've got to sell it like your life depends upon it. Because sometimes it does." So get ready for some selling. Inside the car, Sam waves his burrito around, and when Michael sees the tinfoil blob sticking out the window, he triggers havoc by yelling, "Gun!" and pushing Stahl to the pavement between two parked cars. The security guy draws, but Michael grabs the weapon away from him and yells at him to get down, aiming at the CadillAxe. Michael's VO: "One reason to work with the same people is you know each other's moves. So if you shoot at your team in the middle of an operation" -- which Michael now does -- "they know to go with it." "What the hell is he doing?" Sam bitches as Michael blows away his side mirror and rear windshield. Fi, quicker on the uptake, says they just got recruited into Michael's cover operation, and Sam starts the car and pulls out. She hangs out the window and "returns fire" while MVO informs us that it takes a great marksman to shoot at you from fifty feet in a moving car and miss, while making it look like they're trying to hit you. "Or markswoman, as the case may be," MVO adds, as Fi seems to be enjoying shooting at her boyfriend even more than she normally would. Which is a lot.
"So you're saying that that went well?" a distressed Jimmy asks once they're all safely back in Michael's courtyard, preparing to replace the Caddy's window glass. "He doesn't think I'm a cop any more," Michael points out. Sam adds that they've also covered their bases on Michael's backup ID -- using I don't know what resources, since these three have always pretty much been a kitchen table operation -- so now it's just a question of Michael returning to Security Associates as a potential client so he can check out the company's security layout. But Jimmy's still stressing, because he knows that Stahl knows he's the only one who can steal the data, and once it's stolen, Jimmy's screwed. "One problem at a time, Jimmy," Michael breezes, and lets Sam drag Jimmy inside to teach him a card game over a beer and yogurt (the entire Burn Notice menu, in other words). But before Michael can get any body work done in peace, he gets a call from his mom, saying, "You have to come over here now! It's a disaster." Michael heads out, no questions asked. He should really know better by now.
At Madeline's house, she greets him with a shotgun, which he tells her to put down. Oh, and that disaster she was referring to? Her ancient coffee maker burned out and blew a fuse in the kitchen, causing the spoilage of her fridge full of food. "This is the disaster?" Michael snits. "A coffee maker built in 1967?" Actually, Michael, knowing Madeline, this sounds like a bigger problem than I expected. What's your excuse? He's irritated as always at being dragged over here for nothing once again, but there is a minor payoff when Madeline tells him that she found his cell phone in the glove compartment of the old Charger, which is locked in the garage. Michael, of course, did not leave a call phone in the glove compartment. "I assumed it was one of yours," Madeline says. "You go through those things like toothpicks." True: Michael and Jack Bauer could pretty much keep the wireless companies afloat just between the two of them. Michael looks at the phone, sees one missed call, and dials the number. "Looks like you owe my mom a new coffee maker," he tells Carla when she answers, and asks why she broke into Madeline's house. "Just letting you know we can," Carla smugs. She says that the clock is ticking, and has someone Michael might like to talk to. "Daddy?" asks the voice of a small girl without warning. Michael doesn't entirely freak out as he says he's a friend of her dad's, and that Jimmy misses her. "Can you tell me where you are?" he then asks quietly. But then Carla takes the phone back and says she can't. "You're not really gonna hurt a little girl," Michael bluffs hopefully. "If I get what I want, you don't need to find out," Carla says before hanging up. Yeah, Michael, tell it to the baby she killed in Caprica City that time.
Michael loiters in the Security Associates lobby, and when Stahl comes up to say he's got a lot of balls coming there, Michael Brit-bitches (Britches?) right back that he's the one who got shot at, and if Stahl's interested in doing business, they need to talk now. Stahl's willing to try it again..
Michael VOs, "Every thief knows that the best way to scout a place you want to rob is as a customer. Who gets to see the vault at the local bank? The rich guy with something to protect. Who gets to see the security at a private military company? A guy who wants to start his own little war." Meanwhile, Michael is whipping out a briefcase full of materials supporting the idea that he's sitting on top of a diamond mother lode in Kenya, with only some local civilians standing in his way. Stahl's ready to do the deal, but Michael insists on seeing the building's security first. Stahl bites and starts showing Michael around as Michael VOs, "A great way to get people talking about their security is to put them on the defensive. Accuse a guy of having bad locks, and before you know it, he's telling you where his motion detectors are." And so Michael acts dismissive of Stahl's security system, which induces Stahl to show off the thumbprint access to the mainframe room, which holds its servers inside a "burn vault." Don't say "burn" to Michael, Stahl. Michael deliberately paces the room as he VOs, "It takes some practice, but counting your steps can be extremely useful if you need to reproduce a floor plan from memory." Michael tells Stahl he'll be back Tuesday to talk terms. Stahl doesn't suspect a thing, even though he had to have noticed how much of Michael's accented dialogue hat to be looped in during post.
The thing we know, Michael's back in his loft doing a little drafting as he explains in VO that you need to get that mental floor plan down on paper as quick as you can while it's still fresh in your mind. And then you need to combine that with what you know about the security devices in the room, and use that to figure out where the holes are. I notice that Michael took the time to change his clothes before breaking out his triangle and protractor, mind you. And the task is being made even more difficult by the fact that while he's trying to accomplish it, Sam is in the room teaching Jimmy that card game he mentioned earlier, spouting off distracting strings of numbers until Michael kicks them out. But then Fi comes in , wanting to talk. Michael blows her off for now, but he has an assignment for her: she needs to get them into the private DNA lab in the building that's one floor above Security Associates. He specifies, "An hour, at night, alone. And we're going to be making a lot of noise." "You have a high estimation of my skills, Michael," Fi says. He sucks up, "You've earned every bit of it." Hey, whatever it takes to shut her up.
At another sidewalk café table, Michael is trying to get Jimmy to tell him how to get the data once he enters the room. Jimmy insists that he's going to have to accompany Michael on the job, because he's the only one who knows how to get past the data security measures he himself installed. Suddenly noticing a shitty surveillance guy who's making a big production out of peering at Michael and writing down notes a few tables over, Michael warns Jimmy that it's going to be dangerous. But Jimmy is determined to do this for his family. Michael gets up from the table, pretending to stretch, which sends the amateur tail sprinting into the park across the street. As Michael gives chase, he VOs about the meaning of "badly done surveillance -- that is, surveillance you notice." Sometimes it's because the organization is simply cheap, but other organizations just want you to know they're watching, which is probably the case here. Michael catches up with the guy and casually holds him to the pavement with a boot to his chest while looking around for other watchers and asking who sent him. The guy says he just answered an ad in the paper. "Some woman," he says. He also gives Michael an envelope containing a photo of Jimmy's wife and kid. "Hurry up -- we're waiting," it says on the back. Carla totally writes like a dude.
Back at the loft's courtyard, Michael's on the phone with Carla while Jimmy sits and frets over the photo. "I thought you could use a little reminder of what's at stake," Carla says. "We head in tonight. That soon enough?" Michael responds, which is fine with Carla. Michael has a request of his own: he wants the guns that were used to kill the guys at the airstrip, although he won't say what they're for. Carla goes along with it, which is surprisingly trusting of her, and when he tells her to deliver Jimmy's family according to his terms, she smarms, "Of course, Michael. We want this to be a good experience for everyone." Without another word, Michael hangs up his phone and slaps a big "Cook Brothers Construction" decal on the side of the crappy old van he's picked up somewhere. I sense undercover work in the offing. But he should really consider using a decal that doesn't have a 555 phone number on it, because I'd notice that right away.
At the DNA company, Fi is getting her flirt on with the guy at the front desk while spinning a story that the building's structural engineers missed a defect and there's going to be a little construction needed. Like, tonight. The smitten dude is only too happy to sign all the paperwork, and call building security to give clearance to her "company's" "team." Well, that looked easy. In both senses of the word.
Late that night, the same guy lets Michael and Jimmy (undercover as fake construction workers) into the DNA company's office suite as Michael acts all cool-guy about "some B.S. about the chemicals we use. You can come back, but it's gotta be on your insurance." That's all the guy needs to hear to convince him to steer clear.
Inside the room where Michael and Jimmy are staging their entry from above, they do prep work for cutting the floor while Michael VOs about standard floor structure and how you have to look out for wiring. With Jimmy's assistance, Michael drills a hole in the floor and drives in an anchor bolt with a cable to keep the slab from falling through, and then busts out his concrete saw. The two of them then crank the slab up out of the hole, and drop down into Security Associates' server room, just like that. But what about the motion detectors? Well, Michael led them into a hole in the coverage behind an interior wall. And to thwart the motion and heat sensors while they cross the room to where they need to be, all they need to do is hide behind a double layer of wool and thermal blankets and move very slowly. Good thing nobody ever uses motion detectors and heat detectors and floor pressure sensors and sound detectors and...I don't know. Closed circuit video? Would that be too paranoid?
Sam and Fi are again waiting outside in the CadillAxe. He wonders how they're doing inside. "It's Michael," Fi scoffs boredly. Sam asks her for some advice on what he's going to say to Veronica regarding his absence, as well as the condition of the Caddy and his own face. "I'm your girl consultant now?" Fi protests. Sam tells her never mind. "I got lots of other friends with ovaries. I got you..." Once again, Sam's additional fingers will sit idle. That came out a lot dirtier than I intended.
Inside, while Michael and Jimmy remain hunched behind the improvised heat-sound-motion barrier they brought, Michael uses a holesaw to saw a hole in the wall. As you do. Apparently Jimmy needs them to tap into the building's hard-wiring. It's way too technical for me, and probably all made-up anyway.
And outside, Fi comes up with a cover story for Sam to feed Veronica: "Tell her you got beaten up defending a helpless man from a gang of ex-lowlife soldiers. It's true enough." "Okay, so I'm the hero," Sam says excitedly. "And the helpless man," Fi points out. But suddenly they have more immediate problems, because look who's here: it's Ryder Stahl, coming in late. Fi texts Michael to that effect. While Stahl is downstairs talking to building security, Michael gets the text and asks Jimmy what's taking so long, because they're running out of time. Jimmy's in the middle of a technical (and probably all made-up) explanation when fortunately the data comes through. But he can't resist raising his hands in a little celebration -- over the sound/thermal barrier they've been hiding behind, which sets off every alarm in the room. Sam notices from outside, and figures it's time to move. "Give them a minute," Fi advises. Michael tells Jimmy it's time to go to plan B. This involves Michael VOing about various types of specialized ammunition, which he then uses to blow the shit out of Security Associates' servers and then the nearest window, while Jimmy ties off ropes that they'll use to rappel down. Seeing the glass shatter from below, Sam starts the CadillAxe and goes hurtling over, while Michael helps a struggling Jimmy get loose from his rope at the base of the building. This takes so long that Stahl reaches the window in time to see Jimmy and Michael hop into the CadillAxe, which takes another couple of bullets as it drives off into the night. Dudes, I know Saab is sponsoring this, but leave the Caddy alone, all right?
Back at Michael's loft the day, Jimmy sits in a chair bitching about his wounds and his situation: "Those guys at Security Associates, they're gonna kill me as soon as they get a chance." "Exactly," Michael says. "And that makes them predictable, and that's how we're going to solve your problem." Always with the tactical judo, our Michael. He asks Sam to secure him a "disposable" boat, and Sam says he knows a guy. Jimmy's slow enough to make Michael have to explain that people are going to need to think Jimmy's dead, but before he can get much further into that, his phone rings again. This time it's Fi, telling him about a delivery she received. "Someone was kind enough to break into the trunk of my car." Pulling back a beach towel to reveal a pair of assault rifles to the camera -- and everyone walking by on the street -- she calls it "a present." Michael warns her to be careful with them, and Fi moves on to the subject. He needs to go see his mom. Michael's off, with orders for Sam to take care of the boat. You know how one of the pleasures of serial TV is watching characters develop over time? I'm looking forward to watching Michael get better at blowing off his mom.
Michael enters Madeline's house to see her lighting her cigarette off the last. She's acting like a total stress-monkey, and points out that among her other many minor concerns, Michael's little brother Nate is still in Fort Lauderdale. Michael's not too worried about that. Madeline complains about her situation, something about people with guns and suits always hanging around, and Michael says, "All these years, you wondered why I didn't come home, why I didn't call. This is why. I never wanted this for you." Because he'd never hear the end of it from her, of course. Finally, Madeline gets it. But getting it is always a temporary situation for Madeline. "It still doesn't explain why you didn't write." Madeline, do me a favor: smoke faster.
Sam has wasted no time securing that boat, a cabin cruiser which we now see tied to a remote dock. Below decks, Fiona sticks a blinking relay transmitter to the instrument panel, and a small block of C-4 with detonator on the seat. "Just enough for the boat, Fi," Michael warns. "Try not to break all the windows in South Beach." Fi rolls her eyes (using her shoulders to do so, because she's wearing giant sunglasses) and heads back down below. Michael tells Jimmy to use his hot cell phone (you know, the one the police are tracking) to call Ryder. Jimmy does. He quickly gets Stahl on the phone, and Stahl's seriously pissed, spouting threats. Jimmy blames Michael for the heist, and says he wants to give Stahl's data back to him. "That's good, just tell me where you are," Stahl says, suddenly a lot more friendly. Sounding.
As a phalanx of Humvees rolls into the palm groves nearby, Michael explains in VO that it takes the cops about ten minutes to get mobilized once they get a call on a flagged cell. But as for private security, "They can be anywhere as fast as their wheels can take them." Sure enough, Stahl arrives with his armed goons and tells them to stay out of sight while he goes to the boat alone. They make the mistake of leaving their vehicles unattended, which gives Fi the chance to toss those hot assault rifles into the back of one.
Meanwhile, down by the boat, Stahl gets back on the phone with Jimmy and says they're going to need to talk face-to-face. Jimmy and Michael, by the way, have moved to an entirely different boat down the shoreline, out of Stahl's sight but where they can still see Stahl. Jimmy's trying to stall Stahl, but he's having trouble with it until Michael spells it out for him: "If he finds out that you're not on that boat before the ATF gets here, he will track you down. He will go after you and your family for the rest of your life. You will do this, now." Thus motivated, Jimmy threatens to put Stahl's data on the Internet unless he stops walking, and tells him to take off his jacket and pants to prove he's unarmed. Michael grins behind his sunglasses. He loves it when a lesson gets through. Rolling his eyes, Stahl sheds the jacket, just as Michael notices the official-looking black SUVs coming in from the other direction. Stahl doesn't, though, refusing to take his pants off. In fact, he pulls a gun out of an ankle holster and starts threatening Jimmy right back, leveling his gun at the empty boat where he thinks Jimmy is hiding. And with the ATF in position behind Stahl's goons and Stahl five yards from the boat on the dock, Michael hits the remote detonator and blows the boat. Which I don't think is really going to fool Stahl, but Michael's on top of that. The ATF takes Stahl and his men, and when they show Stahl the guns in the back of his truck he says, "It's not mine. It's a setup." Surprisingly, the ATF doesn't let him go after that.
Later that night, while walking along at some marina, Michael explains the denouement to Jimmy: "It's going to be hard for them to explain why they have guns linked to a double homicide. Still, it's probably best to make sure no one ever knows you're alive." Jimmy asks about his family, and Michael explains the plan: a friend of Sam's is going to ferry Jimmy to Haiti ("the Coast Guard doesn't pay much attention to boats going to Haiti") so he can catch a flight to Argentina to meet his family. Michael's pretty sure they'll be there, since Carla's going to need Michael for other stuff and doesn't want to piss him off. Even though she can kill him if he doesn't do what she wants. But I guess it's all about proportional responses. Good enough for Jimmy, who offers Michael his car on the spot. "It's a Saab," Jimmy product-places. "Convertible." Michael accepts, and Jimmy hands over the keys. "I gotta leave the country and you're stuck working for them," Jimmy sums up. "I don't know who has it better." Michael says Jimmy does. Because it's all about Michael.
day, Michael and Fi are using a palmtop to comb through the files he and Jimmy stole as he VOs that "too little information is obviously a problem. But too much can be just as bad." Which is more didactic way of saying that they have no way of knowing why Carla and her people wanted this crap in the first place. Maybe they'd have better luck if they were using a computer whose screen was bigger than in index card, but with 500 files' worth of private paramilitary operations under the gore-encrusted belt of Security Associates, all Michael can say is that it's a start. Fi looks at him significantly, and he realizes that it's time to talk. She says she lost him the other day and even though he came back, he still made a choice, and it wasn't her. "What are you saying, Fi?" he asks. She says she'll always care about him, and they'll still help each other, but they can't be together. "I know. I said that for a long time," Michael says as gently as he can. As she quietly leaves, Michael VOs, "When you work as a spy, it's easy to think of people as assets. Resources to accomplish a goal. Because you don't' have a personal relationship with an asset. You don't care about an asset. You don't miss the scent of an asset when she leaves the room." I think at some point he stopped talking about an asset and started talking about an ass.
Pretend for a minute that you don't recognize the tall blonde in the green dress doing a crossword at the bar, okay? Sam certainly doesn't as he comes to pick up a couple of drinks and offers her a tip: "I think four across is 'beets.'" I've heard worse pickup lines, but I can't think of any right now. He adds that he's right over at a nearby table if she needs any more help, and she actually looks sad as she says she was just leaving. "time?" she smiles. Returning to the table where Michael is waiting, Sam says it's a good thing he's patching things up with Veronica, because he just met a "real firecracker." As said firecracker heads outside and gets into a cab, tipping Sam and Michael a flirty wave, Michael shows Sam a cell phone photo of Jimmy and his family, reunited. That phone rings, and it's Carla, congratulating everyone involved on how well things worked out. "We want to make this arrangement work," she says. "Or you'll kill me," Michael guesses. "See, now you're catching on," she agrees. Nice to see them working the bugs out. Although if she doesn't start paying him, Michael's going to have to stop going to sidewalk cafés like this all the time. Michael reminds her of her promise to meet with him, and she says they just did. "Tell Sam thanks for the help with the crossword," she clarifies. Michael drops the phone with a basic-cable-friendly "Oh, sh---" and runs out to the sidewalk, but the cab Carla hopped is gone. He goes back inside to check out the crossword she left behind on the bar. It looks finished, and in the margin above, she left him a note in her dude handwriting: "Enjoy the puzzle. I'll see you soon." Not a "beets" in sight, by the way.
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.