Twenty minutes after getting blown up, Michael wakes up just in time to have Sam chauffeur him through a car chase from some determined pursuers. No sooner are they in the clear than Michael foils a random guy's suicide attempt and ends up taking him on as a client to help him get a quarter-million of his money back from medical scammers for his sick kid. And moments after that, he finds himself tied to a chair in Carla's new office, where they yell at each other a lot without either of them learning anything from the other before she lets him go. That leaves Michael reasonably free to work with Sam and Fiona to track down the scammers. Which they quickly do, working their way up from the muscle to the boss, whom Fi promptly scares off by getting into a bikini catfight fight with her. Of course. While that's going on, Carla hires Michael to find his own would-be killer, but Michael's so stuck on helping the kid he gets into a fistfight with Sam. Eventually Michael comes up with a way to locate the boss using the siren on Fi's boyfriend's ambulance, right before the boyfriend breaks up with her. Ultimately, the money's back (with interest), the boss goes to jail, and the sick kid will get better. As for Michael's other project, all he knows for sure is that the bomber went out his back door to the river after setting the charge, and that Carla's interested enough in his investigation to want to show up at his loft and intimidate him all sexy-like. Sounds like this could take the rest of the season.
Even though this show never does previouslies, it did for this episode. Good thing I don't recap previouslies. But just to catch you up, Michael's new boss Carla hired him for various jobs that allowed him to collect just enough clues to tell him that she was having a sniper assassinate someone on a ferry. But when Michael tried to foil the job, he learned from Sam that the sniper had been killed by a bomb at home -- only a split second before a similar bomb sent Michael flying through the air outside his loft. Talk faster time, Sam.
"When you're a spy, you learn to live with the idea of people wanting you dead," Michael tells us as the camera comes in over the Atlantic, then over the Miami waterfront, and the river, all the way to his loft, where it becomes clear that even after being blown all the way into January 2009, he's not too injured to deliver one of his dry, didactic voice-overs. "You work long enough, and the line to kill you gets pretty long." Michael is sprawled on his concrete courtyard, with his Algerian sunglasses broken and askew on his smoke-blackened face. "Still, being blown up isn't really something you get used to." Are we sure? Can we ask Fiona? Can we see how many times we can blow her up before she's used to it? Sam's crouching over Michael, yelling at him to wake up. As he helps Michael to his feet, Sam notices the Michael-sized dent on the roof of the Charger and guesses that the car saved his life. "Not the first time," Michael chokes out. Oh, it was a one-story fall, you crybabies. Michael's just lucky he's so skilled at body work. Sam exposits that Michael's been out for twenty minutes, adding that he got here as soon as he could. Only took him four months. Sam helps Michael into the shotgun seat of his Buick, which he thoughtfully backed into the courtyard, just in case a quick escape was called for. Which it apparently is; once Sam's behind the wheel, he notices a dark sedan waiting on the street outside. "Put your seat belt on, Mikey," he advises as he peels out of the courtyard. And the chase is on. Sam's got a small head start as he leads their pursuer through the local side streets at breakneck speeds upwards of twenty-eight miles per hour. But up ahead, two more sedans are pulling across the street, forming a road block. Michael's not really a hundred percent right now, so I'm going to share a tip with you: if you plan to crash through a road block, floor it and always aim for the back of one or more of the vehicles. That's because the front, where the engine and thus most of the weight is, will be harder for your vehicle to push out of the way. Plus, if you do get caught, they can't stuff you in a destroyed trunk. And that's one to grow on. "Brace yourself, Mikey," Sam says, flooring it. He does me one better, going around the cars by crashing through some scaffolding that's adjoining the road for some reason. The chase car skids to a stop rather than hitting the roadblock. Chase over.
Sam's Buick pulls up to a downtown curb, now missing a driver's side fender, part of the front bumper, and with the side mirror dangling halfway to the pavement. And when Sam kills the engine, it's more like assisted suicide. Both men climb out, and Michael expresses his condolences about the car. "It's just, I put a lot of love into it," Sam says. Michael thinks it kind of sticks out now, meaning they'll have to ditch it. After giving Sam a second to grieve, they get walking. Michael offers another VO: "When you're being hunted, paranoia is inevitable. If you don't know what to do with it, it turns into cold, directionless fear. With the right training, it turns into hyper-awareness of your surroundings." Which is why some people on the sidewalk around Michael seem to be popping out of the screen in 3-D. Nice effect. Michael stumbles against Sam, who wonders who was in the cars. Michael figures it was Carla's people. "Whatever's going on, my guess is she needs to talk to me." Well, considering she was chasing him on a motorcycle less than an hour ago, that's probably a safe bet. He adds that she had his brother Nate arrested, which shocks Sam for some reason. They're about to move on, but Michael notices a suspicious-looking guy up ahead. Suspicious how? Well, let's check with Michael's VO: "Distinguishing between different kinds of suspicious behavior is crucial for an operative." This guy, for example, is all sweaty and hesitating, right until he steps out into traffic. "Someone doing surveillance, for example, looks different from someone who's trying to commit suicide." With that, Michael runs out after the guy, and pulls him out from in front of a passing bus. You know, Michael, after the morning you had, nobody would judge you if you took the rest of the day off.
And yet, after the titles and the ads, Michael sits on the curb with the man he just saved, who introduces himself as Kenny. He almost killed Kenny! That bastard! He explains that it's about his son, Jack, needing the money. How much do you think Jack is into his bookie for? Sam nervously scampers up, impatient to move on before Carla's goons show up. "You gonna be all right?" Michael asks Kenny. Kenny's panicked nod is not convincing. So it looks like they're going home with Kenny. At least this way they'll be someplace where Carla won't know to look for them.
At Kenny's house, Michael talks to Kenny inside while Sam stands guard outside. "He's just looking for some friends of mine," Michael explains. Kenny still wonders who Michael is. "I'm someone who might be able to help you with your problem," Michael says. Kenny remarks that with his charred face and battered suit, Michael doesn't look to be in great shape either right now. Whereas Kenny has at least combed his hair since we first met him. Michael changes the subject to Kenny's son. Kenny explains that Jack is six, with a congenital heart problem that he might not survive. So how did he get to the track in the first place? "And how does getting hit by a bus help that?" Michael asks. Uh, maybe when Jack hears about how his only parent got flattened by a number 12 Metrobus, his heart will give out instantly, sparing him a protracted death? No, instead, Kenny explains about a treatment center in Arizona, but he can't afford it. We're left to conclude on our own that Kenny has a life insurance policy with no suicide clause. A surprisingly topical commentary on the desperate state of health care in this country? Well, no: "A few months ago, I blew all my money on a scam." It seems he met some woman in a pharmacy who claimed to have a kid with the same condition, and Kenny ended up buying $250,000 of drugs that turned out to be pep pills and painkillers that made the kid worse. Kenny concludes, "So I left a note for the babysitter and I...I went out to get the money." I'm really curious about what that note said. "Dear Kari: By the time you read this I will be dead. Please take Jack to Arizona and have them fix his heart. Use my life insurance check to pay for the treatment and cover your overtime, unless my suicide voids the policy, in which case you'll have a lot less overtime anyway. Your boss, Kenny. P.S. Tell Jack I love him, and no sweets after 7 pm." Michael turns to look at the adorable little towhead who's busy coloring pictures on Kenny's sun porch. "Jack," is all the subtitle has to say about him. Not, "Jack -- Dying child" or "Jack -- Poor man's Tiny Tim" or even "Jack: Pathetically obvious grab for sympathy." Just "Jack." Michael VOs, "From the first say of training, you're told not to get emotionally involved in operations. But sometimes it happens and there's nothing you can do." Of course Jack is sweet and friendly, even if he's a crap artist. Michael might not feel this way if Jack were a rambunctious, foul-mouthed, ugly little asshole. But I guess that's the advantage of having a six-year-old with a bad ticker: he's easy to keep up with. Curing Jack might cost a quarter mil, but keeping him exactly this sick would probably run Kenny about 350 Gs. Michael promises Kenny that he'll get the money back, "by any means necessary." The subtitles take their cue: "Kenny -- The client." I see the subtitles still haven't learned that a client is someone you expect to eventually collect money from.
Walking down the street away from Kenny's house (you couldn't give your savior a ride home, Ken? Seriously?), Sam bitches at Michael for taking this project on now, but Michael isn't hearing it. "I'm running on fumes, Sam. This is all I got. I can help this guy." I don't really follow that logic, but Sam lets it drop, just in time for a familiar black sedan to pull into view around the corner. Sam tries to lead Michael off in the other direction, but he's in too contrary a mood today. "I'm not runnin'," he declares, picking up a big stone from someone's garden path. He walks over to meet the car bumper-to-knee, and it comes to a stop in front of him. In slo-mo, Michael walks around and smashes the stone through the driver's window. The driver doesn't react other than to turn his face away from the hail of safety glass. "Hi!" Michael says to him. "You here to bring me in? Let me help." Stepping over to the back door, he acts all impatient at finding it locked. "Gotta unlock the door. It's there on the handle. Push? Push? There you go. Jackass." Michael's going for a ride. And the driver doesn't even seem to care about Sam (who's already walking away), or that fat accordion file he's carrying. I mean, we know it's full of Jack's medical records, but for all Carla's goon knows, it's her entire dossier in there. But I guess he's too busy fumbling with the door lock switches to get too curious.
thing you know, Michael's zip-tied to a chair in a bare downtown office with a black bag over his head, which a henchman pulls off. Michael isn't surprised at the identity of the first person he sees: "Carla! New office. I like it," he chirps to his boss, who in addition to securing a new venue has stopped for a costume change and a new hairstyle since chasing Michael from the marina just that morning. This is turning into a very long day. "What the hell was that today?" she demands. Michael thinks that's a weird question. "Last time I checked, you put my brother in jail, then you chased me halfway across Miami, then you nearly got my head blown off..." So that was a pretty slick move, Michael, just surrendering like that a minute ago to people you thought just tried to kill you. That would have been the last thing they'd expect. "We had nothing to do with that!" Carla snaps. Michael points out that the sniper Carla hired met the same end someone had planned for Michael. "By the way, how'd the assassination go?" Carla only says that an operation was compromised. "Which is why you're holed up in an office with two guys and a bag of Cheetos," Michael observes, and asks why he's there. She gets in his face and says he was told to stay out of their business. He retorts, "Well, clearly you didn't think I would do what I was told, because you went to a lot of trouble to keep me busy!" Carla still wants to know what's going on, and Michael says it's not like he blew himself up. But then he kind of undercuts his point by blowing up at her: "I want my brother out of jail! I want answers! I want my life back!" Carla's only answer? "We'll be in touch. Get him out of here." Okay, good meeting.
Back at the loft, Michael and Fiona examine the healthy chunk that the explosion carved out of the concrete wall adjoining his door. And has Michael been to the hospital to check himself out? Well, if he did, he went to a really crappy one, because his injured left arm is in a sling fashioned from a necktie that suspiciously matches most of his suits. Fi remarks that if he'd opened the door any further, the last episode would have been the series finale (although not in so many words; the dialogue is, sorry to say, pretty flat this episode). Michael asks her to run a chemical trace, like she's moonlighting as a CSI or something. But she agrees, and tries to talk him out of taking on this new gig for Kenny. Michael's still not hearing that: "You wanna call a guy, say, 'I'm sorry about your kid but I got a lot going on right now?'" He snits at her. Well, do your own damn chemical analysis if that's how you're going to be. Michael goes over to Sam, who's at the counter going through a stack of paperwork. Somehow, using the all-powerful "cross-check" method, Sam has traced the scammers to a clinic in Coral Gables. He asks Michael what their move is. "How's your liver feeling?" Michael asks in return. Oh, now that's just cruel. Sam is going to be so disappointed when he finds out this isn't going to involve drinking.
Cut to Sam at the clinic, noisily complaining about his liver pain to the clinic's receptionist. He even waves some cash at her, while we see the clinic's switchboard operator in the background, nosily noticing what's going on. The receptionist declines the bribe, but offers to try and fit Sam in. Gratefully, he takes a seat in the waiting area. "Modern day health care," he sighs, which is about as topical as we're going to get. A couple of chairs over is none other than Fi, who slides over to sit to him and talk to him about an experimental drug. What kind of con is this, anyway? People who know each other pretending to be strangers? Are they just practicing on each other? Well, actually, it's all for the benefit of the switchboard operator, who's taking it all in. From, like fifty feet away, so maybe this clinic could invest in a little white noise or something. Michael VOs, "Medical scammers -- like pimps, drug dealers, or feral dogs -- need to protect their territory. They can't let anyone new operate there or they're asking for problems." As Fi "leads" Sam out to the parking lot to "show" him the "drugs" in her "car" (okay, it's her actual car -- got a little carried away there), the switchboard operator picks up her handset to make a call. Michael's VO explains that a scammer will often have an enforcer to get rid of competition. And it looks like the switchboard operator just called him. We now see him sitting in his car across the street, looking big and bald and angry and every 'roided-up inch what the subtitles identify him as: "Todd -- Enforcer." I can't confirm that he's the same actor who beats the crap out of Jim Carrey in Yes Man, but even if he isn't, he looks enough like him to have points in his favor. He's watching Sam and Fi finish up their fake transaction, and Fi rearranges the pill vials in her open trunk as slowly and obviously as she can, like she's hoping to be spotted from the air. On cue, Todd comes up and tries to scare her off, lifting his shirt to show her the handgun tucked in his waistband. She doesn't scare, obviously, or that would defeat the purpose of this whole exercise. Michael comes up, in character as Fi's accomplice, apologizing and saying they didn't mean to move in on Todd's operation. Why's he being so nice to the dude? He VOs, "As a spy, the best approach is usually to become a target's friend." He introduces himself as Donnie, all friendly-like, then suddenly bashes his knee into Todd's forehead (he makes it look easier than it sounds) and dumps the unconscious thug into Fi's trunk, taking his gun from him in the process. "Some situations, though, call for a different approach," the VO concludes. "Subtle," Fi says to Michael. "I like it." Obviously both of those statements can't be true.
"Empty commercial buildings are useful when you're looking for a place to interrogate someone," Michael VOs as he and Sam haul some crap into just such a building. Michael's got a big trash bin on wheels, and Sam's got a dolly full of stuff that includes a long extension cord. The VO adds, "No one pays much attention to people coming and going and the floors are typically soundproof." Sam explains that the big, empty space used to be some kind of gallery, and that he is of course friends with the building manager. I enjoy more and more Sam's growing number of plot-facilitating friends that he never actually has to produce. Suddenly Michael's trash bin bucks and screams, almost as though there's a very angry bald enforcer trapped in there. "Looks like your pal's waking up," Sam remarks. "Sit tight, we'll be with you in a minute," Michael says to Todd without unlocking the lid. He and Sam get to work hardening the place against escape: bolting rebar on the walls to keep Todd from kicking through the plaster, and screwing shatterproof plastic to the windows. When they're done, and Michael is gone, Sam lets Todd out of the trash bin by tipping it over and letting him crawl out with his hands zip-tied behind his back. Over the shotgun he's holding on Todd, Sam gives him a little smile, as though admiring the adorable struggles of a clumsy newborn kitten. A bald one. On steroids.
At Kenny's house, Michael's new client has Jack asleep in his lap while Michael tells him to set things up in Arizona. Oh, man, I remember when my kid still took naps during the day, and he's only four. Kenny doesn't know how good he's got it. Of course, I'm just assuming that Jack's only asleep and not, you know, in V-tach or something. Kenny has his doubts that Michael can pull this off, but Michael insists Kenny get Jack's application to the treatment center going right away. Show-off. The only problem: where's Kenny going to park Jack while he takes care of business? Michael has an idea. And since we haven't seen Madeline yet this episode, I think I can see where this is going.
Of course, his mom's not happy about it. She thinks Michael should be working on getting his brother Nate out of jail, not doing a job right now. But Michael convinces her to go into her living room where Jack's waiting with Fi. She pretends she wasn't just yelling at Michael about this two seconds ago within the boy's earshot, and offers to find some toys for him to play with. "What kind of toys?" Jack asks excitedly. Oop -- there goes the ticker. Way to go, Madeline. No, not really. She says they can play with Michael's old toys. "Most of them are blown up or taken apart, but I bet we can find a few good ones." She ushers Jack out of the room ahead of her, giving her son a dirty look as she goes. Once they're gone, Fi asks what she's doing there. Always a valid question. Michael says he just wants her to look after them. She complains that she's supposed to meet her boyfriend, Campbell, which is of course never going to win much sympathy from Michael. So she follows in his mom's footsteps, complete with the same dirty look for Michael.
At the empty gallery, Sam now has Todd tied to a chair, and says he and his friends want in on the scam. "What do you want, a job application?" Todd snarks. Sam laughs as though that's hilarious, and pulls out a sharp knife. Approaching Todd while cleaning his fingernails with the weapon's point, he asks Todd to tell him about the business, "starting with your coworkers." Todd isn't talking, though. "That's disappointing," Sam says, standing over Todd with the blade and suddenly getting a lot less friendly. The shot freezes, and Michael VOs, "There's a saying in interrogation: violence perceived is violence achieved." I do like when this show takes the piss from Jack Bauer, even if it does represent a conflict of interest for me. The VO continues, "You don't want someone screaming. You want him asking questions. Asking, 'what is he doing with that knife?'" "That hurts me," Sam tells Todd. "That hurts me like this." And as Sam sinks the blade deep into his own thumb, Michael's VO continues, "Asking, 'if he'll do that to himself, what will he do to me?' Mostly, you want him asking, 'how do I make this stop?'" At this point, Sam is holding his freely bleeding thumb over Todd and letting it drip onto his face. And that's what breaks him. Todd says all he knows is that he's worked with a guy as muscle on a medical scam a couple of times. Leaning in close, Sam orders, "Tell me about this guy." If he feels like mocking Todd for not being able to withstand a few drops of blood, especially after what Sam went through in The Evil Dead, he keeps it to himself for now.
Cut to Sam, locking the door behind him with Todd still inside, sucking and shaking his thumb and already on the phone to Michael about "A guy named Philip. Hangs out at a bar in South Beach called Teasy's." Okay, right there, this guy deserves to go down. After Michael congratulates Sam on his good work, Sam says, "Thanks. I gotta get some Band-Aids." Get some for my sides while you're at it, Sam.
At the loft, Michael finishes a set of crunches with an angry scream. Jeez, if working out makes him this agitated, maybe he should try yoga. "Nearly getting killed shakes you up, no matter how much experience you have," he VOs. "Brushes with death are like snowflakes. Each one is unique and icy cold." Poetic. Unfortunately, it also serves to remind us that despite his vocation, Michael really seldom actually finds himself in mortal danger on this show. Anyway, now that he's finished both his workout and his AP English homework, he calls Kenny and asks him to meet tomorrow. "I need a little help finding someone," he teases.
day, Michael and Kenny sit in the Charger, parked by the curb, watching a busy sidewalk café on the corner. Michael's found time to hammer out the dent in the roof, but the windshield's still cracked and the headliner is still loose, so it's not like the car can heal itself. Which is kind of what I suspected after that time Michael blew it up with a propane tank in Season One and it showed up in mint condition a couple of episodes later. As clearly as he can, Michael tells a very worked-up Kenny to just point the con artist out to Michael if he sees him. Kenny soon spots the guy, and is out of the car sprinting up the street before Michael even knows what's happening. Michael has trouble getting his door open with his hurt arm, but he's out after Kenny as soon as he can manage. Meanwhile, the young bearded guy in the fancy white shirt at an outdoor table sees Kenny coming. Kind of hard to miss, with Kenny running at him full-tilt up the middle of the street screaming, "Hey, you son of a bitch!" The subtitles helpfully confirm that this is "Philip -- Fake Doctor." After a brief foot chase, Kenny catches up to Philip in an alley and commences a crunchy curbstomping. Eventually Michael arrives to pull Kenny off. "You want to kill him, or you want me to solve your problem?" Michael asks his half-nelsoned client. "Don't answer that. Just go back to the car." Kenny goes. Luckily, Philip's too beat down to be making a run for it. Good thing Michael didn't get here sooner.
The we hear from Philip (literally), he's locked in the gallery with Todd, while Sam eavesdrops on their conversation by way of an earpiece attached to the outside of the door. Philip yells at Todd for giving him up. Todd explains about the knife. "You think I'm going to get cut up just to keep your name out of it?" As though a few facial scars wouldn't be an advantage in Todd's chosen profession. Philip asks if Todd told them about the other person in their little ring, and warns him to keep it that way. "We got more to worry about from her than we do from these guys, whoever they are." So Sam gets right on the phone to Michael, telling him that there's a boss. "Sounds like a real hard case," he adds. Michael says he's on his way. "It's time to play 'Who Talks First.'" Sam apparently doesn't like that game, so Michael just hangs up on him. "All righty, then," Sam tells the dead phone.
Shortly thereafter, Sam is whistling as he prepares for this new activity. Todd and Philip are each tied to a chair, each facing his own floor-to-ceiling window that looks out over the palm trees across the street, and the ocean beyond. They're clearly getting nervous as Sam drapes a couple of long blindfolds around his own neck, then loads and cocks an automatic. Michael explains in VO what "Who Talks First" is. It "originally involved taking two blindfolded prisoners up in a helicopter and tossing one out to get the other to talk." Sam puts two bullets through each of the large windowpanes in front of his guests, not even bothering to silence the gun. Harder on their already frayed nerves this way. "When a helicopter's not available," Michael continues, "any tall building will do." Blindfolding each of them, Sam explains the rules: "One of you is going to tell me all about your boss. And the other one is gonna go out the window." There's one rule he's not telling them, which is that each player gets a lifeline, but more on that in a minute. Sam gives them each a chance to talk, giving each of their chairs a sharp, nervous-making forward nudge in turn. Still, neither of them is talking. Finally, Sam does an eeny meeny miney moe, and sends Todd's chair crashing though the window, with Todd still in it. "You don't actually want to kill anyone, of course," Michael VOs as Todd plummets toward the pavement. "The screaming is all you really need." And Todd is certainly providing that part of it. Suddenly a cable that's attached to the gallery floor goes taut, and Todd jerks to a halt, suspended right outside the window below. Michael is waiting inside that window with a strip of duct tape for Todd's mouth. If he's also got a first aid kit for patching up the multiple lacerations Todd should have gotten from flying scalp-first through a plate glass window, bullet-weakened or not, we don't see it. So it's probably just as well that Todd doesn't have a scratch on him. Not knowing any of this, of course, Philip panics and breaks. He screams that the boss's name is Rachel. Sam slides Philip's chair away from the window and takes off the blindfold. When Philip tries to look outside, Sam won't let him. "Todd has left the building," he explains. Philip tells Sam how he met Rachel, like anyone cares, and says that she runs scams at clinics all over town. Sam tells Philip to call her to set up a meeting. "Tell her you met some new talent. Some folks you think she should know." Sam gives him some crazy-eyes just to ensure his cooperation. Which, going by Philip's freaked-out demeanor, already looks pretty ensured.
Michael and Sam sit with Kenny at their usual hangout, Carlito's, because it's time for the mid-episode progress report for the client. Michael explains that he's meeting Rachel later. Sam elaborates that they'll pose as fellow con artists, then use whatever goods they get from Rachel to blackmail Kenny's money back. Suddenly Michael's cell phone rings. It's Carla, telling him that there's a car waiting for him outside. And there it is, a familiar dark sedan. "Apparently I have a meeting," Michael says, putting on his perfectly repaired sunglasses (which apparently can heal themselves) and heading outside. "This happens all the time," Sam explains to Kenny. And outside, Michael acts all impatient about finding the car's back door locked again. But at least he doesn't smash another window this time.
Back in Carla's new office, Michael once again gets the bag taken off his head, signaling the beginning of the meeting. "Drugstores sell blindfolds now," he complains to Carla. She's a great deal more composed than at their last meeting, sitting right in front of and telling him he has a new assignment. "Really?" Michael says. "Because last we spoke, I got the sense I wasn't up for employee of the month. Something change?" Well, yes: Carla has decided she wants Michael to find whomever tried to kill him. You'd think Michael would be all over this, but he suspects ulterior motives, guessing, "If that doesn't work, you're hoping they'll take another shot at me and expose themselves." Carla points out that their goals are kind of aligned here. "Get my brother out of jail," Michael snaps. Carla agrees, saying Nate will be released after his arraignment on Thursday. Well, don't bend over backwards or anything. Michael asks if they're done, and seeing how impatient he is to get going, she mocks him for his day job. "Say hi to all the desperate little people for me, would you?" I don't know, Carla. Judging from this show, it seems like that would be an awful lot of people.
From downtown, we transition to the 'burbs -- namely Madeline's house. Jack's sitting in the living room by himself while Fi sits in the kitchen, watching Madeline make PB&J sandwiches. Which will KILL HIM. That white bread is liable to rupture an aorta. Madeline encourages Fi to spend a little time with Jack, probably so she can be free to go have a smoke or think of new guilt trips for Michael or something. The nanny tip is obviously pretty far outside of Fi's comfort zone, but Madeline tells her to just be herself. Which is about the worst advice anyone could ever give Fi. However, she gingerly delivers the sandwiches to Jack in the living room and drones, "You wanna play army men?" Jack's game for it. They both settle down on the floor with the box of little green figures between them. Fi starts going through them, placing them around the living room according to their weaponry, which she describes for Jack in detail. She's just about to arrange some more tiny tactical support when her cell rings. It's Michael reporting, "I've been officially hired to find the guy that tried to kill me." He wants Fi to meet him, but she puts him off for now. "We're playing army men," she explains before getting back to it. Jack's having so much fun he could just die.
And now we're at a hotel pool with Michael and Fi. As they walk across the deck with her in the lead and Michael following with a bottle of champagne and some flutes, Michael VOs, "For the truly security-conscious, there's no better meeting place than a pool of water. Even if you manage to hide a bug in your swim trunks, chlorinated water conducts electricity well enough to short out any listening device." Plus a pool is a great setting to put your leads in tiny swimsuits and show lots of wet bikini chicks to establish the scene. Michael and Fi approach a woman who's sitting in a hot tub by herself. "Rachel -- Thief," says the subtitle. Fi, going by the name "Kate," and Michael, back in character as her henchman "Donnie," complete with nonspecific East Coast accent, join her in the tub, and they quickly come to an agreement to work together on their respective scams. Todd and Philip were scared of this chick? I've met customer service reps who are more intimidating.
Later, the three of them have dried off and moved to a table, and Fi dismisses Michael to get the check so she can talk to Rachel in private. Why she needs to do this to pull off the con is beyond me, but it's necessary for the plot, so here we go. When the two women are alone, Rachel tells Fi that she mostly rips off older people, but the kids are where the big bucks are. "Their parents will shell out whatever it takes, no matter how hopeless it is." She even laughs, totally failing to read Fi's mood as she prattles on, "When it's over, half the time they thank you, and they're hugging you, crying, and you're thinking, 'you just paid for my house in Keystone Island!'" The camera freezes on Fi's disgusted face, and Michael VOs that sometimes you try to make friends with the bad guys. And Fi decks Rachel. "But sometimes, you just can't pull it off," says Michael's VO. From the pavement, Rachel kicks Fi's legs out from under her. "Who are you?" Rachel demands as both women get to their feet. Michael continues, "Once it's clear that you're not going to be friends, you have to resolve the situation as quickly and as cleanly as possible." But not too quickly; we've got a couple of half-dressed women in a catfight here, after all. Eventually, Fi's attempts to subdue Rachel prove futile, and she gets away. "Sometimes, you can't pull that off either," Michael VOs. Nice work, Fi. One job, you had.
Later, as she and Michael return to his loft, Fi at least has the grace to apologize to Michael, who says it isn't her fault. Yes, it's Madeline's fault, for making her play with Jack and getting her to make friends with the little time bomb. Otherwise Fi would have been able to let Rachel's shot-talking slide right by and they'd have Kenny's money back by now. Way to go, Madeline. Michael sends her back to his mom's house to make sure they're okay, and she asks what he's going to do. "What I have to," he drama-queens as he enters the loft.
Sam is waiting inside, but he's gotten nowhere tracing Rachel's phone, thanks to some technobabble countermeasures she's got in place. Michael looks pretty frustrated for a minute, then heads for the door. "I'm gonna get the money," he vows. Blocking his path, Sam asks how. Michael says from Carla, since she's offered him cash before. Sam points out that he doesn't even know where to find her, but Michael already has that figured out; he'll just buy a plane ticket and she'll find him. So technically, Michael will end up with $250,000 minus the cost of the plane ticket. Let's hope for Jack's sake that Michael decides to pretend to fly to Fort Myers. But Sam is still blocking Michael's exit. "You take Carla's money and she's got her hooks into you," he warns, as though Carla doesn't already control Michael's life. Michael yells that he's out of options, and tells Sam to move. Sam isn't moving. So Michael shoves him, hard. Sam shoves him right back. And Michael removes his sunglasses so he can give Sam a scary glare as they square off. Apparently someone decided this episode was a little short on fisticuffs, so there was no choice but to make a couple of the regulars beat each other up. They exchange a few blows, with Michael getting the better of Sam even with his hurt arm. Of course Sam's chin makes a pretty big target. After a brief round, Sam ends up with his back to the door, spitting out a tooth. "Not bad, Mike," he pants. "You can hit me all you want, but I'm gonna stand here until you get your head back in the game." He appears to mean it, but he's still relieved when Michael backs down and walks away.
After everyone's had the commercial break to calm down a bit, Michael sits with Sam and Fi at another table at Carlito's, having realized they kind of have a clue after all: that house on Keystone Island that Rachel shot her mouth off about, right before Fi stuck her fist in it. But, as Sam points out, that's a good-sized neighborhood, and Michael doesn't think much of their chances of luring Rachel out into her front yard. He thinks for a minute, and asks Fi if her paramedic boyfriend would be willing to lend them his ambulance tomorrow. Sam is thrilled that Michael has an idea. "He hits me in the mouth a couple times and he gets an idea," he says, grinning an intact grin. Fi is less thrilled; Campbell's not going to like being asked. You might remember how bunchy he got the last time. "Please, I'm not asking for me," Michael says. Fi can't say no to that, because where else is she going to find a six-year-old who will sit still long enough to be bored by her munitions expertise?
Now we get a little montage of Michael and Sam working on some electronics in the loft while Michael VOs about the venerable technique of using sound to determine an enemy's position. A cell phone is opened up, and Michael tells us how we can play at home: "Hook up your cell phone to an amplifier and a computer that can analyze sound, and you have a powerful weapon if you know how to use it." Which I don't, but after they're done, Michael looks at the laptop and says, "I think we're good to go." "Oh, I think we are, too," Sam agrees, taking a swig of his beer.
morning, Fi and Campbell are sitting in the open back of his ambulance, presumably somewhere in the Keystone Island neighborhood. Just in case we forgot, the subtitles remind us that the guy in the paramedic uniform is "Campbell -- Fiona's boyfriend." She's busy pecking away at a laptop, but Campbell says they need to talk. By which he means that he needs to dump her. Wise move, Campbell. "You and Mike, I know you have a history," he says. "But he's your boyfriend. Not me." Fi denies it, but Campbell describes himself as "a guy you fool around with and you borrow ambulances from." Well, just the one ambulance, to be fair. But Campbell says that Michael is the most important thing in Fi's life. And when her cell phone rings, it just proves his point. "I know you're always going to answer when he calls," Campbell says, somehow not sounding like a whiny bitch. And for that, he gets a brand-new subtitle: "Campbell -- Fiona's ex-boyfriend." He goes up to the front of the ambulance, leaving Fi to answer her phone. "It's time, Fi. Let's go," Michael says, unaware that he's just ended Fi's relationship for her.
Michael VOs a comparison between an operation and poker. "Ideally, you've got good cards and you play them well. When your cards are bad, though, you have to know how to bluff." Michael's back in the gallery now, and his cards consist mostly of Todd and Phillip, still tied up, sitting on the floor back-to-back while Sam stands over them with his shotgun. Kind of a shame that we never saw the emotional moment when Philip learned that Todd was still alive. I bet there were tears. Michael dials his Bluetooth and gets Rachel on the line. Speaking as "Donnie," he says his boss wanted him to make her a new offer: "You settle with us for 250 grand and you clear out of Miami." Rachel isn't intimidated. By now, she can hear the ambulance's siren, and Michael can hear it over the phone line. Oh, and the splitscreens are going crazy, so we can see that Campbell and Fi are trolling the neighborhood with the siren on. Michael tells Rachel that he called the ambulance for her guys, who are right there with him. "You wanna say goodbye to Rach?" he asks them. Sam cues the guys, they start screaming, and Michael fires his gun into the floor a couple of times, which is their cue to fall silent. They sure got cooperative. "Ooh, I don't think that ambulance is gonna get here in time," Michael says, and advises Rachel to take the offer, "Or you're ." As the ambulance outside Rachel's house gets its loudest, she still refuses, although she at least appears to be taking Michael seriously now. Michael tells her they're coming for her.
"Fi, tell me you got that," he says after switching over to the other line. While Michael offers a fairly unnecessary voice-over explanation of what they just did, Fi uses her laptop to play back a video of the ambulance ride, synchronized with a recording of the ambulance siren during the call. The part of the call when the siren sounded the loudest over the phone was obviously the part when they were driving past Rachel's house. "Got it, Michael," Fi grins. Good thing Rachel's neighborhood consists of only one street. Michael takes his leave of Sam, thanking him as he goes. "You'd do the same for me, buddy," Sam says. Except that in that case, Sam probably wouldn't still be standing at the end of it. Outside her house, Rachel throws a duffel into the front seat of her car and jumps in after it. But before she can turn the ignition key, Michael's outside her window. "Hi, there! Look who's back!" he saves. It's Fi, with a shotgun, which she fires into Rachel's hood a couple of times. So clearly Rachel is not going anywhere.In fact, the thing we know, she's tied to a chair in her own house, suddenly ready and willing to come off that quarter million. "Ma'am, that offer expired," Michael says in his "Donnie" accent as Fi reloads. "She's all excited about shootin' you now." Rachel wants to negotiate, but Michael says, "Unless somebody's dead or in jail, she gets itchy." Why in jail? People in jail can talk, right? Rather than mentioning that, Rachel jumps at the second option, offering a half-million in cash to sweeten the deal. "Don't look at me, she's the boss," Michael tells Rachel. Fi "acts" like she still wants to blow Rachel away, but lets Michael talk her out of it. After some more dickering, Michael dials the phone while Fi retrieves the garbage bag loaded with cash from where Rachel says it's hidden. While they're on hold with the cops, Michael warns Rachel to make the confession convincing. "Because the day you get out of jail --" And then completes the sentence by putting five bullets in the wall right behind Rachel. And a sixth for good measure. So the day she gets out, Rachel is going to have some spackling to do.
That night, Michael presents a duffel full of cash to Kenny in a busy restaurant, as you do. "It's a little more than you need for the treatment," he says modestly. "Take the rest, start a college fund." And by all means, don't even try to pay Michael. He hates that. Of course, Kenny doesn't. I could speculate as to whether Michael held onto even a half-percent commission just to cover his expenses, but I think we all know what the answer is. Kenny asks what became of Rachel, and Michael wraps it all up; she confessed, and Todd and Philip were found tied up behind a police station, Batman-style. Michael's about to take off, but Kenny wants him to thank Fi, too, since Jack was quite taken with her. Wow, his heart problem is more serious than I suspected. Kenny even hands Michael a picture Jack drew of a man and woman holding hands outside a house. "You and her together," Kenny anvils. Give your kid a little credit, Kenny; I think Michael could have figured out on his own who the picture was supposed to be. The stick figure representing Michael is clearly identifiable by its black spiky hair and sunglasses, while the stick figure representing Fi is equally identifiable by virtue of being a stick figure. "Tell him thanks," Michael says, instead of snaking a brick of cash out of the duffel just for Jack's presumptuousness. He leaves Kenny sitting at the table, smiling down at the duffel bag. Let's hope he does a better job of holding onto his money this time.
For the third time in a row, we come back from commercials to find Michael at a table at Carlito's, this time with just Fi. She's despondent over being dumped. "You'll find another boyfriend," Michael says unhelpfully, but Fi misses the one she had. "He was sweet, and cute, and he had other impressive qualities." Like being the kind of guy who would dump his girlfriend for trying to help retrieve the money needed to save the life of a sick child? That's rare, all right. Michael makes a TMI-face and offers an apology. "I want you to be happy," he tells Fi, sincerely enough. She seems to buy it, and pulls out a chemical report on the bomb at his loft. Oh yeah, that. The shaped charge indicates a professional job, but the bomber wouldn't have been able to go out the front door after setting it. Well, duh. But now that she's spelling it out for him, Michael realizes that the perp would have had to go over his back balcony, and thence to the river, in which case Michael can just check security cameras at businesses along the water. Oh, is that all. Fi asks if he's really up for this. "Worth a try," he says. "The enemy of my enemy could be my friend." Michael then gives Fi the picture from Jack, and pecks her on the cheek as he leaves. He's already walking away when she unfolds the little portrait. She smiles at it instead of calling after Michael, "Are my hips really that wide?"
When Michael gets home, there's a familiar face waiting for him at the kitchen counter: Carla's. Oh and the rest of her, too. Otherwise that would be gross. I helped myself to a yogurt," she says around one of his spoons. "I hope you don't mind." Michael casually claims, "I poison all my yogurts, just in case you came by." "Even you aren't that good," Carla breezes. As Michael comes and leans on the counter across from her, he says, "Part of you, a little part of you, is wondering if I am." Carla drops the spoon, her appetite spoiled. Advantage: Westen. Carla asks how the search for his killer is gong. "Checked the blast. Crude IED. Amateur hour," Michael smoothly lies for some reason as he picks up on the yogurt where Carla left off. She smiles at him. He smiles back. She says, "We recruited you because you're a good liar. Guess we can't complain too much when you lie to us." But she comes around the counter and gets in his face, warning all scary-sexy-like that they expect results. As she heads for the door, Michael remarks that it's not like her to do her own errands. "Exceptional times call for exceptional measures," she answers. I hope that was a clue, because as an exit line, it was pretty weak. Tricia Helfer must be so bummed that Battlestar Galactica is almost over. Where's the fun, clever show I recapped last summer, anyway?
Michael doesn't even wait until Carla's out his door before he exits to his rear balcony. As he stares intensely out at the river, he VOs, "When you've spent enough time as an operative, recovering from a brush with death isn't about an appointment with a psychiatrist or a week in Hawaii. It's about having a purpose. Whether it's something to fight, or something to hunt." So does this mean that he's done trying to resolve his burn notice, then? And if so, might a title change be in order? Be sure to tune in for week's episode of Door Bomb.
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.
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