Burn Notice Lesser Evil

[Season Finale] Inside her stretch limo, Carla offered Michael Westen a chocolate covered pomegranate seed as a "taste of your former life" in the "good old days" as a “carefree spy in the deserts of Afghanistan” before the burn notice went out on him. In an approach that she’d not used on Michael Before, she became kind of “chummy” and disclosed that she also had once been a spy who had been burned; but found that she liked the new life and he would too, eventually. When he asked "what if I want my old life back" she said “they’re worse things than being burned.” She showed increasing anxiety over his resistance stating that: “Management is not happy and will be in town shortly to make sure everything is resolved." Avoiding any tails, M drove back to the isolated factory where they were holding Victor for interrogation. Fiona was guarding him with bean-bag rounds in her gun; but said she hadn’t opened the door, so M was weary of entering. Victor had cut through his cable-ties and put up a fight which Fiona quelled with a shot to his chest. Back in the chair, M eventually convinced him that he had "nothing left to loose and the possibility of everything to gain"; so, Victor revealed that he had been burned in Mexico at the same time his wife and son had been killed. Later, he found out that it had been Carla who had killed his family "as part of my recruitment," so he began to gut the entire organization. He told M that he had a booby-trapped boat at Randall Key where a suitcase held the only proof he had. While M and Fiona went to check the boat, M told Sam to give Victor some air and see what else he had to say. M and Fiona found a magnificent booby-trap on the boat and a suitcase full of newspaper articles and photographs. Fiona commented on Victors instability and M told her that people don’t get that way on their own.

 

Back at the holding place, Sam and Victor sparred for a while because they both had read the same military interrogation handbooks. Eventually Victor described what he knew about the “organization.” They run black ops, could be multi-national, could be work for hire, they break jobs in pieces so no one gets the big picture and are in cities all over. "Although," he said, "They may need to pull out of Miami for a while." If M doesn’t give him to Carla she will cut her losses – beginning with Ms family. When M got back and found this out, he dispatched Sam to "take Madeline on a day-trip to Orlando" and Fiona to keep her appointment with a gun dealer. Surprise, surprise, Madeline acted all stubborn and refuses to leave! Victor pointed out to M that they’ve been incognito long enough that Carla will be tracking them down so, to his amazement, M cut Victor's bonds. “You mean,” he asked, “I get to be one of the desperate people to whom you lend your razor-sharp mind and fists of fury?” Just then Carla’s goons began closing in and Victor drove while M shot bullets and made fire-bombs to toss out windows. While looking for a parking lot and car they could steal, Carla called Ms cell phone and said that “actions have consequences.” M told her that he was thinking the same thing about her. Victor asked: "did she just give her 'actions have consequences speech?"

 

Back at Idiot-Madeline’s tantrum Sam finally got angry, which seemed to “enlightened” her; but it was too late. Men were already closing in outside. After shooting through her door to keep them back, Sam had to booby-trap her door with flash bombs made from shotgun shells and Christmas lights. After the explosion, they escaped out the back door and through the fence to “borrow” Mrs. Reynolds car.  M called Fiona on the only phone he had, which he knew was being monitored, and asked her to "do something similar to the drive past the factory where we first met” at the “spot where we picnicked last month.” That was also the clue for both of them to ditch their phones. Victor revealed that he had found out that Carla had been “using her ops teams for personal errands: making extra cash, payback, that kind of thing.” He had a file at a safe-house in town which they decided to go get and use to blackmail their way to safety. They escaped the parking lot by using one car as decoy and another to crash the barricade. Then, they drove past Fiona and she blew up cars along the route which crashed into their tails. They found that Carla’s guys were already at Victor’s safe house, so they had to use subterfuge to get Victor's file which he had hidden in an electrical box on a telephone pole. Victor was all for killing all the tails but M pointed out the tails could be completely innocent. Victor demanded that “no one’s completely innocent” and M shot back “is that what you told yourself when you tried to kill me?”

 

Back at Madeline's the explosion distracted the goons long enough for them to escape in a vintage Buick; but, she made Sam pull over, let her out and promise to go back and protect her son. Seeing Victor's file, M said he could see why Carla wouldn’t want it to be made public, it showed that “she would send a black ops team to deal with a parking ticket.” Victor told him that the higher-ups in the organization pretty much were hands-off with only two rules: "don’t screw up and don’t get caught." They decided to make a run for Cuba in Victor’s boat, then use the codes and personal phone numbers he had for Carla’s boss to tell him about her. M made Fiona promise to go protect his family. Back at the boat M was surprised that after all this time Victor had never found out who burned him. He said he didn’t care – “ just a name in a file, behind another name in another file. You know how these things start. Someone runs an operation off the books. It’s supposed to be a one-time thing but when it’s over there’s power to be had. It takes on a life of its own. It’s the organization, not some guy.” M asked: “Why me?” Victor explained: “It was no secret that you were good at your job.  The machine wanted you, so it took you. Now we’re both part of it.”  At the rally-point, Fiona and Sam tried to figure out which promise to keep, Ms to go protect Madeline or Madeline's to go protect M – no brainer! While Victor was casting off the line to the dock he was mortally shot in the chest by Carla’s sniper. She called on Ms cell phone, with the whir of “management’s” helicopter rotor’s in the background. She told him that boat was wired with C-4 and a remote detonator. M must deliver Victor and be part of her explanation to Management or she would blow them both up.  As M delayed she became more urgent and almost frantic. Before she could press the button, Fiona took her down with a rifle shot to the chest.

 

Sam and Fiona barely escaped through the trees from all of Management's “backup” as the helicopter landed. Barely able to talk, Victor reasoned with M that he should spin the story that he was “not the traitor who helped me”; but “the ace operative who shot me.” He knew what the organization would do to him if they had control of him so put the gun to his chest himself and begged M to pull the trigger. “It was great playing with you sport, no you get out while you can.” With great mental anguish… M complied. M came out of the boat with his hands up, and the file which he refused to give to anyone but Management -- a deceptively kind looking old gentleman who described himself as "not nice." Flying above the coast he reviewed the folder and said “two rogue operatives in one day?” M told him that he had some “staff issues” to which he agreed, then asked M what he should do about their “new recruit.” MW, he said, was “wonderfully effective, terrifically resourceful, the best I’ve ever seen, but doesn’t seem happy.” M said he wanted them out of his life. Management countered that instead of being under their thumb he had been under their protection and gave M the choice of jumping out the door above the ocean or filling the vacancy in the organization that he had created. To his absolute amazement, M jumped out the door and fell feet first into the ocean, leaving his signature glasses in the helicopter. Management flew away northward and M removed his suit coat to began the long swim toward shore.