Burn Notice Eyes Open

News anchors finally reported: “… the C.E.O. of a major telecommunications company stood at the center of some sort of cabal – a conspiracy to profit from war, civil unrest, terror abroad and the United States Intelligence community knew nothing about it.” Michael Westen was still unconscious after three days in the hospital, but in the penthouse of all hospital rooms! True to character, self-centered Fiona kicked the bed telling him to wake up… Now! He did. He’d had surgery, received blood, had a fractured clavicle and was lucky to be alive. Someone had taken the case with the Bible in it. M told Fiona that Barrett had a noc list which he couldn’t decode of cover IDs of all the people who burned him and the Bible was the code - they had to get it back. Jesse came to the hospital and told M that he had been trying to save his life; "shooting through you to do it was just a perk!"  Madeline insisted M would be coming to her house when he got out. A "code orange" was called in the hospital and, of course, with his IV and all he and Sam went to the ER where bombing victims were coming in. It seemed too much of a coincidence after Attorney Adam Scott had threatened retribution on Dale Lawson for kidnapping his daughter. M tore out his IVs and declared that he was better. Alicia Rensin told them that her brother Walt, now deaf from the blast, was in the restaurant with his boss – slime bag Dale Lawson – when the bomb went off,  obliterating Lawson and another young couple. M and Fiona went to threaten Adam Scott that they were on to him and demand that he call off any other hits he had planned. Fiona had to pull her gun. As they left M told him “go enjoy the time with your daughter… prison visits are hard on kids.” And to cap it all off Vaughn was sitting on the porch waiting for them! He told M that he never had to see him again if he didn’t want to, Fiona replied that the “next time he came unannounced nobody would ever see him again.” He told M that “someone new would be in touch when the dust settles.”

 

Sam discovered that all of Barrett’s guys were accounted for except Mark Sweeny, a former merc who worked security for Drake’s Miami office – a crime of opportunity. The cops only had one possibility for the South Beach Bomber: Dennis Barfield, a trust fund psycho who never worked a day in his life. He’d already blown up a drug den in Overtown and was crazy with: clinical narcissism, paranoia, delusions of grandeur and was able to resist questioning multiple times with his “manifesto” type rhetoric. Most unusually, M said he was going to turn information on Barfield over to the police and when questioned by Sam he said that it was "because I've never had to walk around with a hole in my clavicle before." He did find bomb making paraphernalia in Barfield's window but was caught by Barfield before he could get away. M came up with a cover ID on the fly – Gordon Lutz: “your biggest fan.” Barfield bought it and let him go saying “watch the papers… there’s more coming.” Fiona found Sweeney’s car in a police impound lot so she and Jesse did their “couple” thing again to retrieve info that Sweeny had gone to a university, probably to find someone who could decode the list. M went back to distract Barfield by offering him some Mercury Fulminate while Sam searched his apartment and found a bomb making list all marked “delivered.” Barfield told M that he had received a “tip” about where Lawson would be and that his radio detonator had gone off too soon. M went back to Scott very angry and got him to admit that that Walt Rensin was next. Then he claimed that he’d get immunity. M retorted “not from me you won’t!” M and Sam went to Rensin’s home and, while figuring out how to get past the guards, got a call from Adam Scott’s phone. It actually turned out to be Barfield calling from Scott's home where he had just killed him and the bodyguard after getting angry over Scott calling to call off the hits.  Barfield didn't recognize Ms voice and told him that Scott had said he was the reason for needing to call off the hits. "Neither he, you or Glenanne don’t get to call it off," Barfield said,  "and guess who’s next.”

 

Fiona and Jesse went, disguised as "Artest" and "Shannon Brown," to check with people at the university and noticed one student leave very quickly. Detective “Artest” chased him down and caught him. He said he couldn’t go to jail “because I’m very thin” and readily named the guy who he had sent Sweeney to see, Justin Walsh, an algorithmic engineer at SXG a defense contractor.  M urgently called Fiona and asked her to get Madeline so they could use laptops to triangulate the radio signal when Barfield blew up the bomb they had found at Rensin's home in a newly delivered TV. They had duct taped it and put it into the swimming pool. Without asking, she told M that "Jesse will do it" but he then refused. She had to guilt him into helping against his will. When it blew, Fiona saw on her computer display that Barfield was right outside her new house coming for her and reluctantly went out the window when M told her to "get out." They all went back to Barfield’s house and Jesse caustically told Sam he didn’t “want to have a reunion.” M went inside pretending again to be Gordon, “your last friend,” as the police surrounded the house. Sam told the police not to use their radios because of a bomb. Barfield armed the bomb he was holding and said he was waiting for cops to come in so he could take them all out. M convinced him that, because he could leave as an innocent bystander, if Barfield told him the names of the remaining bombs he would go around and set them all off. Barfield had M memorize the names and addresses.

 

Despite his obvious wounds the police slammed M down on the ground when he came out the door. Then, ostensibly not wanting the police to be hurt by the bomb, and while Sam was asking Fiona how she wanted to play it, on his own Jesse deliberately triggered Barfield’s bomb to kill him, then rationalized that “sometimes you’ve got to put the rabid dog down” as he walked away.  Alone at Madeline’s she got to have one of her sought-for heart-to-heart talks with M and asked him why he did what he did. He said: "I may not be any different from anyone else who pulls the trigger – I wished I knew, but I don’t."  She merely said “whatever.” Which seem to offend M with its terseness. She then explained: “Maybe you’ve got some repressed crap… you know… rage about how it was for you when you were a kid or the things you’ve seen or… maybe this is just how you fit into the world. Whatever.” He smiled and said “thanks.” “What I’m saying,” she continued, “in the end it doesn’t matter… you’re one of the good guys Michael.” She had bought him a present – sunglasses just like the ones he had lost in the wreck. “It’s called ‘shopping’ – we all have our strengths,” she said. M went with Jesse, who acted condescendingly annoyed that he had to even be with M, to the crypto guy – Justin Walsh who was said to have had security clearance for over a decade. Peering through the window they saw Sweeny on the floor dead, no Bible, no noc list – Walsh had killed Sweeney when he saw what had been brought to him. They only got Walsh’s email address from his computer.