Burn Notice Summaries

Michael Westen slogged, exhausted onto the beach in his arm-less “T” shirt and suit pants, after swimming 5 miles to shore. The voiceover talked about it being “just part of the job.” Exhausted though he was, he immediately noticed a cop that seemed “too interested” in him and ran into a hotel followed on his heels by the cop calling for backup. He tapped into the phones in a utility room and called from Fiona who said that the police radio had a call about a mystery man who washed up on the beach and that he was now being chased into the McAlpin Hotel. She said that "however the bubble-heads figured this one out, they have you armed and dangerous” and it didn't seem like there was any evidence that the organization was leaving him alone, like they had promised to do, yet! Fiona advised that he should give himself up now or get ready for a city-wide manhunt. He walked out the front door bare-footed into a cordoned off circle of pistol-drawn lame-brains pretending to be cops. Voiceover said “sometimes it’s easier to dodge questions than bullets.” Sam came to see him in his orange jump-suit and claimed that he was still burned but now whoever had been keeping him off police and foreign watch-lists had stopped. He hadn’t been charged with anything but his “memory loss” and lack of any ID information kept the police stalling and Madeline was pissed about the blowing up of her "sun room." Ms sunglasses had been delivered to the loft along with a “missing you” card signed “let us know when you’ve had enough.” Sam told him to resign himself to hanging around in jail, which he did, until unexpectedly released.

 

As a favor when he heard of Ms arrest, an acquaintance from his past in Lebanon and Bosnia, Harlan, claimed that one of his “security clients” was a lawyer who accused the police of holding him as a “political prisoner." Of course when M got back home he found Fiona was ragging on Sam that “if you blow something up correctly you have nothing left to fix.” Also, Sam sprung the fact that they had a whole new set of problems now with everybody and their uncle knowing where they were; and, that he had already committed to help Harlan with a “girl down south.” Harlan brought a girl, Marta, who claimed that Rufino Cortez was bribing Venezuelan officials to steal land and had put her father in jail. They needed to grab him “off the books.” Obviously M didn’t trust Harlan’s “coincidence” but had no choice but to participate. Harlan had already scouted and come up with a plan to capture Cortez in his private room at a bar -- along with his “main man” Falcone. However, his bumbling got them into the back room without the code for the alarm and needing to escape – just like old times! Harlan told him that: "no matter what I’ve got your back.” Sam was sent to meet with Barry about making M look like a person Rufino would want to talk to.  He agreed only if they would have Rufino out of Miami before tax season. M realized that Madeline’s damaged sunroom had been originally built by his dad using “found” lumber, including wiring which had been torn out of their neighbor’s house. Sam was now dating MISS Reynolds (39 year-old daughter of Madeline’s neighbor) and been given permission to hang onto the vintage Buick.

 

M became Tom Wellington, Esq – a timid, ill lawyer for a shady international investment group who allowed himself to be bullied by Falcone to the point of dislocating his arm. He arranged another meeting at the train yard in Kendall the next morning for which Sam planned a distraction and grab. Fiona chose while they were arranging explosives to rag on Sam about why M just didn’t give up the quest for his old job back and kept at it until Sam had to tell her: “the fact that you have to ask means you’re never going to get it!” Unfortunately, Falcone came alone and again tried to bully M into doing the deal with him. M held out through being arm-twisted and shot at; but finally got a rolling meeting in a car with Rufino.  The next meeting was set for the train-tracks on 10th street and would be on the move which required Fiona and Harlan to steal a garbage truck. Fiona asked Harlan to pressure M into giving up the spy trade and he agreed. Sam said that Harlan had arranged for some Venezuelan commando’s to come for Rufino and were “really anxious.” M planted a knife into his father’s leather briefcase, that he had borrowed, which allowed Madeline her usual rant about how M was “corrupting” and “getting the dim-wit Harlan into danger.” M had set his proposed deal too big for the paper background that he had made up and Rufino said that he was too suspicious of dealing with “ghosts” at that level of involvement. M had to convince him that he was working for people where it was either “do the deal or die” so he agreed to listen a little longer. Fiona crashed into the car, Harlan shot out their engine, Sam “snipered” the whole deal and M used his knife to grab Rufino leaving Falcone to worry about dealing with his failure.

 

On the docks M and Harlan waited for the commandoes coming at dawn. Unfortunately, Harlan revealed his true self and killed Rufino saying that the commandoes were actually coming for M - a person who had denied them their justice. In their discussion, Harlan tattled about Fiona’s secret request. M used his hidden knife to cut free and escape then finally capture Harlan. He turned the tables and gave Harlan to the commandoes as a person who was working for Refino’s partners to make sure he was dead before the trial. Again the brain-dead Madeline tried to lie about not liking Harlan from the beginning then when called on it by M – changed the subject to “you three need to stick together.” [It really seems as though the writers are deliberately trying to kill off Madeline’s character with her unbelievable bafoonery.] Marta told them that people were going to get their land back and her father was going to be released from jail. Sam worried that it was going to be hard for him to protect M against everyone. M said he didn’t need a bodyguard, he needed an agency. He needed to get his “real” job back and figure out a way.

Fiona had “Bud,” a bail-jumper, in Michael Westen’s loft when he returned from a jog, hoping that they could take him in together and entice M into working with her instead of trying to “get back in” to spy-hood. They were met on the stairs by a woman with a badge who introduced herself as Detective Paxton and called Fiona by her full name as she asked if she had a bail-enforcers license. When Fiona didn’t, she said this was a warning for harboring a fugitive and took Bud away.  Paxton wanted to talk about an “incident” where three cars were totaled and three more were blown up – saying that there had sure been a lot of explosions since he moved to town. She yanked him in for “questioning” to harass him, which was apparently her style of handling cases, and smirked “welcome to your worst nightmare.” He spent 24 hrs. in the drunk tank. One of Fiona’s old bail-jumpers, Stevie who was doing time on forgery, referred his sister, Patricia, to obtain her son back from his divorced father. She wanted someone to knock some sense into Howard and M said they weren’t the ones to do it but Fiona said: “not a problem.” Sam came to tell M that his new girlfriend, Miss Reynolds, had rebuilt the entire engine and that his new detective lady was a “stalker with a badge” who had checked storage facilities on the entire Florida peninsula and found some video surveillance of him going into a storage unit by Homestead. M said he had some C-4 and detonators which needed to move before she got a warrant.

 

Fiona drug M along to go harass the father, as Sam wanted to have lunch for giving him the heads up, and his mother called at the last minute expecting him to plan a birthday party for himself. M did catch Howard, the father, who said that Brandon had been kidnapped and he didn’t want to tell his wife because she would call the police and get him killed. An unknown man had called and wanted information about diamond shipments at the place Howard worked. M told Howard to demand a face-to-face as well as proof that Brandon was unhurt. He did, then Santora, the kidnapper, beat him up to see if he was being watched by any cops. Santora told Howard that he wanted his stones within 24 hours and Sam followed him but he didn’t go back anywhere near the boy. M asked Sam to set up some “reverse interrogation,’ where you send in one of your own guys to be interrogated by the bad guys to see what questions they ask and thereby determine what they are worried about. Then when M and Fiona went to empty his storage shed Paxton showed up in a surprise sting but M just told her that he had come to give her receipts which would prove where he had breakfast. Sam stopped Santora in a fake cop car playing Detective Finley and told him that he had an informant, Shep, who had let slip that Santora was doing something related to a kid. For $2k, Sam said, he would let Santora question him first before he took him in to the station. Madeline flew off the handle when Fiona told her that M couldn’t make it to the party and ranted about how HE never made any effort! Santora took the bait and Sam then beat M up while Santora asked questions and they tap danced around answers finding first the name of a café that Santora used. Eventually M made up the fact that the guy he was working with was known at the café and people called him "Flowers." Santora called an accomplice named Jimmy to go check the Seaside Diner looking for a man named “Flowers.”

 

Sam went outside to call Fiona to go stake out the place and while he was gone Santora began cutting on M. Sam heard the screams and pulled his gun to back Santora down. Meanwhile Patricia and Howard all of a sudden became best buds again. They finally got Santora to reveal that Brandon was in a shed behind the house. Fiona got a photo of Jimmy who went to check the diner and sent it to Sam. Then she tailed the guy back to Hibiscus Island but couldn’t go all the way to the house. As Santora was going to call his guys to have Brandon killed, Sam suggested that it may be one of Santora’s own team. Then he pantomimed a description behind Santora's back for M to "confess" to meeting. Santora told M that the guy he just described was Jimmy and that shep had to die. Sam’s counter-plan was to trade guns with Santora then let him kill M out by the road to make it easier for him to explain down at the station. When Santora walked him out to the road, M flailed at him like a banshee until he was out cold then took his car and Sam’s gun. Going to retrieve his gun, Sam got the address they were heading to from Santora and phoned the island’s “security guard” with it. M called Fiona and together they rescued Brandon before Sam got there. Santora and both of his guys were arguing and pointing guns at each other, so Sam watching from outside merely shot his gun into the ground to set them off firing at each other. M told Howard and Patricia that they should make a fresh start in another town and Fiona couldn’t resist slipping into her manipulation about getting M to make a fresh start. He said he’d settle for staying out of jail and took her to the storage unit. M slipped his truck right past Paxton’s stake out to the back side of the unit where he used a water saw to cut a hole and remove all his contraband. Paxton showed up to taunt M saying it wasn’t over. At Madeline’s party they could barely swallow her “hand-baked” cake. Sam gave M a "5-pack" of imported beer then Madeline stewarded him out so Fiona could get M alone. She gave him a sheathed bayonet which had been used during the first world war for close range fighting.  M said: “thanks?” Then Fiona repeated what Madeline had told her – “loving mike is always like trench warfare.”  So, whispering in his ear “I thought YOU should arm yourself.”

While eating his “Brenner’s” yogurt, someone saying they were the police pounded on the loft door. Michael Westen hid his gun and got his alibi folder for Paxson only to find that it was his brother Nate introducing him to Paxson who had rousted him out of bed at 4am. Paxson threatened she would go through all his relatives and friends then Nate claimed she had accused him of “fleeing to Vegas” to avoid unpaid parking tickets. He wanted a ride to his meeting with an “investor,” Simon Davis, for his limo company. Sam came up with having Barry create a financial relation between M and someone in the Mayor’s office in order to “sting” Paxson when she rampaged through his relationships. Unfortunately, Brennen showed up and claimed to be Ms “new boss.” He sent AK47s to the rivals of the cartel who was after him which now had made them too occupied to case after him. He also brought an enforcer from Sicily named “the butcher” who would hold Nate hostage while M did some “chores.” Barry was at Madeline’s house to “do his magic” with the phony paper trail and while Fiona went out with a portable skimmer to get the mayor’s aide’s credit card info Sam had him help fix up the house. Brennen gave M some coveralls and instructions to go get a hardware key from a desk drawer in a building. In the building he scrounged to make a directional antenna for Brennen’s Bluetooth phone then sent his phone information to Sam. He asked Sam to glean through it for everything because “Brennen has the Westen brothers fitted for body bags.” He got the key but had to break a window, fake he was drunk, cut himself and talk himself out of trouble, pretending to be John Dixon the window washer when the guards came.

 

Next, Brennen gave M a voice recorder and told him to go get a recording of the “gun-hobbyist” man in that house, Jonathan Carver, saying his full name and every number 0 through 9. M borrowed his tire iron, broke into a car then ran it into Carvers car which gave him credence to get into the house and talk numbers. He called Sam again saying he had stolen a hardware key with an agency routing code from Jonathan Carver. Barry got Brennen's financial info and found he had been transferring money regularly overseas and the name of Onyx International. Fiona got the Mayor’s Aide’s info as well, then went to meet Sam at Brennen’s address. M had to pick a fight with Carver in order to get him to say all the numbers; but he did it, midst a barrage of gunfire as they sped away. They next went to JLA Industries, a weapons manufacturer, and M was told to go fetch a box in R&D lab 422. He backed down Brennen saying he wouldn’t go unless he knew what it was and where it was going. Brennen called Nate and told Butcher to hold the line while they decided if Nate lived through the phone call. M said he loved his brother but there was only one thing that would get him in the building – while voiceover said that the problem with blackmail was it was like a gun with only one bullet which couldn’t be wasted on every little problem. Brennen backed down and revealed that it was a biometric lock for advanced infantry weapons and the only difference stealing it would make would be how much money he made while people went on with their wars. M agreed only if Nate was released unharmed and he would never see him again.

 

M took the tire iron again and broke into the parking garage where he sounded car alarms and conned both guards into coming to investigate then capturing them. Sam and Fiona found that Nate and the Butcher had just left when they got to Brennen’s house – M told them on the phone to never mind because Brennen had brought Nate to him. Brennen said it was to prevent stupid decisions and then shot Nate in the arm with a frangible round. Brennen sent M back in with the key and voice code, which he had prepared while M was dealing with the guards, along with the address of where he should bring the key when he got it. M talked with Sam while getting the box and discussed that Brennen had set up a holding company, “Belle Anna” to only transfer 40k a year, which seemed like a lot of effort for a small amount of money. He put together that Brennen had a tie clip gift and didn’t want to talk about his family, so there may be a daughter “Annabelle” receiving the money. They then set up a counter-blackmail by convincing Tyler Brennen that M knew all about him, and was now in control, by: sending a phone-photo of them blowing up his house, having Barry intercept a call and saying that his accounts had been drained, and claiming that they had sent someone to get Annabelle in Switzerland. Brennen called Switzerland to check, then told M that “this isn’t you”; but M replied that they were now “playing by your rules.” Brennen nearly exploded with rage and threats now that the shoe was on the other foot. Departing, he threatened that “you’ll hear from me again” to which M said: “yea, you owe me a Christmas card.”

 

Nate told Madeline that he was attacked by a mugger in order to explain the full arm bandage. M apologized to Nate that he knew it was sometimes hard being his brother. Nate said he was getting used to it. Madeline found it coincidental that Barry, Fiona and Sam were all very busy at the same time Nate was being mugged; then, told M that she’d rather that he didn’t lie right to her face. She found a new buddy in Barry who was bringing over some new hair gel. M told Fiona that he was thinking that he screwed up Nate’s life "better than he does himself." Paxson came storming into the loft and revealed that her partner had been suspended for grilling a mayor’s aide for 3 hours about a bank error account with a Michael Westen. She warned him that she could “give as good a I get” – which didn’t seem to be very well from the way she flounced out of the loft.

Fiona dragged Michael Westen along on another one of her “muscle” jobs, retrieving some money from guy named Randall for a client, only to fail and get M in trouble with Paxson who was dogging him. Paxson set a 24-hour tail on M to make his “extracurricular activities more dangerous for you and your friends.”  So, he asked, “I either answer your questions or you get us killed?” Sam joined M and Fiona's evening date to tell them that he was being audited by the IRS and that Paxson was "too clean to blackmail." He said that they would need to come up with something else to get rid of her. So, to turn the tables, M followed Paxson to where she was on a stakeout on another case, of course bringing his police tail with him. It pissed her off and she told him that she was dealing with a murderer so he of all people should know better. He told her that they were "on the same side" and she said to “prove it.” So, M agreed saying: "maybe you do need some proof" and left. Later, as he ran through his mother, Madeline's, house to lose his tail, she told him to bring her back some eggs - and cigaretts. M had bought a new car for $300 telling Sam that it was statistically the most common car in Miami, which should make it more difficult to tail. They tailed Paxson to a funeral and Sam had information that a crook named Rick Matheson had filed a harassment complaint against Paxson the month previously because she had taken some swings at him and missed. Matheson was a “pro” crook at ripping off drug dealers, leaving bodies all across the state. Sam said that the funeral they were staking out was for a neighbor at one of Matheson's heists, who got caught in the crossfire. Matheson, Sam said, doesn’t even have to hide any more.

 

M decided that Paxson needed help with her case; so, she became Ms client whether she knew it or not. Sam thought his tax audit with “Stacey Connolly” would be a snap for him; but instead, it turned out to be with a “little man with a girly name" who seemed to have it out for Sam, in particular. All his government pension checks were being held pending the audit. M and Fiona staked out Matheson looking for someone they could use to help take him down. Someone like an aspiring middle manager.  They found one in Tommy, a sort of doofus, wannabe crook who had done time. Sam drew a prison “tat” on M – something which tells the story where he did time, why he did time and who he did it with – in order to support his cover ID of Milo, a fellow dog track better and small time thief needing “lessons” in order to "score big." Tommy invited them to dinner and then to do a burglary of a laundry - which M had to arrange in order to keep them from being caught. The next morning Paxson showed up anyway, warning that she was going to check fingerprints and basically was trying to shotgun any and every crime in Miami to MW.

 

To Tommy, M had to pretended to have money troubles in order to get Tommy to escalate a deal to involve Matheson. Matheson did eventually agree but only with intent that they were expendable and would be killed. Sam’s audit wasn’t going well either. Stacey was nearly at 25% disallowances, the figure which would extend his audit back another 3 years, when he picked up a baseball card and looked at it long enough that Sam finally recognized him as a boy whose mother he had once dated. Sam and Stacey’s mother, Josie Connolly, had dated a while but broke up and Sam wasn’t allowed to see Stacey anymore. It apparently had broken the kids heart. Stacey admitted that when he ran across Sam's return he had recognized the chance to “get even.” Back with Tommy, he said that he always carries a pack of cigarettes although he "only smoked one a day. It's called will power."  So, M bugged the pack with a transmitter which allowed him to hear Matheson planning a hit on a meth lab. Matheson told Tommy that he was going to drive the getaway van; but, the others were basically going to stay out front to “catch bullets” from the dealers with machine guns. Tommy then showed his real attitude by telling M that the job was off.  He was going to handle it on his own and they should leave town. M, surprised by Tommy’s change of heart, admitted to him that he was actually trying to take Matheson down and needed his help.

 

Fiona brought the stolen car from the laundry heist, which Paxson was looking for; and when Matheson had gone into the lab, M super-glued the door shut. Sam called the police and when the drug makers came out, Fiona set off explosives. None-the-less, they were still out front behind a dumpster in the middle of the bullets! When Matheson called Tommy for pickup, he parked the van against the exit door locking them inside to be caught red-handed. M called Matheson on his cell phone and asked "what made you think that you could piss off every drug dealer and cop in town and not get any payback." Later Paxson came to Carlito's to gloat that she had closed her biggest case but had found some C-4, which had been used in several explosions around town, and seemed to her like it had been planted on Matheson. M finally told her that she could: "either close those other cases OR keep coming after me and have your case against Matheson unravel." “So I get Matheson and you get a free pass?” she whined. M emphatically shot back, “If I got a free pass… it was anything but free!” He told her again: “We’re on the same side.” Resignedly she left saying “remember where the line is… I’ll be watching.”

 

Sam was eventually able to get Stacey to come to dinner and they patched up their relationship by Sam teaching him to drink - starting with a Fuzzy Navel. And, finally at her dinner date with M, Fiona continued her relentless manipulation to try and convince him to change his line of work; although, admittedly much more subdued that in the past. M told her that he was now free of the people who had burned him, free of the cops and that this was the moment he’d been waiting for – he needed to get back in because he had no idea who would be coming after him next. Fiona was obviously distressed but for once suffered in silence.

Michael Westen and Sam staked out the Miami airport logging all the flights and tail numbers until they found one that had to be black-ops. Fiona appeared at the loft in a completely see through dress expecting M to take her to the Delano for lunch, but he was making a driver’s license for Duane Winger with his photo on it. He said he had a tail number and was going to go get some information from the F.A.A. about the plane. He sweet talked Linda, the clerk, into letting him make a copy of the file for ExecuTransport LTD, pretending to be a Private Investigator hunting a sleazebag hubby’s shell company. While copying them, Duane Winger was paged overhead and M overheard people talking about the file being red-flagged. He used an extension cord to hang out the window and half-way down the side of the building, then tried to fall into the bushes. M and Sam were talking while they were at the shooting range hitting targets. Sam said that Barry wanted $1,000 just to check into the owner of the plane, "mostly an annoyance tax,” he said, "because Barry would have to go to the capital and would have to see his mother while he was there.” Ms shots were 10% in the center of the target; Sam’s, on the other hand, were a perfect replica of a Mojito, complete with the olive. On the way out of the range, Spencer Watkowski (a sort of rain man) accosted M, all the time jabbering about having "tracked him down" and “special ops guy.” When M tried to deflect him, Spencer began “outing” him in the parking lot which required them to stuff him in their car and take him somewhere else to talk.

 

At Carlito’s Spencer said he was a mathematician, M.I.T., with doctoral work at Duke, worked at Stone Kittredge (who did government contracts) and saw things that he shouldn’t have… so needed their help. "One of the VPs is a killer," he said, who had killed three times and was "going to do it again, probably in Malaysia." He said that he had used is friend Brad’s computer to dig around and 3 days later Brad's gas line blew up. killing him. M asked him for proof and Spencer began talking about “Guardians” and "aliens" so Sam called “Bellevue” who said they knew him well -- a schizophrenic in and out of the hospital for over 4 years. Back at the airport, ExecuTrans is a shell company whose registrants don’t exist; however, North Andes Distribution was tied to the plane and had a hanger at the airport. Back at the loft, Spencer had escaped and there saying that he had hacked the DMV and found Ms address, thanks to a parking ticket. He escaped from the ward and said his mind was right about this, even though people thought it wasn't. He begged to show them what he had learned and Fiona said "he doesn't seem all that crazy to me." At Spencer’s house, every square inch of floor, wall and ceiling was covered with articles and photos. It turned out that “aliens” were American spies who had been “outed” by Stone Kittredge. One of the articles was about the death of Ronald Papa who Sam knew. Spencer said “the pattern showed a galactic war between the bad ones and the Guardians and those who get in the way and it is up to you to stop them, before the darkness comes.” Sam found a clipping about a diplomat just found dead in Malaysia like Spencer said would happen. In 2007 Stone Kittredge was given the contract to provide secure communications between US Embassies. They developed a code called Zydeco, which is a 4 kilobyte algorithmic code. Someone is intercepting encrypted emails then selling the names of American Spies, Spencer said.

 

Spencer then pointed out Shannon Park, who was on the team which created Zydeco, as the culprit; and said that she was a little out of Sam’s league. M asked Spencer to get them access at Stone Kittredge so they could catch Shannon with the illegal copy of Zydeco. M went under-cover as Jeremy Dresner, an I.T. Person from the Alexandria Office, to talk to Park saying that he was doing an internal audit of security procedures. All the while Spencer was sneaking in and out of her office and planting a key-logger monitoring code. M made a bump key for the bathroom on Park’s floor. Fiona, yet again, tried to turn the conversation into a referendum about M getting back in to the spy business and finally, FINALLY he’d had enough and told her that he’d go to the airport alone! M bluffed his way into the hanger and asked if a man was the manager. The man recognized him however and said: “No, Mr. Westen. I’m Diego Garza. I’m the spy you’re looking for.” However, even though he seemed amiable, he refused to make any contact in the agency on behalf of M; because, if he did he would most assuredly be reassigned away from this Miami position, which he really liked after many years of service and being shot. Sam went into Stone Kittredge pretending to be Charles Finley, the “dreaded teamwork consultant,” in order to provide a diversion for M and Spencer.  He made everyone go to the conference room -- even Ms evil, Shannon Park. Once inside her office, Spencer fell apart babbling about stolen emails, erased records after payments, sending out two more names but finally revealed that Zydeco wasn’t on her computer. "She must check out the copy from the scif room and put it back when she’s done," he told M. Park got fed up with Sam's double-talk and left his lecture early and Spencer nearly got M caught. M then decided that plan "B" would be to use some emails as a prop in order to scare Park that someone was onto her; so, the FBI could catch her when she tried to cover her tracks. M went back in as the same person but claiming now to be a “cleaner for the people we both work for” and said he was hired to clean up Parks mess about Zydeco being compromised. M gave Park a private (bugged) cell phone in case she needed to contact him, also a commanded appointment for the morning where she would take him to the scif room to show him the logs.

 

That night, while Fiona was staking out Parks office to catch her altering the logs, M went to the airport to motivate Diego into helping him by stealing an artifact out of a box and leaving a note for Diego. However, Sam heard Park talk over her bugged phone to a wet-work guy about Spencer’s address, claiming that someone at that IP address had tried to hack into her computer remotely (in spite of the fact that M had told him not to.)  The guy told Park that A bomb was set to go off under his house at midnight; so, Fiona had to leave Parks office un-watched and go rescue Spencer, hoping that Park wouldn’t wipe the logs while she was gone. Fiona arrived at Spencer's first and shot the door down but Spencer was just fighting her, jabbering away. M arrived and just knocked Spencer out, saying: “you can’t talk to him when he gets like that!”  They escaped from his house mere seconds before the explosion. They found that while that was happening, Park had gotten in and wiped the scif log. M decided plan "C" was to go back to Shannon and claim that Spencer had called him claiming to know about Zydeco and demanding to meet with Shannon in attendance. M said that Spencer was really only pretending to be crazy in order to obtain information. Then, M told Spencer to "stick to the script" and got him dressed up in a tie.  Spencer said he knew about Zydeco, that Shannon was the traitor then demanded $5 million to keep quiet. In order to "sell it" they revealed Park's password to her and showed copies of Zydeco encrypted emails Spencer had obtained. Shannon called Spencer's bluff and was walking away until Spencer blurted out he knew about another deal she was making to sell names to the Venezuelans. That got her attention and she agreed to the $5 million. M told her that now she needed to take him with her into the vault where they could get a copy of Zydeco that he could plant on their bodies the next day when he killed them. He also told her that this was her last day working because now she needed to run. After she had gotten the copy of Zydeco, M handcuffed her to some grating and locked her in the scif room to await the feds. He said he’d say hello at her trial. Spencer called the feds and reported the crimes.

 

Later at the Carlito, Spencer told them that his new meds made  him foggy, but it came with the job – Sam’s buddy has a tech firm and had a “crypto gig” for Spencer. Spencer told M that he had known when he saw "the pattern" that he should have told someone; but, he said, he didn’t have anyone he could trust. M was lucky, he said, "to have people like that."  Back at the airport, M had gone on eBay to bid on the bowl he had stolen using the screen name: “michaelheartsdiego”; which, had been noticed by Diego’s boss. Diego revealed that now M was getting what he wanted and that he had been assigned to be Ms contact person in Miami – and his first contact was to tell him that "the Company is not interested in your services at this time!" Diego also said that they did already know about Ms Stone Kittredge involvement; but, "they want to sweep it under the rug, they're not about to give credit to someone for something that never happened." Disappointed, M said “get to know me Diego, I’m not one of the bad guys.” He responded with “they did say they’d review your file, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” In the inevitable hash-out with Fiona afterwards, M asked why she couldn’t be whit him on this. She said that M was like Spencer – "too focused." He agreed that he was like Spencer in some ways, "We both see the world in a certain way and we both have skills to make it a better place."  When she looked disgusted, he again got stern and to the point. He said "let me be straight with you! What we just did, saving American lives, is what I was made for. It’s what my old job gave me the chance to do every single day, so NO getting back in isn’t just a way to survive, to protect the people I love, it’s.. what.. I.. want! And if you truly care about me, you should damn well want for me what I want for myself." Finally, she said: "If that’s what you want… I’ll be with you"; but, then she got up and dramatically left!

Michael Westen was in his loft training with Fiona who was characteristically slamming him with her passive-aggressive anger over not being able to manipulate him into giving up the spy business, when a “secret Santa” left a gift basket on his stairs. Seeing the gift basket he observed: “two days’ worth of yogurt,” and Fiona nagged "the most you’ve ever been paid for a job.” The gift card simply said: “A Friend” and gave a time. As customary, M arrived early to the meeting and sat down to scout the area when the guy at the next table, Tom Strickler, said “Hi” and acknowledged his skill at choosing scouting locations. He claimed to be an “agent” of sorts for spies, who merely wanted to take advantage of the “synergies” in MWs normal “surviving skills” in Miami – for a 10% cut. For example, he explained, an old enemy of Ms (A Ukrainian upset about a deal that M did in the ‘90s) was coming to town to kill M. The synergy came because the killer himself had enemies who would pay if Strickler took credit for the deed when M inevitably took him down. Sort of: “the enemy of your enemy is a business opportunity.” M refused saying that he wasn’t a killer for hire, and Strickler left advising "call me." Back at the loft, Fiona pointed M toward a guy who went by the name of “Beck,” who had become highly connected, for a Miami hustler who didn’t speak Russian, by hijacking cargo for high placed Ukrainian’s. She had “intercepted” a couple of his shipments of P-90s, so M was on his own to make contact. Also, Sam called to say that Madeline had received some new curtains from a guy named Tom Strickler. M had to explain that Strickler was sort of like the guy who had contacted Sam in the ‘80s to “accidentally” blow up a bridge during one of his operations. Further, as usual, Madeline put the bite on Sam for “blowing up my house” to buy her some new curtain rods.

 

M approached Beck directly at a restaurant and was told “No." Beck said that he had acquaintances, associates and enemies but not “friends.” So M told him about his diverted shipment of P-90s and said that he could get it to stop, which made Beck angry; just as an extraction team stormed in with guns and flash grenades. M took a photo of the men, called Fiona and left his phone with his glasses in a plant. The men took both him and Beck because they were together. Beck yabbered about having the “wrong guy,” which was making him dispensable enough to kill, so M spoke Russian and got them to take them both to Chechik. Fiona found Ms phone and glasses in the plant and decided that she and Sam needed to go find Strickler. Two hours in a truck into the everglades M escaped with Beck who managed to obtain a gun from a guard and was pissed at M. Madeline played her one-trick-pony character by being obstructionistic with Sam about his leaving, until Fiona came and finally told her that M had been captured. With ash flipping off her ever present cigarette she threatened Sam that "you better call me or as God is my witness I will smother you in your sleep.” Strickler recognized the photo that M took as being of "Vlad B-something” who he knew worked for Pyotr Chechik. At the point of Fiona’s gun, Strickler immediately made calls to pilots who may have smuggled Chechik into the states.

 

As they ran through the swamp with Vlad chasing them, M began to leave a trail in order to keep the guys following them into a trap. Just like Madeline does all the time, Beck followed along behind M pissing and moaning all the way saying: "I grew up in the Mangrove swamp and fought to get out, now I'm not going back in." Fiona and Sam found the pilot who had smuggled in Chechik and Madeline demanded that they bring him to her house because it was closer. Then when neither Fiona or Sam could get the guy to talk, Madeline went in with cigarettes and was able to scare him into telling her the coordinates where Chechik had been dropped off in the swamp.  M set up an ambush for Vlad, only obtaining Beck’s cooperation by taking the gun away from him and knocking him down. When Vlad got close, he split up his men and M was able to jump on him from a tree. Vlad however quickly subdued M and Beck had to help give M the advantage. M kept Beck from killing Vlad but said "you can hit him again if you want." The fight ruined Vlad’s knee.  Wounded, Vlad called in Chechik who came in an air boat with more men.   Vlad said he couldn't run with them because of his bad knee so Chechik shot and killed him. Observing from a distance, M told Beck "that's Chechik!" Sam and Fiona bribed a man to rent his air boat and came to coordinates they were given -- which amazingly, just happened to be exactly where M had the forethought to lead Vlad!

 

Beck acted like an idiot yet again and tried to wave down Chechik to give him M. Chechik shot him in the leg and now knew their position. M tried to haul him to safety but couldn't so they decided upon a ruse. Beck was left behind on the beach and when Chechik came finagled a promise not to kill him if he told where M had gone. Chechik agreed but then gave orders to his man in Russian to kill Beck; however, before the guy could do it, Fiona and Sam showed up and got the drop on the guard. M drew Chechik deeper into the swamp and booby-trapped a river crossing. After verbally sparring with him over the phone, then blowing up some of his men in the river, M captured Chechik at knifepoint. As he was being loaded into one of Beck's trucks, Chechik still threatened M with revenge from his boss, ex-KGB Fedor Markov. Markov, however, just happened to be an underling of one of Beck’s long time associates which immediately made Chechik want to bargain. Beck refused to negotiate for his silence and took the gang away. He then told Fiona that he wanted his P-90s back and M said he’d see that he got them. Beck then told M “you said you were a good friend to have… I could do worse.” Fiona gave M back his sunglasses that she retrieved from the restaurant. Madeline told M that her new drapes had been hung by "your nice friend Strickler." She also said "don't mess them up when you're sweeping them for bugs.” M refused the payment from Strickler that he had gotten from some Baltic Separatists who wanted Chechik out of the picture. He said that he was not a mercenary and was never going to work with him. Strickler said "OK, what does a burned spy want? Think about it and I’ll be around."

Arriving at the loft with Fiona, who was ragging on him about never wanting to take her to the noisy bar below him, Michael Weston discovered a slinky brunette on his steps.  She had a present of some rejuvenating body lotion for him and offered to apply it to his body. He dismissed her quickly, before Fiona could get wound up, and found that the present was from Tom Strickler, the “recruiter.” M went to Strickler's boat the next day and threw it back on his lap over objections that it was “40% Aloe Vera – good for burns.” Strickler got right to the point and said that he could help with his “burn” like he had done with an NSA agent back a few years. M said he wasn’t interested in being a mercenary; however, he went immediately to Diego Garza, his “point of contact,” and asked (forced) him to see if Strickler had that kind of connections. Not content unless she is ragging on M for something, Fiona whined about Strickler as they walked up to her house for dinner. M spotted that it had been broken into and they flushed out a 13-year old boy, Joey, who was attempting to steal Fiona’s hand-gun to kill his step-father.  He said that the guy was trying to take he and his brother away from their mother and nobody was helping. M was letting Fiona talk to Joey’s mother thinking she would feel more comfortable talking to a woman – but Sam said he “didn’t think Fiona counts,” so they both went in. April Luna said that the custody hearing for Joey and Danny was in a week and her husband would probably win because he was highly connected politically, had lots of money and… his brother Quinn was a gangster. Erik and his brother smuggled and Erik had only married her in order to look more respectable. Once married he had become abusive to her, although her reports to the police had somehow been gotten around. Now, he had begun on the kids so she had left him.

 

M decided that they needed to drive the two brothers apart and get Erik to miss his custody hearing; and Madeline insisted that April and the kids come to stay with her. April finally admitted that she had found out that Erik had a side business and he had threatened to kill her if she told his brother about it. Sam found that Erik takes stuff which was seized at the docks and sells it for personal gain without any records. M decided to show up at Erik's office pretending to be a “dissatisfied customer.” M was turning a cell phone into a listening device so he could bug Erik when Joey saw him. He had to tell Joey that he had learned how to do it in a “special school.” M burst into Erik’s office and slugged him saying that his name was Peter and he had bought a Lotus from him. He said that one day it had disappeared with a note saying that he was a "dead man." His house had been torched and he had been shot at… so he hit Erik again, and planted the bug in his flowers while he was doubled over. He gave Erik one day to call and give his money back then warned him that “they” would be after him as well. That night M, Sam and Fiona arranged to have the lights go out in Erik's parking lot, his car not start, his cell phone quit working and a giant, spot-lighted SUV try to run him down.  He called M and said that he wanted to work together to catch the “guys,” but still refused to leave town.

 

M put a network analyzer on Diego’s phone line to see if there was a lot of traffic about Strickler. Meanwhile Erik showed up at April’s work which upset her and joey decided to take matters into his own hands. He stole Madeline's car and used Ms 12-guage shotgun to go after his step-dad. Erik called M in a panic about "seeing their car drive back and forth" so M went to assist him. He luckily intercepted Joey before he could do anything and distracted him long enough to take the gun away. He told Joey that his step-dad was "about to wet himself" and that he should peel out with some noise then meet up around the corner. Together they listened to the bug M planted in Erik's office as Erik was bawled out by his brother Quinn for letting a councilman's wife see him carrying a gun through the parking lot. Erik was able to bluff his way out of his brothers anger but Joey heard him get told to straighten up "or else!"  Later, Erik told M that he was going to hire someone to find the people who were after them; so M offered Fiona and Sam to do it. Erik paid them $40 thousand and told them that he wanted to be there when it was done. Sam had a buddy who had left town and just happened to leave a small store front empty. They decided that they could use it for plan "C" and they made several blood-squibs for their con. They brought Erik to the back of the store telling him that they had traced the car he had seen to a "mister Chuck Finley" and found that he and his gang were in "that store." Then, when they went to do the deed, Erik watched as all three of them were “shot” by the bad guys, which scared Erik into running. However before he could leave town Quinn showed up and said they were going back to the site of the shooting to sort it all out.

 

Sam was luckily listening to the bug and heard Quinn's plans so he called M and Fiona. M suggested they had to do "the same con they did in 1999 on Colonel Prokov in Moscow" to negate his credibility. They hurriedly erased all the blood mess from the alleyway and M put on a priests collar. He was able to con Quinn that he (as Father Peter, the priest) had seen Erik one night on the street in a daze. He said that he had been helping Erik because he had been talking about seeing assassins everywhere and now was saying he was hiring assassins. Erik blabbered frantically that “you’re going to get me killed” and became frantic, dropping to his knees begging for M to "tell them the truth or you'll get me killed."  Then when he told Quinn that the hot dog vender (Sam) and a tourist (Fiona) were in on the same scheme with M, and that he had seen them all killed in the alley behind the store Quinn bundled Erik off into his car. M said "he's lucky to have you as a brother" then winked at Erik when Quinn wasn't looking. April received full custody of the kids because Erik was locked away in "a facility." Fiona gave her Erik’s $40 thousand so that they could get started somewhere else. Saying goodbye, Joey stood with his arms and legs crossed, just like M was doing, next to the charger and listened as M told him that he knew someone who had "gotten a job that paid him to do many of the same things that got him into trouble as a kid – and he turned out alright." Joey asked if that meant "I should eat a lot of yogurt?" (food spies eat on stakeouts) “Can’t hurt,” M told him.

 

Back at Diego's, when M went to retrieve the analyzer, Diego caught him. Diego said that since he had left the name he had "been in more meetings and found more government departments than I even knew existed." M handed over the analyzer machine and said “I just needed to know how connected Strickler was and I think you just answered my question.”  Then, Strickler told M that "We both know that you have checked my references and what you had found out." He M that he had a job "which won't offend your sensibilities" and that he could either take it or leave and never hear from him again. In voice-over M said: “sometimes you dance with the Devil.”

Tom Strickler came to pick up Michael Westen for a job, of course over Fiona’s objections. Strickler said that if M did this job his record would be reviewed by the “powers.” From his car, he pointed to an American intelligence agencies safe-house which was being robbed at that very moment; and, he wanted M to take photos of their “cleaners” license plate, so he could track where the sale was going to take place. Sam was on his way to a weekend at a buddy’s villa with Miss Reynolds.  He had tracked the "cleaner" guy to Doral and possibly the Wages Motel, next to a bingo parlor, a perfect set up for Madeline to do recon.  Her roof was leaking in the rain and she was blaming Sam's explosion for it. In the midst of this Barry called M, so anxious he was about to wet himself, asking for a favor – someone had stolen his ledger with all his transactions in it! He said that a man had called saying he wanted $5 million or he was going to sell the ledger to someone else. The ledger had been kept in a private storage space under an alias. When Barry revealed that he had also stored a piece of paper for his girlfriend in his safe, M knew immediately who had set him up for robbery – Amy! At her stakeout, Madeline had fun winning at Bingo but complained all the time about possibly getting shot. When M and Fiona went to Amy's house, belligerent Amy made the mistake of taking a first swing at Fiona with her golf club, but got decked to the ground. Fiona had to trigger the trembler switch someone had set to blow up her car before Amy would believe that the people who paid her $100,000 for Barry’s book would want to kill her -- some foreign sounding name in Coconut Grove. M and Sam broke into the house in Coconut Grove but didn’t find anything; so they had to kidnap the man and woman who came home: Milovan Dragas and Natalie Rice.

 

They then told Barry that he should dodge calls from his clients for a while and Sam gave up his villa time so they could interrogate the two captives. Madeline did find the “cleaner” in her stakeout, so Fiona tailed came to tail him in order to see where he scouted for the buy. Natalie told Sam that she was a property manager who had a son and that Milovan was a beast – she whined and cried at the drop of the hat so Sam couldn't ask any more questions. M told Milovan that he was working for a client of Barry’s and that he’d already “taken care” of Barry. Milovan had slapped Natalie to keep her quiet when they first came in the house and later would only tell M that he had only known her for three days. He also said that if he didn’t show up for the sale, a friend would post the ledger on the internet. Natalie only wailed every time Sam asked her a question they asked Fiona to go in and “befriend” her. Had advised M that the cleaner had scouted a certain park for the sale. Natalie did talk to Fioina and claimed that she was a single mother a son, Jared, and in tough times she had let people use places that she listed "off the books." Natalie said she had shown Milovan a particular condo more than once which then led M and Fiona to a place that had been set up with a burn-safe in the fireplace.  They pumped CO2 into it to freeze everything, then found lots of money in it as well as passports for Milovan, Natalie and someone named Bennett Tash. Milovan’s tact then with Sam was to insult and badger him into coming close so he could then steal his gun. Unfortunately, Sam was already prepared and had unloaded the gun that Milovan had stolen. Sam stood up, pulled his real gun and shot at Milovan to get him to sit back down.

 

They found that Milovan had been Serbian Intelligence – and interrogation specialist so was going to be impossible to break. Barry told Fiona that he had found out that Bennett Tash had opened accounts in Overtown somewhere.  Fiona let Natalie call her son and she wept on her cell phone. Then Natalie told Fiona that Tash was at a storefront on Poe Street. M and Sam did find Tash but were nearly killed in his Mac-10 barrage of gunfire. Tash told them that he had instructions to shoot ANY stranger without exception, and that he just was to handle the buyer for the deal set for 5 this afternoon; but, he said, he didn’t know where it was to be. He knew nothing about posting any merchandise on the internet because that psycho "woman" wouldn’t trust anyone – the "boss" was Natalie. Milovan was just a fall guy whose kids were threatened by Natalie. Meanwhile Natalie was putting the moves on Fiona to open her handcuffs so she could go to the bathroom and had turned off Fiona's phone. M called Barry and told him Natalie was the boss and to keep his phone on. M arrived just as Fiona was picking the lock on the handcuffs and kept their cover by slapping Fiona to stop her. They took Milovan into the bathroom and pretended to shoot him and told Fiona to pretend that she had to kill Natalie but actually let her take Sam’s red Buick, which was easy to tail.

 

Then as Natalie left, they each stole a different car and Barry told them which road Natalie turned off on. Natalie turned into South Point Park waiting to exchange keys with a bicyclist. The biker got the ledger out of a locker and Fiona was to take Natalie. M tackled the biker and got the ledger back; Fiona got to slug Natalie and hold her at gun point, until Natalie pulled a gun as well and threatened to shoot into the group of kids that happened to be walking by. She said that the name Natalie was just a cover ID and the photo of the boy just came with the keychain. She disappeared into the crowd leaving her cash still in the trunk. Immigration deported Milovan, M said that Natalie wouldn’t be showing up any time soon and Barry said that this "canceled all of Ms debts." Madeline told Barry to tell his clients that he had been purifying in an ashram without any phones and Barry had sent over a roof-repair guy to take care of her leaks. Fiona then showed up the next morning and backed out of her promise that she had understood Ms desire to get back in, and that she would “still help him,” by revealing that she now intended to leave Miami, and of course she blamed it on Ms working with Strickler. So M went to the job alone and merely took photos as the thieves exchanged the stolen guns. Strickler showed up complimenting him on his photo technique, implying that the crooks would not be caught, but still refusing to answer who the photos were for. Instead he handed M his ringing phone which was happened to be Diego Garza calling to say that “Washington had called that there had been some movement on his burn notice and he would be in contact to set up a meeting.” Strickler told him, “this is just the beginning, superstar.”

Fiona appeared at the loft looking for her H&P U.S.P. compact pistol. [See notes] She said she had decided to go back to Ireland, had sold her stolen car, and had even called her mother to say she was coming. Michael Westen, even though he was holding her gun, said that he'd look for it and bring it over later. Meanwhile, Diego called to say that he had gotten a call from the Deputy Director of the CIA who had just received Ms file for review. Various regional experts will be doing the review, he said. "And then they can blacklist poor misunderstood Michael Westen for good," he said and warned that "you are tiptoeing through a minefield." At Fiona’s apartment, he found her pointing a gun at him when he came through the door, and she introduced her brother, Sean Glenanne, who M had met back in Ireland while he was under the cover ID of Michael McBride. Sean said that he hadn’t seen M since he saved Fiona "from the English bastards who had her pinned down in Belfast." M slipped back into his Irish brogue to continue his cover and learned that someone was coming from Ireland to kill Fiona. Sean whined at Fiona about her losing her edge and her accent – she said that O’Neil was "coming for an Irishwoman." She also revealed that was why she came to America. Thomas O’Neil, "an ultra-radical bastard, who would blow up a church on a Sunday" was coming for her today – actually was there. They all three had to escape in a stolen car then stay at a foreclosure home handled by a buddy of Sam’s. Fiona disclosed that she had met O’Neill when she was looking for her little sister, Claire's, killer when she had been taken. O'Neill was a radical who was planning a bombing at a prep school and Fiona foiled his plan so O’Neill came after her, one of the reasons she left Ireland. Now that she had contacted back home, O’Neill was back on the grid and in Miami. M told them to stay in the house while he and Sam looked for O'Neill, and Fiona warned him “I am NOT one of your damn clients!” – she was.

 

Strickler revealed the REAL cost of Ms re-review. He said that M had never been in the truth business and that his reputation was valuable -- people fear you. He hoped M didn’t think rebuilding a reputation would be free. He said that M should understand that this project was very delicate so “let’s not break it.” He would send M some documents of the “truth” which he was to use in his interviews. M just stared at him then left. Sam found that O’Neill had the reputation but not the rap sheet. He was freelancing, not tied to anything, but wanted by Interpol in connection with about 12 bombings which all had the same chemical signature. A known associate of O'Neill's just bought a condo in South Beach so M and Sam decided to go there. Madeline then announced that she was selling the house and introduced Tiffany, the realtor, to them. Staking out the condo in South Beach, up came O’Neill and then [as expected] up came Fiona and Sean right behind him to get ambushed. And of course [we could expect nothing else] when Sam called Fiona to warn her, she didn’t answer her phone. M had to run Sam’s girlfriend's car over the upper parking lot railing and down in front of O'Neill in order to save Fiona. Then, M went to O’Neill claiming to be Paul Smith, an American arms dealer, who had been monitoring one of his employees, Fiona's, conversations and had learned about O'Neill's plans to kill her. He said that he had a proposal. If O'Neill wanted to take Fiona then he would have to finish a job that Fiona was doing for M. O'Neill refused but M left his business card.

 

Strickler came to Madeline’s with his “truth according to Strickler” documents. Part of the “truth” that M was to tell the C.I.A. was that he worked a job helping a Somali Warlord. Strickler wouldn’t give details but said that it was going to help him "set up a lucrative side job." M said “no sale!” He wasn’t going to clear his name by “getting into bed with a murderer.” Then, O’Neill called to say that he’d had a change of heart and wanted to meet with M. When M came to pick Fiona up so she could help O’Neill "deliver a package with a big prison sentence attached to it," Sean told him that he was “an honest man” and was proud to be fighting with him. At their meeting, O’Neill attempted to double-cross M, but M had Fiona, Sam and Sean shine laser targeting lights on his chest. Sean almost got M killed when he refused to turn off his light. Fiona constructed a bomb using O’Neill’s signature method. Sean brought news that O’Neill was going to put Fiona on the auction block for her enemies thinking that it would raise his credibility in Ireland. Back at Madeline's, she told M that "most normal people collect boxes of memories throughout their lives" like the one she had with his model airplanes. She said that if he was convinced he would never want them again she would throw them away for him. He jumped and said he’d take a look. Then Sam put the bomb they had made with plans to the state department in the back of the van that they planned to have O’Neill get caught behind the wheel of.

 

Before they could carry it out, O’Neill burst into their safe house, shot Sean, knocked down M with a bean-bag round and snatched Fiona. He  peered over M and said: “You’ve got some good friends, Westen.” Sam and Madeline were there treating Sean when M regained consciousness; then, ran out with broken ribs when he had an idea of what happened. M went to see Strickler, who admitted that he had sold out Fiona as a "liability to your career." He pulled a gun on M and said that "you didn’t get to have the job and Fiona", and that he should "forget the past." Faster than one could blink, M had a gun in his hand and shot Strickler twice saying "Fiona is not my past." Strickler had been making calls to a Key Biscayne fishing house, so he and Sam went there to find Fiona. M swam out to O'Neill's boat and planted the bomb to get him arrested. They then crashed through the fence, blew up some barrels and took pot shots at the gang as they drove them toward the boat holding Fiona as hostage. Fiona got free of O’Neill then jumped into the water as Sam shot O'Neill in the arm. He then shot two of the gang in their leg's and called the coast guard. M rescued the cable-tied, floating Fiona who had a scratch on her arm and unbelievably seemed to be dazed and unconscious.

 

Sean and Fiona recovered at Madeline’s who told M that she had taken her house off the market. “You hide your clients here, you let your friends stay here… you’re not ready to sell it either.” Sean told M that O’Neill had outed him as an American so he could never go back and neither could Fiona. M revealed that Strickler’s body had been found next to a certain type of bomb and that O’Neill would be charged with his murder as well as 12 other bombings. Then Diego called, all frantic, asking why M had worked with Tom Strickler! Do you know the kind of people he was dealing with? (Apparently M did not, because Diego had refused to help) Strickler was dead, Diego said, and now "someone" was in town cleaning up the mess. He said that he didn’t know "who he could trust, even at the agency." He said that now he knew he was being followed and that someone was coming for both of them. They needed to meet… now – and he gave his address over his cell phone. When M arrived moments later, Diego had fallen from his apartment onto the street and was dead.

Michael Westen was sewing up Fiona’s arm for the second week in a row when she tried to slug him… again. Sam told him that "enough people saw you on the street so that you aren't a suspect; but, un-burn Michael Westen is officially off." Strickler’s phone, which they were trying to analyze, suggested a high-class hotel on South Beach as a possibility to look at – which, sam said, "could contain a grade-A psychopath."  When M started to rattle off his scam to the hotel clerk, she stopped him and asked: "are you Mr. Westen."  Then she said that she had a note for him. "A man had the bellman drop this off and said that you would be: 6’ 1”, exquisitely dressed and have impeccable posture." When M went to the room number in the note, registered to Dr. Randolph Quilling, it was fire-bombed in right front of him; and M didn’t see anyone there to trigger the device. Same knew that Quilling had been a British nuclear scientist who was killed in ’99 – burned to death in his hotel room.  Then Fiona, milking the tiny  scratch on her arm for sympathy, demanded that M take a job for her which she couldn’t do due to her injury. When he took it he found that a woman named Calia, had her husband killed in a car accident; but, later she found insurance papers already filled out and a guy in a Corvette had come to her house demanding that now she had to sue the city and give him the money. Sam wasn't able to get any insurance records for M out of the lady at the county records office; so suggested that they send Madeline in to try and get them. Madeline whined “why me” and M answered “because she’s your age, smokes your brand and shops at the same stores you do.” Madeline was able to get them by turning on the tears; but, then started up a friendship with the lady, Tina, even over Ms warnings about not fraternizing with "assets."

 

Sam staked out the clinic which had handled all the medical cases and found too many neck braces walking out,  and the Corvette Calia had talked about parked out in front. It was registered to Ryan Johnson who was on parole for fraud and assault. M went in undercover posing as Alex, a friend of Erik Lee’s from North Carolina. Erik had been a friend of Ryan’s who was killed in the same crash as Calia’a husband. M then chased Ryan down in his charger and swung it around in front of him as a “job application.” M said that he wanted in their organization now that they had a vacancy and was told he could meet to talk about it tomorrow. M met Ryan’s father, Connor Johnson, and was given the “we’ll call you” line, but said that he wanted management. So, Connor said said that if he and Ryan collected $10k from a delinquent auto shop he could have the job. M had to torch the auto shop, hide behind acetylene tanks and dodge flying bullets as they left, but he got the money. Back with the bomber, Sam triangulated a phone that Strickler had called often and told M that it was now just sitting at the 20-year closed marine stadium --  an obvious setup. Of course M went to the stadium and talked to a swishy-sounding man who attempted to scare him with 5 rifle shots into the seats all around him. It reminded M of a stadium shooting back in ’98 in South America.

 

M and Fiona built a listening device together and she almost said thanks for his saving her from the Irish kidnappers. M proposed a scam called “Deathwish” to the Johnson's. It used a stooge to be knocked from behind by a city vehicle into a train and then go after the deep pockets in lawsuits. Fiona planted a bug in Ryan’s keychain and Connor took the bait. Ryan, however, tried to cut M out of the deal and pull the scam early. Sam heard him talk about it over their bug, so they all had to chase Ryan down and drive him off the road giving Ryan a chance to see M. Now for plan "C" they had to have Madeline go back and have Tina give them all the records for all the patients the doctors had treated in scams. Madeline was pissed  at M, even though she had ignored his warnings about making friends with assets, and he had to remind her about her living in the same house he did and her having to make hard choices too. Madeline got the records but walked home alone in a huff. M, Sam and Fiona then shepherded Ryan’s car into crashing into a parked city vehicle. Then, when Ryan and M were fighting, Sam planted all the stolen medical scam records in Ryan’s car and Fiona called the police to report she had seen an intentional crash and a man waiving a gun. The police cam, sirens screaming, just after M had left Ryan dazed on the ground.

 

During the investigation Ryan turned on his father which pretty much gave the case to the city prosecutor. Madeline was so angry that M then had to take on Tina as a client and stage a break in at the record offices in order to cover up any missing records so that Tina could keep her job -- without Tina knowing. Madeline and M had an angry argument [actually, unusually well written for the kind the writers usually write for Madeline] and after finding out about Ms break-in she was relieved. Sam told M that his hunch about the six police officials killed at the Soccer Stadium correlating with the six shots at the marine stadium was correct. He said that "both times" there was a lot of talk afterwards about the same guy: Mason Gilroy. And, the cologne on the note at the hotel was “Monaco Silver” – last sighting of Gilroy... Monaco. Then, when Sam arrived at the loft he found a phone at Ms gate – "Gilroy knows where you live." M called a number already programmed and used Gilroy's name for which he was congratulated. Gilroy said he wanted to meet.

Fiona whined at Michael Weston about never coming to 4-star hotels for anything except surveillance as he looked from the balcony trying to spot Mason Gilroy who M was supposed to meet in the comparatively safe pool area… but, this was Gilroy! M said that Gilroy was a freelance psychopath who was planning something big in Miami and the only way to stop it was to be in the middle of it. Gilroy revealed to M that "an associate" once told him that the associate and MW were a lot alike. “You know him," Gilroy said, "oh that’s right… you shot him!” He said that when the CIA agent took notice of Strickler’s business after he had been shot, "I had to kill him because, I was Strickler’s business.” M had to quickly explain that he had been at the scene for the same reason – “I was Strickler’s business too.” Calmly Gilroy said he would need to get to know M better before they could work together, "and your little girlfriend up there!” As they looked up at Fiona, someone in the next building over shot the bottle next to her causing her to pout. Back with Sam, he was moving out of Madeline’s spare room and into "Miss" Reynolds when he was visited by an “old friend,” Mack, who required a haymaker to the jaw – or two. Sam told M that Mack was also a S.E.A.L. and that they had a falling out. Of course, nosey Madeline crept into the doorway to eavesdrop. Rather than tell M why he was acting that way, Sam decided to just go listen to what help Mack thought he wanted. Mack revealed that he worked for Houston PD on child abduction cases. He had built a case against a true predator named Rincon, but had been suspended after Rincon’s apartment blew up when they went to get him and two of his S.W.A.T. team were killed. The brass closed the case, claiming Rincon was dead; but, Mack had traced him to Miami. Sam basically agreed without saying it, and when Mack raised his beer bottle to toast mimicked Ms habit by making Mack “air-clink” his beer bottle.  Instead of clinking Sam suggested it might be a three person job and Mack said, "we could use a third man if you know one.”  Sam said, “I do but I wouldn’t call her that to her face.”

 

When Madeline did her usual busy-body routine, Sam told her in no uncertain terms to: “stay out of it.” They found that Rincon imported drugs from Mexico and Mack intercepted a call about a meeting he had in “Little Dominica” today. Unfortunately, the grapevine of cop-detecting kids spooked the Rincon when Sam and Fiona went to get him. Realizing that they had been spotted, they needed to keep their cover so decided to steal a car – it turned out to be Omar Hernandez’s car, the local (but altruistic) gang leader. Of course that brought MW into the job – at Fiona’s insistence – who decided that they should coerce the local gang leader into finding Rincon for them. Sam found that Omar started in the usual gang-banger's manner; but, now he was boosting cold medicine and the like from warehouses. He also had been arrested for “beating the begeesus out of a guy who was smacking his girlfriend around.” Enter “Louis” – Ms black-suited, red-shirted, menacingly-talking, “I’m the Devil” cover ID who brought back Omar's car, disarmed his gang member and then demanded a meeting inside a store. “Rincon’s business is hurting children and yours is protecting them” he told Omar. To emphasize his point with Omar, he snapped his fingers and disappeared in the excitement of a car explosion. With Madeline, realizing that she could not interrogate Sam, she took a shot at shaking down Mack. He also told her to mind her own business; however, having no experienced with what Madeline could do, he eventually revealed that Sam had once been married. The bug and tracker that they had planted on Omar’s car showed them he hadn’t made a move yet, so “Louis” had to make another appearance. They were watching while Felipe Vega, the leader of a bigger rival gang, came to threaten Omar about wanting to receive another “protection” payment. He told Omar that he had better pack his "payment" into a van and that he’d come to get it at the warehouse. So Sam put some C-4 on the warehouse door bracket in order that when “Louis” came for the van and snapped his fingers, the door would fall off. Fiona shot a phone out of a gang members hand in response to a gesture from “Lewis” when he came to take the van and she also needed to drop two others with rubber bullets. Fiona who was on the roof reported to them that Gilroy was watching the operation from his car up the block; so when he followed the van M stole, M rousted him out of his car and threatened to shoot him for compromising his operation. Gilroy invited him to participate in a job he was doing. M threw his phone away because Gilroy was apparently getting his position from his new phone.

 

Then M appeared to Omar again, letting him know the he knew the location of all his houses, stores and possessions; and, that he could have the van back whenever he delivered Rincon. Omar finally relented, saying that he needed a couple of hours. When next Madeline caught Sam on his own she told him that Mack hadn’t even talked to his ex-wife until after Sam had let her go. When she went on to say that Mack had taken very good care of her, Sam told her to “stay out of it!” Lewis returned for his information and Omar told him that Rincon had been supplying Vega with drugs for many years and it was him who was protecting Rincon now. Omar said that Vega would go after people in his whole area if he told M where Rincon was. M said if he didn’t tell him, “Vega will be the least of your worries.” M got the address where Rincon was staying. Then when Sam, M and Mack crashed in, like a SWAT team, to extract Rincon they found that they had been warned. It was a setup so to escape they had to rapid rappel down the side of the building one-handed with machine guns blazing. Vega then tried to kill Omar too, so “Lewis” came to him with a plan "B," to join forces. He had Omar pretend to be capitulating to Vega and say that he would give up “Lewis" as well as his neighborhood. Of course they then set up the whole meeting place with booby-trapped ice cream carts. M was also wearing handcuffs with a Styrofoam link and wearing a bug. As Rincon was threatening him with a machete, “Lewis” snapped his fingers again and Fiona blew up the front wall of the place. M put Rincon in the trunk, Omar held Vega at gun point and the whole neighborhood took down Vega’s men. This time when Mack said goodbye, Sam shook hand with him and told him "thanks for taking care of Amanda" while Madeline watched and smirked. Sam said that the "mission always came first" for him which is why she left him. Mack rejoined that Amanda had left him too, “don’t think she ever got over you.” Sam shot back “who could?” When asked who the guy who looked like a devil was so he could tell his people who to thank, M told Omar that he was "just the guy who helped him get back on top." As M walked away, Omar tried snapping his fingers. To close, Fiona and M were at a hotel room where the Gilroy meeting would be and she was haranguing him about working too hard. When she had finished flying off with her mouth he said that Gilroy was going to call the hotel in the morning so they had the night together. Gilroy did call and said he wanted to meet about a job; but, M said he had a more pressing engagement.

At Michael Westen’s meeting with Gilroy, he was introduced to Claude, "the best thief in the western hemisphere." Gilroy wanted them to break into the Chilean Consulate for some documents supporting the “big job” that he was doing.  Back at the loft, Sugar, the drug dealer who used to live below M, pulled up in his moving “boom box” and said he had “come in peace, bro.” Sugar wanted to hire M to help his “slow” cousin get away from some gangsters. A big time robber named Lynch had targeted his cousin, Dougie, for some unknown reason and had beat Sugar up when he had tried to get Lynch to back off. M refused to help so Sugar left and, as Fiona was just raising her eyebrows to start ragging on him, Madeline called; so M jumped at the chance to leave. Madeline was getting the “take a bite out of crime” award from the police for reporting cars that M had stolen and was finished with. She wanted M to attend the chief of police ceremony with her and would listen to absolutely no reason. Equal to Madeline’s self-absorption, Fiona claimed she "just couldn’t remember" anything she had found out about Claude due to worrying about Sugar and Dougie. Eventually, she revealed that Claude was just an alias of former Australian S.I.S. member: "Tomas Smalling" and that "Gilroy isn't your problem either." So… M met Sugar who brought what he thought M needed in the trunk of his car: guns and duct tape; and was disappointed when M said that if he wanted his help he had to get out of town and wait for his call.

 

Sam found out that Lynch hit everything from banks to car washes, and never got arrested "because they never leave anyone behind. He’s a public health hazard." Fiona broke into Lynch’s compound and planted a bug in the TV remote as well as finding a room full of scuba air tanks, dive watches, vests and machine guns. M followed Lynch and realized that he and his guys were going to Sugar’s house to kill him – Sugar had not left town. Instead of getting out, like M warned him, Sugar ignored Ms instructions and shot back, which then required M to come in and haul him out... and to the hospital, wounded. Gilroy gave M and Claude synchronized watches telling them that "by the end of the day our hearts would beat as one," and that Claude was lead on the job. Claude told M, "just you make a diversion and I’ll do the job." Sam pretended to be Chuck Finley at the flower mart in order to check to see what Dougie knew about Lynch’s job – he was just a “helper” on the loading dock of a florist warehouse. Lynch gave a party, which Fiona crashed and saw them making fun of “the retard.” The bug revealed that Lynch had just gotten off the phone with a man named Bolo, who would find them a thief to get the last piece of hardware they needed. Barry told M and Sam what Bolo looked like so they could intercept the guy and plant M in with Lynch pretending to be the thief for Lynch’s job. They pretended that they had injected Bolo with a poison for which he would receive the antidote after helping them. Ms cover was "D.J." a “procurement” expert and he was asked to obtain a “jaws of life,” which could only be obtained from emergency personnel. They could not figure that just dealing with flowers would make it worth such an effort, so Sam went back to obtain a delivery schedule from the company thinking that a delivery might just be a ruse to launch a heist.

 

Fiona found that Claude’s preferred M.O. in his past jobs was to use free-climbing up sides of buildings. M went to Madeline’s to get a city inspector’s shirt that his dad always used when he was stealing equipment. Madeline revealed a secret panel in the closet that M never knew about. She also had bought M a silly tie on clearance and when M told her that something had come up and he couldn’t attend her award ceremony "because people might get hurt" she sulked and played the martyr. M scouted the location of Claude’s future heist and dripped some oil on one of his future hand-holds. Then he went to a fire training center and got their jaw’s, pretending he was taking it for needed maintenance. Sam and Fiona surmised that expensive art at the Hotel Milano must be Lynch’s target next week; but, when M delivered the Jaws to Lynch he discovered that the job was on for today. Sam then realized that it wasn't a delivery they were after but an armored truck was due to pickup receipts almost immediately; so they had to wing it. Mike took out a guy on the roof who was going to pump gas into the air ducts… for which they had needed the air tanks. Fiona set an explosive in a garbage can to warn the armored truck away. Sam went inside to extract Dougie, but he wouldn’t come. Lynch began firing so Dougie tipped a rack over on him in order to save Sam. They both got out as Sam blasted shut the door lock. M turned on the gas then answered Lynch’s frantic phone call to his man on the roof. He told Lynch that his man was not available and that the cops were on the way.  He said that he "hoped they get there before your air tanks run out." Sugar told M that he wondered how many times he had to get shot before he started listening to him.

 

At the heist with Claude, M caused a car to smoke for his diversion and Claude took to the walls. However he fell off of oily hand-hold and broke his ankle on the ground. That made M able to finish the job early and he showed up at Madeline’s award ceremony in his new tie.  That made her finally see reason so she let M leave. Later, Gilroy told M that Claude “didn't survive his injuries,” and that the documents were now Ms responsibility. He said "you should consider it a reason for living… as it were.”

This week’s private meeting with Gilroy was in the hotel hot tub where he told Michael Westen that the records he had been after previously were destroyed and now he needed to get 6 weeks of private flight data in and out of Miami. M told him that he would have to have "double my fee," then asked Sam to obtain the records through his buddies at the coast guard. Back at the loft he found a break-in and a dead body on the floor – as well as Larry, the un-dead spy. The dead guy had a Santa Muerta tattoo with six tears – a pro assassin with 6 kills. Larry explained that the hit man had been sent by a man named Carlos, the guy who ran the cash processing for the Sicario (cartel), and who wanted his money back. Larry admitted that he had used Michael’s name to steal $2 million and hadn't finished his usual “clean up” before Carlos had sent the hit man. Then Larry had the audacity to insult M as an “ol' softy” when M didn’t kill him for doing it. Larry's idea was for M and him to kill Carlos; then, Larry would give M a new ID -- which made Sam nearly want to tear Larry's head off. Larry had stolen a man named Larry Garber’s identity, a shoe salesman who had "fallen on a knife in Buffalo."  When M didn't respond, Larry gave M 24-hrs to decide to join him. They put the hit man’s body, whose ID said he was Justino Valverde, in Fiona’s neighbor’s bath tub which wasn’t being used. M went to warn Madeline about Larry and was introduced to Nate’s wife Ruth, a Vegas blackjack dealer whom he had known less than a month. M gave Nate a gun and asked him to stay and guard Madeline.

 

Sam and Fiona found the apartment Justino had been staying in with other Sicario's and tapped their closed circuit camera system. Sam did get the flight data from a friend but had words with M about deceiving his friends. Carlos, Justino’s boss, called his phone to ask what was taking so long and told him to go finish the job at the hotel Victor, a surprise Larry hadn't told M about. M found Larry at the hotel waiting for Jack Yablonski/Fleetwood who was the person he had hired to drop Michaels name and now was Carlos' other target. Carlos sent some others over to help kill Fleetwood but M needed to rescue him because his name was attached to the whole thing. He, Larry and Yablonski jumped off the balcony into the pool in order to escape the hit men. M needed to convince Carlos that the robbery was an inside job done by Justino (already dead) so that "the body count wouldn't go higher."  M rousted Carlos in a parking lot and told him about a "Justino sighting" in a bar (set up by Fiona) and that he wasn’t the one who had stolen the money.  Back at Madeline's, M found Nate and Ruth trying to convince her to move to Vegas in order to "not be around spies and murderers" so much; then, the poor hapless Ruth tried to shame Madeline into not smoking in her own house. Larry came to where Yablonski was and distracted M while attempting to kill Jack. M caught him and Larry expected that M would not fire the gun he was pointing at him – he was wrong... and got his hand wounded. Additionally he didn’t want to give up the $2 million but didn't argue with M. While M was with Carlos tailing Jack, they let Carlos hear a call that they were faking from Justino (remember he is dead) setting up a meeting.

 

Larry showed up to help Fiona dress the corpse and messed with her mind such that Fiona refused to help M any more. Back at Madeline's, Ruth refused Madeline’s salad saying she was "allergic to cucumbers" and turned down cold-cuts as well claiming she was also avoiding “protein.” Sam figured out from the flight data that only one day was different from all the rest of the six weeks and told M that he could only have the one day. When M argued about it, Sam stormed out saying he wouldn't help any more until "you get your head out of your butt," and that if M needed help he should "call Fiona." So M did the meeting with Carlos alone without any backup and was nearly killed because Larry had switched the money he was returning for counterfeit. Both Fiona and Sam refused Ms phone calls. M had no way to get the money back from Larry, so he couldn't kill him; so, he had to let Larry think that he was going to help him kill Carlos. Cleaning his gun in his loft and stewing about Fiona and Sam, Nate came over to tell him that he had been calling and that his phone didn’t work. M discovered that Larry had switched his sim card in order to isolate him from the others.

 

M told Larry that he had switched his plans and now was going to blow up Carlos’ hotel in order to leave no trace; then called Sam to apologize. Sam advised that he thought Larry would keep the money close and in a place which would make it look like M was guilty if he was caught. They found that Larry had put it in Ms punching bag. M told Fiona that part of him was like Larry; but, only a small part and that it got smaller the longer he was with her – so she said she’d help him make a bomb. M eventually revealed to Larry that he had found the hidden money and had already paid off Carlos that morning; then, when Larry pulled a gun on him and was going to leave him to blow up with the bomb they had planted in Carlos' trunk, that it too wasn’t real, just counterfeiting ink. He showed that the counterfeit bills were partially burned in Carlos' dumpster and finally said that "Larry Garber had already called the police" to snitch on Carlos'. Larry had to let M go because the police were coming and knew his name; but, said “there will be another day.” M told Yablonski that if he ever came back to Miami he would kill him himself. Nate and Ruth were saying goodbye to Madeline when M got there. M reminded Madeline that he had only said "IF you wanted to stay some place safer" NOT that HE had wanted her to go. She said that she had a life here with him and Sam and Fiona… and besides "I can't stand that woman." M gave Gilroy only the one flight plan, hoping that he wouldn't take umbrage: "Chili to Poland, tail number 4-whisky-x-ray-alpha 803 Registered to a faceless corporation in Santiago." M asked "what’s on the plane" and Gilroy claimed “a weaponized plague and the vaccine to match.”  M told Sam – "Gilroy's a damn good liar."

Michael Westen and Fiona found a worker at the Polish Embassy, Conrad, which they thought they could con into giving them information on the flight that Gilroy was interested in. M found however that Conrad didn't like Russians, which he was pretending to be, and Fiona had to save him from Conrad shooting him. Fiona decided to help M obtain the information on her own. Sam had a paying job with the owner of a fashion design company, Isabella, who thought that one of her employees, Tim Hastings, was stealing from her. Instead she ended up dead floating in her pool and Hastings was being set up as the fall guy. Fiona eventually was accepted by Conrad posing like another agent trying to get information on the "Russian Spy" which had tried to get information from him. She had to get Madeline to give her old photos of M in order to put together a fake CIA document that she could give to Conrad. Damon Belmont, Isabella's vice president, picked a fight with Hastings in order to get him to go talk to Isabella at her house. M followed him but they both found Isabella’s floating body. They escaped from the police who seemed to have already been called and retrieved Hastings gun which had been left on Isabella's deck.

 

Hastings told M and Sam that it was Damon who had been stealing money; but, that he couldn’t find proof in his books and Isabella wouldn’t believe him. At the funeral, they knew Damon was a pathological liar by his smile; so M decided to go under-cover as Max, Isabella’s "other partner" from L.A., the one who starched heroin in to her fabrics. M rousted Damon enough that he would run to his partner in crime. Sam tailed Damon to the store of Ric Pederson, his partner, who had killed Isabella. Feedback on their microphone prevented them from getting any useful bugging information so M turned up the heat by sending in Sam as a crime scene investigator to let slip that the police were still looking for two accomplices. M then appeared with Fiona, posing as Hastings girlfriend, tied up in his trunk. Fiona claimed that Hastings had arranged to be smuggled out of the country and was going to call the cops on a designer who killed Isabella. When M threatened to kill him, Damon came up with the idea of killing Hastings and re-framing him again. M gave him a gun to do it with and arranged to have the cops see him try and do it; but, instead Damon and Pederson decided to blow Hastings up. M had to shoot the bomb to make it explode early but then the idiot Hastings got himself caught by the police instead of getting into Fiona’s car.

 

Then M had to make Damon turn on Pederson before he could find out that Hastings had actually been caught. Acting as a crime scene investigator again, Sam convinced Damon that the police hadn’t caught Hastings and were now working on a new lead. M got Damon to come up with the idea of killing Pederson and making it look like suicide. M again got him a gun, rigged the trigger assembly to break and sent him into the store – calling the police as he went. When Damon pulled the trigger and it didn't go off, Pederson attacked him and they were still fighting when the police broke them up. Madeline hassled M for lying about Fiona’s folder – he told her that he had lied to protect her and, unusually, she seemed to buy it. Conrad gave them the contents of the secret file that they wanted and it turned out to be instructions on how to handle an extremely dangerous passenger, although not giving the name. Gilroy wanted M to "help a world class bad-guy to escape."

Sam was covering an impromptu meeting between Michael Weston and Gilroy from a high sniper perch and saying that prisoners on super-max security had hair on their palms and forked tongues when Gilroy pulled up in his armored SUV. Of course M pulled the phone out of his ear and got in the car for a drive. He and Gilroy drove to a "white supremist" compound to purchase a Browning .50-cal machine gun. M went in with a metal case full of money to get it; but, unfortunately, he had to use the case to clobber his way out of a trap.  When he ran back to the car he found that Gilroy already had the gun and realized that he had merely been used as a decoy. Sam was to arrange a meeting with his FBI contacts in order to report what Gilroy had done because Fiona wanted M to accompany her to meet with a hustler named Coleman, who normally deals in counterfeit bags and stolen phones, but who now had a "gig" for her. It turned out that agent’s Lane and Harris wouldn’t listen to M or even pass on his information. Sam bugged Fiona’s phone so he could follow her at her meeting when she went back a second time. Coleman admitted to her that he had lied to “Gabriel” about Fiona’s work history in order to get the gig; but, said that it wouldn’t come up. As Sam watched her go into the house he muttered that he had to get some new friends; and, of course, the first thing that Gabriel asked was a trick question about her work history in Madrid. Then he sent a goon to her house to fetch her passport which “had better be stamped Madrid.” Sam immediately called M to go alter the passport in her false bottomed dresser drawer, for her alias Kelly Minch, so that it would show Madrid... he barely made it.

 

Sam told Fiona that Allen King, who had a daughter, had been taken at gunpoint shortly after Gabriel came to town so she decided that she was going to go back in again, over M and Sam’s objections. To help her, Sam pretended to be the homeowner’s association inspector in order to give her 10 min to search a padlocked room in the house. For his next test of her "veracity" Gabriel had Fiona break apart a Beretta 9mm while she was being attacked by one of his goons. Gabriel revealed that the reason Coleman had come to her was because he had forced himself on the girl that Fiona was replacing and now he had been taken care of. Gabriel had her Interpol file – which revealed that she had been a happy Catholic Girl, without interest in politics or violence until suddenly she joined the IRA and blew up cars all over Belfast. After the IRA, she had a gorgeous flat and was a star on the black market then threw it away and moved to Miami – “I followed man here, didn’t work out, next question,” was all she would explain. "Your sister named Claire was killed by a bullet of a soldier who fired into a crowd while she was out shopping and she choked to death on her own blood," he recited to her. Before she could answer, however, Sam showed up outside yabbering about crabgrass; so, she went to look into the locked room. She found nothing except papers bout Apex Industry’s and photos of Gabriel's family. When Gabriel returned he found Fiona in the hallway and didn’t accept the coincidence of Sam and her out of her seat, so told her they were going for a ride. He even noticed her “trouble” sign, two buttons undone on her shirt, and drove like a crazy man so he couldn’t be followed. He told her that he was a doctor in Argentina when an American company came to build computer chips but then dumped chemical waste into the water table, killing children including his daughter Eva. M and Sam watched from a distance too far to shoot, unable to do anything, while Fiona had to talk her way out of being shot by telling Gabriel about her sister Claire. She said that the day her sister died she had spilled cranberry juice on Claire’s sweater and they had a terrible fight. As an apology, Fiona had made her favorite dessert, bread pudding, but she never found out. She said she understood how he felt about the men who killed his daughter and he put his gun down.

 

He accepted her explanation and at dinner he told her that he had gone to train with the rebels in Columbia for two years and had taught them field medicine. He said he had kidnapped an official of Apex and given them a deadline to shut down the factory, which was up in 5 hours. He wanted Fiona to help kidnap the head council for Apex next if they didn’t comply. She tried to talk him out of killing King but he wouldn’t be dissuaded. She faked an accident with a waitress so she could make a call to M in the bathroom. M said he would do a drop “like they used to do in Dublin.” Sam did the drop for Fiona while M had to go meet Gilroy. Madeline helped Sam put a tracking bug in a lipstick case for Fiona which he then planted on the car. Gilroy's plans were that M would guard a bridge to keep anyone from coming across, while he kept the gun and killed anyone who got past. M said, “No Thanks” and walked away, so Gilroy decided to reveal that an “Inmate had hand-picked you for this job (in fact seemed) rather obsessed with you.” M kept on walking, so Gilroy shot a 50-cal round next to his head to get his attention, but deafening him in the process. Gilroy angrily told him that “tomorrow don't come for the money or for me; rather, come for all the people I have to kill if you don’t do your job.”

 

Back at the restaurant with Fiona, M masqueraded as a health inspector and had to create a grease fire in order to spook Gabriel's new kidnap target from staying in the building. So Gabriel determined to shut down the operation and lead-footed it back to the warehouse in which he was holding King in a fire-bomb, booby-trapped cage on an IV drip sedative. Gabriel put a lethal dose in the IV and Fiona distracted him to go look for someone in the grass while she tried to rescue King. She got the drop on Gabriel using her throwing knife then took his gun. She locked Gabriel in the cage, and not wanting to be arrested, he triggered his own booby-trap.  Then Fiona changed her mind and tried to rescue him as well. He refused and she was in the middle of flames trying to pick the lock as Sam and M showed up and had to rescue them all. King was arrested; but the other Allen King decided to do a story about Apex Industries and called the investigating authorities – after Fiona gave him a “talking to.” Then, M set up explosives to blow up his bridge while Sam was watching at the airport. A private plane caught fire at the airport which caused flights to be diverted. Gilroy met the diverted plane and paid off a guard, then greeted the hooded prisoner. M called him when he heard sirens coming toward the bridge and Gilroy told M that “our guest is so keen to meet you.” M had to blow the bridge to prevent cop cars from coming over it and getting shot by Gilroy. Then M ran to meet Gilroy and found him shot and chained in his car with a bomb strapped to him. Before he blew up, Gilroy said that the guy had paid him $10 million to release him but his plan, instead, had really been to "kill me and come after you – his name is Simon."

[Season Finale]  Michael Weston had barely escaped Gilroy’s exploding car when he heard sirens from every government agency with a budget. After subduing one cop and eluding another he was finally free; but, his mother Madeline wasn’t so lucky – she was stuck with FBI agent Callahan who used every known deceptive technique to try and get her to help him catch M. M slept in a van in a parking lot, where he also obtained some clothes, a car and a phone to call Sam who was "surveying the surveillance" at the loft. Sam told him that they should meet at the emergency-emergency spot because there were people all over his loft. At Callahan’s insistence to “help me help him,” Madeline did call the emergency-emergency number and told M to: “come home right now” which turned out to be the secret code that she used to use to get M to stay away when his father was on a rampage. Sam and Fiona had a mini-intervention with M saying that “no more lone wolf crap – we’re with you BUT we’ve got to know that you’re with US!” He agreed and Sam gave them all combat knives as a token. Fiona went to track who might have built Simon’s bomb and M went to get the rest of his files on Gilroy from his car parked in Coral Gables.

 

In Coral Gables an exploding food cart caught Ms attention and then he saw himself on several big screen TV's in a store window. So immediately he went in lone-wolfing, without calling the others, and found… Simon, who was projecting video from all the crimes M was supposed to have been burned for on TV's around the store. The store clerk was dead and one screen was of a bomb planted in the basement of some un-disclosed a high-rise hotel. Simon said that “the powers that be” had decided that he was uncontrollable; so, they had put him in a hole and “transferred my file to you!” When M finally asked him "what do you want?" Simon blurted out: "I want my life back." M emphatically told him that: "You can have it!"  Simon claimed that he had been watching Ms career in Miami (?) and now wanted to be one of Ms “Clients.” He told M that “you know HIM as MANAGEMENT” and told M to bring him to Miami, "the Government Building at 703 Grand Avenue at 6 pm."  M faked seeing a surveillance van up the street in order to get away long enough “to go talk to the guy and see what kind of surveillance was on my loft.” Instead, he “enticed” the liquor delivery boy in the van to run away and borrowed his phone. Sam told him that he would need to swim to the loft from the back side in order to avoid the guards. He asked Sam to contact Fiona and find the bomb and disable it; then, he set the van on fire.

 

When Callahan showed Madeline photos from Ms burn-file and said: “people get burned for a reason” she "confessed" that she was going to meet M at the Sawgrass Hills Mall Food Court in order to buy more time. A gun dealer contact told Fiona where Keith, the bomb-maker’s, house was; and she and Sam crashed her car through his wall for surprise. Keith told them that he had come from Rhode Island and had done demolition work for a biker gang. He said that he tried to turn Simon’s job down but "he is a grade-A psychopath – you’d like him.” The bomb was Simon’s design and was "in the basement of the Epic Hotel on a remote, plus a timer." At the loft M swam the canal, climbed the wall and came in through the skylight. He took the “call us when you’ve had enough” card from management, containing the phone number, out of the false bottom of a drawer along with a spare unused phone. While building an explosive device, he told Management that Simon thought he was willing to “hand you over if it meant clearing my name.” He suggested coming with a team and taking him down.  Management agreed but said that “you’re my insurance. If this goes wrong I wouldn’t want to be you or anyone who knows you.” M tossed the explosive out the window and exploded it in order to give the watchers something to worry about while he escaped.

 

Simon and he had to escape a police chase with Simon driving the wrong way up a causeway until a truck tipped over blocking the road. Callahan threatened Madeline that she was admitting to federal offenses if she said that the things they found in her house were hers. She also said that all the people looking for M will “shoot first and ask questions later.” Sam and Fiona had frozen the bomb detonator with liquid nitrogen and removed it when Sam said: “I heard a beep… was that a beep?” He threw the detonator behind some water bottles and it blew them apart. Simon kicked M out of the car saying that he’d hired his own team and gave M his phone back. Callahan told Madeline that M had just tried to blow up a hotel screaming at her. He claimed M had nearly killed a cop and "nearly killed me." She just calmly said that "if M had tried to kill you, you’d be dead.” “Do you really want to pay for your son’s mistakes?” He screamed at her. “He paid for mine,” she mumbled almost under her breath. So they cuffed her and took her in. M agreed with Fiona and Sam that if Simon showed himself they should shoot him, to Fiona’s surprise. Management wanted his men to do all the shooting so M was going to meet him unarmed at the landing site and go with him to the government building.

 

Just as Management had landed, thinking that they had all of Simon's crew identified and taken care of, and M learned that this site was the only site he could have landed at – the helicopter blew up. In the confusion Simon appeared dressed as a guard to capture them. As Simon told M that he had lied and was now going to kill him, M stabbed him in the leg with the knife Sam had given him then jumped over the railing. He jumped into a garbage chute and fell into a dumpster. Sam was to call the FBI and tell them to follow him because he had seen Simon put Management into an ambulance and was going to chase him down in a city truck. Eventually M drove down an alley, broadsided the ambulance, fought Simon and eventually overpowered him, taking his gun. Before he could shoot, Management stopped him pointing out that killing Simon with the FBI coming would kill his own future… “And you have a big future.” Simon egged him on to pull the trigger, but the FBI arrested them both. Simon chortled the whole time “you’re just like me… just like me!” Callahan came into Madeline’s holding room and told her that he was now off the case, and he had no idea where M had been taken. He said that the FBI had held M for about 20 minutes until "someone" came in and took him away "and there is nothing we can do about it … and it is all your fault." She slapped him twice for letting someone take M and Callahan said “no telling what hell hole he’s in now.” M was then shown being taken, hooded, up some stairs in leg and arm chains, through barbed fences and into a prison. He was unchained and the camera pulled back to reveal that he was in a plush sitting room!