- Stepping out of the back of the eighteen-wheeler he was riding in, Michael Westen is greeted with an exploding plane, dead bodies, and one hog-tied, live "client", Jimmy. The phone rings, and a female voice, calling herself "Carla", lets Michael know that if he gets this man back to Miami, and help him play ball, she will finally let him know who burned him. After agreeing to help his new client, Jimmy, steal data from the fortress at Security Associates, and get the man's family back, who are now being held hostage, Michael enlists the help of his friends Fiona and Sam.—Lynne Boris Johnston
- Michael's meeting with the mysterious voice on the phone is postponed when she makes him jump through another hoop - stealing data from a mercenary group - before agreeing to another meeting. Meanwhile, his mother and Fiona have mixed feelings about his return.—layle
- Michael's mystery voice blackmailer Carla promises a meeting on his burned status after a last job, helping security software designer Jimmy, whose family is taken hostage, break into his ruthless boss Ryder Stahl's own Security Associates HQ. Sam and grudgingly returned Fiona help them, but Stahl and his goons hunt the team down.—KGF Vissers
- Previously on "Burn Notice"...
Michael Westen used to be one helluva spy...until somebody burned him. When a spy gets burned, he has no resources, no supplies, no money, and no friends other than the similarly situated misfits who still talk to him. Essentially, Michael is grounded in his hometown, Miami, doing his best to scrape by on odd jobs that come his way and relying on assistance from his mercurial ex-IRA operative ex-girlfriend Fiona; his pal Sam, a grizzled former military operative charged with keeping tabs on Michael for the government; his needy mother; and his shady brother Nate.
Along the way Michael kept digging until he found out the name of the guy who signed the burn notice, one Philip Cowan, who was shot down by a sniper right after he let Michael know that the burn was just the beginning. As last season came to a close, Michael and Fiona had just saved Sam from being tortured to death by homicidal heroin dealers, and had to borrow Sam's girlfriend's Cadillac. You see, on top of that other job, Michael was directed to a remote location more than 100 miles outside of Miami, where a semi sat waiting for him. He pulled into the opener trailer compartment in back, and the door shut, leaving him in total darkness...
And darkness is where we pick up the second season.
"As a spy, you get to spend a lot of time alone," Michael observes in voiceover, and we see him switch on the Caddy's headlights. He kneels by the front wheel, and checks his gun.
Seems our Mikey has been in the dark for a quite some time. He continues, "Whether you're in an Indonesian prison, a cave in the Afghan mountains, or the back of a cargo truck, it comes with the job. You're trained to make the most of it -- plan your next move. Go over your intel. Review your training. But when you've cleaned your gun 30 times, and reviewed the past tense of every verb in five languages, you start itching to make a move."
Michael climbs to the ceiling of the compartment and looks like he's loosened a panel, when a noise outside gets his attention. As he lowers himself down again, the noise becomes louder, more distinct -- yep, that would be an explosion, gunshots and yelping. He crouches and curses to himself, then his phone rings. Michael breaks into his, "oh boy, fun time!" grin and answers.
"Yeeeello?"
"Hello, Michael." The calm, friendly voice belongs to a woman.
"Sounds like you're having quite a party out there," he jokes.
"Indeed we are! And you're the guest of honor."
The compartment door opens, and daylight pours into Michael's portable prison. So does smoke. He steps outside to see a scene more fitting for Beirut than Nowheresville, America: A small plane is engulfed in flames, and an abandoned truck sits nearby. Michael jumps out, gun drawn, but the woman on the phone assures him there's no need for that -- the shooting's all over. "Hope you're not disappointed."
No, he replies, the only disappointment is that she can see him but he can't see her. "I thought we were going to meet," he said.
"We will. But first some business," she says curtly.
Sure, he replies. How about she starts with why she burned him? But she ignores this snark. "We've had our eye on you for a while, Michael," she explains.
"I'm sorry I didn't catch your name," he says, to which she replies, "No, you didn't."
And in that moment, the plane erupts in an explosion. "Why don't you call me Carla?" she offers. Then he tells him to head to a nearby car, because she has something she wants him to take care of for "us." Oh boy...another job?
"Don't call it a job," Carla says, "Call it a favor."
By this car is a dead body, and another man who is still alive, but restrained by plastic ties on his arms and legs. Oh, and there's duct tape over his mouth. Carla identifies him as Jimmy.
"He's someone else we asked for a favor," Carla explains, going on to report that Jimmy decided to skip town instead.
As Jimmy desperately tries to crawl away from a gun-wielding Michael, Carla explains that Michael's "favor" entails him taking Jimmy back to Miami so that he'll do what he's told, and that Michael needs to help him. And why is that? Well, because this mysterious group that is now calling the shots in Michael's life has Jimmy's wife and daughter.
And if Michael doesn't help Jimmy...well, who knows what'll happen to them?
One more bonus! It seems Jimmy called 911 before Michael's new employers arrived on the scene to create the ruckus Michael is now charged with cleaning up. Michael can hear the approaching sirens as Carla share this bit of information with him. Say...thanks, Jimmy!
"I do this, and then we meet," Michael declares.
Carla replies, "I keep my promises."
So Michael shoves Jimmy's butt in the trunk of the Caddy and goes about outmaneuvering the fuzz, which brings us to...
Spy tip #1! Airbags make evasive maneuvering tough, apparently. "Gone are the days when you could run through a stand of trees without a face full of nylon," Michael explains in a voiceover as he races the Caddy down a relatively clear but unpaved area off road, parallel to the pursuing po-po. He stops to consider his options, and as the cops swing around to head him off, we see how Michael defeats the airbag conundrum: Just drive backwards. "Of course, anything you used to do head on you can still do. But it's a little hard on anyone who's stuffed in your trunk." Indeed, Jimmy seems to be hating it as the rear of the car slams through branches and saplings. But eventually Michael ends up on the road, leaving the cop cars in the weeds as he tears off on his merry way, presumably towards Miami.
Welcome to season two of "Burn Notice"! Mr. Westen, we've missed ye.
After a break, we see Michael pull over to a facility near the scene of the...crime? Incident?. Whatever you want to call it. Michael explains to Jimmy that the people putting the screws to him are the same ones messing up Michael's game, but if JImmy behaves he can ride up front. Jimmy agrees.
During the long drive back to Miami, Jimmy shares his sad, sad tale with Michael. It seems Carla, who Jimmy only knows as "this lady," called Jimmy a couple of months back and told him to break into his place where he did a job. Jimmy is into computers,and he had an installation at a place called Security Associates, which may or may not be military.
Carla ordered Jimmy to break back in, grab a memory dump off the computer's hard drive and give it to her. Jimmy, understandably, freaked out and attempted to escape with his wife and child. But before he could get on the private plane he hired, a helicopter filled with men and guns flew to the scene, and we know the rest.
Michael resolves to help him...if he can.
First stop: Michael's sweet spartan warehouse pad, where the faithful Sam awaits him. Still wearing the scabs and bruises that came with being beaten within an inch of his life, Sam decided not to freak out his girlfriend by showing up with his face pounded into hamburger, so he's laying low at Mike's place. As Sam dines on the limited amount of food in his pal's fridge, Mike brings him up to speed on the job, letting him know that the reward for this gig is that he gets to keep his life. Sam doesn't seem fazed by this news. "Ah, never did like those."
Michael's game plan is to find out what kind of data the mysterious group wants to have stolen in order to discover what their ultimate objective is, and perhaps get some information on who they are. Sam is on board with all of this until he gets an eyeful of what Michael's derring do has done to his girlfriend Veronica's car.
As Sam unloads Jimmy, a white mini SUV pulls up -- it's Fiona! And she looks ticked off, but when isn't she? This time she's angry at the fact that Michael kissed her goodbye 48 hours ago (ah, so that's how long it's been!) and she thought he was dead or at best, vanished, and here is all shiny and bright and asking for her help with another job. She goes to punch him, but Michael deflects her again, restraining her in the usual embrace...as Mom turns up on the phone. Hey, hey, the dysfunction's all here!
Except, not really. Michael's mom is holed up in Ft. Lauderdale (per her son's instructions in the season finale, in which Michael instructed Ma and his bro to run for their lives). Michael tells his mother to come on home, and the team gets on down to work.
The job: After Sam susses out the joint, they find out that the security firm is a private military company. Michael instructs Jimmy to arrange for a meeting. Cutting to the meet date, as Michael explains in a voiceover that companies like this are huge into security detail, but for the right amount of money, "they'll rain hot lead down wherever you want."
Michael and Jimmy enter the lobby, and they're greeted by a severe looking gentleman, who Jimmy nervously introduces. Michael extends his hand and opens his mouth to reveal...a flawless British accent with a slight working class inflection, connoting perhaps an association with the criminal underworld.
Michael introduces himself as Terry Miller, and says that Jimmy told him that they were the folks to turn to if they're looking for merc work.
"We're security consultants, not mercenaries," the man retorts coldly, as the picture freezes and subtitles appear identifying the gentleman in question as, "Ryder Stahl, Mercenary."
Michael dismisses Jimmy and informs Ryder that they have business best discussed upstairs, in private. Once they're in Ryder's office, Michael, er, "Terry," lays out his needs -- he has a mining operation near the border of Kenya, and he needs the locals dealt with. Ryder tells "Terry" that since he's solicited an illegal act, he suspects that "Terry" may be a cop, and goes on to share that he's aware of the team "Terry" has parked on the roof of the garage nearby. "Terry" replies that he's not a cop and doesn't have a team, but has a lot of enemies. Ryder tells him to prove it, and has two of his thugs escort Michael out the back entrance to confront his supposed foes, also known as Sam and Fee.
Meanwhile, Sam and Fee are involved in a deep conversation while they wait for their beloved Michael in the Caddy, the topic being, what else? Loyalty. Fiona is miffed that Michael would toy with her emotions by just up and pulling her into another job after they faced death (and their residual feelings for one another), while Sam counters by saying that none of his other friends would lead an armed assault to save his sorry butt. Certainly a better example of true friendship than, say, purchasing beers for each other.
Anyway, that's when Michael turns the corner with the security firm's thugs, and starts shooting at his dear old pals. Sam's confused at first but Fee, never one to pass up a good round of gunplay, returns fire and, as Michael points out in a voiceover, shoots him just close enough to sell it but still manages to miss him. With Michael's cover preserved, they rendezvous back at the warehouse.
Michael fills Jimmy in on what happened, and tells him that the next step is to break into the firm, but the guy's unreasonably worried. Sam takes Jimmy inside to calm him down with a beer and a yogurt as Mike's mother calls, demanding he come back to the house because the place is a disaster. Michael heads over, no doubt picturing the place has been turned over by his new boss's thugs, but instead is greeted by the usual state of relative order, and his mother training a shotgun on him, a lit cigarette dangling from her lip. Once she calms down, she gripes about the men in suits outside and more to the point, that her '60s era coffeemaker has bitten the dust. Apparently while she was gone a fuse blew and all the food in the fridge spoiled -- utter chaos. She also found what she assumed was one of Michael's phones, a slim silver cell.
Naturally it isn't his, and when he dials, who should answer but...Carla. Michael's unseen handler reminds him that there's a clock on this mission, and just in case he's forgotten about the stakes, she puts Jimmy's daughter on the line. She looks and sounds like she's about five, and Michael's face goes cold. Carla comes back on the phone and assures Michael that he doesn't want find out if she'll hurt the kid.
Next scene, Michael has headed back to the security firm and, as Terry Miller, confronts Ryder Stahl and informs him that either he takes the job or he and his money leave Miami. Stahl smiles and leads "Terry" into his office. As "Terry" opens his briefcase to give Stahl the details on his plans, Michael explains in a voiceover that every great thief knows to pose as a customer to gain access to the goods. After all, who gets to see the vaults and the security at a military company? The rich guy who's spending the money.
"Terry" refuses to hand over his cash and insults the security system at Ryder's company, leading Ryder to show off the inner workings of the place -- including the coded lock, the information that the building security can be there in under a minute and the cops in under five, and the placement of the data mainframe. Michael, playing the part of Terry, counts his steps and comes up with the layout in his brain.
Back at the warehouse, he transcribes the floor plan from memory onto paper as Fiona walks in and interrupts him. She wants to have "their conversation," meaning the long overdue talk about where their relationship is or isn't going. As usual, he puts it off -- for the job, of course -- and gives her an assignment: Infiltrate the company housed on the floor above Security Associates, and get him and Jimmy in there, where they'll be making a lot of noise.
"You have a high estimation of my skills, Michael," she observes.
"And you've earned every bit of it," he replies with a manipulatively loving gaze. As usual, it works.
Later at a cafe, Michael fills Jimmy in on the job, and he agrees to break in a retrieve the data himself, explaining that it's for his wife and kid. But while they're chatting, Michael notices a man watching them and writing things down at a table nearby. Mike gets up casually, claiming to have to stretch his legs, and the stranger darts off from his perch. Michael runs after him, but it doesn't take long for the guy to stumble and fall. The ex-spy puts his foot on the man's chest and asks who he works for. The mystery man, an obvious amateur, replies he doesn't know, that he answered a newspaper ad to keep tabs on Michael and Jimmy, and that he has an envelope he's been instructed not to open. Michael grabs the envelope, rips it open...and inside is a photograph of Jimmy's wife and kid. On the back is written, "Hurry up. We're waiting."
"I was wondering when you'd call," Michael says into the phone later, back at the warehouse. It's Carla on the line reminding him that there's a deadline. Michael understands, and tells her he needs the guns from the assassination on the airstrip. Carla agrees. He adds that he also wants Jimmy's wife and child, dropped at an area he specifies.
Of course, Carla assures him. "We want this to be a good experience for everyone." Carla, she's a people person.
We cut to Fiona working her feminine wiles on the desk jockey at the office above Security Associates, who signs off on a bogus work order because he likes what's shimmying in his face.
And with that, Michael and Jimmy (masquerading as contractors) are in....and we get our next spy tips of the night.
Spy tip #2: When you cut through a floor, you have to worry about wiring. You also have to worry about concrete from the floor you're cutting through dropping into the secure area below; either will set off the office security system. The solution: Plan well, and drill a hole attached to a bolt to anchor what you're cutting through.
Spy tip #3: Once you're in, and you've dropped into a security system blind spot, mind the motion detector. Move slowly with a wool blanket and the detector won't be able to sense any soundwaves bouncing off of you, thus preventing it from triggering. A thermal blanket also guards a person from heat sensor detection.
Mike and Jimmy are now inside of Security Associates and downloading information into a laptop, which is a good thing considering what goes down next.
Outside in a car, Fee and Sam discuss how he's going to explain his battered mug to his girlfriend Veronica...when a black SUV pulls up. It's Ryder and his men. Fee warns Michael with a text. Ryder and his guys head to the security guard at the front desk...right at the moment that Jimmy, celebrating the completion of the illegal data dump, pumps his fist in the air, setting off the alarm.
The subtle approach ruined, Michael turns to Plan B, pulling a massive gun out of his bag and with a few loud rounds, destroying the mainframe. He then instructs Jimmy to tie off the rope he also brought with him and, after blowing the window out with an explosive round, rappels himself and Jimmy down the side of the building to Sam and Fee, waiting in the Caddy. Ryder gets there just in time to fire off a few rounds at the car as it drives away.
Next day, Michael and Sam are celebrating with a beer, and Jimmy's still freaking out -- he knows that the Security Associates goons definitely want to kill him now. Yes, Michael says, and that makes them predictable. So Michael's plan is to make them think that Jimmy's dead. He asks Sam if he knows of a boat that's on its last legs. Sam brightens up, clearly aware of Michael's scheme.
Fiona calls, and informs Michael of a delivery left in her vehicle -- it's the hot guns from the airstrip incident. She then chastises Michael for giving his mother the cold shoulder, and tells him to go see her.
Geez. Family.
Mike finds his mother chain-smoking, and she unloads on him. His brother Nate's still holed up in Fort Lauderdale, and now she has men with guns looking for her other son! She can't believe what her Michael does for a living. (Yes, she sorta knows -- rent the DVD and check out the first season finale.)
Michael sits there taking it, not looking at his mother, then turns to face her. "All these years, you wondered why I didn't come home, why I never called. This is why. I never wanted this for you. I'm sorry."
She takes this in for a moment, and retorts, "That still doesn't explain why you didn't write." After full season of this we still can't decide if the Westen family is Catholic or Jewish.
And now, it's go time.
Michael takes Jimmy to an out-of-the-way dock, and has Jimmy call Ryder and his boys from a flagged phone to tell them where he is. As Michael explains, by calling from a flagged phone, Jimmy's call has alerted the ATF. It'll take them at least 10 minutes to be there, but Ryder arrives first, so Jimmy has to stall. While Ryder's attention is drawn elsewhere, Fee sneaks up behind his truck and loads the hot weapons into its bed. Jimmy continues to keep Ryder talking until the latter loses his patience and draws a gun, waving it into the air and letting Jimmy know he has snipers with him as well. But just as the ATF arrives, Michael blows up the boat Ryder Stahl has been lured to to get their attention -- and the officers move in. As they lead Ryder and his men away, they remark upon the dirty hardware, linked to a double homicide, in their trunk. They won't be bothering anyone for a long time.
Thanks to Michael, Jimmy is now in the clear. He and Sam have arranged for Jimmy to be taken on a boat to Haiti. From there he'll fly to Argentina to meet his family. He tells Jimmy that Carla will keep his promise to return Jimmy's wife and daughter, because if she doesn't, she'll lose Michael as an asset. To show his gratitude, Jimmy hands over the keys to his Saab convertible, which he'll obviously no longer need.
"I gotta leave the country, and you're stuck working for them," Jimmy observes. "I don't know who has it better."
Michael replies, "You do, Jimmy. Believe me. You do."
Back at the warehouse, Michael and Fiona pore over the data Carla and Company put him through so much trouble to retrieve. They still can't figure out what it's for, but it's a start, Michael says.
Then Fiona give Michael the look. "Time to talk," he says with a sigh. Here it is, at long last.
"I lost you the other day," she says softly
"I came back, Fee."
"You left, Michael. You had a choice to make, and you made it."
He asks her to call it, and she does. "I'll always care about you, Michael. And I'll still help you with your things, and you'll still help me with mine. But we can't be together."
"I know," he tells her. "I've said that for a long time."
"Yes, you have." And she turns to walk away.
He sums it up, Sam Spade style: "When you work as a spy, it's easy to think of people as assets. Resources to accomplish a goal. Because you don't have a personal relationship with an asset. You don't care about an asset. You don't miss the scent of an asset when she leaves the room."
The scene fades...and opens again in a cafe. A beautiful woman is sitting at the bar completing a crossword puzzle. A flirtatious Sam struts up and offers to help her, but she declines, saying she's just leaving. Michael notices her as she gathers her things, and Sam observes that if he weren't with Veronica, he'd be getting himself a piece of that puzzler. He asks Michael about Jimmy, and Mike replies that he got a call from his former client/charge, and that he and the family are safe. Michael shows Sam a picture of the happy family on his cell phone, and watches the woman walk past their table and out of the cafe. She steps into a waiting cab.
Then, his phone rings. It's Carla, checking in on the conclusion of what she calls "their little project."
"I want to make this arrangement work," Carla explains.
"Or, you'll kill them," Michael replies, to which Carla says,"Now you're catching on."
"Yeah, except for one thing," Michael replies. "You said we'd meet."
"Oh, but we did meet! Tell Sam thanks for the help with the crossword."
Michael leaps up from the table, just in time to see the tail lights of Carla's car as it's driving away.
Walking back inside the cafe, he notices that Carla has left the crossword puzzle laying there. Across the top it reads, "Enjoy the puzzle. I'll see you soon."
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