Burn Notice recap: "Scatter Point"

My name’s Joseph. You’ll have to forgive me if this recapitulation of tonight’s episode does not meet your normal plebian tastes. Michael Westen asked for the best and I can give no less.

The Recap

Michael and Fiona continue to surveil the mail drop where Carla’s post office box is located. A long, boring process with which I am happy not to be involved. An older woman collects the mail and Michael follows her to a nondescript building with no visible security. Ordering a pizza, Michael has the delivery driver behave erratically to explore a theory. The building is watched by a covert team. Later that evening, Michael mounts a webcam on a nearby building to monitor the comings and goings of the security team.

When Michael arrives back at his loft, he is accosted by Trevor, an expediter, recently out of prison. While incarcerated, he encountered a criminal whose complex organization was brought down by Michael’s actions. When Trevor was approached by a former colleague of his to perform another job, Trevor balked. He’d made a promise to his son to live his life cleanly, but Timo would have none of that.

Timo’s team consists of

• CJ: The Hustler
• Gilbert: The Safecracker
• Kandi: The Muscle
• Trevor: The Expediter

Picking the weakest link, Sam and Fiona contrive to have Gilbert arrested for violating his probation. Unfortunatlely, this is not enough to force Timo to cancel his plans, so Michael has Trevor introduce me to Timo.

A bit too much of a control freak, Timo’s first interaction with me is to force me to open a safe in a liquor store – a liquor store! – to demonstrate my credentials. I have not been so insulted in a very long time, but in order to cement my position on the team, I open the little piggy bank. Child’s play.

At Timo’s boathouse, I’m given a cellphone and told to answer by the third ring no matter when it rings. I’m then told I’ll have 19 minutes to crack a safe – Madison, AK Series Class 2, Ilco 693 lock – but given no other information until I very calmly explain to Timo I’ll need to know what countermeasures were installed. Those change yearly, so Timo’s forced to tell me when the safe was installed. The safe was installed two years earlier.

Armed with the model and year of installation, Sam locates the safe in question at the jewelry exchange, but warning the owners of the upcoming robbery is out of the question: CJ is working on the inside.

Suffice it to say the robbery does not go according to Timo’s careful plans. Thanks to Sam cutting a phone line outside, causing the building alarm to go off, I don’t have the time to finish opening the safe. We separate and get to the cars Trevor has placed at our scatter points, but Sam has bled the air from Timo’s tires. Unable to join us at the boat house, it is a simple matter for me to tell the others that I did crack the safe and gave Timo the money, immediately followed by Fiona blowing up the boat house. Kandi takes care of Timo for us, leaving Trevor free from his clutches.

Taking another run at Carla’s office, Michael discovers it’s too late. Carla has emptied it of everything but a photograph of Michael outside the building, a bottle of champagne, some balloons, and a crossword puzzle. His lead: dried up.

Character Counts

The first episode of the season with neither Nate nor Madeline, this one still managed to give us a good look at the psychic scars Michael’s got left from his childhood. Trevor works him hard, begging for his help, but Michael remains unmoved. Right up until Trevor tells him his son was born while he was in prison and he promised his son to stay on the straight and narrow. Jeffrey Donovan visible melts a bit at that and Michael quickly agrees to help. Some nicely delivered backstory without once mentioning Michael’s father.

Sam and Veronica…well. Alright, a quick aside. I was convinced last year that Veronica had taken over from Jason Bly once Michael had shaken him loose. The timing of the start of her relationship with Sam, the Cadillac with OnStar (those microphones are on all the time,) and the fact that she was being played by ’70s/’80s pinup girl Audrey Landers seemed like obvious signs to me, but Matt Nix went another way. (Yes, I had a crush on Audrey and her sister Judy. And can you blame me? Look at those shorts!)

So anyway, we see Veronica for the first time in many episodes in a really cute scene where she proposes to Sam. And he hems and haws. Only later do we discover why. He’s already married. I sense an episode soon with Sam’s wife!

What we end up with tonight, instead, is an Odd Couple moment where Sam shows up with his bags at Michael’s door. The only difference in this case, is it’s the slob moving in with the neat freak and not the other way around.

Another thing we haven’t seen in a while is any sexual tension between Michael and Fiona. Their tortured relationship has been a source of more emo than heat for a few weeks, so it was nice to see some very aggressive flirting from Fi during Michael’s cram session with the safes:

• “The last one’s always the same. C4. It’s always easier to just…blow it.”
• “I won’t deny that I prefer…a powertool.”

Chin Bits

Lots of good stuff tonight, thanks to the marital and pre-marital woes of Sam Axe.

• “Ooh, ooh, ooh. Look at that. That looks good.” Followed by stealing Michael’s smoothie.
• Reviewing Kandi’s (Robin Givens) rap sheet, Sam gleefully observes, “Her and Fiona would have a good time, or kill each other.”
• In response to Veronica’s proposal: “How ’bout that, huh? There’s a question.”
• “I’m trying to come up with a gift. Something that says, I love you but I can’t marry you. And not too expensive.”

Important Lessons in Spycraft

• Surveillance is best in shifts because it’s boring and exhausting.
• Trailing a trained operative requires a lot of preparation, such as knowing all the local traffic patterns.
• If you can’t stop a door alarm, you can make it look innocent by planting cigarette butts.
• Instead of a team of agents, a webcam and signal booster can be effective. The camera should be properly mounted, but when time is an issue, dental putty sets fast and hard.
• Being invisible is “often just a matter of quick thinking, fast feet, and strong fingers.”
• A criminal cover id requires fitting in to the criminal hierarchy:
  • Bank robbers are the rock stars
  • Con artists are the snobs
  • Car theives are the blue collar guys
  • Safe crackers are the artists
• In the armed robbery business, make a bad referral and you might get killed.

Parting Thoughts

Michael really took Trevor’s case personally. Very personally.

You know what your boy needs more than a promise? He needs his dad. Let me handle this. And when I’m done, you’ll never have to worry about Timo again. Trust me.

Now I want to know what specific promise Michael’s father failed to keep. It clearly cut deep.

Next week, one of my favorite actors makes the first of his several appearances as Victor, another burned spy in Carla’s stable. Michael Shanks will have a four episode arc as a character Matt Nix has described as “what Michael would be if Michael had rabies.” I’m looking forward to seeing how his appearance disrupts the status quo, and I’m looking forward to seeing if my theory that he and Fiona will become romantically involved pans out.

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.