Fearless Leader
Updated 2009-06-26 10:22:42
As always, we're starting off with some salsa music, some Miami porn, and a Michael Westen voice-over. "In any operation, whether it's sneaking into an embassy or collecting debts for a bookie, it's important to lay out a plan before you go into action. If you're going to disagree, it's best to get it out of the way before any shots are fired." As Michael and Fi pull up outside a big house in the Charger (which, just as I predicted, looks like it's never been shot in the hood at all), we join the disagreeing already in progress. Although I think it's naïve of Michael in the extreme to assume that it can possibly ever be gotten out of the way. Michael doesn't love Fi's plan to shove the deadbeat she's after into Michael's trunk, but she doesn't care. "The guy is a charmless sleazebag. No one's getting hurt. It's the perfect job." As they get out and go around to the trunk, even Michael's jinx alarm goes off at that. Glad to see that constant exposure to Fi hasn't completely deadened it. They talk about what they'll do with the cash, and Michael says he plans to use his share to do what Fi disapprovingly calls, "Bribing people to get your old job back. Honestly, Michael, I'd rather you spend it on drugs." Michael looks up from the duffel bag of shotgun ordnance he's checking and offers a compromise: a nice dinner tonight. Letting the wind blow her hair back with perfect timing, Fi agrees, and now they can look forward to an evening of the best yogurt. So now, back to the plan. She hands him the "his" from a his-n-hers pair of digital stopwatches, each set to exactly three minutes. He's supposed to come in with the shotgun, firing rock salt at the bad guys if she doesn't come out after the time is up. I'm kind of wishing he'd forget to start the clock.
But what happens next is almost as good. She struts up to the house, burning up at least the first minute on that long driveway as Michael VOs, "For many operations, two-man teams are ideal. Simple chain of command, easy to delegate responsibility, and little room for confusion." Even if one of them is Fi? She's in the house by now, where there's clearly a party in progress, complete with bikini babes. A few guys are sitting around the poker table, including a charmless sleazebag that the subtitles tell us is "Randall -- Charmless Sleazebag." He and Fi glare at each other across the room. Outside, Michael's VO continues as a squad car pulls up behind him. He decides to close the trunk and smile rather than let them see what he's got in there. "Of course, with a two-man team, there's not a lot of margin for error. All it takes is a cop showing up at the wrong moment and the team ceases to exist." Michael pleasantly greets Detective Paxson, who has gotten out of the unmarked car that pulled up behind the squad car. "Detective Paxson -- Inconvenient Cop," the subtitles say, which is about as accurate as they've ever been regarding her. Even they aren't trying to convince us that she's " Michael's Worst Nightmare " any more.
Inside, Fi tells Randall the deadbeat she wants her client's $20,000, casting a skeptical look at the cash piled on the card table when he smugly claims not to have it. Outside, Michael is watching his watch count down past 15 seconds, which even Paxson doesn't fail to notice. Michael has a good story for her: "I'm just picking up a friend from a poker game. She consumed an alcoholic beverage; I volunteered to be her designated driver." With less than ten seconds left, Michael pulls out his cell phone to call her, but Paxson says not to. And inside, Fi has gotten to the point in the discussion with Randall where she threatens to deliver Randall himself if she can't deliver the money. "You're going to carry me out yourself?" he sneers. "No, I'll have a little help," she smirks back. Her watch beeps, and she glances expectantly toward the door. Which is not being blown open by Michael in any sense of the word. Suddenly Fi's facing an angry-looking Randall and two even angrier-looking goons, and when she looks out the front window, she sees that her cavalry is too busy chatting with Paxson to ride to her rescue. Realizing she's on her own now, she socks Randall, then picks up a chair and uses it to smash first one of the goons and then Randall's picture window. Out she hops into the driveway, drawing looks from Paxson and Michael of varying degrees of curiosity. "She may have consumed two alcoholic beverages," Michael mildly tells Paxson. Fi runs up to them, just as Randall and his goons come out the front door and stop short when they see the fuzz. "Great party! I'll see you later!" Fi fake-drunks to them as they go back inside, almost as though she could hear what Michael was telling Paxson. Paxson says she's not really interested in getting an explanation. Instead, she brought Michael "some babysitters," by which she means the two uniformed cops in the squad car. Looks like Michael's stuck with a permanent tail. As she heads back to her car, Michael tells Fi, "Looks like we have a chaperone on our date tonight."
The evening does indeed find them at dinner, looking out at the police car from their table at... Carlito's. Obviously Fi's a little disappointed at the venue, after Michael promised to bring her someplace nice. "I said that when I thought we were going to be five grand richer," Michael reminds her. Oh, like he would have taken the money anyway. So Fi gets back at him in typically mature fashion by ordering the most expensive dessert on the menu. Her "date" becomes even more disappointing when Sam plops himself down in the seat next to Michael, resplendent in a bright pink shirt and expositing that he's getting audited. At least Paxson isn't behind this. "Something about deducting mojitos," Sam sighs, and comments on the police escort he couldn't help noticing outside. Michael says it's going to get someone killed. You know, Michael, it's okay to just be annoyed by stuff once in a while. Not everything has to be life and death. Sam says he's been trying to find some dirt on Paxson to get her to back off, but she's "too clean to blackmail." Fi's giant dessert arrives, and Sam realizes something's up. "Is this a date? " he asks, shocked at the very idea that Michael and Fi might be trying to act like a normal couple. And understandably so. Michael answers in the affirmative and Fi answers in the negative at the same time. Having heard the answer he was hoping for, Sam asks the server for another spoon so he can share the dessert. Fi looks annoyed, as though eating that whole thing herself wouldn't double her weight.
Next day, Michael is in his Charger, leading his escort around the city. He VOs, "When you're being followed by the police, it's important to remember that having cops around is a problem for criminals. But it's an even bigger problem for a detective trying to remain inconspicuous on a stakeout." And it seems that's just what Detective Paxson is doing as Michael gets out of his car and sits down across from her at a sidewalk cafe. Don't ask me how he found her; she's not only not advertising her location, she's looking almost unrecognizable in a flowery sundress. Maybe she raided the section of the show's wardrobe closet that's marked "Michael's Female Clients" and he tracked her from there. "Are you on a stakeout?" he whispers faux-innocently, ignoring her insistence that he make himself scarce before his escort scares off her target. "Do you need help with your cover ID? I could be a fellow coffee lover, a boyfriend, anything you need." She tells him she's on another case that she's spent eight months on. "People are dying, Mr. Westen. I don't have time for these games." Michael agrees with her, and assures her they're on the same side. She dares him to prove it, and that seems to give him an idea. "You're right, we should talk later," he says abruptly, and gets up to leave, already on his phone to Sam before he even gets back to his car. "I need you to find out a little more about another case Paxson's working on," he instructs. After the dessert Michael bought him last night, seems like the least he could do.
Michael comes into his mom's front door, and she disgustedly holds up a mixing bowl filled with what looks like a failed grade-school volcano experiment. "Cookies!" she spits. "After your birthday cake , I thought I'd take up cooking. It's supposed to be relaxing. So far I'm not convinced." Hey, you know what I hear is relaxing? Smoking. She should give that a shot. As she dumps her cigarette butt in the bowl preparatory to dumping it all down the kitchen drain, Michael asks her a favor: "If the cops out front ask, tell them I've run to the store." She gives him a familiar motherly guilt trip: "I'd appreciate it if when you stopped by it wasn't only to lose your police tail." I think we've all heard that from our moms. But she does let him out, with a request to get eggs and cigarettes. If those are the only two ingredients she's using, I think I figured out why her cookies went wrong.
Michael's sitting in a nondescript dark sedan outside a graveyard. Well, it's not entirely nondescript; the ceiling liner is hanging down in tatters. So that's descriptive, I guess. From this vantage point, Michael can see Detective Paxson, apparently off stakeout, back in her grown-up pantsuit and now talking to some people just after a burial. You can tell by the hearse in the background. Sam hops into the shotgun seat and asks about Michael's new ride. "Three hundred bucks," Michael says. "Statistically, it's the second-most popular car in Miami. Should make tailing me a little more challenging." And statistically, it's likely to belong to Sam by the end of the season. Sam hands Michael a copy of the police dossier on someone else Paxson has been after, a guy named Rick Matheson. According to the photo (okay, and the opening credits), he's played by Erik Palladino, formerly Dr. Dave on ER . "Got a habit of ripping off drug dealers," Sam says. "Left a trail of bodies across Miami." Including the one currently being planted, an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire, of course. Michael asks about Paxson's case against Matheson, which is presently dick. Apparently she took a few runs at him and then had to back off after he filed a harassment complaint. See, Michael, that's how you deal with Paxson. But rather than stealing an excellent idea, Michael explains the plan: they help Paxson with her case. "We take Matheson down the right way, she'll have no choice but to get off my back." No choice? Really? As Paxson goes and gets in her car, she gets yet another subtitle, this one reading, "Detective Paxson -- The Client." You knew that was coming. With the A-plot for the week laid out, Sam's off to his B-plot audit, which he's feeling pretty good about. "The I.R.S. agent's name is Stacey Connolly," he tells Michael. "Time to deploy the Sam Axe arsenal." Let's hope that wink he tips Michael isn't the best weapon in there. It's a bit too "Bad Ash," if you get my meaning. [ Good Ash, bad Ash -- he's the guy with the chin. - Zach ]
Later, Sam sits at a seaside restaurant, having dressed up for the occasion. Yes, he's still wearing an aloha shirt as always, but it has long sleeves. Michael VOs, "In any sort of operation, flirtation is always a tactical option." Really? What if you're hideous? "Romance is a powerful force, and under the right circumstances, it can achieve your objective." Sam smiles at a businesslike blonde walking towards him, and she smiles back. "Of course, not every circumstance is the right one," Michael says, as she walks on by. Sam's still getting over that disappointment when a bespectacled, roly-poly nerd appears at his table. "Stacey Connolly, IRS," he introduces himself. "Stacey Connolly -- I.R.S.," add the subtitles, just so we know this isn't a prank. Stacey (who, just in case I haven't made it clear yet, is a dude ) plops his briefcase down on the table, complaining about the distraction of the calypso music, just as the server delivers the pair of cosmos Sam must have ordered when he still thought Stacey Connolly was a chick. The actual Stacey Connolly is not impressed. "It's not going to work, because I do not drink, Mr. Axe." Clicking his pen, he says, "I audit." Sam stammers that they're both for himself. Stacey pops open his briefcase, which contains a letter stating that Sam's pension checks are on hold until he accounts for all of his expenditures over the last three years. But when he admits that he didn't bring his records ("I just thought we would get acquainted," he chuckles, which is funny because Stacey is a dude ), Stacey bails on the meeting, saying they'll set up another appointment. He warns Sam not to try to charm him and snots off with a brusque "Good day." Hey, he forgot to add, "I said good day! "
Michael and Fi arrive at a beach club. Because it's her job, Fi complains about Michael's strategy of going after Matheson and asks if there isn't an easier way. "The easiest way to get her off my back is to answer her questions," Michael says. "This way doesn't involve me going to jail." So far. So they park their butts at the bar to watch stuff. "Finding your way into a criminal organization is about observing social dynamics," he VOs. "You start with a target." Michael's sunglasses are focused on Matheson, holding court in a cabana tent and generally acting like an entire tool aisle at Home Depot. "Matheson -- Public Enemy," the subtitles inform us with uncharacteristic vagueness. He bitches at and trips a busboy as Michael says that the goal is to find the right type of person to get you in. "People in the inner circle are usually too tough to go after. Anyone with real power is bound to be cautious. Drivers and bodyguards are easier, but they usually don't have real access. You want someone with enough juice be hungry for more, someone desperate to make a move. In short, you're looking for a frustrated middle manager." Michael seems to have settled on one, an unfortunate mook played by Nicholas Turturro (best known from NYPD Blue ) who's currently getting his head smacked by Matheson for talking business at the club. "See, that's your problem, Tommy," Matheson berates his underling. "You don't think." He dismisses Tommy, who gets up with a rueful look and a subtitle that reads, "Tommy -- Aspiring Public Enemy." Fi's glad Michael has a target, because it's time for them to go. They can hear the approaching sirens and everything. She got a call from Sam reporting that Paxson found her car nearby. "If Mr. Personality here sees you with Paxson..." she says. "It'll be almost as bad as Paxson seeing us with him. Let's go!" Michael says, and they split.
They come out onto the sidewalk to find Paxson waiting and squad cars screaming into position. She busts him for ditching his escort. "Oh, I knew I forgot something," he says mock-ruefully. She issues some more empty threats and leaves, without bothering to ask what he was doing at a place where she knows her other favorite suspect hangs out. Gosh, hard to believe that Matheson ever escaped her tireless clutches.
At the loft, Sam is carefully marking up Michael's inner forearm with a Sharpie. Why? "To the educated eye," Michael VOs, "a prison tat tells a story. Where you did time, why you did time and who you did it with. It's a little like a job resumé for criminals." And is even easier to fake, it seems. [ What's prison tattoo for "willing to relocate"? - Z ] Fi comes in just as Sam is taking a break, looking up at Michael's face without letting go of his hand. "I leave you two alone for a minute," she "jokes." Michael grins as Sam rapidly explains about the fake tattoo. Apparently it's to get in with Tommy D'Antonia, a small-time hood who did two years at Allandale and now divides his time between the dog track and trying to get in with Matheson. Sam finishes up the fake tattoo, and Michael's about ready to head out when he happens to glance out the window and spot the police escort still waiting outside the courtyard. "Ugh, I gotta take the over-the-roof-and-down-the-rain-gutter exit," he says wearily. Yes, I can see why he's so keen to get the police off his back; he's going to wear out Miami's rear exits. Especially if Fi keeps leaving him alone with Sam. Whoops, did I just say that?
When Michael shows up at the dog track, he VOs, "Every kid who ever went to a new school knows the secret to fitting in: copy everyone else." That would explain the tacky threads that both he and Tommy are currently rocking, in a look that a less culturally sensitive commentator than myself might describe as "eighties Guido." Tommy is currently cursing out his dog from the front rail. "Spies do the same thing," Michael's VO continues. "Tailor their wardrobe, their movements, and their behavior to imitate their targets. All the little things that say, 'I'm your kind of guy.'" Satisfied that he's got Tommy down after a few seconds of study, he approaches him, just as Tommy watches his dog finish losing and throws his betting slip down. Michael does the same, fakely lamenting his own fake luck in a fake Jersey accent to match Tommy's. "You're Tommy D'Antonio, right?" Michael says. Tommy goes all cagey, and Michael waves his Sharpied arm around, introducing himself as "Milo" and saying he has "friends" who told him he should talk to Tommy if he ever comes to Miami. They bond over Allandale for a minute, and Tommy asks if they talk about him there, all sad and desperate. Michael tells him just what he wants to hear, saying Tommy's like a rock star up there. He spins a story about how he came to Miami to "earn," and then started running out of money when his "girl" came down. They share a chuckle of casual misogyny (Michael even doing a little snort), and Michael makes his pitch. "Hey, Mr. D'Antonio, you think I could--" Tommy tells him to use his first name, and Michael acts all honored as he says he's looking for tips. He claims he's even got a small "crew": "Me, my buddy, and my girl. It's not big time like you." Tommy is so flattered he invites them to dinner that night. Flattered and with an empty social calendar.
At Madeline's, Stacey is set up in the sunroom with his laptop, adding machine, and a big box of Sam's files that he's going through. He disallows a bunch of drinks, because apparently "classified" deductions don't count. "And then there's this," he says, pulling a big ol' Desert Eagle or something out of the box, lifting it with a pen through the trigger guard. "You wanted documentation of my trip to the Middle East," Sam says. "That's it. That's all I got. Got it off this guy who was in this group we were targeting." Stacey thinks that means Sam stole it. Sam amends that the guy was "...done with it." Still not getting it, Stacey thinks it's a gift. Sam further clarifies: "There was this thing... and then... the gun didn't have an owner any more." Stacey finally catches the snap, and says he'll put it down as a "windfall income." What, there's no "corpse-looting" classification? He says they're up to 17% of disallowed deductions, and if they hit 25%, they'll have to go back through Sam's records another three years. I'm going to take his word for that, because the alternative is to admit that I have yet to be audited, which would be a jinx of Fi-like proportions. Madeline appears with a plate of fresh chocolate-chip cookies, which Stacey declines, pleading allergies to chocolate, wheat flour and eggs. Sam snags one for himself, and quickly regrets it. Stacey gives Sam his homework for tomorrow -- a breakdown of gifts from his "lady friends" -- and takes off. "I have a headache in my eye ," Sam tells Madeline. She offers him another cookie. "I'm good," he says quickly. He should ask her for some Imitrex-chip cookies instead.
Later, Sam's with Michael, Fi (who is chewing gum and playing with her hair in an apparent attempt at broad parody of Tommy's "girls back home"), and Tommy at dinner, as Michael VOs, "Sensitive operations often depend on knowing how hard to laugh at the boss's jokes." Clearly they're struggling with that, because they all just laugh as hard as they can. Fi in particular is sucking up to Tommy with a Jersey accent straight out of Grease 2 . Changing the subject to business, Michael makes up stories about how he, "Brianna" and "Big Chuck" used to steal cars. Tommy says they're not thinking big enough, and tells them some fish stories about his own past scores. The team acts impressed, and Michael asks Tommy if they could come along on one of his jobs. Tommy, feeling flattered and expansive, says he'll give them an audition that very night.
Later, it's dark as they walk down the street, Tommy lighting up as he boasts that he's down to one cigarette a day. They're heading to a dry cleaners down the street, the robbing of which Tommy says he already has all figured out, "like clockwork." He rattles off the plan: "Big Chuck over here [meaning Sam, of course] throws a few rocks at the place, gets the guy to come out... Then the little lady runs over, spray-paints the security camera by the door." He hands her a can of red from his bag, which she says is her favorite color. "Then me and Milo run in, grab the cash, and run out the back." Michael has noticed that the camera is attached to a cable, and acts like a confused dumb guy as he pretends not to get whether "Brianna" needs to use the spray paint to eliminate the camera. "Or...did you want her to cut the cable on the roof?" Impressed, Tommy opts for the latter. He then pulls out a little snub-nosed revolver, which he says isn't loaded. It's just for pointing at the guy to scare him if they need to. Sounds like a stellar way to get killed. He shows Michael how to hold it sideways. "That's how they do it now," he explains. Oh, Tommy, that is so nineties. But at least it's a decade ahead of his wardrobe. Satisfied with Michael's sideways-gun-holding technique, he puts his crew into motion.
We start off with Michael, who rolls his eyes. Fi, on the roof, cuts the camera cable. I don't know how she got up there in the first place, unless one of the guys catapulted her up there on the end of a spoon handle. Sam pitches a rock at one of the neon tubes outside, smashing it and ducking out of sight when the cashier comes out. And while the guy's looking out into the darkness, Michael and Tommy dart inside the open door behind him and slam it shut. Michael locks the doors and closes the shades. The owner has his cell phone out and is threatening to call the cops. I guess he could break the window, but it's his own store. Which is the one good part of Tommy's plan. The first drawback is that Tommy can't get the cash register open. Michael rolls his whole head and walks over to fire extinguisher on the wall. "The lock on a cash register drawer is designed to keep it from pulling open," he VOs. "Whack it hard enough the other way --" which Michael does "-- and it breaks." Which it does. They stuff all the cash into a little bag -- including a few bills Michael finds stashed under the cash drawer -- and Michael has to remind Tommy that they're going out the back when he hears the sirens coming and momentarily freezes. The plan's next snag comes when they find the back door padlocked on the inside, trapping them inside. Tommy is completely at a loss. And of course Michael doesn't exactly want to get picked up for this either, because it would be pretty hard to explain to Detective Paxson. I should know, I've been trying to explain things to her for three weeks. It would be hard to explain checkers to Detective Paxson. Still pretending to be the apprentice, Michael asks Tommy, "You're saying unless we break the lock, right?" Tommy says that's right. Michael looks up at the narrow chain holding up a fluorescent light fixture and steals it, then threads it through the hasp of the lock. The sirens are getting closer all the time, which I wouldn't have thought possible. "When a padlock's held onto a door frame with three-inch wood screws," he VOs, "it's no match for a dry cleaning rack that can move 30,000 pounds of clothes." It can? And who wears 30,000 pounds of clothes? Michael attaches the other end of the chain to the rack and hits the switch. The chain goes taut and the mechanism strains for a few seconds, but then the lock pops clean off the door. "Not bad, kid," Tommy says approvingly, as though this were some challenge he had deliberately set up for his young Padawan. They head out the back, just as Fi and Sam pull up in a stolen Impala. "Clockwork, like Tommy said," Michael claims as he and Tommy hop in and they drive off. Wow, Tommy is really so dumb that he even believes people who tell him how awesome he is.
The next morning, Paxson shows up at the loft to brace Michael and Sam some more. She makes some threatening noises about crime labs, which doesn't really scare Michael. And it shouldn't, since they used nothing in the entire job except stuff they found on the scene and whatever Fi cut that camera wire with. And even if they had, where the hell has Miami's crime lab been during the last two seasons? Is it new or something? This is her lame preamble to mentioning last night's robbery/car theft, for which she claims to suspect Michael. So he asks if she's arresting him, which she isn't yet. "Just giving you a chance to explain yourself before the lab work gets done." "Pass, but thanks," Michael mocks. She says he can always check with the cops behind him if he changes his mind. If he can find them, that is. He's already shaken them off at least three times, so far, that we know of, and he isn't done yet. I've met cable repair guys who are more relentless. Paxson takes off again, probably in search of someone else who knows how to file a harassment complaint, since Michael clearly doesn't.
After she leaves, Michael says she's just trying to tie him to anything. So that was the only crime committed in Miami last night? Convenient. As Fi comes down the stairs with a manila envelope and a bundle of cash in her gloved hands, he asks her if she ditched the car she stole. She says the cops won't find it for months. "So after giving the dry cleaner back all his money, last night's heist cost us a grand." And are they also throwing in the cost of fixing his lights, cash register, camera cord, and padlock? Sam's more worried about the crime lab for some reason, and Michael agrees that they need to get this over with. "It's time for Tommy's crew to run into some cash flow problems." Oh, good, that explains... nothing.
Michael lurks in the kennels at the dog track, where Tommy's looking over the contenders. "The sight of a fresh injury has a primal effect on people," he VOs. "If you really need to make a point, sometimes there's no substitute for a good shiner." And with that, he swings a kennel door sharply into his own face. "It's never fun, but if that's what sells your story, it's worth a little pain." Again, Michael's injury comes pretty close to the scar that was already there. I'm starting to wonder if that's some kind of zipper the producers had installed in Jeffrey Donovan's face so they could just open it up every time Michael needs to look hurt and save money on fake blood. Like Bruce Campbell couldn't hook them up. [ The man is probably still washing it out of his hair. - Z ] Tommy is indeed startled at Michael's battered appearance when he comes up to him, claiming he has to leave town to get away from some debts. Tommy doesn't want to lose his apprentice: "You were a little nervous last night, but you did real good, man." Straight-faced, Michael says, "Coming from you, that means so much," but insists that he's still got to leave unless he gets a big score. Tommy's not giving up, and tells Michael about the worst odds he ever saw on a dog: 200 to 1. So he put a hundred on the overexcited hound, hoping to win a new car. And how did that turn out? "Busted his leg out of the chute," Tommy says. Michael's not really getting the point of the story, so Tommy explains that instead of letting them put him down, Tommy adopted him. "The point is, you gotta wait for the door to open before you can run." Michael says that's not enough, and he doesn't want a broken leg of his own. So Tommy says he might have something, and offers to introduce him to "an associate of mine, Rick Matheson." "What, he work for you or something?" Michael asks, never missing a chance to convince Tommy of his admiration. "We work together," Tommy stammers, and tells him to "dress nice" for the meeting. But how many gold chains does Michael own?
Stacey is just finishing up with disallowing Sam's spa weekend deduction, which brings them close to 25%, one deduction away from whatever. But he trails off when rooting through Sam's files unearths an old baseball card, and he stares at it for a minute. Suddenly Sam realizes he knows Stacey. "Your mom's Josie Connolly. I dated her, back in the day. We used to play catch. You were the little boy with the girl name!" Stacey denies it, babbling about famous male Staceys as a way of claiming that there are any number of them out there, until Sam interrupts with a reminiscence about the time he bought young Stacey a pack of baseball cards. Stacey fakes ignorance, until Sam continues talking about taping the cards to the kid's bicycle. "It sounded like a motorcycle, you called me Evel Knievel!" Stacey cuts him off. So now it's out, along with all of Stacey's old hurt that probably caused him to grow up to be a miserable little IRS auditor in the first place. "You acted like you liked me. And then one day you disappeared, and you never came back." Sam tries to explain that he thought Stacey was a good kid, and tried to call a few times after the end of the relationship, but his mom wouldn't have it. Stacey gets up to leave, and Sam offers to catch up over a beer. "Or no beer," he amends, remembering that Stacey doesn't drink. "We'll just..." But Stacey's already gone. "You dated Stacey's mother?" asks Madeline, who has been visible in the background, eavesdropping pointedly throughout this whole scene. Sam says it was brief. "Looks like it was long enough to make a impression," she obviouses, handing him a fresh beer. Well, now we can see where Michael got his keen powers of observation.
Fi and Michael are doing today's tinkering at the restaurant for some reason. As they get busy with duct tape and a pack of cigarettes, Michael VOs, "It's a challenge to place a bug on someone's body without them noticing. It helps if they always carry something you can reproduce. A phone, a watch, or a pack of cigarettes." They tape a wire inside the bottom of the pack. "Then it's just a matter of planting it on them and hoping they keep ignoring the Surgeon General until you get what you need." I'd wonder if Michael ever tried bugging Madeline this way, but then I realize that the cigarettes would run out long before the battery did.
Tommy comes and meets "Milo" and crew outside the beach club Matheson frequents, complimenting Michael on the white suite jacket he's wearing, the twin of his own. He slaps down his pack of Morleys ( X-Files shout-out!) to help Michael with the lapels, and while he pep-talks them, Fi swaps his pack for the real one out of his sight. Tommy grabs the bugged pack and they all head inside. He's awfully busy with that pack of smokes for a guy who's down to one a day. Chalk it up to nervousness, I guess. And the demands of the plot.
"Building up an asset is a little like raising a kid," Michael VOs as they get frisked by Matheson's goons outside his cabana tent. "You can give them the tools to succeed, but when the first day of school rolls around, they're on their own." That's so true. I still remember the first day of school for M. Edium, my four-year-old. It was an emotional day for all of us: me, his mom and the little asset himself. Tommy introduces "Milo," "Brianna" and "Big Chuck" to Matheson, and says he was hoping they could all get in on a job. Matheson gives Tommy a hard time for talking so loud, and, once again, for not thinking. Matheson suspects Tommy's new crew of being cops, pointing to Sam's "cop haircut." Which actually looks totally different from how Sam wore his hair when he was posing as a cop two weeks ago, but never mind. Matheson tries to intimidate Sam (which doesn't work), flirt with Fi (which works even less), and is finally convinced that they're for real when Tommy tells him they helped him with the dry cleaner robbery. "It was like clockwork," Tommy says, again deploying his favorite term with the predictability of... I don't know, something that operates with mechanical reliability and regularity. Matheson invites Tommy to sit down for a talk, and dismisses his crew.
Except the "crew" is listening in on the bug in the beat-up car Michael's driving this week. Fi thinks Tommy's liable to have a heart attack before they get anything, right before they hear Matheson invite Tommy and his crew in on tomorrow's job, which is a hit on a meth lab in a place called "Little Dominica." Expanding into Vice City , I see. Tommy's crew will be in charge of watching the front. When Tommy doubtfully asks about the dealers having machine guns and wonders if there's another way, Matheson basically tells him to sack up and take the shot he's been waiting for. "We're in," Michael says.
But when Michael goes back to meet Tommy at the track, Tommy claims there isn't anything for them. Good thing Michael bugged him, or he'd have no choice but to believe him. So Michael pushes the issue, until Tommy pushes back, hard. "This guy was gonna get you killed just to make a few bucks!" Tommy yells. "That ain't gonna happen. You guys are out!" Michael protests some more to Tommy and VOs, "Work in intelligence long enough, and you get good at predicting human behavior. But sometimes, people surprise you." Which Tommy proceeds to do. He confesses that he thought he could move up if he got a crew of his own. "But that ain't me. It ain't me." "And when they do, you can surprise yourself," Michael VOs. Dropping the fake accent, Michael comes clean with Tommy: "I wanted in on the heist because I'm trying to take Matheson down." Tommy's upset at first that Michael lied to him, but Michael insists that he's a good guy, even if he isn't a cop. "Matheson's hurt a lot of people and he's going to keep doing it. But we're going to take him down. We need your help." Uh-oh, the situation is even more desperate than I thought.
The next day, Tommy meets with "his" "crew" at the marina, so they can tell him about the plan and explain why they can't go to the police. "[Matheson]'s outmaneuvered the cops before. We need to get him caught red-handed," Michael says. He asks Fi to get the Impala back from where she ditched it and Sam to time how soon the cops will be able to get to the meth lab. And Tommy? He just needs to do what Matheson asked him to do, which means getting the van Matheson requested and telling Michael where the heist is supposed to go down, "so we can do our prep work." Tommy agrees, nervously. Michael claps him on the shoulder and assures him it'll be "like clockwork." The phrase works on Tommy like a little key thingy you might use to wind up some sort of mechanical device.
Later, our three leads park the stolen Impala, with Tommy in the blue van behind them. Matheson and a couple of goons also show up. Apparently Matheson is a little more hands-on than I gave him credit for. He explains that the plan is to move in when one of the dealers goes out for "supplies," which apparently he does at the same time every day. The predictability of criminals can come in so handy. When that happens, Matheson and his guys will go in the front and disable the alarm, and Tommy's crew -- Michael, Sam and Fi -- will take up position outside. "All you gotta do is hold off a couple of meth-heads while we take the stuff out the back. Tommy's gonna drive around, pick us up, and we meet later to, uh, split the score." It's obvious that his plan includes getting Tommy's new crew killed out from under him, and he's barely even trying to conceal his mirth at how he's screwing them. Good thing they're already onto him, or they might protest. Right on cue, one of the dealers comes out of the warehouse and gets in a car, so the teams moves in, but not before Matheson tells Tommy to "look sharp," treating him to another head-smack. Matheson's two goons knock the deadbolt off the door, almost like clockwork, and the three of them enter the empty lab, where the beeping of an alarm keypad awaiting a code entry is clearly audible. They bar the door behind them, locking Michael, Sam and Fi out. What they don't know is that Michael is locking them in. "Super Glue's cheap, quiet and powerful," he VOs, laying a double bead of it around the door frame. "Lay it on thick and force-dry it with canned air [which is Fi's job], and you can cut bonding time to less than a minute." As Sam and Michael roll a Dumpster into place to use as a barricade, Sam complains about their tactical position, despite Fi's prep work. "We just need to keep the bad guys from killing each other until the cops get here," Michael says. "By standing in between them?" Sam asks. As he joins Sam and Fi behind the Dumpster, Michael's only answer is to rack the slide on his gun. Is he really about to get into a firefight directly outside a meth lab? Michael, if you proceed with this plan, I'll have no choice but to share a tip with you.
Packing up the bags of meth with his guys inside, Matheson cracks, "Why cook at home when there's takeout?" Har har. As the alarm stops beeping and starts ringing, he says insincerely, "Oops." Dude, I get that he's a heartless fuck, but from the perspective of his own self-interest, is it really safer for him to call down the storm on his team than just disable the alarm, even if half of his team is only serving as cannon fodder to cover his escape? Apparently so. Whatever the case, the alarm is Sam's cue to call the cops. And it's also the cue for a bunch of random guys to start coming out of neighboring buildings, packing heavy. And that's when the shooting starts. And I think it's time I did something I've never done before, which is to treat Michael Westen to an M. Giant voice-over. Just imagine me saying the following in a dry, slow voice:
Meth labs are dangerous not only because they tend to be manned by criminals, but also because they're full of highly explosive chemicals. Fill a cramped, poorly ventilated room with flammable compounds like acetone, propane, and mineral spirits, and you've got a powerful bomb just waiting to go off. Every bomb needs a fuse, and the best fuse for a meth lab is some idiot starting a pitched gun battle right outside. Or, better yet, having his girlfriend set off a bunch of small explosions in the street. But you're the Master Spy, smart guy, so I'll just sit back and watch while you, Sam and Fi turn yourselves, the entire city block and probably all of Little Dominica into a smoking crater. Bye, now.
Oh, did I forget to mention the explosions? Yeah, because Fi's weapon of choice for this engagement is her remote detonator, which she uses to set off blast after miniature blast in the alley, cutting off the advance of the guys with the machine guns. That would be the prep work they were talking about earlier. Good thing that meth lab doesn't have any windows, or they might have gotten curious earlier about why a skinny tan lady with a weird accent was so busy arranging wooden pallets at seemingly random intervals on the pavement. While she's doing that, Sam and Michael lay down covering fire with their handguns to pin the bad guys down behind parked cars. Hey, where's Sam's shotgun? Inside, Matheson is on his cell phone, telling Tommy it's time to leave. Any doubts our guys might have had about whether Tommy was going to come through are quickly dispelled as he and the van emerge from the cloud of smoke, Lightning McQueen hero-shot style, and he tips Michael a wink as he rolls by. He pulls around to the back door as instructed by Matheson, but with one small difference -- he parked the van right up against the door, preventing Matheson from opening it more than an inch or two. Yeah, this plan of Michael's wouldn't seem so clever if that door opened inward. Tommy climbs out the passenger side as Matheson yells at him futilely to move the vehicle. He and his two goons try the front door. No joy there either, thanks to the Super Glue. Right then Matheson gets a cell phone call from Michael, who's still in character as Milo even in the middle of a firefight: "I'm not sure about the plan. It's almost like you were trying to get us killed out here?" Matheson tries to blame it on Tommy's screw-up, but "Milo" says, "Actually, I think it's you that screwed up. You screwed up bad." Hearing approaching sirens for the second time this episode, Michael delivers Matheson's verbal coup de grace . "What made you think you could piss off every drug dealer and cop in town and not get any payback? Oh, wait, that's your problem. You don't think!" He hangs up, and as the sirens get still closer (although we know from earlier in the episode that police sirens anywhere in Miami sound like they're a block away. Fi sets off one more round of explosions to cover their escape. Or possibly to blow Miami off the map, but that second thing doesn't actually happen. Michael, Sam and Fi disappear into the smoke, which will apparently carry them all the way home. Because I don't see any other handy getaway cars around.
And after the cops roll in and a handcuffed Matheson tells Paxson it's her lucky day, an officer tells her he found the "other" getaway car: the selfsame Impala from the dry-cleaning robbery. With C-4 in the trunk. Paxson makes a thinky-face. It's clearly a strain for her.
Outside his place, Tommy introduces Michael to his 200-1 shot greyhound. It's still got a bandaged leg, but it clearly has calmed down quite a bit. Michael bossily tells Tommy to go straight, but Tommy's way ahead of him. He's thinking of moving to St. Louis, where his mom is, and starting a kennel there. They shake, and Tommy thanks him for having his back. Big hug. "I think you guys are going to be okay without me," Tommy says. Michael just grins, because that's more polite than laughing in Tommy's face.
Paxson comes and finds Michael sitting at a table at the Carlito, reading a newspaper, and tells him she closed her biggest case. Michael politely congratulates her. "Thing is," Paxson says, "he was a master criminal who managed to get stuck in a locked meth lab with C-4 in a getaway car parked outside." Michael acts surprised, unconvincingly, and she is suitably unconvinced. She adds that her perp's MO doesn't historically include C-4, although it has been used in other Miami explosions. "Any thoughts?" she invites. Michael removes his sunglasses and suggests, "Well, it seems like you can close the books on those cases. Or you can keep coming after me and have the case against Matheson unravel." Wow, how did he even find a place on the table to put his sunglasses with all his cards in the way? "So I get Matheson and you get a free pass?" she asks. He assures her that any pass he might have gotten wasn't free. He repeats that they're on the same side, and she dismisses the cop escort -- which has somehow reacquired Michael since he ditched them for the 79th time -- with a bob of her head. Or maybe she's just glancing at the traffic. Either way, they're off Michael's trail again, and they no longer have to spend their time sticking to him like felt on a fridge. Leaving, she tells him to "remember where the line is, Mr. Westen. I will be watching." "I'd expect nothing less," he replies. Whatever, three episodes is plenty.
At Madeline's house, Sam has figured out how to resolve the audit situation: get it drunk. Sitting across from Sam at Madeline's dining room table, Stacey says that he thought this was his chance to get back at Sam. "I'm glad you found me," Sam says smoothly. Stacey agrees, and asks for another drink. Sam obliges with a fuzzy navel. "It's not really my kind of thing, but we gotta start you off easy. Work your way up to the good stuff." Stacey's thrilled to have a drinking guru, and asks if he can call Sam from bars with drinking questions. Sam tells him anytime. "Is this not the best audit ever?" Stacey giggles. Okay, I don't believe this for a second, but I'm sure it'll come in handy in the future for Sam to have a "buddy" at the IRS. He's got them everywhere else.
Michael and Fi are at their nice dinner at a nice restaurant, having a nice dinner conversation. "I got rid of the rest of the C-4," Fi says. Okay, maybe not that last one. Michael says it was worth it to ditch the cops, and Fi agrees -- now she can bring Michael along on a bunch of new gigs. But Michael is not about that at all. "I still need back in," he says. Fi was hoping he would have changed, like Tommy, but he just shakes his head. "I'm free of the people who burned me. I'm clear of the cops. This is the moment I've been waiting for." "This is the moment I've been waiting for, too," Fi whispers, and secretly pulls a hair out of her nose so she can spill a tear down her cheek. Michael whispers her name and she says, "Let's just enjoy dinner." Good plan, but it doesn't really seem to be happening. They probably should have just ordered the yogurt.
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M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer , follow him on Twitter , or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.