Burn Notice 2.6 - Bad Blood

Plot: Carla, displeased with Michael's recent chicanery, has brought in Victor (Michael Shanks). Victor's a wrangler, in that he basically makes Michael's life miserable until he falls into line. He also doesn't seem as interested in keeping Michael alive as Carla is. And he's just, off, enough that Michael wants someone to keep an eye on his mother. So guess where Sam will be staying this week. As for Victor he'll being using Michael to steal a certain object from a warehouse. Like Timo from last week, Victor is not big on sharing information, so Michael will have to be sneaky if he wants to know what they're getting. He'll also have to think fast if he wants to keep the body count down while they're getting it.

On top of that, he has to help the little brother of his old childhood friend. Ricky works as an accountant for music mogul Valentine (Method Man), only $2 million of Valentine's money has gone missing. It looks as though only Ricky could have taken it, but he swears he didn't, and suspects Eddie of it. Which means Michael must once again trick someone into bringing out the money they've hidden so he can steal it. Failing that, he has to prove Ricky didn't take it, and he has to do that before Eddie decides to tie up loose ends, or Valentine gets tired of waiting for the issue to resolve itself.

The Players: Victor (the Wrangler), Ricky (The Client), Valentine (the Mogul), Eddie (the Embezzler), Barry (the Money Launderer).

Quote of the Episode: Valentine - 'Eddie, what do I do to thieves?' Eddie - 'What you have to, Valentine.' Valentine - 'Rick, what you think?' Ricky - 'I think, you're in a conference room full of witnesses, V.'

Does Fiona get to blow anything up? No, sorry. She gets to pull a gun on Valentine, though. And throw a rock through a window.

Sam Axe's Drink Count: 1 (12 overall).

Sam Getting Hit Count: 0 (6 overall). Remarkably, Sam avoided getting hit, despite playing an annoying "doesn't think rap counts as music" old white guy to Valentine's face. He even got to beat people up instead! It was painful watching him act that way, though. It's a legitimate form of musical expression, Sam.

Michael's Fake Laugh Count: 0 (4 overall). Victor kind of put a downer on him. Odd, for someone prone to bouncing around giddily to be such a mood kill.

Other: Michael's fake name this week was "Jimmy Glynn", from Boston.

Chalk this episode up as another one where someone else takes care of the bad guy for Michael. That's four this season.

That whole scene in the conference room was shot really well. Keeping the camera low when it's looking a Valentine, so we're always looking up, the lack of music and general dead silence in the room except for Valentine's voice, and Method Man did a really good job. Every move had a deliberation to it, so that you're just waiting for the explosion.

I think this is the point where Madeline starts to more frequently call Michael and the others on their tendency to keep her in the dark. Not that it stops Michael from doing that; it'll be some time before he gets out of that habit, but I feel like she's been mostly oblivious to a lot of what's going on around her. Now, even if she doesn't know exactly what's happening, she knows there's enough going on Michael sent Sam to act as watchdog.

Fin and Michael aren't doing much solo interacting lately, which makes a certain amount of sense after their break-up. However, there is a scene when Fi hands him some incendiary rounds which I noted as being "strange" when I watched the episode. I think Fi expressed concern for Michael, and they were standing close together, and Michael perhaps felt awkward. I'm not sure.

While we're discussing the incendiary rounds, I assume they aren't pellets. If they were, I'd question how much shot and set off the tanks of water sealant without hitting the guards (who he was trying to stop before Victor could kill them). The guards were between him and the tanks by the time he fired the shot that made everything go BOOM!, so if it was pellets, they'd have been hit. Which might not kill them, but would sure as hell leave a mark.

I'm pretty sure there has never been a fictional character that called people "sport", who wasn't an asshole. If there is, it isn't Victor, because he uses it on Michael, and he's kind of an ass. Plus, he says things like 'someone's got a case of the "need to knows".', which is just stupid. Then again, Victor didn't find it at all suspicious that Michael just gave up trying to find out what they were stealing, so maybe he is stupid. Or simply too sure of his abilities to break people.

Anyway, through the magic of an x-ray machine built in the trunk of a car, Michael knows they stole a sniper rifle. Now it's a matter of figuring out who it's for, what they're using it for, why they're using it, where and when they'll be using it. We'll see if Michael can start unraveling those pieces next week.