Burn Notice Rough Seas

Michael Westen and Fiona waited along the beach for an arms dealer she knew to show up, so M could get information about the Russian sniper rifle Carla had Victor and him steal. Fiona made it obvious that she had just gotten a text message so that she could let M know that "it was a guy who had just asked her out." Fiona described her arms dealer, Seymour, as a “little eccentric." He eventually showed up and immediately started walking toward the beach, dragging M along, in order to trick him into being "muscle" for an arms deal.  The buyer, a Bulgarian named Pavel, only gave half the $100 thousand that Seymour claimed they had agreed on. M had to disarm Pavel and his companion in self-defense and all of them had to flee and dodge bullets. Of course the Bulgarians decided to follow M and Fiona’s car in stead of Seymour's so M had to drive so erratic that Pavel couldn’t follow in his larger SUV. When M got back to the loft, Virgil was there asking for their help trying to help the daughter of Jay Flores, an old buddy in the repo-business, who had some pharmaceuticals hijacked. The woman, Marcela, ran a medical relief agency which had a ship boarded by pirates. Virgil and Sam double teamed M into finally agreeing then Virgil wanted to borrow the phone to call Madeline. M bristled and told him he wasn’t going to see her this time because he nearly got her killed last time. [In the middle of an odd scene, the writers threw in a boy kicking a ball, one guesses in a hokey attempt to get all cutesy; but it seem to come out of nowhere and added nothing to establishing the story line.]  So, MW was after $1 million in drugs from unknown pirates.

 

Madeline had M come over and clear out boxes without telling him why; but clearly she was also expecting Virgil, who M disavowed seeing. Virgil just helped himself to wearing Ms underwear, claiming he forgot to pack “enough.” [Not sure why the writers thought we’d get a kick out of seeing Virgil blatantly disrespect M wile asking him for a favor.] Sam got a lead on a guy who dealt in black market drugs so M and Virgil went to see if he knew anyone trying to sell anti-viral pharmaceuticals. Virgil and M photographed people coming out of Feldman’s golf store while Virgil tried to belittle M for prohibiting his visit to Madeline. M told him: “I'm not uncomfortable, you attract bullets. Too risky.” Then, typical for a man who was so pathetic he’d steal underwear, he flippantly announced “what’s a few bullets?” With M threats to make his customers public, Feldman disclosed that a man named Gerard, a total psycho, had a million dollars of antivirals for sale, and was coerced into making an introduction for Sam. The next meeting with Seymour was yet again another trick to get M involved in his gun deal with Pavel. This time M bailed and let Seymour get shot at. Sam went in to Gerard’s hangout pretending to be a buyer, but was told that the drugs had already been sold.  Sam suggested plan "B" was to drag M even further into Gerard's business.  Sam posed as a buyer for a whole new heist under the condition that Gerard use M as an inside tech man. Virgil told M that he had helped a man in Ft. Lauderdale sink his Catamaran before his ex-wife could get it; so, he may be able to get him to lend them a boat for their con.

 

Madeline showed up at the loft unannounced, with a store-bought pie she had sprinkled cinnamon on and called her own, trying to get information about Virgil. M met her on the stairs saying he was leaving and told her that he’d call her if he did see Virgil. Fiona ragged on M about keeping Madeline away from Virgil in order to manipulate the conversation into putting the screws to M about her dating someone else. M just ignored her obvious treachery by saying he was "fine with it." Back at Seymour’s, he tried to give M a share of the gun sale money but M threw it back at him saying "we don't work together!" Finally, Seymour actually listened to what M wanted and said he would make some calls. Back with Gerard, Sam pitched a partnership to heist some designer performance enhancers. When he agreed, Sam told him that he had to bring in a tech from the company to make certain of their quality and safety. M pretended to be “Jackson” a nerdy, asthmatic, chemist and let Gerard dominate him. While he and Gerard were scoping out Virgil loading the boat, Madeline showed up, having tailed Virgil since he had left the loft. Virgil told her that he was in the middle of something and to go away which obviously hurt her feelings. Gerard made M stay the night with him, so M had to “called in sick” to Fiona, who then missed her date in order to come and to get the message that the heist was on for real. Sam and Virgil made up coolant containers and loaded them on the boat using Ms refrigerator from the loft. Fiona told Sam that she wished Gerard would knock M around a little for making her miss her date. “I don’t want him killed,” she said, “just bruised.”

 

On the way to the heist in the boat, M asked Gerard for the mask that they had agreed he could wear to avoid recognition and was told that he didn’t need it because they were going to kill Virgil. Voice over said that “dealing with a trained operative is like playing chess with a master. Dealing with criminals is like playing checkers with a three-year-old. They like to change the rules.” So M then demanded a gun, ostensibly in order to protect himself from flying bullets. When they boarded Virgil’s boat from their Zodiac, M went straight to Virgil and pretended to be recognized so he could have an excuse to shoot Virgil himself, knocking him in the water. Then when they got the fake drugs back to Gerard’s warehouse M had to wave off Sam and Fiona from storming in, because the warehouse was so huge that there was no way to find where the antivirals were stashed. They decided plan "C." yet another sting to get them to move the drugs. M went back to Gerard claiming that Chuck Finley was a sociopath who killed all his former partners. “If the devil had a name,” M said, “it’d be Chuck!” Gerard went to his warehouse in order to move all his drugs and took M with him.  First Fiona called the cops, then Sam (as Finley) drove a truck to the scene and blocked an exit. While Gerard was emptying his guns at Finley's supposed men inside the truck, M shot at bags of Acetone Peroxide taped under the running board which blew it up. The cops came just after M had driven off in Gerard's truck with the antivirals. In a sort of denouement, M called Madeline to meet them and told Virgil to take her somewhere without guns.

 

Seymour called for them to come back to the house, then attacked them saying that when he had asked about the gun he had found the place burned to the ground and the owner killed. M and Fiona were no match for him and he was quickly pressed into a table with gunpowder spread on his face. He finally revealed that all he knew was that a guy named Bill Johnson had picked up some stuff for the gun like: specially calibrated muzzle brakes, night sights and a fiber optic camera. Once he had the items, Johnson had killed the seller and burned the shop. M said that "put on a sniper rifle it would be for proof of death." Fiona got a gun with laser targeting assist out of the Seymour. Bill Johnson could be anywhere!