Burn Notice Fearless Leader

Fiona dragged Michael Westen along on another one of her “muscle” jobs, retrieving some money from guy named Randall for a client, only to fail and get M in trouble with Paxson who was dogging him. Paxson set a 24-hour tail on M to make his “extracurricular activities more dangerous for you and your friends.”  So, he asked, “I either answer your questions or you get us killed?” Sam joined M and Fiona's evening date to tell them that he was being audited by the IRS and that Paxson was "too clean to blackmail." He said that they would need to come up with something else to get rid of her. So, to turn the tables, M followed Paxson to where she was on a stakeout on another case, of course bringing his police tail with him. It pissed her off and she told him that she was dealing with a murderer so he of all people should know better. He told her that they were "on the same side" and she said to “prove it.” So, M agreed saying: "maybe you do need some proof" and left. Later, as he ran through his mother, Madeline's, house to lose his tail, she told him to bring her back some eggs - and cigaretts. M had bought a new car for $300 telling Sam that it was statistically the most common car in Miami, which should make it more difficult to tail. They tailed Paxson to a funeral and Sam had information that a crook named Rick Matheson had filed a harassment complaint against Paxson the month previously because she had taken some swings at him and missed. Matheson was a “pro” crook at ripping off drug dealers, leaving bodies all across the state. Sam said that the funeral they were staking out was for a neighbor at one of Matheson's heists, who got caught in the crossfire. Matheson, Sam said, doesn’t even have to hide any more.

 

M decided that Paxson needed help with her case; so, she became Ms client whether she knew it or not. Sam thought his tax audit with “Stacey Connolly” would be a snap for him; but instead, it turned out to be with a “little man with a girly name" who seemed to have it out for Sam, in particular. All his government pension checks were being held pending the audit. M and Fiona staked out Matheson looking for someone they could use to help take him down. Someone like an aspiring middle manager.  They found one in Tommy, a sort of doofus, wannabe crook who had done time. Sam drew a prison “tat” on M – something which tells the story where he did time, why he did time and who he did it with – in order to support his cover ID of Milo, a fellow dog track better and small time thief needing “lessons” in order to "score big." Tommy invited them to dinner and then to do a burglary of a laundry - which M had to arrange in order to keep them from being caught. The next morning Paxson showed up anyway, warning that she was going to check fingerprints and basically was trying to shotgun any and every crime in Miami to MW.

 

To Tommy, M had to pretended to have money troubles in order to get Tommy to escalate a deal to involve Matheson. Matheson did eventually agree but only with intent that they were expendable and would be killed. Sam’s audit wasn’t going well either. Stacey was nearly at 25% disallowances, the figure which would extend his audit back another 3 years, when he picked up a baseball card and looked at it long enough that Sam finally recognized him as a boy whose mother he had once dated. Sam and Stacey’s mother, Josie Connolly, had dated a while but broke up and Sam wasn’t allowed to see Stacey anymore. It apparently had broken the kids heart. Stacey admitted that when he ran across Sam's return he had recognized the chance to “get even.” Back with Tommy, he said that he always carries a pack of cigarettes although he "only smoked one a day. It's called will power."  So, M bugged the pack with a transmitter which allowed him to hear Matheson planning a hit on a meth lab. Matheson told Tommy that he was going to drive the getaway van; but, the others were basically going to stay out front to “catch bullets” from the dealers with machine guns. Tommy then showed his real attitude by telling M that the job was off.  He was going to handle it on his own and they should leave town. M, surprised by Tommy’s change of heart, admitted to him that he was actually trying to take Matheson down and needed his help.

 

Fiona brought the stolen car from the laundry heist, which Paxson was looking for; and when Matheson had gone into the lab, M super-glued the door shut. Sam called the police and when the drug makers came out, Fiona set off explosives. None-the-less, they were still out front behind a dumpster in the middle of the bullets! When Matheson called Tommy for pickup, he parked the van against the exit door locking them inside to be caught red-handed. M called Matheson on his cell phone and asked "what made you think that you could piss off every drug dealer and cop in town and not get any payback." Later Paxson came to Carlito's to gloat that she had closed her biggest case but had found some C-4, which had been used in several explosions around town, and seemed to her like it had been planted on Matheson. M finally told her that she could: "either close those other cases OR keep coming after me and have your case against Matheson unravel." “So I get Matheson and you get a free pass?” she whined. M emphatically shot back, “If I got a free pass… it was anything but free!” He told her again: “We’re on the same side.” Resignedly she left saying “remember where the line is… I’ll be watching.”

 

Sam was eventually able to get Stacey to come to dinner and they patched up their relationship by Sam teaching him to drink - starting with a Fuzzy Navel. And, finally at her dinner date with M, Fiona continued her relentless manipulation to try and convince him to change his line of work; although, admittedly much more subdued that in the past. M told her that he was now free of the people who had burned him, free of the cops and that this was the moment he’d been waiting for – he needed to get back in because he had no idea who would be coming after him next. Fiona was obviously distressed but for once suffered in silence.