Burn Notice Out of the Fire

[Season Finale – Part 1] Michael Westen told the very angry Jesse, who wanted to go immediately after Brennen, that if Marv had been his close friend he would expect Jesse to keep him from doing something stupid like trying to take on Brennen. Brennen requested a meeting and told M that he had spent $122,654.32 in the last year keeping track of him – which had fortuitously led him to Marv and the ability to steal the list. He demanded that M start killing the people on the list and he would pocket the money he could make off of it – shades of Tom Strickler. If M refused, the audio file that Marv recklessly made of Ms naming names gets sent to Vaughn – and Brennen had set his computer to send it automatically at 5 every morning; unless, he personally prevented it from happening. He gave M his first target, a federal employee ID number of 132G. BX728 640 9485, who was an operator in Indonesia but currently in Miami – oh, "and by the way, meet your new partner: Larry Seizmore!"

 

Back at the loft Sam picked a fight with M in order to be able to get close enough to whisper in his ear: “get Larry’s phone number” and be able to extract himself from Larry's watchfulness. Jesse’s job was to stall the investigators of Marv’s murder just long enough for M to get Brennen off their backs. So he gave them a folder, which he said he had found on Marv’s body, about the Sinaloa Cartel. Jesse whined to Madeline about Marv’s family never knowing the truth. She told him that in this case knowing the truth may hurt and he should worry about what Marv’s family needs before he goes trying to “help” someone. Larry wanted to kill a guard at the courthouse and get the name associated with the ID number. However, M wanted to "do it like St. Petersburg ’94, only lawyers instead of diplomats and this time Larry could be the 'boss.'" So, he needed Larry’s cell number to call him which he then sent back to Sam and Fiona to try and trace when he called Brennen. Larry impersonated an attorney who needed some files to a legal clerk. Of course there was no authorization so he spun a yarn about a Judge impatiently waiting on them. M called on Larry's phone acting as the judge demanding their speed; then he burst through the door impersonating Larry's partner waiving fake forms but turning on the clerk for being obstructionistic before he could ask to see them. The fear of being in the middle of an argument with an angry judge sent the clerk running away from his desk; which then let M have access to the computer to find the name, the thing they wanted all along. With seconds until the intrusion alram sounded they found the man’s name to be Albert Machado who was working for the I.M.F. M had no time to cover his tracks on the computer, so they also had to bluff their way out of the building as well.

 

Unfortunately when Larry called Brennen to report, Sam's bug showed that Brennen was changing both his phone ID and history all over the place - and he “had never seen that before!” At Ms insistance, Brennen revealed that he was going to frame a separatist group for the murder. M too the chance to talk them into framing the separatists for kidnapping instead of murder, proposing that they could then interrogate him, ransom him etc.. Brennen agreed. Back with Sam, Fiona did find the guy who had sold Brennen the phone scrambling equipment.  His name was Alfredo and he was being extraordinarily cautious, so they needed to drop through his skylight. Alfredo revealed that he had sold Brennen both the phone equipment and a biometric locked wall safe, with installation, and told Fiona the address. Both Larry and M discussed how that they both hated Brennen and were both just keeping Brennen comfortable until an opportunity occurred where they could get the list away from him. They told Brennen that they had 2 minutes to get in, locate Machado and get him out and they wanted to plan a little longer. Brennen bullied them throughout the whole process demanding they “do it now”; then gave them supplies and instructions on how to make a bomb containing the separatists signature construction. Jesse, Fiona and Sam found that Brennen’s safe was in an abandoned apartment building which had more cameras than a TV studio.

 

M captured Machado and he obviously recognized the name Michael Weston; but then Larry went ahead and blew him up instead of kidnapping him. M and Larry argued but finally agreed that if they did go after the names on the list that there would be “no families and no kids” on their plans. He then told Larry that Sam and Fiona had found the location of the list but that they needed to get the audio tape before they went after it. However, once Larry knew he could get the list, he grabbed Ms gun to hold him at bay and stabbed Brennen in the chest, saying that they could open the biometric lock even after he was dead. He revealed to M that he didn’t really care if Vaughn got the tape; because, now M would need Larry to survive. M was supposed to call Sam and Fiona to tell them to back off and to say goodbye. He did tell them that he and Larry were "going into business" now and that Brennan was "irrelevant." He told them to go get Madeline and "take what you need to go out of town for a long time" – then he added: "call you in a few weeks, honey." Sam and Fiona both knew that “honey” was a distress signal they used to use in Belfast. Irrelevant meant that Brennan was dead and now Vaughn would be booking a flight to Miami to kill them all. “Take what you need” could have meant a couple of things – Jesse offered that it meant they should get the list out of the safe. So they went. Still with the gun on M, Larry’s thinking involved that they could avoid Vaughn - completely ignoring the standard Modus Operandi of killing families as blackmail - and begin to kill his organization “brick by brick.”

 

Fiona blew the safe out of the wall and they dropped it over the balcony, before they rappelled down over the edge. Meanwhile M and Larry were carting Brennen’s body up to use to open the safe. When they saw the blown up wall Larry angrily pulled his gun on M, but Sam was "lighting him up" with a sniper scope from a window in the next door building. He called on Larry's private phone line and ordered to be put on speaker phone which didn’t happen until he fired a warning shot next to Larry’s head. “The next one makes you dead and me smile,” Sam told him. Sam said M was going to walk out the door while Larry waited for the cops or Sam would drop him where he stood. Larry threatened M that he’d shoot him, but M responded: “no you won’t. While I would give my life for something I believed in there is nothing in this world that you would die for. You want to know the difference between you and me? I really do know you, but you only think you know me.” So M left and Larry waited for the cops to arrive with dead Brennen in the room.

 

M and Fiona packed up the loft and wondered if they would ever see it again. She said that they used to talk about their future together and now they only talked about their future when someone was coming to end it. Later they were all together in a sort of machine shop somewhere struggling to open the safe. Jesse told Madeline that he wasn’t doing much better and she revealed that she had called Marv’s family for him. She said she told the daughter, Emily, that “her dad had died a hero.” Then she told Jesse that after watching him and M she had learned that “if one little lie will help a family sleep easy at night – that’s not such a bad thing.” They had four hours left until Vaughn got the tape – his organization had never faced this kind of publicity before – so the gates of hell and the apocalypse would reign down upon them – and everyone they knew and loved would be in danger of being very dead. Madeline said: “so what else is new.”