For once Michael Westen had more 'intel' than he knew what to do with. He, Sam and Jesse were like school kids around the kitchen table keeping themselves busy long enough for Michael to do a voice over: "Once you pick up a bad guys money trail, finding them is just a matter of doing your homework. If you can find where they SPEND their cash, you know where they are. If you can find where they GOT their cash, you can figure out where they came from." Sam discovered that "Ravel Stigler was the unofficial banker to cold war left-overs… including Tavian Korzha who killed Max" and has been an albatross around Mikes neck for months. Sam and Jesse refused to let Mike deal with Stigler so he could cozy up to CIA Agent Pierce – all they needed, they said, was an approach. Mike observed that Stigler had only thought he was financing an import business not a killing spree, so he would cozy up to Stigler and try to use that approach. Which is what they did, although they needed to render two guards unconscious to get through, and lock Stigler's door from the inside. Stigler said he'd listen "until they break down the door and shoot you dead." Talking fast, they finally showed him a photo of Lucien, who was now dead from an HK-91 purchased and used by Tavian, and that seemed to get his attention because they were friends. Stigler agreed to meet them later either: "with information about Tavian or to kill you, whichever." He did show up and drew them a map Tavian will take when he comes on Tuesday. They decided to put an explosive ramming device in a grate under Tavian's car; and they were watching it when Tavian was supposed to be there, but he didn't show up. While Jesse went inside to find that Stigler had been shot and killed, Tavian got the drop on Sam and kidnapped him to a secluded spot where he ordered that Sam take Michael a message. "You can either tell him or I can send him an invitation pinned to your corpse," Tavian demanded. "I'll take option 'A'," Sam offered. Tavian said that: "I want a truce and I have answers to questions that he doesn't even know to ask. Tell him to clear his calendar… tomorrow… 6 PM… Brickle Key Park … I won't wait."
Pierce told Mike she was at a dead end with Lucien's case and that
"Langley was so impressed with your work in our last extraction they've made you our go-to bad-guy-grabber." Puerto La Cruz, a beach town outside Caracas Venezuela, was where he would find "Cheshire" a Russian biological weapons engineer who was vacationing with his wife –
"Go bring me back a souvenir or two… I'm an equal opportunity extractor." And she had already set it up for
Brendon and Christina Jensen, so told him that he could take
Fiona along as his wife – much easier to disavow if anything went wrong.
"Nice to know the agency always has your back," Mike said. He tried to convince Fi to
"think of it as a romantic get-away"; but, as usual, she turned the discussion into one of her endless, one-sided romantic goals. She doesn't seem to have a clue why Michael can understand drug lords or mob bosses but not her. And, of course, FI only ever accepts things on HER terms; which, this time, was money for expensive clothes. In voice-over, Mike explained that he got wide access because of the travel writer cover he chose, and his extravagant tipping. Fi tried to manipulate a "bended-knee" wring placement; but, instead he made a grand gesture of slapping it into her palm. He hacked into the hotel's computer, found four couples that matched the description then went dancing with Fi to figure out which one was real – of course, he had to ask Fi
"can I lead?" They both thought it was a different couple but found that they were both right when they were nearly discovered while bugging their room. They only barely escaped over the balcony on a piece of torn two-thousand dollar dress. They now needed to get
Kevin Skylar and his wife
Nicki away from
Serge and
Karina, their body-guard (keepers). Fiona befriended the lonely and angry Nicki with Champaign, caviar and an invitation for a helicopter ride. Fiona toasted:
"here's to being the better half," to which Nicki readily agreed. Michael got through to Kevin by confronting him while they were being watched at dinner. Neither seemed to be much aggrieved at what he was doing but rather by being on such a short Russian leash. Mike told them that he was a 'recruiter' for 'specialists' in his line of work and could get him a much better arrangement than with the Russians.
Only complicated by the director's instructions to continually make us wait while the Skylar's kept grandly looking over their shoulders to stare at Serge and Karina giving them the evil eye, they decided to split up and Mike would take Serge in the steam room while Fi could take Nicki at a restaurant. They would both meet at the helicopter at four o-clock. Michael did fight with Serge in towels midst steam – in voice-over calling it
"surprising an unarmed opponent on favorable ground." But Nicki's continual 'bunny-eyed' nervousness and pathetic whining pretty much screwed up their whole escape.
"I need a drink, call for help (phone at the bottom of the bay), the car is way to far from here, I don't ride…" Finally Fiona told her
"yea, but you know how to be clingy," and told her to get on the motorcycle. She did, but not before the pathetic twit put on her helmet – probably so her stunt double could do the riding for her. Midst a blaze of bullets they were still stopped at a Russian roadblock and had to divert to a shed on a side-road. Fiona decided to make a stand and had Nicki feed her dry bullets. Only Mike noticed that 'their wives' were unexplainably late. Kevin advised to
"cut our losses" but Mike responded
"I can see why your wife finds you so charming" and turned around. Just as Fiona was out of bullets and Karina had the drop on them Mike hit her in the head with the butt of his gun. Unfortunately, more Russian goons arrived making Mike and Fi tag-shoot from the middle of the room in both directions. Eventually they were back in the rover and fled to the landing pad. That was when the helicopter turned out to be from the CIA and Fiona told Nicki that they would make a deal with her. Skylar refused to get aboard whining
"they won't make a deal for me" and Mike replied
"Ok, go back to the Russians then." "Alright, but they'll not get a word out of me," he relented.
"Oh, yea? They're going to get plenty out of me," Nicki countered. Fi cuddled up to Michael and said:
"Thank you… for a good time."
"I can't believe Mike is going to be late to his own show-down," Sam whined as they waited at Brickle Key. Jesse's buddies at Homeland Security had closed off the bridge, air and water so when Tavian called to say he "wasn't a patient man" Sam told him he couldn't go anywhere until Mike got there. Mike dropped Fi off at the loft and she offered to do more of these types of surveillance jobs in other places around the world. She gave him the ring back saying: "It was nice being married to you Mr. Jensen." He responded that maybe he would hold onto it "for another job." Always plotting, she pre-empted with: "just so you'll know, I prefer an asscher cut diamond." Unfortunately, when Mike went into the loft, Pierce was waiting to arrest him and completely off the deep end screaming and waving her gun and not listening to anything he said. She had found a video surveillance tape showing the reflection of the killer avoiding traffic cam's by going down a street with a glass-walled building. The reflection showed Mike in his car – and like I said… she wasn't listening.
