Burn Notice Summaries

Michael (I used to be a spy) Westen was in Warri Nigeria to pay a drug kingpin, Boris,  $750,000 to stop blowing up oil refineries in the Nembi Oil Field. He called his handler to report the ABA money transfer number (0210010175…); but was hung up on because he had been… "burned." He escaped the beating from the drugee's by feigning that he would take them to the money; but, escaped by luring two guards into the bathroom, where there were hard surfaces, for a fight. Eventually he made it to the airport where the airline said they were "instructed" to take him to Florida and dump him in a cut-rate motel. Unconscious. His EX-girlfriend, Fiona Glennan, was called by the maid who had seen the "next-of-kin" number in his wallet. Awakened by Fiona's kick, he was dogged by two FBI surveillance men, and his mother who he tried to avoid. He tried to check into the Chadwick hotel requesting: no … Read full summary

Michael Westen analyzed were the photos left in his loft had been taken from and found that many had been in his mother’s neighborhood. When asked, his mother, danced around the topic claiming that she “didn’t remember”; then finally admitted that she had actually invited “two government” people into her house several months ago. “They were very nice,” she claimed and had made them cookies.  M found a bug which had been planted in her electrical outlet; then ran to a vacant house down the street just as two men escaped and their equipment burst into flames. Madeline refused to tell Michael anything that would help his situation until he agreed to help her elderly neighbor friend who had been scammed and beaten. The elderly Laura had received a letter stating that she had won a prize; but when she called, three people came to obtain information which she had given until she became suspicious and told them to leave. … Read full summary

Michael Westen sneaked into a “spy convention” to obtain a name of someone who could get him a copy of the “burn directive” against him so he could at least know why he had been burned.  He was chased by security and found that Fiona had abandoned him and he had to walk home only to find her having broken in to his loft and whining that she needed a key. When he told her he didn’t want anyone to have a key she set out to manipulate him into giving her one. She had arranged with his mother to get MW to take his dad’s old car. Oleg, Ms landlord, offered to give 4 month’s rent if he would help one of his waitresses with a problem which was preventing her from coming to work. Cara Stagner had reported someone to the police for nearly killing a pizza delivery boy and and then had been afraid to leave her house because a rat had been nailed to her door. People had also been looking for her daughter, Sophie, … Read full summary

While going over sports trivia flash cards in the “sand-bar” with Sam for fun, Michael Westen noticed Jan Haseck, a Czech Assassin, sneak in the door and try to be unnoticed. So making a pre-emptive strike, he faked  inebriation and picked a fight with another rowdy in order to get close enough to Haseck that he could cold-cock him – saying, in Czech, “Welcome to Miami comrade.” M then felt that he needed to booby-trap his front door with a shotgun and set Fiona to tail Haseck who was tailing M. Madeline again manipulated him to come over to her house in order to force him into helping his compulsive gambler brother Nate with a job: finding a friend, Bill Reese’s, runaway daughter Jenna. Nate told M that he had been given $1,000 but when M went to give it back he found that it was really $3,000. Police had told Bill that his daughter was over age … Read full summary

Michael Westen in a voiceover explained that: "family knowing what a spy did for a living would let them figure that they could get into trouble and you’d get them out." As tiresome a character as he is, Nate again called M to come and get him out of trouble in a “job” he had taken. He was supposed to “talk” to some characters that his “buddy” had “gotten into trouble with.” Then, of course the sociopath that he is, blamed his incompetence on M who had the car “that should have gone to him.” Fiona found a bug in Ms car which Sam had planted because of his FBI connections. M told Fiona to leave it alone because he only talked about what he wanted them to hear. Nate had scammed his friend Jake Miller into believing that he and M had a “business to together” fixing things. Nate stole the distributor cap from Ms car in order to manipulate him into finding their fathers will, … Read full summary

Michael Westen and Fiona were jus finfing that the loft had been broken in to and searched when he received a distress call from his mother, Madeline, whose house was being ransacked by Ms new “tail.” Sam complained that M hadn’t called him for help; but was told that he hadn’t answered his phone because Veronica had been demanding his time. M then needed money to fix up his mother’s house so Sam referred him to a friend, Virgil Watkins, a boat repo guy who needed help. Meanwhile M did tricks to keep his new tail's recon goons listening to a radio on Ms phone tap. Mason, a dirty cop, had hired Virgil to retrieve a boat from some hoods but they had just beat him up. So he offered $2,000 each for Sam and M to do it for him and deliver the boat to Mason’s warehouse. Sam wanted to get Fiona involved to make it to be “just like that personnel carrier in Bulgaria.” M wanted … Read full summary

Michael Westen gave Jason Bly his ID back which he seemed to take in his stride until revealing that he had set up Fiona, who was driving a stolen car with guns in the trunk, to be caught. Police sirens wailed as M ran to warn her and during the chase Fiona ragged on him for never “supporting her work” and couldn’t see any difference between Ms helping people and her running guns. They ditched the car in a parking garage and fled. Yet again pathetic Fiona turned every conversation into a referendum on their relationship. Ernie Paseo, a friend of Javier (a previous client) and store owner in a rough part of town, wanted M to help extract him from being shaken down by Concha Ramirez for protection. He offered M $20,000 to kick Concha out. In his expanding harassment of M, Bly talked to Veronica, Sam’s girlfriend, and told her that he was two timing her - over which she was … Read full summary

Michael Westen brought the burn file which he had been studying along with him to Fiona's house where she was going to cook him dinner. Predictably (and tiringly) she wanted to manipulate the conversation into a you/me discussion. She asked him to go to the beach with her, but in reality wanted him to help her bounty hunt Thomas McKee. McKee was already being pursued by another bounty hunter, Wayne Ray, so Fiona assigned M to knock him over while Fiona captured McKee. When she did, McKee offered to pay her double to prove his innocence so now she wanted M to help with that. Fiona has snow globes for the places she’s done a job. McKee described that he had been blamed for stealing a 2 million dollar broach from the Victor Hotel after a friend who worked there had shown it to him. When his own attorney said that he would lose the case he ran. Sam got the name of the only person who fenced large diamonds from Barry. … Read full summary

A “government worker,” Perry Clark, approached Michael Westen, ostensibly to review his case, so M “vetted” him by reporting him to the police to see how he would react. The police rousted him and he acted just like a bureaucrat so M figured that he was "legit." Fiona, in her tiring way, reminded M that it was her birthday and he should get her a present. Sam brought his new Cadillac, a gift from Veronica, to show off for M and told him that all he could find on Clark was that he was a "name in a cubicle." Sam also needed M to help him with a job which his girlfriend Veronica asked him to handle. Nick Lam was a bumbling post-adolescent, house-sitter whose fiancé, Dawn, had been kidnapped. He had been letting everyone think that the house and cars were all his so the kidnappers were demanding $5 million ransom and he didn’t' have it. He offered M $15,000 or his … Read full summary

When Michael Westen went to obtain a fake identity (false flag) for his anticipated trip to visit Cowan in DC, he was recognized by the man he approached, Jumbo, who then tricked him into handcuffs. Fiona rescued him playing her ditsy girlfriend cover then began, again, with her tiring rhetoric about M “needing her.” She ragged on him that he didn't even carry tools necessary to get out of handcuffs and gave him a hairpin. When he got the handcuffs off he put her hairpin in his wallet. Sam suggested M try and get Lucy to do his ID in exchange for doing a job that she wanted them to do.  When she balked at making an ID for him, he again had to use his ‘puppy dog’ begging routing. She finally agreed but sent him first to a woman named Evelyn, who had asked for help retrieving her son who had been kidnapped by his father Doug Baker. Evelyn wept … Read full summary

Sam came with a job offer from his buddy Pete and offered it to Michael Westen; but, M was worried about the Phillip Cowan thing. Cowan did make contact but then didn’t show because Sam was there watching his back. Instead, Cowan left a friendship card containing a clipping about some activity in Belgrade. Gillian, a supervisor at a government contractor, S.X.G., told Sam that her friend Melissa was having an affair behind her controlling, abusive husband Kent’s back and had enticed her to sign in her lover as a guest. Her boyfriend then had stolen files, took photos and had begun blackmailing her to sign for packages from Turkey containing heroin.  Of course that put Gillian in the middle needing to sign for them so Melissa could smuggle them out the building. Gillian asked Sam to help; but, when confronted, incredibly the friend Melissa she said “I don't … Read full summary

[Continued from previous] Together Michael and Nate Westen found Fiona hiding in the warehouse district, crashed into the building, tossed her a gun, built a bomb to put in Nate’s truck, rolled it out amongst the gangsters and escaped through a window during the explosion. Nate took them all back to a mansion under foreclosure in which he had been crashing and M dispatched him to bring Madeline there as well. Meanwhile, Sam was being beaten up in the hold of a ship but was smart-mouthed to his captors the whole time. Fiona retrieved some hidden firepower which she had squirreled away under an overpass. The lead captor used Sam’s phone to call whoever answered and find out who he was dealing with. M answered and said that he’d deal for Sam but wanted a photo as proof of life.  Sam chose to pose in a posisition like he had done in a previous photo which M knew about. Then M and Fiona had to break into Sam’s storage unit in … Read full summary