Burn Notice Summaries

Michael Westen slogged, exhausted onto the beach in his arm-less “T” shirt and suit pants, after swimming 5 miles to shore. The voiceover talked about it being “just part of the job.” Exhausted though he was, he immediately noticed a cop that seemed “too interested” in him and ran into a hotel followed on his heels by the cop calling for backup. He tapped into the phones in a utility room and called from Fiona who said that the police radio had a call about a mystery man who washed up on the beach and that he was now being chased into the McAlpin Hotel. She said that "however the bubble-heads figured this one out, they have you armed and dangerous” and it didn't seem like there was any evidence that the organization was leaving him alone, like they had promised to do, yet! Fiona advised that he should give himself up now or get ready for a city-wide manhunt. He walked out the front door bare-footed into a cordoned off circle of pistol-drawn … Read full summary

Fiona had “Bud,” a bail-jumper, in Michael Westen’s loft when he returned from a jog, hoping that they could take him in together and entice M into working with her instead of trying to “get back in” to spy-hood. They were met on the stairs by a woman with a badge who introduced herself as Detective Paxton and called Fiona by her full name as she asked if she had a bail-enforcers license. When Fiona didn’t, she said this was a warning for harboring a fugitive and took Bud away.  Paxton wanted to talk about an “incident” where three cars were totaled and three more were blown up – saying that there had sure been a lot of explosions since he moved to town. She yanked him in for “questioning” to harass him, which was apparently her style of handling cases, and smirked “welcome to your worst nightmare.” He spent 24 hrs. in the drunk tank. One of Fiona’s old bail-jumpers, Stevie who … Read full summary

While eating his “Brenner’s” yogurt, someone saying they were the police pounded on the loft door. Michael Westen hid his gun and got his alibi folder for Paxson only to find that it was his brother Nate introducing him to Paxson who had rousted him out of bed at 4am. Paxson threatened she would go through all his relatives and friends then Nate claimed she had accused him of “fleeing to Vegas” to avoid unpaid parking tickets. He wanted a ride to his meeting with an “investor,” Simon Davis, for his limo company. Sam came up with having Barry create a financial relation between M and someone in the Mayor’s office in order to “sting” Paxson when she rampaged through his relationships. Unfortunately, Brennen showed up and claimed to be Ms “new boss.” He sent AK47s to the rivals of the cartel who was after him which now had made them too occupied to case after him. … Read full summary

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 … Read full summary

Michael Westen and Sam staked out the Miami airport logging all the flights and tail numbers until they found one that had to be black-ops. Fiona appeared at the loft in a completely see through dress expecting M to take her to the Delano for lunch, but he was making a driver’s license for Duane Winger with his photo on it. He said he had a tail number and was going to go get some information from the F.A.A. about the plane. He sweet talked Linda, the clerk, into letting him make a copy of the file for ExecuTransport LTD, pretending to be a Private Investigator hunting a sleazebag hubby’s shell company. While copying them, Duane Winger was paged overhead and M overheard people talking about the file being red-flagged. He used an extension cord to hang out the window and half-way down the side of the building, then tried to fall into the bushes. M and Sam were talking while they were at the shooting range … Read full summary

Michael Westen was in his loft training with Fiona who was characteristically slamming him with her passive-aggressive anger over not being able to manipulate him into giving up the spy business, when a “secret Santa” left a gift basket on his stairs. Seeing the gift basket he observed: “two days’ worth of yogurt,” and Fiona nagged "the most you’ve ever been paid for a job.” The gift card simply said: “A Friend” and gave a time. As customary, M arrived early to the meeting and sat down to scout the area when the guy at the next table, Tom Strickler, said “Hi” and acknowledged his skill at choosing scouting locations. He claimed to be an “agent” of sorts for spies, who merely wanted to take advantage of the “synergies” in MWs normal “surviving skills” in Miami – for a 10% cut. For example, he explained, an old enemy of Ms (A Ukrainian upset about a deal that M did in the ‘90s) was coming to town to kill M. The … Read full summary

Arriving at the loft with Fiona, who was ragging on him about never wanting to take her to the noisy bar below him, Michael Weston discovered a slinky brunette on his steps.  She had a present of some rejuvenating body lotion for him and offered to apply it to his body. He dismissed her quickly, before Fiona could get wound up, and found that the present was from Tom Strickler, the “recruiter.” M went to Strickler's boat the next day and threw it back on his lap over objections that it was “40% Aloe Vera – good for burns.” Strickler got right to the point and said that he could help with his “burn” like he had done with an NSA agent back a few years. M said he wasn’t interested in being a mercenary; however, he went immediately to Diego Garza, his “point of contact,” and asked (forced) him to see if Strickler had that kind of connections. Not content unless she is ragging on M for something, … Read full summary

Tom Strickler came to pick up Michael Westen for a job, of course over Fiona’s objections. Strickler said that if M did this job his record would be reviewed by the “powers.” From his car, he pointed to an American intelligence agencies safe-house which was being robbed at that very moment; and, he wanted M to take photos of their “cleaners” license plate, so he could track where the sale was going to take place. Sam was on his way to a weekend at a buddy’s villa with Miss Reynolds.  He had tracked the "cleaner" guy to Doral and possibly the Wages Motel, next to a bingo parlor, a perfect set up for Madeline to do recon.  Her roof was leaking in the rain and she was blaming Sam's explosion for it. In the midst of this Barry called M, so anxious he was about to wet himself, asking for a favor – someone had stolen his ledger with all his transactions in … Read full summary

Fiona appeared at the loft looking for her H&P U.S.P. compact pistol. [See notes] She said she had decided to go back to Ireland, had sold her stolen car, and had even called her mother to say she was coming. Michael Westen, even though he was holding her gun, said that he'd look for it and bring it over later. Meanwhile, Diego called to say that he had gotten a call from the Deputy Director of the CIA who had just received Ms file for review. Various regional experts will be doing the review, he said. "And then they can blacklist poor misunderstood Michael Westen for good," he said and warned that "you are tiptoeing through a minefield." At Fiona’s apartment, he found her pointing a gun at him when he came through the door, and she introduced her brother, Sean Glenanne, who M had met back in Ireland while he was under the cover ID of Michael McBride. Sean said that … Read full summary

Michael Westen was sewing up Fiona’s arm for the second week in a row when she tried to slug him… again. Sam told him that "enough people saw you on the street so that you aren't a suspect; but, un-burn Michael Westen is officially off." Strickler’s phone, which they were trying to analyze, suggested a high-class hotel on South Beach as a possibility to look at – which, sam said, "could contain a grade-A psychopath."  When M started to rattle off his scam to the hotel clerk, she stopped him and asked: "are you Mr. Westen."  Then she said that she had a note for him. "A man had the bellman drop this off and said that you would be: 6’ 1”, exquisitely dressed and have impeccable posture." When M went to the room number in the note, registered to Dr. Randolph Quilling, it was fire-bombed in right front of him; and M didn’t see anyone there to trigger … Read full summary

Fiona whined at Michael Weston about never coming to 4-star hotels for anything except surveillance as he looked from the balcony trying to spot Mason Gilroy who M was supposed to meet in the comparatively safe pool area… but, this was Gilroy! M said that Gilroy was a freelance psychopath who was planning something big in Miami and the only way to stop it was to be in the middle of it. Gilroy revealed to M that "an associate" once told him that the associate and MW were a lot alike. “You know him," Gilroy said, "oh that’s right… you shot him!” He said that when the CIA agent took notice of Strickler’s business after he had been shot, "I had to kill him because, I was Strickler’s business.” M had to quickly explain that he had been at the scene for the same reason – “I was Strickler’s business too.” Calmly Gilroy said he would need to get to know M better before … Read full summary

At Michael Westen’s meeting with Gilroy, he was introduced to Claude, "the best thief in the western hemisphere." Gilroy wanted them to break into the Chilean Consulate for some documents supporting the “big job” that he was doing.  Back at the loft, Sugar, the drug dealer who used to live below M, pulled up in his moving “boom box” and said he had “come in peace, bro.” Sugar wanted to hire M to help his “slow” cousin get away from some gangsters. A big time robber named Lynch had targeted his cousin, Dougie, for some unknown reason and had beat Sugar up when he had tried to get Lynch to back off. M refused to help so Sugar left and, as Fiona was just raising her eyebrows to start ragging on him, Madeline called; so M jumped at the chance to leave. Madeline was getting the “take a bite out of crime” award from the police for reporting … Read full summary

This week’s private meeting with Gilroy was in the hotel hot tub where he told Michael Westen that the records he had been after previously were destroyed and now he needed to get 6 weeks of private flight data in and out of Miami. M told him that he would have to have "double my fee," then asked Sam to obtain the records through his buddies at the coast guard. Back at the loft he found a break-in and a dead body on the floor – as well as Larry, the un-dead spy. The dead guy had a Santa Muerta tattoo with six tears – a pro assassin with 6 kills. Larry explained that the hit man had been sent by a man named Carlos, the guy who ran the cash processing for the Sicario (cartel), and who wanted his money back. Larry admitted that he had used Michael’s name to steal $2 million and hadn't finished his usual “clean up” before Carlos had sent the hit man. Then Larry had the audacity to insult M as an … Read full summary

Michael Westen and Fiona found a worker at the Polish Embassy, Conrad, which they thought they could con into giving them information on the flight that Gilroy was interested in. M found however that Conrad didn't like Russians, which he was pretending to be, and Fiona had to save him from Conrad shooting him. Fiona decided to help M obtain the information on her own. Sam had a paying job with the owner of a fashion design company, Isabella, who thought that one of her employees, Tim Hastings, was stealing from her. Instead she ended up dead floating in her pool and Hastings was being set up as the fall guy. Fiona eventually was accepted by Conrad posing like another agent trying to get information on the "Russian Spy" which had tried to get information from him. She had to get Madeline to give her old photos of M in order to put together a fake … Read full summary

Sam was covering an impromptu meeting between Michael Weston and Gilroy from a high sniper perch and saying that prisoners on super-max security had hair on their palms and forked tongues when Gilroy pulled up in his armored SUV. Of course M pulled the phone out of his ear and got in the car for a drive. He and Gilroy drove to a "white supremist" compound to purchase a Browning .50-cal machine gun. M went in with a metal case full of money to get it; but, unfortunately, he had to use the case to clobber his way out of a trap.  When he ran back to the car he found that Gilroy already had the gun and realized that he had merely been used as a decoy. Sam was to arrange a meeting with his FBI contacts in order to report what Gilroy had done because Fiona wanted M to accompany her to meet with a hustler named Coleman, who normally deals in counterfeit bags and stolen phones, but who now had a … Read full summary

[Season Finale]  Michael Weston had barely escaped Gilroy’s exploding car when he heard sirens from every government agency with a budget. After subduing one cop and eluding another he was finally free; but, his mother Madeline wasn’t so lucky – she was stuck with FBI agent Callahan who used every known deceptive technique to try and get her to help him catch M. M slept in a van in a parking lot, where he also obtained some clothes, a car and a phone to call Sam who was "surveying the surveillance" at the loft. Sam told him that they should meet at the emergency-emergency spot because there were people all over his loft. At Callahan’s insistence to “help me help him,” Madeline did call the emergency-emergency number and told M to: “come home right now” which turned out to be the secret code that she used to use to get M to stay away when his father was on a rampage. Sam … Read full summary