One of the big lessons in this week’s Burn Notice? Be vigilant in life, because you never know if the next person you come across is gonna be a crazy, evil nutjob. Not exactly something I’ve personally related to. Well, until a couple of nights ago.
Basic scoop: I'm in a cab with a friend, on my way home from the Canadian Comedy Awards. I lost again this year, but I had primo seats for the awards ceremony, which is kind of the bigger victory, right? Right?
Anyhow, some dude speeding down the street in a fancy-ass black BMW gets it in his head that my cab cut him off. Nothing a well-timed bird flip can’t solve, but Beamer Dude subscribes to a different school of thought on the issue: one that involves a high-speed downtown chase, dangerous swerving through traffic, flashing high-beams and flying expletives. All of a sudden, I’m in a Burn Notice episode of my own. Okay, fine -- a webisode. Geez.
My driver attempts several tricks of the trade to shake him off our tail. No luck. Finally, after a few white-knuckled minutes, the cab parks in front of my house. Stopped right behind us in a menacing sort of way: Beamer Dude. It’s my move. So, channeling some brave parallel universe version of myself (full moon, maybe?), I ask my friend and the cabbie to stay in the car while I have a chat with our excitable new pal.
Evil incarnate also comes in blue, red and teal.
I walk over to his car. Instead of being a tricked-out drug dealer or an ex-prizefighter, Beamer Dude turns out to be some suited-up businessman-type guy. Likely on his second marriage and third ulcer (at least, that’s the back-story I created for him). Anyhow, using every last ounce of tact, diplomacy and anger-diffusing skill in my arsenal, I inform Beamer Dude he's a deranged psychopath whose road rage shtick is starting to get a bit played out.
For some reason, the points I raised (all valid, I thought) don’t quite resonate with him. So instead of conceding to my Socratic logic, he steps out of his fancypants car and continues strutting until he’s roughly six inches from my face. After a few bon mots re: my position on the whole ‘trying to run us off the road like a Bond villain’ issue, Beamer Dude threatens to “make things bad” for me if I don’t immediately agree to mind my own business.
In lieu of heeding his advice, I offer up a counter-proposal for some reason (again, full moon?). Basically, I stare him down, then peel off a few random thoughts about his manhood. He doesn’t appear to take this well. And so, as he gears up to engage in an autumn round of fisticuffs, I serve up my Hail Mary play. Specifically, I recite the latest thing I’d committed to memory that evening: his license plate number.
Fortunately for the current configuration of my face, this valuable bit of identifying intel is enough to get him skulking back to his douchemobile. He drives off, circles the block a couple of times like an Indy 500 pace car, then disappears into the night.
The question being: with our conflict not resolved, has Beamer Dude now become the Moriarty to my Sherlock Holmes? The Reggie Mantle to my Archie Andrews? The Evander Holyfield to my bunch of second-tier white guys? Only history books know for sure. (*)
- (*) History books from the future.
BN Season 3, episode 8: ‘Friends Like These.’ Hey hey! Michael’s got his first gig from Strickler – a.k.a. his new Agent to the Secret Agents. And if he completes the task at hand with much awesomeness, Strickler’s going to ensure the government higher-ups review his burn notice file. As far as jobs go, it’s pretty cush: conduct some surveillance on a bunch of guys robbing a weapons safehouse that belongs to a US intelligence agency. Once that’s done, track down the man in charge of cleaning up the evidence.
So far, so easy. Once Mike follows Cleaner Man to a hotel next to a bingo parlor, he recruits his mom (!) to continue the reconnaissance; she’s got the perfect cover as an old lady who dabs cards and rubs fuzzy troll dolls for luck. Let’s face it: old people love bingo the way Darren from Bewitched loved being a creepy face-changing shapeshifter.
With the ball in play on Strickler’s assignment, Michael’s got other fish to fry. His money laundering contact Barry (a man no stranger to getting the gang out of hot water) has done gotten his ledger stolen. And since it contains the “creative” transactions of dozens of wealthy clients, it’s no wonder the person who nabbed it wants a cool 5 million dollars. The basic message to Barry: cough up the cash ASAP or the shit hits the fan. (*)
- (*) By ‘fan’ I mean ‘internet.’ By ‘shit’ I mean something less offensive than ‘shit.’
After getting the address of a shady, ambiguously ethnic European guy off Barry’s equally shady soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, Michael and Sam turn his place upside down looking for the missing ledger. No dice. To make matters worse, Ambiguously Ethnic European Guy comes home with a nice real estate agent lady in tow. After a few choice words – not unlike my constructive exchange with Beamer Man – Mike kidnaps the scumbag and takes him to a villa outside the city limits. Yelp.com calls the region “A beautiful place for ass-kicking this time of year.”
Interrogation time. As Michael works over Ambiguously Ethnic European Guy, Sam attempts a charm offensive with Nice Real Estate Lady. With Fi’s help, we find out Ambiguously Ethnic European Guy kidnapped her three days ago and has vowed to kill her son if she doesn’t drive him around like he’s some sort of one-man Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Also, she tips them off to a condo she’d shown the dude on a couple of occasions. Maybe the ledger’s there? Tune in to the next paragraph to find out!
Previously on Showcase’s Burn Notice Blog: “Maybe the ledger’s there? Tune in to the next paragraph to find out!”
Nope, it’s not there. But they do come across passports belonging to Ethnically Ambiguous European Dude, Nice Real Estate Lady and some guy named Bennett Tash. Oh, BTW, Ethnically Ambiguous European Dude’s real name turns out to be Milovan. So Europe-wise, that would make him from… uh…
Armed with the passport info, Michael and Sam pay a visit to the little mom n’ pop store Tash.0 runs. And like all folksy shopkeeps, he greets them with fifty rounds of gunfire from a Mac 10. Fortunately, he’s got Estelle Getty aim (may she rest in peace), and the guys subdue him not unlike the way you’d subdue Estelle Getty. The bad news: Tash doesn’t have the ledger. The good news: he knows who does – the big boss. The weird news: Milovan is just a pawn – the big boss is actually Nice Real Estate Lady!
After some initial panic, the guys hatch a plan. Pretending to buy into Not-So-Nice Real Estate Lady’s “I’m innocent!” story, Fi lets her escape so that she and the guys can tail her with the hopes of being lead to the ledger.
And lead them to the ledger she does (that’s a sentence I’ve never typed before). To a beachfront park, where she hands a set of keys to some patsy bike courier who proceeds to remove the big bad book from a beach locker. As Mikey and Sam snatch it from him with ease, Fiona finds herself in a Mexican Standoff with Not-So-Nice Real Estate Lady; one that ends with the latter getting away by hiding out in a passing group of kids (Miami has several municipal ordinances that frown on shooting people surrounded by minors). Anyhow, just like Beamer Dude, she may very well rear her crazy head again in the future. Hoo boy.
Okay, so back to Strickler. For Michael’s job-well-done on the whole surveillance thing (Maddie came through via her deep bingo cover), he gets confirmation that the suits over in Washington are reviewing his burn notice (hey, that’s the name of the show!). On the negative side of things, Fiona’s afraid Michael is going to lose his moral compass because of Strickler’s influence. So she tells him she’s hightailing it out of Miami, post haste. Wait a sec – no more Fi?? Miami without Fiona Glenanne is like the Backstreet Boys without A.J. McLean: not on my watch, mister!
AfterBurn:
-- Badass Voiceover Goodness: MICHAEL (V.O.): “Heists are like parties: the worst part is cleaning up. Someone has to stay behind to get rid of all the evidence. And of course, tidying after a heist calls for methods not suitable for parties.”
-- Sharon Gless (a.k.a. Madeline Westen) on a stakeout? That’s a total deja-vu of when she used to play Cagney! Or, uh, Lacey. Which was the one we all wanted to sleep with?
-- Showcase’s Burn Notice YogurtWatch©: Sam’s ladyfriend – a.k.a. the owner of the interrogation villa – has an ample supply of blueberry yogurt in her fridge. Even Not-So-Nice Real Estate Lady would agree this can only help the property’s resale value.
-- BLPM 586. Just sayin‘.