Burn Notice: 2.5 ‘Scatter Point’ Recap

Original Air Date: August 7, 2008

THE CLIENT — TREVOR

Trevor approaches Michael at home one day. A recent parolee, he heard about Michael’s special skills from a fellow prison inmate taken down by the spy. Trevor’s son was born while he was inside, and he promised the boy he would quit the criminal life for good.

The only problem is that as soon as Trevor is released, control freak Timo (Oded Fehr) contacts him to put his talents as an Expediter of Getaways, also called a Wheelman, back to use on a jewelry heist two years in the panning stages. Timo is a former colleague who won’t take no for an answer, and Trevor can’t just move away since he’d violate his five months of parole.

Michael is hesitant to take the case as usual, until Trevor starts to cry when revealing the promise he made to his son. So, the first order of business is getting the heist called off.

Michael’s initial strategy is to eliminate Timo’s safecracker Gilbert, whose arrest record lands him back in jail when Fiona and Sam set him up with a drink thrown in the face and a few screams for the nearby cops after Gilbert starts pounding Sam.

Unfortunately, Timo’s invested too much time in the heist, and he refuses to cancel the crime. So, now we go to Plan B, which is tipping off the jewelry exchange people to the impending robbery.

That strategy is a no-go, however, because one of Timo’s partners in crime, Hustler C.J., is working at the company as an inside man. If he gets wind of the tip-off, Trevor and Michael would be the first suspected leaks.

So, on to Plan C, which requires Michael to work from the inside as Timo’s new safecracker on a recommendation from Trevor. Following a few tense situations — Timo holding a gun to Trevor’s head until Michael cracks a bodega’s safe on command, for instance — Michael joins the team.

The problem then becomes predicting what ridiculously secretive Timo has up his sleeve. The boss’s last-minute sharing of important details is especially annoying, but Michael and his team eventually prevail when — what else? — they manage to turn Timo’s team against him.

How? Well, Sam trips the alarm at the jewelry exchange when Michael is unexpectedly summoned to crack the safe containing the jewels. Sam then slows Timo down by letting the air out of one of his tires. Since the thieves are forced to abort their operation or risk getting arrested, they all scatter as planned and gather again at their designated meeting spot, a boathouse in the middle of nowhere.

The only person who doesn’t show is Timo, because of the tire problem, but Michael lies and says he cracked the safe and handed over the jewels. Then right on cue, the explosives Sam and Fi planted blow up the boathouse, leading Timo’s team to believe the bossman planned all along to cheat them out of their fair share.

Muscle woman Kandi (Robin Givens) takes over from there, and she shoots Timo in the face at point blank range when he doesn’t admit he has the jewels by the count of three. As Sam notes earlier, Kandi and Fi would get along swell … or kill each other.

And speaking of Sam, he gets a marriage proposal from his lady friend Veronica. He can’t accept it, though, because, as he reveals to Fi, he’s already married. The lucky girl is someone from the ’70s who agreed with him the day after their big day that getting married was a mistake.

Sam didn’t bother to get divorced, however, because he figured he wasn’t the marrying type anyway and would never repeat the process. Fi suggests Sam tell Veronica the truth instead of playing around, and when he does, she kicks him to the curb. So, it looks like Michael is going to have a new roommate for a while.

THE HANDLER — CARLA

How frustrating this situation is for Michael. It seems like he’s finally found a solid lead to Carla’s true identity after he and Fi follow the person who picks up her mail to a generic office building.

The team cases the place, determines who the lookouts are, and manages to get Michael inside, where our burned spy finds pictures of himself outside the location, balloons, and a bottle of booze all waiting for him in the empty building.

Yet, the biggest kick in the balls is the new crossword puzzle coded message. Whoever’s in control, it certainly still isn’t Michael.