The Hunter
Updated 2009-07-17 08:50:06
At the loft, things are starting out violently: Fi is beating the crap out of someone. Actually, it's some thing : a big boxing pad Michael's holding for her. As she gives it the business, Michael VOs, "There are advantages to training with someone you're close to. Knowing each other's moves makes training more effective." How did Michael not see that roundhouse kick coming, then? The one that goes clear over the pad and connects with his face instead? "But being involved in each other's personal lives can make training a lot more painful," the VO understates. "Oops," Fi says unrepentantly to the cartoon birdies now circling above Michael's head. Michael thinks this is her way of expressing her frustration with his attempts to get Back In, and she unconvincingly claims to be fine with it, while more convincingly continuing to beat the stuffing out of the pad. Hearing the gate creak outside, Michael calls her off, drops the now stuffing-less pad on the floor, and goes out to investigate.
There's no one there, but someone has left a thoughtful present at the bottom of the stairs: a big gift basket of yogurt. "Wow, that's, like, two days' worth of yogurt," Michael observes. Fi thinks it's either a bomb or from someone who knows the way to his heart. It can't be both? And wouldn't that point directly to Fi? As Michael goes down for a closer look, he speculates that it might be a thank-you gift from a client. "That's the most you've ever been paid for a job," says Fi, who not only steals my line, but has spent the last season and a half driving around in what he got paid for the job he did at the beginning of Season Two. "Pretty soon you'll be able to stop bumming money from me." Michael reads the card: "Frozen Yogurt Cocowalk 10AM," signed, "A Friend." He doesn't let Fi read it, which is not particularly wise, because she's a few steps above him on the staircase and thus could kick him in the face far more easily than she could before. "Good for you. Looks like you're getting Back In," she snots, turning and going back up the stairs. Probably to restuff that pad and then re-beat it stuffingless.
"Meeting a new operative is a lot like going on a blind date," Michael VOs as he walks up to an outdoor balcony café. "You're bound to be nervous the first couple of times you do it. But live through a few and you get to be an expert." Yes, we remember your first meeting with Victor , too. As he takes a seat to scope out the scene below, the VO continues, "You should arrive early, prepare an exit strategy, and know you could be in for an ugly surprise." Right on cue, the guy sitting at the next table with his back to him turns around and compliments him on his choice of surveillance point. Shifting to Michael's table, he drops a minimalist business card in front of him and introduces himself. "Name's Tom Strickler," he says, extending a hand that goes unshook. Michael asks what he does, and Strickler basically says he's an agent. The subtitles freeze on him right then, giving us a good look at his oily smile as they tell us this is "Strickler -- Agent To The Spies." Strickler has clearly been watching the show all along, because he has a pretty good bead on Michael's situation. All he's asking Michael to do is what he does anyway: deal with his enemies. Because apparently, those people have enemies too, and they're willing to pay anyone who gets rid of them. "The enemy of your enemy is your financial opportunity," Strickler says. All he wants is ten percent. In fact, he's working on a deal for Michael right now. He says an "old associate" of Michael's is coming to town, and he figures the smart money is on Michael. "And you're the smart money," Michael guesses. Of course, Strickler doesn't know much more about the returning nemesis, or if he does, he's not sharing. "Some Ukrainian who's very upset about an op you ran in the 90s. I'll let you know more as I get the details." Michael says he's not a killer for hire. His smile not losing one degree of viscosity, Strickler says it might not be that kind of deal, but Michael's still not open to it, even when Strickler says, "This guy's coming one way or another and, uh--" Michael just says, "Tom," and Strickler gets the hint -- but only enough to drop it for now. "We'll talk soon. Unless the Ukrainian cuts your tongue out first, right?" Well, if nothing else, that would leave me a lot fewer voice-overs to transcribe.
Michael comes home to find Fi working her way through Strickler's yogurt. He tells her about the impending Ukrainian invasion and how Strickler fits in: "He's here to profit from any bloodshed." Michael says that just knowing a Ukrainian is after him doesn't really narrow things down, so Fi tells him about a guy she knows named Beck who does a lot of work for certain members of that community. "If there's a Ukrainian in town, he'll be able to fill you in." Apparently he's a big-time cargo hijacker now. "Like FedEx for the Kalashnikov set," Fi explains. What a terrible analogy. "He's about as connected as a Miami hustler who doesn't speak Russian can get." Michael asks her to set him up, but she thinks that's a bad idea. "I may have intercepted a couple of his shipments once," she admits. "Sparkling new P-90s," she moons. Michael's retroactively irritated that she's already alienated a possible contact. But she can at least direct him to his favorite hangout. Which is the same as a home address, on this show.
Just then Michael gets a call from Sam, who's at Madeline's house. Apparently she just got some curtains delivered, sent to her by none other than Tom Strickland, and Sam's wondering what's going on. Madeline just loves her curtains, because they're as garish as she is. Michael explains Strickler's proposal for the second time, and Sam already knows how it would end: "Strickler cuts you a check and you're one step closer to being a mercenary." Michael says he's going about addressing the Ukrainian problem in his own way, and asks Sam to look into Strickler. Sam agrees and hangs up, just in time to have Madeline come over to him waving her new drapes, which she is already busy infusing with the homey smell of incinerated tobacco. "Nobody else gave me a house-rewarming present," she guilt-trips. "Not even the guy who blew up my house." Which is her way of demanding curtain rods. Sam says he's on that, too. Let's hope Strickler does a lot of shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond so Sam can keep his mileage to a minimum.
As Michael enters a restaurant, he VOs, "The cold approach is something you want to avoid in intelligence work. You want to ease into a relationship over time. When that's impossible, you just have to turn on the charm and hope for the best." With that, Michael approaches Fi's victim, John Beck, a large black man in a white suit sitting alone at a table. Smiling in his most friendly, charming way, Michael sits down and says he hears Beck is a guy with connections. "That's what they say," Beck agrees, not smiling at all. "Beck -- Guy With Connections," confirm the subtitles. Don't go too far out on a limb, there. But he's not seeing why he should help Michael. "I'm a good friend to have," Michael understates. Yes, he can deal with anyone, solve any problem, and he does it all for free. I need friends like that. But Beck is not impressed. "I don't have friends," he says. "I'm a businessman. I got rivals, I got associates, I even got a few enemies. But friends? Sorry, that's not how I roll." He shuts out Michael and his request for information on a possible pissed-off Ukrainian, and goes back to his newspaper, From the other side of it, Michael mentions some the recent hijacks that Beck has been suffering, offering to "make sure that kind of thing stops." Way to roll over on your girlfriend, there, Michael. Unfortunately, that just pisses Beck off more. While he's threatening Michael with a face-shooting if he doesn't leave, a couple of large vehicles are screeching to a halt right outside. One's a black SUV, the other a gunmetal delivery van. A freelance SWAT team starts swarming in, and Michael calmly tells Beck, "That Ukrainian I mentioned -- he brought a few extra guys into town with him. I'd get down." As the other patrons start freaking and Michael dives under the table, the invaders start tossing flash-bang grenades into the room. As Michael explains, one of these handy devices "temporarily impairs hearing and vision." How do they do that? Well, as we now see, they flash and go "bang." It's almost self-explanatory. "It makes fighting back or attempting to escape dangerous to civilians. So if you have to shoot blind, it's better to use a camera than a gun." From under the table, Michael uses his phone to snap a picture of the team's leader, who just walked in, then dials Fi's number and hides the phone in a potted plant with his shades.
"That was a short meeting," Fi answers, before hearing the chaos and yelling on the other end. Michael is putting up a fight against several captors, until the Ukrainian boss hits him with a stun baton and he goes down. In subtitled Russian, he also orders his men to bring Beck along, since they were together. Both men get dragged out unconscious. Looks like Michael's cold approach just heated up big time.
Next thing you know, we're all the way out in the Everglades. The SUV leads the delivery van down a dirt road. In the back of the van, Michael and Beck have their hands zip-tied together around a pole, while the lead goon and one minion sit across from them. "In a hostage situation," Michael VOs, "the same things that get you killed will extend your life." I don't know what that has to do with what Beck does, which is to try and get himself out of this by telling the Ukrainians all about how he has nothing to do with this, and they don't want to piss off the people he works for anyway. "No harm, no foul," he says magnanimously. Michael's VO explains what it meant before: "If you have money, you'll live 'til you pay. If you have information, you'll live till you talk." Since Beck can't hear the VO, he keeps talking, insisting he just met Michael five minutes ago. "What do you think they're gonna do?" Michael asks him quietly. "Drop you off at Starbucks, give you a couple of bucks for a cup of coffee? Shut up and we'll figure it out." But Beck keeps bitching, which prompts the VO to conclude, "And if you have nothing, you're pretty much disposable." Which must be why the second goon pulls his gun on Beck. Michael speaks up, in subtitled Russian: " The coward thinks he can buy his life by betraying me. " The leader says to his lackey, " We bring them both to Chechik. Let him decide what he wants to do. " Beck fails to thank Michael for saving his life. Like Michael wanted to be zip-tied to a dead guy anyway.
Fi arrives at the crime scene, and gets past the police cordon way too easily by putting on the act of a distraught woman whose husband never came out after the flashing and banging started. Reassuring to see that Miami cops are back to being morons. That done, she gets on her cell phone to update Sam on the situation. She's still on the phone with him when she spots Michael's shades and cell phone in the plant. Contaminating the crime scene with remarkable efficiency, she grabs both and sees the photo Michael took of the team's leader. "We gotta find Strickler," Sam says, already zipping up his gun bag at Madeline's house. "Maybe he can put some names to these faces." Fi doesn't like the idea, but Sam says, "He's all we got. Plus it'll give us a chance to kick his teeth in." "Well, I'm wearing my teeth-kicking heels," Fi says through her own teeth. "See you in five." She hangs up. But before Sam can get out the front door of the house, Madeline blares from behind him, "Is there something wrong?" Sam plays innocent, claiming he's just off on an errand. "So why are you packing your gun and your bulletproof vest?" she asks, going around him and closing the door, blocking his way. Oh, good, I think my favorite thing Madeline does is get stubborn in time-critical situations. Although I guess the last time that happened, she did end up getting new curtains out of the deal. Maybe this time she's hoping for updated wallpaper.
In the delivery van, the boss asks the driver how far they are from their destination, and is told thirty minutes. "After the adrenalin rush of an operation comes a crash," Michael VOs. "Heightened reflexes and awareness don't last. Two boring hours of driving later, even the sharpest killing machine lets down his guard." In fact, they'll actually start to doze off, if what we're seeing is any indication. Michael is busy trying to work that pole loose from the floor, and he quietly tells Beck, "You do not want to meet this guy Chechik. When it's time, get to the back door and open it." And hope it's not locked, I guess. Beck asks what's up, and all Michael tells him is, "Just remember to set your jaw." Beck looks at him in confusion, and the next thing that happens is that Michael is up off his bench seat, yelling at Beck and elbowing him hard in the chin to help sell it. When the two goons get up to intervene, suddenly that pole comes loose, and Michael is fighting them . Beck makes it to the back door, but hesitates at the sight of the dirt road unspooling below him at what must be a breakneck twenty miles per hour. He doesn't exit until he's forced out by the bodies of Michael and the goon he's grappling with, who fall onto the hardpan next to him. The leader stays in the van, watching out the open back door. Michael finishes dispatching the guy he spilled out with as the two vehicles screech to a halt. "We have to head into he trees," Michael tells Beck, who takes the goon's gun and starts shooting at the truck, still saying he's got nothing to do with it. I'm no expert, but I think that if you open fire on one of the parties in a dispute, you have become involved. Michael takes the goon's knife and cuts the bounds at his wrists before dragging Beck into the woods, saying, "What do you want, an apology?" It would probably be in Russian anyway. The bad guys open fire as Beck and Michael disappear into the words, and a foot pursuit begins.
Luckily for Michael, he and Beck seem to have opened up a substantial lead during the ads. The bad guys are after them, but can't see them through the dense woods. Okay, thanks for the update.
And then we're back at Madeline's, where Sam is also deep in the weeds. He's trying to get out of the house without telling Madeline what's going on, but she's not having it. Clearly she's prepared to force the issue until UPS starts delivering pieces of Michael to her. That'll teach Sam to keep her in the dark. Fi busts in, wondering what the holdup is, and Madeline smiles, "Oh, look, there's Fiona! She never shows up when there's trouble." Madeline doesn't seem entirely on top of the cause-and-effect relationship between Fi and trouble. Sam claims they're just going to a movie. "Well, I'm in the mood for a matinee," she smiles pleasantly. Should I bring a gun, too?" Fi starts to say something, but Madeline's in no mood. "Don't you patronize me," she threatens. "Did I fall apart the last time you told me what was going on?" Well, no, but your sunroom did. Fi breaks down and says Michael's been taken, and that's all they know. Finally Madeline lets them go, but not without reminding Sam that she'll smother him in his sleep if he doesn't call as soon as they know anything. Yes, because I'm sure Sam will want to spend a lot of time briefing Madeline while he's out rescuing her son.In the forest, Beck's tired of running and calls a halt, enforcing it by waving the gun around. "You want to shoot me?" Michael offers. "You'll have the same problem but with one less bullet." Beck figures he can just drag Michael back as a peace offering, alive or dead. Michael promises, "I got you into this, I will get you out. If we head east--" Beck hates that idea. "We got enough problems without adding alligators to the list." Oh, Beck, alligators are not in this show's budget. Beck starts to go off on his own, and Michael advises him to save his ammo because after a few days of starving out here, "You're gonna want to eat that last bullet." Especially if he's anemic. Standing here arguing has allowed the bad guys to eat up a lot of their lead; we can hear them coming and glimpse them through the trees. Oddly, they don't seem to spot Beck's big, brilliant white suit out there in the wilderness, or maybe they can and they just think it's a giant orchid. "You want to survive, Beck? Follow me," Michael says, and leads him east. To where the alligators aren't.
One hell of a long pan sweeps us all the way back to Miami, specifically a yacht in a slip at a marina. Strickler's there on deck, oiling himself up even more, this time with sunscreen. The space is also accessorized with a bikini chick, but since she doesn't say or do anything in this scene she's hardly worth mentioning. Not when Strickler looks up to Fi aiming a shotgun at him. He's pretty friendly, considering. "You're Michael's friends, right? Want a mojito?" We can tell Sam is serious about finding Michael, because he doesn't immediately accept. Going to the bar to fix them, Strickler seems like he already knows what's going on, to a point. "I have some calls out," he oils. "I suggest you try harder," Fi says, pumping her shotgun at him. Sam shows him Michael's cell phone picture of the SWAT team leader, and luckily Strickler recognizes him as Vlad Something, who works for Pyotr Chechik. "Chechik? That rings a bell," Sam says. Maybe because a guy named Jeremiah Chechik has directed at least three episodes of this show. I'm sure that's just a coincidence. Without giving too much away in front of Strickler, Sam says he knows Chechik hates Michael. Fi wants to know how to find Chechik, and Strickler offers to "put out some feelers" among some illicit pilots who fly between Miami and Eastern Europe. Because apparently there's a whole underground airline. "I want names now ," Fi insists, putting the gun to his face. Strickler's going to have trouble enjoying that mojito if it ends up leaking out the holes in his neck.
Back in the woods, Michael VOs, "When on the run, subtle things like broken branches, flattened grass, and disturbed ground can give you away to an expert tracker." Michael is going out of his way to create these very clues as he goes. It's almost as though he doesn't want to lose their pursuers. "An inexperienced tracker may require a more obvious trail," he adds, taking off his suit jacket and draping it over a branch. Angrily, Beck asks what he's doing. Michael explains, "We need to lead them deeper in. Turn their strengths to weaknesses." Beck doesn't know Michael or the way he thinks well enough to trust him on that, so Michael explains: "Their bulletproof vests will get hotter, their guns will get heavy. We've got to get them farther away from their supplies." I would have thought that it would be more important to get them farther away from their quarry , but I'm just an amateur. Beck's with me, plus he wants no more part of being in this swamp. "I say we make our stand right here!" "Can we make the stand over there?" Michael asks, pointing to a tangled stand of trees. Fine with Beck. Aw, they're learning how to compromise.
They hide there and watch as the men come into view at a distance. "Still think you can take them?" Michael murmurs. "There's five of them." Popping the clip on his gun, Beck confidently says, "I've got five rounds." "You have a hundred percent kill rate with a handgun?" Michael asks doubtfully. Unlike Michael, who has a zero-percent kill rate, because he's more interested in shooting near people. Beck blusters, and Michael warns, "You fire, they'll get our position. They'll flank us and hunt us down. We have to separate them. Gotta lead them just a little father in." "And then we strike?" Beck asks impatiently. Michael agrees. They're getting along better and better.
And then we're at an outdoor bar, I think the same one from " "Rough Seas." Except instead of a band of drug-stealing pirates, we're looking at a scraggly dude in military surplus with bloodshot eyes. Apparently he's the pilot that Sam and Fi tracked down via Strickler, and are now staking out from a distant table. "Oh, great, a drunk with a gun," Sam says, noticing the piece in the man's belt. "This calls for subtlety." "I can do subtle," Fi says. Off Sam's look, she clarifies, "I don't like to, but I can." She subtly approaches the guy just as he's about to drink a shot, then subtly takes it out of his hand and subtly downs it. He uses an old line on her, and she subtly flirts back, until the hand he subtly has on his chest is suddenly on his gun, which she doesn't even bother to take out of his pants. All she does is cock it. "Come with me or say goodbye to your two closest friends," she says. Subtly.
Beck wonders why Michael is wasting time fashioning a crude trap out of branches, and doesn't seem willing to hand over his shoelaces for the cause. You'd think a guy like Michael would have learned his lesson re: loafers years ago. "It doesn't have to work," Michael says. "They'll see it, figure we're close, they'll fan out, we'll injure one of them. "Oh, we're injuring them," Beck says disgustedly. Michael says it'll slow them down. "If I have to drag a complaining pain in the ass through the woods, they can too," Michael says. "Give me your shoelaces." Beck sticks the gun in Michael's face and says, "Maybe it's time we listen to the guy with the gun for a while." "Fine," Michael agrees, and snatches the weapon. Walked into that one, Beck. "Now give me your shoelaces," Michael repeats. When Beck goes to comply, Michael carelessly (or not) puts the gun down on the ground. Beck dives for it, and a fight ensues. Beck laughs triumphantly at getting one good punch to Michael's face, but that doesn't last long when Michael flattens him with the kind of kick Fi gave him earlier. Once again, Michael asks for the shoelaces, but this time he remembers to say "please." One step back, two steps forward.
While Fi stashes the pilot in the trunk of the Saab, Sam calls Madeline with an update: they got a guy who might know something, and they're on the way to the loft with him for an interrogation. Madeline says to bring him to her place instead. When Sam starts to argue, she snaps, "It's closer than Michael's loft and you don't have time to waste." Especially after her last display of stubbornness.
Michael and Beck watch from a hiding place as Vlad leads his men in their wake. He spots the trap, springs it harmlessly, and tells his men, " They're very close. Split up. Search the area." As they do this, guns at the ready, Michael VOs, "Spreading out in a search pattern is a great way to cover a lot of area. But it also divides your forces." However luckily or unluckily, Vlad is the one who's approaching their hiding place. Suddenly Michael drops down on him from a tree branch. Vlad effortlessly throws him off, which is not a good sign for the successful execution of Michael's plan. A much better sign is that instead of calling out, sounding the alarm and bringing his men running, Vlad just throws off his pack and wordlessly invites Michael to come at him again. Either because he's an idiot or because he can't resist a good one-on-one scrap, not that those are mutually exclusive. Michael re-engages, reluctantly, and it finally looks like he's met someone who can take him. As Vlad throttles Michael, Beck comes at him from behind, only to get easily repelled with a kick, but that's enough of a distraction for Michael to break Vlad's chokehold and get the upper hand, wrapping a vine around his neck while Beck crushes Vlad's knee with a vicious kick. While Michael's waiting for Vlad to pass out, Beck gets ready to shoot. "We need him alive, remember," Michael quietly reminds him, and invites Beck to hit him again. Beck obligingly pistol-whips Vlad unconscious to the ground. Their teamwork is getting better than that of some of the people in my office.
When we get back, Vlad is just coming to, while Michael and Beck watch from a distance. "Military units are a lot like marching bands," Michael VOs as the other bad guys converge around Vlad. "Take out the guy conducting the operation and you'll throw everyone out of sync." " The bastards wrecked my knee! And they took my shoes!" Vlad complains to his men. Michael's VO sums up, "Pretty soon all you have left is sound and fury." Oh, he's not kidding. That time I took out a drum major, I expected the sound, but I was not expecting the band to pursue me as long as it did. Those kids were pissed. While putting on Vlad's boots, Beck argues to Michael that they can even things out with the small arsenal they took from Vlad while he was unconscious. But Michael's got another next step in mind: he wants the men to call Chechik himself out there, so they can resolve this once and for all. When Beck is doubtful, Michael asks him how he took out the top guy when he started out. "I paid one of his guys to let me into his place and then I stuck a gun in his mouth until he decided to move," Beck boasts. Michael says that's what they're doing now: dealing with the problem at the top. Right on cue, they hear Vlad calling his boss for help. Michael favors Beck with an eloquent "I told you so" face. "Don't get cocky," Beck says, and the two of them move on.
Meanwhile, back in the suburbs, Sam has the pilot tied to a lawn chair in Madeline's garage. There's also an empty kitchen chair next to him for some reason. Sam's trying to get the pilot to roll over on Chechik, who he says is a bad guy. "War crimes, murder for hire..." "Why do you think I'm keeping my mouth shut?" the pilot duhs. Sam realizes that's an excellent point, and slaps a strip of duct tape over the pilot's mouth before leaving him alone to stew.
Returning to the kitchen, where Madeline is serving up big glasses of iced tea, Sam says that the pilot is more afraid of Chechik than them. Apparently, just because he was drunk and ill-groomed, they thought that meant he was also stupid. Fi suggests choking the information out of him, and Sam, bless him, sticks to his position that torture will just cause him to "start making crap up." In moments, they're so busy arguing with each other that they don't notice that Madeline has quietly left the room. Is she going to the dark side? Let's hope Sam didn't have time to come through with those curtain rods.
Just as quietly, she enters the garage, acting all friendly to the pilot and sitting down in that empty chair next to him. She offers him a cigarette, and when his only response is to stare at her blankly over his duct-tape gag, she lights up herself and complains about how she needed some peace and quiet. "They get loud when they're angry. Luckily, this place is well-insulated. Can't hear a peep from outside. Probably why they like it so much." The pilot is looking around, suddenly worried. Madeline apologizes for giving him the wrong impression. "I have never once seen them ever, ever make anyone suffer. If they don't think you'll break, they end it quick." She repeats her offer of a cigarette. "It's not like you have to worry about getting cancer any more." She pulls just one end of the strip of duct tape loose, just enough to stick the smoke into the corner of his mouth and light it. Then she sits back, like they're just a couple of strangers enjoying a smoke together, like at a bus stop or on a park bench. Except, of course, for the fact that the pilot's smoke is coming out of his ears.
Sam and Fi are still arguing when Madeline returns and slaps down a sheet of kitchen stationery, scrawled with the GPS coordinates where the pilot dropped off Chechik in the swamp a couple of hours ago. "How?" Fi wonders. Madeline says she's met guys like this. "They're only brave when people are yelling at them." They're still staring at her incredulously when she yells, "Are you gonna go get my son or do I have to do that too?" They head out. And yes, that was a very impressive display by Madeline there. Almost makes up for her nearly sabotaging the operation in the first place.
Michael and Beck are now positioned in the weeds where they can watch across the river as Vlad's men drag him to the far bank. At the same time, Michael VOs, "When fighting in the wilderness, the biggest threats are often the ones you don't see. Dehydration, exhaustion, and nerves." Beck does an excellent job of displaying all three, in sequence, over the course of about five seconds. And then a couple of airboats roar into view, and Michael's VO continues, "But boatloads of hostiles don't help either." Chechik is sitting high on the prow of the lead boat, pistol in hand. Beck's intimidated by the very look of the man. "Is there a Russian word for hardass?" Beck asks. His answer is provided by the subtitles, which tell us this is "Chechik -- УCTУПКИ (Hardass)." Even in his lavender fatigue pants? What's the Russian word for "metrosexual?" As Chechik meets up with Vlad and his men on the riverbank, Beck isn't happy to see that they're now dealing with more men and more guns, and says that even if they do kill Chechik, they'll be just as screwed. Michael again asks Beck to draw on his own experience, asking what Beck's men would do if he were taken out. Beck blusters that they'd be all over it, but Michael reminds him of Beck's own claim that he doesn't have friends. "How long would they stomp around in this swamp once the guy who cuts their checks is out of commission?" Beck has no answer for that. But he's probably thinking about how to amend his will once he gets back to civilization.
Elsewhere in the swamp, Sam and Fi roll up to a decrepit airboat rental shack on the riverbank, staffed by an even more decrepit man. Sam slides the rental fee across the counter to him, along with the insurance paperwork that he hasn't otherwise touched and a veiled bribe offer. "Fifty extra bucks, you guys weren't even here," the owner grins. Sam produces a Grant, which, along with Sam and Fi and Sam's big bag of guns, quickly disappears. Just in a different direction.
Upstream or downstream or whatever, Chechik is ordering his men to split up and search. One of them starts speaking into his walkie-talkie, until Chechik slaps it down because he knows Michael is listening in over the one he stole from Vlad. Vlad asks Chechik a stupid question: " How am I supposed to run after him with a broken leg? " I mean, it's a valid question, but it was stupid of him to ask it, because Chechik answers by fatally shooting him in the chest. Michael says something judgmental about this to Beck as Chechik's men scatter into the woods, while Chechik himself maintains position on the riverbank, presumably out of range of any of the weapons that Michael and Beck are carrying. Beck's pissed that Chechik isn't going into the woods so they can go after him there like they apparently planned. Michael is still trying to figure out how to deal with this setback, which Beck's bitching is not helping with. "In battle, not even the best-laid plans survive contact with the enemy," he VOs. "If you want to survive, you have to be willing to improvise." He starts thinking out loud along those lines, but since his plan involves Beck "distracting" Chechik's men, Beck decides he's out. "Of course, there' such a thing as too much improvisation," Michael adds. Beck gets up and walks over to a clearing on the shore to holler across the river to Chechik, offering up Michael. Of course, all that gets Beck is shot at. One of the bullets goes through his leg and he goes down. Laying down covering fire for himself, Michael rushes over to drag Beck into cover. Dude, at what point is Michael's obligation to Beck discharged, and can we get that answer expressed in "number of stubborn fuck-ups"? Chechik's men pile onto the airboats and head across the river, swarming into the woods where they last saw Beck and Michael. As Michael all but drags Beck along ahead of them, we get a glimpse of the back of Beck's pant leg, clearly showing blood from an exit wound, so at least the bullet isn't still in there. He may be bleeding out from his femoral artery, but at least Michael won't have to dig a round out of him. They get to another tributary, and Michael says they'll need to cross it underwater. They promptly disappear beneath the surface. When Chechik's team reaches their entry point, one of them sees a footprint in the muddy bank when they arrive, telling him which way they went. " Get the boats ," Chechik orders. Unfortunately, the commercials hit before we get to see how you portage an airboat.
Michael and Beck can apparently hold their breath for a really long time, because they're just emerging from the water after the ads. As Michael hauls Beck (now with 92% cleaner pants!) up onto the bank and takes off his dress shirt to use as a tourniquet, Beck says, "I should have shot you when you first interrupted my coffee. " "Let's not dwell on missed opportunities," Michael snarks. Beck talks about the irony of all the people who work for him, and he's about to die alone. Which is a pretty churlish remark to make to someone who's suspending his flight from people who want to kill him so he can tie off your leg. Michael just points out that Beck's not alone. "You've seen what happens to people with leg wounds out here," Beck points out. Michael gives him a choice: "Are you ready to trust me and figure out a plan or do you want to die out here alone?" Pause. "Is it really that tough of a call?"
"Delaying tactics aren't the most glamorous part of a battle plan," Michael VOs as though to apologize for having left Beck sitting on the bank, watching Chechik's airboats approach. "But they're often the most important. Slowing the enemy down buys you time to prepare the ground ahead of him. And that, more than almost anything else, wins battles." Chechik comes ashore and demands to know where Michael is, kicking Beck in the leg when he refuses to talk. "You're just gonna kill me anyway," Beck points out. Chechik plays the mensch , holstering his gun and offering Beck water and bandages if he gives up Michael. He even pulls out his cross necklace and swears on both it and the eyes of his children. Beck says Michael went thataway, out of reach of the airboats. Chechik tells a couple of his men to stay with Beck until they find Michael. " Then put two in his head. " Clearly Chechik has no children, or if he does, he blinded them long ago. He and his men head into the trees, save the one or two who hang out with weapons trained on Beck. Hard to believe Beck didn't want to get on board with this plan to begin with.
Sam drives the rented airboat while Fi monitors a GPS device that tells them they're about four and a half miles from Chechik's hideout. "If Mike's not there, I hope you brought bug spray," Sam tells her. Fortunately, they spot one of Chechik's airboats beached and abandoned upstream. They disembark and head in on foot. But now they won't get to see where Chechik lives.
Michael finds a spot to set up for his next move as he VOs, "For a spy, there's no shame in retreat. When faced with a more powerful enemy, you're trained to get out of the way and keep moving. It's not about running away or giving up. The goal of any retreat is to find the right place to marshal your resources and make a stand." Will this be a stand like the last stand, where Michael ended up just putting the stand off for later? Because that wasn't much of a stand. Meanwhile, he's clipping his stolen radio to his belt, constructing a claymore mine out of C-4 and detonators, and pushing the bullets out of a handgun clip. As he gets to work in chest-deep water, he continues, "Military history is filled with stories of small forces taking on larger ones. Whether it's David fighting Goliath or the French Resistance fighting the Nazis, the strategy is basically the same. You have to choose the right ground. Deploy your resources carefully, and remember that the greatest weapon in any battle is surprise." Not surprise and fear? What about ruthless efficiency? I guess it's fair to say that amongst his weaponry are such diverse elements as surprise, fear, ruthless efficiency, and a submerged claymore mine with an underwater tripwire.
While Chechik and his men are approaching Michael's position, also up to their chests in water, Chechik gets on his radio to taunt Michael. "I thought after serving ten years for war crimes, you would have found a new hobby," Michael answers into Vlad's radio. They continue their conversation, as Michael sees Chechik's squad come into view. Chechik kind of starts filibustering, but by now, we see that Michael has lashed the radio to a tree branch, and lit a fuse next to it leading to a nest packed with the bullets and some detcord that Vlad must have been carrying. Finally Chechik gets tired of talking and says, "You should have turned your radio off." He hits a button on his own radio that triggers a burst of feedback from the one Michael left in place, and he orders his men to shoot at where the sound is coming from. As they do, the flames reach the nest of bullets, which go off to simulate the look and sound of Michael returning fire from the undergrowth. Chechik leads his men in that direction, and a few steps later, they set off Michael's homemade depth charge. All it does is knock them over, though, which is a total rip-off. I wanted to see bloody giblets raining into the swamp. Chechik orders them on ahead, which is when Michael bursts out of the water right behind him and puts a knife to his throat. He sure got around behind them quickly. And that's all it takes to force Chechik's men to drop their weapons.
Back where Beck is chilling with the men Chechik left behind, one of them asks into his walkie-talkie what's gong on. "Nothing you have to worry about any more," Sam answers, as he and Fi take out the men and Sam helps Beck to his feet. Was Sam and Fi's conveniently timed arrival part of Michael's plan? Because otherwise it seems like it would have been really easy for Michael to have gotten Beck killed just now. Not that it wouldn't have kind of served Beck right.
It's raining as the whole party, prisoners and all, returns to the bank where Sam and Fi rented the airboat. Chechik and all his men have their hands zip-tied together. Yes, it looks like this entire paramilitary unit of Ukrainian war criminals just allowed themselves to be taken alive by a bunch of freelancers, the leader of whom was unarmed when this little project began. They suddenly just got a lot less scary, if you ask me. "I expect some serious memory loss, you understand?" Sam says to the airboat rental guy, handing over another wad of cash. Before getting into the back of a giant truck that came from somewhere (I assume it belongs to Beck's crew, as it appears to have come with a couple of very heavily armed guys), Chechik threatens Michael with retribution from his boss, Markov. Beck sees Chechik's Markov and raises an ex-KGB general who won't be happy with Chechik for fucking with his import-export guy. Cowed, Chechik offers, "I give you fifty thousand. I swear you never see me again." Michael and Beck both turn him down as he gets packed into the back of the truck. Laters, Chechik. We'll see if your namesake gets to direct any more episodes after this.
Sam and Fi come over, the former with a jacket he thoughtfully brought along for Michael to throw on over his wifebeater. "Next time you get kidnapped, can you stay out the Everglades?" Sam asks, to divert attention from that total girlfriend move he just pulled. Beck calls Fi out for owing him a shipment of P-90s (because he apparently knows everyone who's stolen from him by sight), and Michael promises to get them to him. As a farewell, Beck tells Michael, "You said you were a good friend to have. I could do worse." He shakes Michael's hand as if he didn't just leave him leg-shot and helpless on a riverbank to deal with a small army of mercenaries, and goes around to the front of the truck to join his men. Michael casually asks Sam and Fi what they're doing out there. Fi makes a lame joke about needing to bring him his shades on a sunny day and hands Michael his sunglasses. He nods and puts them on, smiling happily up into the rain as though he's whole again. Never mind that he's down another suit in as many months.
In the tag, Michael sits at Madeline's kitchen counter as she pours him a glass of iced tea for the denouement. Michael assures her that it was nothing he couldn't handle, which annoys her even more. "You don't get to act that casual when I'm interrogating a strange man in my garage to save your life." Michael apologizes for that, but Madeline's not about to let him off the hook. "Getting answers out of him was a hell of a lot easier than getting answers out of you," she grumps. She just asks him to be careful. And then she turns his attention to the new curtains in her sunroom, hung up by people Strickler sent over. "Wonderful," Michael mutters. "Try not to wrinkle them when you're sweeping them for bugs," Madeline asks. I'm not sure how I feel about these signs that she's going to get to become part of the team, but I doubt there's anything I could do about it anyway.
Next day, Michael returns to that same table at that same café, where Strickler is already sitting and waiting. Strickler pushes a newspaper across the table to Michael, calling it his "share of the Ukrainian deal." By which he means not the newspaper, but the thick envelope of cash hidden under it. It's probably enough to buy the actual newspaper, as in the institution. If nothing else, the eventual death of print media would make it a lot more difficult to conduct illicit cash transactions in public. Strickler explains that he negotiated some payment for eliminating Chechik from some Baltic separatists, and this, apparently, is Michael's 90-percent share of that pie. Michael pushes it back, saying he didn't do it for the money. Strickler already knows that, because Michael never does anything for money, but he's trying to get Michael to see it as gravy. Michael cuts him off: "I'm never going to work with you. Not for the money, not for the yogurt, the curtains...I'm not a mercenary." Finally, Strickler has stopped smiling. He concedes the point, but suggests that Michael think about what he wants and deserves. More yogurt? "A man with your skills, your background. Burned, out in the cold with nothing. Don't answer right now. Just think about it." Picking up the newspaper and the cash envelope, Strickler shrugs, "I'll be around," and leaves. Michael watches him go, not entirely convinced. On either side, apparently.
Next week: Fi gets shot! Thanks, USA Network, for giving me a preview so that I know to establish an alibi.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer , follow him on Twitter , or just e-mail him at M.Giant[at]gmail.com.
Discuss this episode in our forums, , then see why vlogger Sean Crespo thinks Michael has a pretty sweet deal in No Prior Knowledge !