Burn Notice
Having gotten a lead on Carla last week, Michael and Fiona open the episode doing surveillance on the mailbox they learned about. When the mailbox in question is emptied by a secretary, they follow her back to a nondescript office building. They then have to do surveillance to determine the building's security.
Client of the Week
A young father approaches Michael, desperate for his help. Trevor used to be a car thief for a fairly nasty crew of thieves led by an even nastier boss. He did time and now he's determined to stay out of prison and always be there for his son. The team agrees to take down the crew.
- Advice Backfire: Sam explains his relationship problems (that Veronica proposed to him, and he wants to say yes, but he's legally already married to a woman he hasn't seen in years, because he just never got around to divorcing her) to Fiona. Fi suggests he should be open and just explain all of that to Veronica. Next time we see Sam, he says he took Fi's advice—and Veronica responded by kicking him out of her house and breaking up with him.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Inside the job, Michael tells Timo they have time to finish and Timo overrules him. Outside, at the scatter point, he tells the crew that he gave Timo the jewels... and now the team wonders why Timo isn't at the scatter point with them... Kandi tracks him down (on the run, afraid of her) and refuses to believe that he didn't rip off the team.
- Caper Crew: Timo's crew:
- The Leader: Timo (specifically the Mastermind subtype).
- The Hustler: CJ (the crew's inside man).
- The Safecracker: Gilbert.
- The Muscle: Kandi.
- The Driver: Trevor (Although he's the getaway organizer rather than just a driver. He steals multiple cars and places them around the heist location, so if things go sideways the crew can scatter and regroup elsewhere. Also he helps with the heist itself.)
- Control Freak: Timo doesn't trust anyone, keeping all the information to himself that he can, double-checking everyone on everything, demanding they keep the phones he gives them on them at all times and drop everything when he calls so they don't even know the time of the score. This comes back to bite him, as it doesn't take much manipulation from Michael and Trevor to convince the others Timo actually double-crossed and tried to off them to keep the payday for himself since Timo's obsession with control makes it seem like pretending the heist failed is something he would actually do.
- Cutting the Knot: Fiona insists the right code for any safe is just "C4"—in other words, just blow up the safe rather than bothering with the combination.
- Dark Action Girl: Kandi, who's Timo's muscle in charge of their firepower and has the willingness to use it. Sam reads off her rap sheet to Michael and notes that she and Fi would get along great assuming they don't try to kill each other.
- Friend to All Children: Given how close he is to finding Carla, Michael tells Trevor to piss off. Trevor insists and explains his situation, only to get the brush off again. Then he mentions his son and how he needs to stay out of prison, and Michael says yes.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: "A certain kind of leader insists on controlling every aspect of an operation so that nothing can possibly go wrong. The downside to insisting on controlling everything is that, when something bad happens people tend to think it was all part of your plan."
- Insignificant Anniversary: That Veronica's holding a special dinner for their One Month Since We Said "I Love You" Anniversary is a clue that she might be progressing in the relationship too quickly, and that things won't end well.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: When Gilbert catches on that Fiona isn't actually interested in him, he assumes she's a hooker looking for a client.
- Oh, Crap!: Sam's reaction when Veronica proposes to him as their One Month Anniversary Dinner. And not because Sam thinks she's coming on too strong, too quickly, but because Sam's married, though he hasn't seen his wife in years.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Gilbert's right that Fiona isn't actually interested in him, but he pegs her as an escort, not a spy trying to break up his jewel heist.
- The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction: Michael pegs the safecracker Gilbert as the weakest link of Timo's crew, since he's out on parole after three DUI convictions. So Fiona comes on to Gilbert at a cafe, intending to get him drinking again (and then arrested for it). Unusually for Hollywood, and for men more generally, Gilbert immediately catches on that Fiona isn't really into him, and refuses to sit at the same table as her.
- A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In the middle of the episode, Fiona screws with Michael by messing up a task he's performing just as he's nearly finished. (Specifically, Michael is cracking a practice safe to brush up on his skills—and as he's working on the last number, Fiona randomly spins the dial, forcing him to start over.) In the final scene, Michael screws with Fi by messing up something she's working on, just as she's nearly finished. (Fiona says she can't leave to hit Carla's base of operations because she painted her toenails, and she just needs five more minutes for them to dry—so Michael touches her nails to mess them up, and glibly says now that she has to do them all over again anyway, there's no reason not to leave now.)
- Title Drop: Trevor's job is to scout the area around the job and plant stolen cars for each member of the team and a route to the eponymous scatter point.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In an effort to disrupt the crew and get the job called off, the team tries to get their safecracker arrested. To make that happen, Sam picks a fight with him. Some nearby cops fail to notice the violence for several minutes until Fiona screams "Police, he's killing that man!".
- Would Hurt a Child: Timo is brutal; he'd kill Trevor and his family to punish him for betrayal.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Michael finds Carla's base of operations, but gets called away at the last minute before infiltrating. Carla thus spots him on surveillance and is able to up stakes and move base.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One:
- Michael's first plan is to get the weakest link in the crew arrested, on the assumption that this setback will make Timo call off the heist. He does successfully get Gilbert arrested—but Timo refuses to cancel and instead searches for a replacement safecracker.
- For plan B, Michael infiltrates the crew as the replacement safecracker, intending to learn which business Timo's planning to rob so he can tip them off beforehand. This gets complicated when he learns CJ is working there as Timo's inside man. Now Mike needs more time to figure out how to tip off the business without CJ and Timo finding who blew the whistle. And then before Mike can figure that out, Timo announces the heist is on.
- So at the last minute, Mike comes up with a plan to disrupt the heist as it's happening, and prevent Timo from ever bothering Trevor again, without the rest of the crew suspecting Mike or Trevor. And of course, this is the plan that works without a hitch.
