Episode 612: Means & Ends

Means & Ends
Season 6, Episode 12

Air date	November 8, 2012
Written by	Michael Horowitz
Directed by	Stephen Surjik
Episode Guide
previous Desperate Measures	next Over The Line

Means & Ends is the twelfth episode of the sixth season of Burn Notice.

Synopsis

Michael and Fi sit peacefully by the water when Gray shows up. Gray says Card is getting comfortable and wants Gray to torch Michael's loft and see if there are any clues. Fi doesn't like the plan but Michael says they need to take advantage of the chance to spoon feed Card whatever information they want him to have. Michael convinces Fi it's the right way to go, and they all head to the loft to clear things out.

At the loft, Ayn from prison knocks on the door. She tells Fi that they need to talk. Ayn says there's a dirty detective named Garza after her. She doesn't know what he's going to do, but she needs help. Michael says it's not a good time, but Fi says they're going to help her anyway.

Ayn leaves and Fi explains to Michael that she would have been dead without Ayn's help in prison. Michael says they can't go up against a cop right now, so Fi says she'll do it herself.

Gray calls Card from the loft. He says he found something that looks like Michael was putting something together. He seems unsettled, but tells Gray to put together what he has and light the place up. Fi decides to burn the loft with Michael. She notes that it's the only home they've shared, but Michael says it won't be the last.

Michael shows up at Maddy's place. He tells her he had to burn the loft. She knows that Gray kills Nate and she wants Michael to set up a meeting.

Sam is helping Fi, but he's none too pleased about it. He meets Ayn's young son and goes along with it. Inside her apartment, Ayn tells Fi and Sam that she killed one of Garza's informants because he was beating her sister and Garza let him do it. Garza shows up at the apartment with Ayn's parole officer. Ayn decides to stay behind for fear of appearing guilty if she runs. Sam, Fi and Amare, Ayn's son, sneak out the back. Meanwhile, Garza and the cops come in and he plants some drugs to get Ayn arrested.

Back in "the nicest safe house" on Earth, the gang puts together a plan to get Ayn out. Michael realizes Garza wants another CI that could get him close to the local gang leader who killed his partner. So they decide to send Jesse in to pose as a potential new informant.

Jesse meets with Garza at a diner. Garza is skeptical, but decides to have Jesse prove how tight he is with Sherrod, the gang leader. Garza drives Jesse to Sherrod's bar. He tells Jesse to go inside and take a picture of the inside of Sherrod's office. Inside, Jesse calls Fi and asks her to get over there to help him complete the job, because there's a very large guard in front of what's likely a locked door. She's on her way.

Michael and Sam listen in on another meeting between Gray and Card and Michael gets worried that Card has figured out they're all alive. Sam thinks Michael is being paranoid but when the meeting ends with Card tells Gray that he'll give him more information in another couple of days, Michael takes off. With Sam chasing him, Michael confronts Gray and asks about whether he's pulling some kind of double move on him. Gray says he couldn't push Card too much because he's already spooked. He asks Michael to give him some time.

Fi shows up at the bar where Jesse is waiting and she breaks into Sherrod's office while Jesse essentially volunteers to get himself pulverized by Sherrod's guard and Sherrod works in a couple of kicks of his own on Jesse after he causes a bit of a scene. Fi snaps the photo of Sherrod's office, leaves the phone on the bar for Jesse to grab it and takes off. Jesse brings the phone back out to Garza, who is sold after seeing the photo.

The plan now is to get Garza to steal a weapon from the police locker and catch him doing it. The blackmail will be enough to get him to leave Ayn alone.

Sam asks Amare to help him put together the listening device that Jesse is going to plant into Garza's radio so they can track him.

Jesse meets with Garza and asks for his phone and radio. He takes them apart, giving him a chance to replace Garza's radio battery with the bugged one. He claims that a friend of his got locked up after talking to a cop who was wired. Jesse tells Garza to get a gun from an unsolved case and pop a couple of shots off so Jesse can kill Sherrod and the bullets won't match up with the gun.

Maddy shows up at a marina to meet with Gray. Michael asks her if she's absolutely sure she wants to do this. He doesn't want things to get worse. She goes and talks to Gray. She thanks him for agreeing to meet, then asks him about his training and why her son died if he's so good at his job as a sniper. He says he was worried about the wind and trajectory so he used a higher caliber bullet even though he knew it would go through Anson and hit whoever was holding him. She tells him Nate's full name and tells Gray, "Next time you fire a bullet that could end someone's life, you know their name."

"Yes, ma'am," Gray says softly, with tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Garza shows up to meet with Jesse, and Sam and Fi watch from afar on video. But Garza didn't steal the gun. He shows up in his full, formal police uniform and says he's not going to steal from the evidence locker because that's not who he is. He tells Jesse to stay away from the neighborhood this afternoon. Garza is apparently headed to handle Sherrod himself, but Jesse is worried Garza is going to get himself killed. They realize that if this happens, Ayn will rot in prison, Amare will go to foster care, and they just got a cop killed.

Fi goes to get some guns to try to protect Garza. Michael grabs some, too, saying he should've been in from the beginning.

Sam and Jesse listen through the bug as Garza says a prayer before confronting Sherrod. Sam thinks Garza is preparing to die. They're helpless without weapons to do anything. Garza calls Sherrod out and the neighborhood clears out quickly. Sherrod comes down to face Garza with three men at his side. He hits Garza across the face with a gun, knocking him to the ground. FI and Michael show up.

Michael decides to show them how professionals get down to business. He has Fi, Sam and Jesse plant C-4 on some cars, and Michael talks to Sherrod through Garza's radio. He tells him to surrender and when Sherrod blows him off, Michael introduces himself by detonating a couple of cars. Sam and Jesse take some shots toward Sherrod and his men from afar and suddenly they have Sherrod's attention. He wants to retreat, but Michael instructs Sherrod and his men to surrender their weapons to Garza. Police backup shows up and Garza picks up his radio and says, "Thank you. Whoever you are."

Ayn is back home with her son, still in disbelief that Fi was able to get her out of jail. They tell Ayn about how Garza decided he couldn't go beyond a certain line, and she thinks that's good for him. She's just glad to have a second chance.

Michael visits Maddy and vows to make Card pay for what he's done. Maddy tells Michael that she's leaving Miami. She says she can't go on living in a place where everything reminds her of the "sons" she's lost. Michael says he's still there, but she says, "I don't know about that." She tells Michael that when this business is over with Card, she wants him to start over, too.

Michael, Sam, Fi and Jesse are staked out around a hotel where Gray is going to meet with Card. They listen to the greetings but then lose Gray's signal. Michael sees that Card brought a team. Michael and Sam head toward the hotel. Michael thinks Card is going to hang all of the wrongdoing on Gray and have him arrested.

Michael kicks down the door to the room and Card is quite surprised to see him. Michael tells Card to show his hands, and we all see that Card has a gun with a silencer trained on Gray. He keeps it there while Michael tries to tell him to drop the weapon. Card shoots Gray and then tries to remind Michael that Gray was the one who killed Anson and Nate. Michael tells Card that he tried to have him killed. Card says that was like his own "personal hell."

Card goes on to give a whole speech about how they can set up the scene to make it look like Gray shot at Card and Card had to shoot back. He asks Michael if they can put all this behind them and "move into the future."

Michael puts his gun down and nods. Card puts his gun away and says, "I'm so proud of you, son."

With that, bang. Michael shoots Card square in the forehead.

Spy Facts

Planting false information for an enemy to find is a subtle art. There has to be enough solid information to make it seem credible, but not so much it can be verified. Do it right, and you can make your target so paranoid, they'll be ready to crack.

Most late-model washing mashines spin at speeds of over 1,200 RPM's, and create more than 100 G's of force. That's more than enough to rip off your finger, or pull a curtain rod through a couple layers of drywall.

When posing as a hard-core criminal, the key is to come on strong. You sit in the power position in the room and take up as much space as possible. Any you never, ever show any respect for the police.

The two most challenging parts of planting a listening device are quick concealment and power. If your target wears a radio for work, you can kill two birds with one stone by bugging a duplicate power pack and switching them out. Do it right, and you get a bug that your target carries everywhere he goes.

As a spy, your job is often to get people to break the rules. You use their greed, their fear, or their rage to make them betray the things they value most. With a professional spy pushing them hard, most people abandon their principles, but sometimes, very occasionally, they won't. And when a target decides to stick to his principles, you can suddenly find a mission going very, very badly.

When you're on a high-stakes intelligence gathering operation, concentration is key. Whether you're in a car, or on the street, or doing your surveillance poolside, you have to stay focused at all times. Because even the slightest detail can mean the difference between a successful mission, and a complete disaster.

Cast

Main

Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen
Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona Glenanne
Bruce Campbell as Sam Axe
Coby Bell as Jesse Porter
Sharon Gless as Madeline Westen

Recurring

Kenny Johnson as Tyler Gray

Ayn

Tom Card

Notes

Ayn (the client)

Detective Garza (scumbag with a badge), Sherrod Washington (gang leader)

Deaths

Tyler Gray -- shot by Tom Card
Tom Card -- shot by Michael Westen