Fiona: Michael McBride. Sometimes I wonder if he’s the one I fell in love with.
Michael: I wouldn’t be surprised. We caused a lot of mayhem, you and I. He was your type of guy.
Fiona: Yes you were. Where did he go?
Michael: Oh you know how it is with cover IDs. You become who you need to be.
Fiona: And everyone gets to guess who you really are.

The dance between Fiona and Michael had been picking up steam before the long winter break and really sped up last week when Campbell broke up with Fi. She’s known for a long time that her feelings for Michael run deep, but her detour with Campbell let her bury them for a time. Now they’re resurfacing, but making her question who Michael really is and wheter he ever felt for her the way she feels for him.

By episode’s end she’ll have the answer.

The Recap

Michael’s trying to track down his bomber ((The Mad Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight.)) and starts by getting the security footage from across the way. Breaking out his old buddy Homer, he poses as a security tech doing a computer upgrade. The office manager calls her boss to check him out but isn’t quick enough as Michael has a one-way convo on the phone and hangs up before she can get it back. He gets out quick and pores over the footage until he finds his guy.

While Fi works on getting a name and number, Sam hits Mike up for a job. A quickie he figures, but he figures wrong. Sam’s buddy, who looks a lot like Michael Irvin, coaches at-risk kids. One of his players got in a scrape with a local badboy. Turns out the gangster-in-training has a thing for younger girls and grabbed and attacked Corey’s little sister Tanya. Corey didn’t like that and went after badboy Felix with a bat. Now, Felix has it in for Corey.

Fi takes the whole thing very personally and demands the team help, so help they do.

In a first, Michael, Fi, and Sam all work together at the same time. Almost every scene in which they play their roles they do so as three black-suited thieves. Eschewing patience, subtlety, or guile, they act as a force of nature, shooting, blowing up, beating up, kidnapping, and torching Felix, his boys, and his bar.

The goal is to get Felix off-balance, and it works to perfection. So well, that Felix’s boss Tony wants to give “Johnny” and his team an audition as Felix’s replacements.

Quickly scrubbing a stolen Maserati earns Tony’s respect. Driving Tony into an ambush they maneuvered Felix into arranging earns Felix a one-way ticket out of Miami.

Meanwhile, Carla is becoming more unglued by the minute. Her bosses want answers or they’re going to hold her accountable, so she gets more reckless with Michael. He sends her on wild goose chase #1 looking for explosives experts who’ve worked in Eastern Europe. This stall allows Fi to work at getting the name of their suspect from his company. Wild goose chase #2 happens at the end, after Fi’s escaped the bomber’s inferno.

Character

Obviously the rekindling of passion between Michael and Fiona, ((Beware…this fire metaphor is gonna go deep.)) ignited in the flames of the bomber’s house torched the screen the most tonight. Their heat flickered. Their love burned. Hot, is what I’m sayin’.

But I thought Madeline’s moments with Corey and Tanya were more real. Seeing their jealousy over the “happy” family Michael had known, Madeline takes off the mask she prefers to wear and tells them the truth. She points to the bruise on Michael’s face and tells the kids he’d gotten it fighting with his father on Christmas to protect Nate. Madeline willingly and openly told people hers was not a perfect, loving family, and in the process showed her true feelings of pride in her son.

Chin Bits

Uh, either I’m not paying close enough attention ((Certainly possible.)) or Sam didn’t get as many funny moments tonight. Overall, of course, he was as entertaining as ever; I just don’t recall any overtly great lines other than, “I work plenty hard, lady. I just make it look easy.”

I’ll have to rewatch and see what I’ve missed. Please mention any you caught in comments.

Important Lessons in Spycraft

• Working for an intelligence agency, there are protocols and a chain of command. When freelancing, it can be harder to get the team on board.
• “Spies love technology upgrades. When someone replaces old equipment…getting information becomes as easy as looking through the trash.”
• Uniforms suggest organization, power, and numbers. Uniforms inspire fear.
• Melting through the engine block of a car is simple enough with some thermite in a coffee can. It’s showy and dramatic.
• With a shape charge, any fire exit becomes an entrance. A coil of detonator cord attached to a rubber mat will work for that.
• Target selection is unglamorous, but taking out the key cogs of an organization can take its legs out from under it.
• No plan survives the battlefield. Sometimes you create new enemies. Sometimes, new friends.
• To clean a car, start with clean paperwork from an out of state car. Generate new VIN tags and registration, then use HCL and a file for the VIN etched onto the chassis.
• To make a car bullet resistant, you can spend a lot for titanium siding, or just use yellow pages, foam sealant for the tires, and dual layer Plexiglas to replace the windows.
• To boobytrap your own home, it’s better to put the trigger inside, where yu can disarm it. A contact plate and accellerent on the walls can turn a house into a firetrap in seconds.

Final Thoughts

• While Sam didn’t get any great one liners tonight, Fi did. In response to Corey’s bat-attack on Felix: “Use a golf club next time. Greater force to a smaller area.”
• For the second week running, a great gag with titles. When Felix was introduced, it read “Felix Cole: Gangster” Fi took offense to that and said he was just a pervert. A second freezeframe and the titles read “Felix Cole: Pervert”.
• Fi’s not happy with Michael’s reasons for tracking the bomber. She wants him to look for revenge, not intel.

What did everyone else think?