Old Friends (Burn Notice)

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“Old Friends”
Burn Notice episode

Michael Westen and Sam Axe at The Sandbar.
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 4
Written by Alfredo Barrios
Directed by David Solomon
Production no. BN102
Original airdate July 19, 2007
Episode chronology
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"Fight or Flight" "Family Business"
List of Burn Notice episodes

Old Friends is the fourth episode of Burn Notice, an American television drama series created for the USA Network. A friend of Michael Westen requests assistance in freeing his daughter from a prostitution ring. Meanwhile, Michael must protect himself from repeated assassination attempts.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The episode opens with Michael Westen and Sam Axe trading trivia in a sports bar. Michael notices Jan Haseck, a Czech assassin, walk into the bar. Michael starts a fight with another patron of the bar, in order to use the confusion to welcome the assassin to Miami, in the spies native language, before punching him in the throat. Michael and Sam leave the bar before the fight can continue.

Michael rigs a shotgun up to his apartment doorway just in case Jan the assassin shows up again. Fiona Glenanne keeps an eye on Jan who is waiting in a car outside Michael's apartment. Michael's mother (Madeline Westen) calls and says the disposal is clogged and she needs Michael's help. Upon entering his mother's house, Michael is attacked by Nate Westen, his younger brother. Nate has taken a thousand dollars from an old school friend, Bill, in exchange for finding Bill's daughter, 18 year old Jenna, who left home to become a model.

Michael uses a series of photos of Jenna and her "boyfriend", Brandon Diggs (Tino Sutras), to track him down to a bar. Fiona convinces Brandon to leave the bar, so Michael can question him. He admits to being a recruiter for the Wilhelm brothers, who are known officially to do modeling but to the underworld are simply pimps. Michael reluctantly uses his brother's compulsive gambling "skills" to read the Wilhelm brothers and get invited to one of their parties.

Meanwhile, Fiona has been tracking the Czech, and quickly informs Michael the second Jan leaves his hotel room. Michael sneaks in and learns what little he can about his "old friend". Michael borrows Sam's car to get to the hotel, but Jan attacks him with a knife. Michael tries to fight back, but eventually runs into a packed elevator. Michael finds Jenna at the party, however, gets ushered away from her quickly. Now back to team Miami (Michael, Sam, and Fiona). Sam wants to sneak Jenna away, Fiona wants to go in guns blazing. Michael decides on stopping the car she'll be transported in and taking her from there.

Back at Madeline's house, a handful of "enforcers" came to beat up Nate and remind him of his gambling debts. Nate wants his half of the job money now, but Michael is convinced that Nate will simply gamble it away rather than pay off his debt, Nate walks off in anger. While preparing the car at his mother's house, Michael hears that Nate went to his house, the house he rigged with a shot gun in case anyone unfriendly entered. Michael rushes to his house, only to get shot at by Jan. A ricocheted bullet hits Michael in the back of the shoulder, however Nate pulls out a gun and chases Jan off.

Without Michael, Sam and Fiona improvise; Sam gets in a "car accident" with the car transporting Jenna, delaying the Wilhelm brothers' flight plan for another day. Flashback to Michael's apartment where Nate is doing field surgery on Michael's bullet wound. When Sam walks in and asks questions, Michael is forced to give an obvious lie to give Sam the benefit of plausible deniability.

Michael changes up the plan. This time he captures one of the Wilhelm brothers and stuffs him in the trunk of a car. From there he negotiates the release of Jenna and payment of all the other girls under the control of the Wilhelm brothers. Michael exchanges one Wilhelm brother for Jenna, then delivers her to her father Bill. Over to a hot dog stand, Jan the assassin is eating a hot dog when he starts choking and searching for a syringe. Michael comes in and grabs the syringe from him, revealing that he found out about Jan's peanut allergy and sprinkled Jan's favorite food with crushed peanuts. Michael holds the syringe hostage for information about his situation. Michael leaves Jan with the syringe in his thigh and zip-tied to the park bench after getting as much as he can out of Jan. As he exits, Michael calls Sam and offers him information about Jan so that Sam can call the FBI to pick the Czech assassin.

The next day, Michael receives a package (pot of flowers/plants and a smiley balloon) from an "old friend" simply saying that they would see each other soon. Michael calls Sam and finds out that some high clearance level officers picked up Jan and left him in a holding cell with his own shoelaces, thus allowing him to hang himself. Sam suggests that this may not be the case, and maybe he was killed by the mysterious, high clearance government officials.

Michael is left wondering who this old friend is, and why they want to keep him alive.

[edit] Quotes

"Spies go to bars for the same reason people go to libraries, full of information if you know where to ask." - Michael Westen

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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