Plot: Having been branded as traitors, it's time to flee the country. Sam has a tearful good-bye with Elsa, that is cut short when they realize Riley had already gotten to Fi's fake passport guy. The crew makes a narrow escape, but has to leave Elsa behind to be questioned by the CIA. Sam isn't exactly ecstatic about that, but the more pressing problem is where they're going to find some decent fake passports now. Sam's hacker acquaintance, Dixon, knows a guy, but Calvin Schmidt isn't in the mood to see or speak to anyone, seeing as he hiding out from a former Syrian Intelligence agent. Schmidt helped the guy's wife escape him, and now Jabbar Hamady is dismantling Schmidt's smuggling operation one warehouse at a time. If Mike can remove Jabbar, then sure, Schmidt will send them anywhere they want to go.
To that end, Mike poses as a former employee of Schmidt's, now disgruntled after he was tortured on suspicion of betrayal. The idea being this will get Mike near Hamady and then he can send him wherever he wants, get him to start shooting, and then sic the cops on him. Great plan, except Schmidt - not pleased at losing yet another warehouse full of illicit goods, tried sneaking in to grab some stuff and got captured. So now Mike has to make himself useful when Hamady doesn't need him to help find Schmidt. There's some fake interrogation, some drug use, Schmidt's heart stops, Mike takes advantage of the fake that Riley decided to try and intimidate Madeline by really obviously bugging her house, and Jabbar winds up arrested. Great! Two problems: One, the manner in which it happens made Riley fed up with her cat-and-mouse game with Maddy. Two, because Schmidt took a severe financial hit on this plan, Mike and the others are going to need to drum up 200 grand person to cover the expenses. That's $800,000, assuming Sam's actually going. Which is uncertain at the moment.
The Players: Calvin Schmidt (The Client), Jabbar Hamady (Guy Trying to Kill Schmidt)
Quote of the Episode: Sam - 'Yeah, well, doing something insanely dangerous won't fix things with me and Elsa.'
Does Fiona blow anything up? No.
Sam Axe Drink Count: 4 (25 overall). Quite the increase there. Having to abandon your lady really makes a man want to drink.
Sam Getting Hit Count: 0 (6 overall).
Michael's Fake Laugh Count: 0 (1 overall).
Other: Mike was "Brent Soder' this week. Fi's i.d. guy proved his evilness by trying to make Sam 'Randy Weems'. At least he doesn't have to use that identity now.
I can't believe Jesse ruled out the West Indies entirely because of one ex-girlfriend. If Sam took that approach, there wouldn't be anywhere they could go. Maybe Greenland.
Maddy's wish for them to say good-bye was touching. I know a lot of it was about Michael, but the fact that Fi and the others have come to mean a lot to her as well, it was a nice acknowledgement of how she's been there alongside them through all of this.
I have a difficult time seeing Patton Oswalt as a successful smuggler. Too many years of the Kingpin in Daredevil comics, I suppose. I figure a successful "import/export" businessman should dress better. And not be such a ninny. Maybe it's meant to be the paranoia. Since Jabbar has informants among Schmidt's men, he doesn't believe he can trust anyone, so he's a nervous wreck.
If Riley really has all the places in the area they could get travel papers staked out, why not travel farther? Go to Alabama, or Ohio, or something. It's not as though Riley's built some impenetrable web of surveillance, or they wouldn't be able to run around doing all this crap for Schmidt. Just get out of the area. Head to a border state, get some appropriate documents, then hop across the border.
I kind of like how they used Riley. If you keep letting her catch up to Michael, only to have him escape, it makes her look incompetent. What they seem to be doing is showing Riley as relentless and methodical. She's done her research, and she's gradually cutting off all their most readily available options. You could even say she was trying to be nice in how she handled Maddy. She had her sign that form stating she'd help their investigation, then made sure Maddy understood what it would mean to break that agreement. She was very open about the fact she bugged the place. Yes, that's intimidation and police state tactics, but from one perspective, you could see it as her trying to keep Madeline from getting herself in trouble by helping Michael. "Don't contact your son, we're listening to your phone conversations. If you keep your distance, you'll be fine, and I don't have to send an old woman to prison." Riley's isn't rainbows and hugs, but she's not a trying to win at all costs, to hell with collateral damage.
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