On 'Burn Notice,' Even Crabcakes Can Kill

Just when we thought James couldn't seem any more ominous, he sends two thugs to fetch Mike, confiscating his gun and phone. They bring him to a warehouse where Fionna, Sam and Jesse—taken under the same circumstances—are already waiting. Are they about to be murdered?

Well, no. At least not yet. James is dispatching them to prevent the imminent assassination of Dr. Omar Hamed, a political reformer, by Libyan radicals.

Sam and Mike are placed on Hamed's security detail at an economic development conference. They stand guard at a cocktail reception—Sam eyeing the crabcakes—when they spot a shifty server whispering into an earpiece. Mike takes him outside, but before he can squeeze him for any information, he's killed by shots fired from a passing car. Hamed, meanwhile, begins to choke and sputter. A mysterious substance found in the waiter's jacket confirms it: He was poisoned. Et tu, crabcakes?

Hamed is hospitalized with liver failure, the nasty result of the custom-made toxin. Mike and friends—accompanied by James's sketchy operative Ben Snyder, a Middle East expert who's never before gone out in the field—have only 24 hours to find the antidote.

Fi and Jesse trace the caterer's last phone call to a strip club with known ties to the drug trade. The joint is owned by a chemical engineer from Libya (and maybe managed by those guys from Back to the Future ?).

Back home, Maddie's a paranoid wreck, imagining surveillance everywhere she looks. Then again, can you really call someone "paranoid" if they're right? James shows up announced in her kitchen, claiming that he only intends to protect her and Charlie. Hmm...

Jesse and Fi brave the strobe lights and pasties (it's basic cable, you guys) of the strip club with a duffel bag full of pills. They shell out $100,000 to secure a meeting with Mazik, the engineer. They quickly drop their chemists-slash-drug pushers cover (a nod to Heisenberg?) and demand the antidote at gunpoint. This... backfires. They end up diving out a window with Mazik as their prisoner.

Snyder proves to be kind of an impatient dude, injecting Mazik with his own poison. Now desperate for the antidote himself, the engineer leads his captors to his drug lab. But before he can administer his own life-saving dose, Mazik gets shot by Snyder. Goddammit, dude. Way to stay inconspicuous.

Armed guards descend on them as Mike, Sam, and a dying Hamed speed towards the facility. Jesse breaks away to meet the patient in a nearby clearing with a prepared syringe. But inside, a stray gunshot ignites an explosion. Snyder leaves Fi to die in the fire, because he is literally the worst. Mike runs into the burning building to save her, because he is literally the best. Mike tosses a fire extinguisher into the flames, setting it off with a bullet. Awesome.

Fichael/Mionna are both a little worse for wear, but fine. But Snyder must answer to James for betraying his promise never to leave anyone behind. Long story short: Snyder is not so much alive anymore.

Image via USA