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Blind Spot
Season 4, Episode 12
Guilty-as-charged
Air date August 26, 2010
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Eyes Open

Guilty As Charged is the twelfth and mid-season finale episode of the fourth season and the fifty-sixth episode overall.

Notes[]

  • Clients:

Synopsis[]

As Michael prepares for his meeting with John Barrett, he also agrees to help a sleazy defense attorney whose daughter has been kidnapped, while Fi and Madelyn try to convince Jesse not to kill Michael for burning him.

Spy Facts[]

The Native American practice of counting coup involve touching enemies on the battle field. The object wasn't to do damage, but to establish your superiority as a warrior. Infiltrating someone's security can serve a similar function. It's a not-so-subtle way of saying "Hi i'm not here to hurt you, but I could hurt you very badly if i chose to".

One simple, but effective trick for identifying a tail is known in the spy trade as running errands. You drive to different locations and stop, going about ordinary business in areas with open parking lots, while your team follows, keeping track of the cars at each stop. It doesn't matter how good your tail is. At a certain point, they're going to pop up more than once.

You can learn a lot from patterns of movement. Much like a hunter follows animal footprints to find where the animal sleeps, feeds, and mates, a spy can examine vehicle trails to find out where a target lives, does business, and hides the things he doesn't want found.

Defending a position is about allocating resources. Figuring out the most likely source of an attack and putting the most fire-power there. Which means that less likely avenues of attack won't be as well guarded. It worked for Hannibal coming over the Alps to Italy and for Lawrence of Arabia coming over the Nefud Desert to Aqaba. It's a technique that depends on surprise. Which means the only way it can go wrong is if the bad guys somehow know you're coming.

Contracting requirements mean specs for most government vehicles are easily available. If you want to build a prison transport van for example, you can get most of what you need from public websites. Add the paint scheme and logos of your local municipal government and your in business.

Fire engines and ambulances use traffic control devices to make traffic flow their way. They're fairly simple; strobing at a particular frequency that can be picked up by the traffic light. It's very illegal to use if you're a private citizen, but remarkably useful if you need to turn a red light green, or with a little rewiring, turn a green light red.

Spies and magicians use many of the same techniques. They both know people trust their eyes more then they should, if they think they know what they're looking at, they don't look too closely. A group can help sell the illusion, a few flashily dressed assistants can draw the audience's eye where you want it to go. And of course, a well-timed cloud of fire and smoke doesn't hurt.

Whether it's with imprisoned spies, captured soldiers, or kidnapping victims, a hostage exchange is always a touchy time. Tempers run hot and people are nervous about being tricked or ripped off. If you happen to be planning on tricking someone, you have all the more reason to be careful.

Any plan to grab a person has to strike a balance between resources and secrecy. The more resources you bring: people, weapons, vehicles, the easier the extraction will be. At the same time the more resources you have in the field, the higher your risk of exposure. You can only bring as much man-power and equipment as you can conceal. If the circumstances don't allow for much cover, an extraction can get very risky and very, very lonely.

Shooting through a friendly to hit a target is a tricky thing to pull off. There are only a few places in the human body that can take a gunshot without severing a major artery or destroying a vital organ.

There's a cold math to blood loss: the more you lose, the weaker you get and when you're on a clock like that; it pays to act, no matter how desperate your plan might be. Because if you wait, you might not have the chance.

Full Recap[]

Madeline claimed she came back to town because Michael had called her; but, then, M tried to send her packing. She said she’d stay and see if she could get Jesse not to shoot him and M didn’t argue. M found Barrett’s compound and “counted coup” on him to test his security and let him know that he should take him serious. Over the radio he told Barrett to be at Donner Key, north end, noon Tuesday if he wanted the Bible. He said that in return, first he wanted to know what it decoded and second to work for Barrett cause he could use some new staff. Vaughn pontificated that M's work was impressive but he couldn’t have Jesse loose in the wind so would "take care of him." M stopped him, but was told that Barrett’s organization had been killing civilians, spies and “my people”, so this job was bigger than either M or Jesse. So, he better take care of him or Vaughn would.

A lackey for attorney Adam Scott, who represents “half the scum-bags in Miami,” approached M with a wad of money for merely “hearing him out” about a job.  He needed M to retrieve his 5-year-old daughter, Becky, who had been kidnapped out of their back yard by Dale Lawson, the brother of one of his clients who was going to be found guilty. Rod Lawson, who ran the Carol City Gang, drug and protection rackets, was on trial for murder with overwhelming evidence and would be found guilty. Barry recommended M to Scott. M said he would NOT help Scott but that he would help Becky. He met with Dale, pretending to be "Joseph" the miracle worker, to receive “proof of life.” Following the meeting, M “ran errands” while Sam and Fiona watched for a tail. They found one and followed it back to a bar closed in the day with a “concierge” on duty. Fiona tried to keep the guy, who didn’t like her type, occupied while Sam bumbled around trying to plant a tracking device on the 10 cars in the parking lot. While they were doing it, they saw Jesse lurking about, watching them just long enough to be seen.  Analyzing the trackers, Sam discovered that Becky was being kept out on a peninsula with no way in. M went to Scott and had him get one of his drug-cartel clients’ submersibles. A low-life had it delivered to a salivating Fiona and Sam at the loft before M got home. When M told Vaughn about the meeting with Barrett, he wanted to go blazing into the meeting which M said would certainly get them all killed. Vaughn agreed to let M handle it and revealed that he had found the address where Jesse was staying under a false name. “I hope you succeed… for Jesse’s sake,” Vaughn told him.

Fiona told M about kissing Jesse which, to her annoyance, didn’t surprise or affect him.  He asked her if she was “confused now.” She said no, but said she wanted to talk to Jesse first and would take Madeline with her. M seemed to exhibit a flat affect the entire episode, as if he was completely overwhelmed with all the crises burning all around him. He took the submersible to the island but was greeted by Dale’s men who had been tipped off by monitoring a phone call of blabber-mouthed Chandler with his wife. Lawson sent M packing with a video phone message from Scott's daughter that she wanted to go home. Plan B then became to make Dale think his brother was really free just long enough to get Becky back. Madeline smoked an entire cigarette pack in an hour waiting for Jesse and of course Fiona felt obligated to rag on her. Jesse finally showed up and said he wasn’t interested in talking. Fiona told them they had all forgiven each other in one way or another and offered a meeting that night with M because they were still going after Barrett. He refused. Madeline told him to wait to kill M until after he had saved a girls life. Jesse pontificated that “I’m not like you guys.”

Scott sent over one of his guys to drive a mock prison transport and Fiona went to capture the rude concierge to duct-tape, bloody up and act as Lawson's brother.  Then, when Lawson was being transported to prison after his trial, Dale watched as they did a "switch" and Sam and Fiona took down the mock van and took out the convict. They exchanged the concierge for Becky then took off, midst  gunfire. Scott let M keep the submersible for his fee and said Becky was going to live overseas with her mother and that he could take care of himself because he was angry too. Jesse did eventually come to meet M posturing about "deciding whether to kill him" and whining he never had many friends. Jesse told M he was bailing on the mess he had helped generate with Barrett, and basically not to count on him for anything. So M went in alone, with Sam and Fiona setting charges on the bridge and watching from afar. Barrett verified the Authenticity of the Bible and revealed that the Bible contained the key to interpret a coded list, which he already had, of all the names, jobs and whereabouts of the people who had burned M. "They all have lives and are hidden in all sorts of places," Barrett said. Now that he had the information, he thought that M would be interested in helping him deal with them. Simon, he said, needed him to play this card once things went bad and was captured. Unfortunately, Vaughn apparently decided to sacrifice M anyway by barging in with guns a-blazing.  One of Barrett's men grabbed M from behind and was holding him. Jesse, who was working as a lone-ranger, shot the guy – by shooting through M. Barrett grabbed M and escaped in his SUV thinking that M had set him up. M, pumping blood out of his chest wound, grabbed the wheel and flipped the car killing Barrett and throwing the case with the code and bible out on the pavement. Lying there in near coma, he saw the legs of a guy dressed in one of Barrett’s uniform boots take the case and leave.

Cast[]

Main[]

Recurring[]

Guest[]

  • Michael Rooker as Dale Lawson
  • Danny Pino as Adam Scott
  • Tommy Groth as Rudy 
  • Owen Harn as Vic
  • Kellie Kessling as Becky


Trivia[]

  • This episode is the mid-season finale of the fourth season.

Continuity Errors[]

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