Episode 312: Noble Causes

Noble Causes
Season 3, Episode 12
Air date	February 4, 2010
Written by	Ben Watkins
Directed by	Michael Zinberg
Episode Guide
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Noble Causes is the twelfth episode of the third season and the fortieth episode overall.

Notes

• Clients: Sugar
• Bad Guys: Gilroy, Claude

Cast

Main

• Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen
• Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona Glenanne
• Bruce Campbell as Sam Axe
• Sharon Gless as Madeline Westen

Recurring

• Chris Vance as Mason Gilroy
• Arturo Rossi as Sugar

Guest

• Spencer Garrett as Lynch
• Daniel Franzese as Dougie
• Erik King as Bolo
• Simon Needham as Claude
• Tim Powell as Mr. Autry

Synopsis

Gilroy teams up Michael with a thief named Claude to steal a file from a consulate.

Meanwhile, Sugar returns and asks for Michael's help.

Spy Facts

It's never fun to be the guy who clears a location for a meet. In the best case, you waste your time looking for dangers that aren't there. In the worst case, of course, you miss something.

Even routine meetings can be risky if you're sitting down with someone you don't trust. You have to be alert to any subtle clue that tells you what you're walking into. Are they armed? Did they bring backup? Of course, there are also not-so-subtle clues. Like a third place setting in a lunch for two. 

In covert ops, you get used to seeing old enemies. Sometimes they're looking for intelligence. Sometimes they're looking for revenge. And sometimes they're looking for a friend.

Whether it's a drug compound in the mountains of Colombia, or a tropical estate in Miami, nothing says "success" like a lot of land. Of course, the more land someone has, the easier it is to hideout and do surveillance. Lush landscaping may be beautiful but it's hardly secure.

Finding the best place in a house to hide a bug can be tough, but if you can't wire every room for sound, the TV remote is a good all-purpose choice. It's got a power source, it's kept in areas where people gather, and it's usually in the hand of the most powerful guy in the room. 

You can often tell when a team of guys is going out to kill someone. There's something about the way they drive; always below the speed limit, always careful at stop signs. There's something about the way they move; a little strut, a hard set to the jaw. See it enough times and you don't even need clues like the target's car sitting in the driveway.

Microwaves are one of the most dangerous appliances in the home to repair or modify, but in a pinch, you can use their extremely high voltage to your advantage. Remove a microwave's surge inhibitor, mix in some reactive household cleaning supplies and pressurized cans and a fistful of silverware, make sure the door is sealed tight and to save time, just press "Popcorn". Do it right and you have the making of a very big--

Infiltrating hostile territory is all about blending in, which means if you're a sniper in the bush, you wear a ghillie suit and if you're a beautiful woman in a Miami house party, you wear a slinky dress. 

A bug is only as good as what it hears, so if the discussion you want to be part of isn't taking place around your listening device, you have two choices. You can move the discussion or you can move the bug. 

Everyone knows about the placebo effect. People get healed by sugar water because they think it's medicine. Of course, the placebo doesn't just work for medicine. It turns out fake poisons work pretty well too, which is useful when you need someone terrified enough to do whatever you say.

Working undercover is all about judgement calls. Give the bad guy too little help, and you can't do your job. Give the bad guy too much help, and you become part of the problem. It's a tough call, but sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. 

Even the most skilled operative knows a good plan is 10% execution, 90% preparation. Advance work is crucial if you want an operation to be successful. Advance work is also crucial if you want an operation to fail. For example, for someone who likes to break into buildings by free climbing, tampering with potential handholds could be a very serious problem. 

Jaws of Life are standard equipment for emergency rescue outfits. If you'd rather not take a set that might be needed, you don't steal them from a fire station. A fire training center, on the other hand, can probably miss theirs for a few days without risking anyone's life.

There's nothing worse than the feeling you get when you know you've made a serious tactical mistake, when you thought you had two days to deal with a problem, and you realize you may not have even two hours. Because when you make mistakes like that, people die.

When you make a mistake in the field, the key is to focus on solutions, not regrets. Being sorry doesn't mean much in combat situations. You can't apologize to a corpse. 

A good diversion draws people's attention but doesn't make them run for their lives. If you're using a parked vehicle, that means you want smoke and fire without the risk of an explosion. Olive oil starts to smoke at 375 degrees. Mix in the right amount of cheap motor oil with a low flash point, apply it to the inside of the exhaust pipe, and you should have enough time to walk away before the fun starts. 

In free climbing, the general rule is always to maintain at least two points of contact with the surface. Challenging climbs always include a point where the only way to continue is to make a leap from one point of support to the next. For experienced climbers, it's a routine technique with minimal risk unless, of course, the handhold you're jumping to is coated with a silicon-based lubricant.

Full Recap

At Michael Westen’s meeting with Gilroy, he was introduced to Claude, "the best thief in the western hemisphere." Gilroy wanted them to break into the Chilean Consulate for some documents supporting the “big job” that he was doing.  Back at the loft, Sugar, the drug dealer who used to live below M, pulled up in his moving “boom box” and said he had “come in peace, bro.” Sugar wanted to hire M to help his “slow” cousin get away from some gangsters. A big time robber named Lynch had targeted his cousin, Dougie, for some unknown reason and had beat Sugar up when he had tried to get Lynch to back off. M refused to help so Sugar left and, as Fiona was just raising her eyebrows to start ragging on him, Madeline called; so M jumped at the chance to leave. Madeline was getting the “take a bite out of crime” award from the police for reporting cars that M had stolen and was finished with. She wanted M to attend the chief of police ceremony with her and would listen to absolutely no reason. Equal to Madeline’s self-absorption, Fiona claimed she "just couldn’t remember" anything she had found out about Claude due to worrying about Sugar and Dougie. Eventually, she revealed that Claude was just an alias of former Australian S.I.S. member: "Tomas Smalling" and that "Gilroy isn't your problem either." So… M met Sugar who brought what he thought M needed in the trunk of his car: guns and duct tape; and was disappointed when M said that if he wanted his help he had to get out of town and wait for his call.

Sam found out that Lynch hit everything from banks to car washes, and never got arrested "because they never leave anyone behind. He’s a public health hazard." Fiona broke into Lynch’s compound and planted a bug in the TV remote as well as finding a room full of scuba air tanks, dive watches, vests and machine guns. M followed Lynch and realized that he and his guys were going to Sugar’s house to kill him – Sugar had not left town. Instead of getting out, like M warned him, Sugar ignored Ms instructions and shot back, which then required M to come in and haul him out... and to the hospital, wounded. Gilroy gave M and Claude synchronized watches telling them that "by the end of the day our hearts would beat as one," and that Claude was lead on the job. Claude told M, "just you make a diversion and I’ll do the job." Sam pretended to be Chuck Finley at the flower mart in order to check to see what Dougie knew about Lynch’s job – he was just a “helper” on the loading dock of a florist warehouse. Lynch gave a party, which Fiona crashed and saw them making fun of “the retard.” The bug revealed that Lynch had just gotten off the phone with a man named Bolo, who would find them a thief to get the last piece of hardware they needed. Barry told M and Sam what Bolo looked like so they could intercept the guy and plant M in with Lynch pretending to be the thief for Lynch’s job. They pretended that they had injected Bolo with a poison for which he would receive the antidote after helping them. Ms cover was "D.J." a “procurement” expert and he was asked to obtain a “jaws of life,” which could only be obtained from emergency personnel. They could not figure that just dealing with flowers would make it worth such an effort, so Sam went back to obtain a delivery schedule from the company thinking that a delivery might just be a ruse to launch a heist.

Fiona found that Claude’s preferred M.O. in his past jobs was to use free-climbing up sides of buildings. M went to Madeline’s to get a city inspector’s shirt that his dad always used when he was stealing equipment. Madeline revealed a secret panel in the closet that M never knew about. She also had bought M a silly tie on clearance and when M told her that something had come up and he couldn’t attend her award ceremony "because people might get hurt" she sulked and played the martyr. M scouted the location of Claude’s future heist and dripped some oil on one of his future hand-holds. Then he went to a fire training center and got their jaw’s, pretending he was taking it for needed maintenance. Sam and Fiona surmised that expensive art at the Hotel Milano must be Lynch’s target next week; but, when M delivered the Jaws to Lynch he discovered that the job was on for today. Sam then realized that it wasn't a delivery they were after but an armored truck was due to pickup receipts almost immediately; so they had to wing it. Mike took out a guy on the roof who was going to pump gas into the air ducts… for which they had needed the air tanks. Fiona set an explosive in a garbage can to warn the armored truck away. Sam went inside to extract Dougie, but he wouldn’t come. Lynch began firing so Dougie tipped a rack over on him in order to save Sam. They both got out as Sam blasted shut the door lock. M turned on the gas then answered Lynch’s frantic phone call to his man on the roof. He told Lynch that his man was not available and that the cops were on the way.  He said that he "hoped they get there before your air tanks run out." Sugar told M that he wondered how many times he had to get shot before he started listening to him.

At the heist with Claude, M caused a car to smoke for his diversion and Claude took to the walls. However he fell off of oily hand-hold and broke his ankle on the ground. That made M able to finish the job early and he showed up at Madeline’s award ceremony in his new tie.  That made her finally see reason so she let M leave. Later, Gilroy told M that Claude “didn't survive his injuries,” and that the documents were now Ms responsibility. He said "you should consider it a reason for living… as it were.”