in retaliation for his daughter's kidnapping. Eventually he is convinced by Michael to call off Barfield, though he underestimates the madness of his hired gunman and is shot and killed by Barfield in his home later that day. Max Max is a CIA operative assigned as Michael's partner in hunting down all the people on the NOC list after the events of season 4. Once they are seemingly finished with their work, they are doing small-scale field operations while Michael is in the process of being reinstated with the CIA. Max, just like the others, does not share Michael's paranoia regarding certain inconsistencies in the documents on the organization they just destroyed. However, at the end of the episode "No Good Deed", things take a sudden twist as Max is shot to death by an unseen assassin, and Michael is framed for his murder. Dani Pearce After Max's death, Agent Pearce (Lauren Stamile) is assigned to investigate his death as well as be Michael Westen's new point of contact for the CIA. Michael uncovers a slew of evidence that frames him in Max's murder and stalls Pearce's investigative hunches and questions. Pearce trusts Michael until she finally gets the documents he was "looking through" where she arrests him. Michael convinces Pearce to trust him one last time to find Max's real killer, which she reluctantly agrees to. With Michael exonerated, Pearce and Michael begin to rebuild their professional relationship, where she acts as his point of contact to the Agency when they require some external assistance. When Michael applies to talk to Vaughn, Pearce demands to know why he continues digging, hoping that she can help, to which Michael outlines Anson's actions thus far, imploring her—for her safety—to not get involved. In the season finale, Pearce follows Michael as he leads an official CIA team on an operation, one Anson wishes to have compromised and the team burned, to make them his recruits in the rebuilt organization. While Michael scrambles to juggle both Anson and Fiona, Fiona slips out and surrenders, allowing Michael and Jesse to take the full force of the CIA against Anson. While Anson escapes, his actions lead to his complete blacklisting by the CIA and other government agencies. Pearce tells Michael that catching Anson will help greatly in exonerating Fiona. In "Last Rites", Anson attempts to leverage Pearce to his side by giving her information on