Diary of a Burn Notice Virgin – Where’s Carla?

by Kona Gallagher

burn notice-comrades

(Season 2, Episodes 4-6)

I understand that they need the “who burned Michael” storyline to last throughout the season, but I still thought we’d be getting a little more than what they’re giving us. Carla hasn’t even shown up in this batch of episodes, although in #6, she has Michael working for her again. They’re definitely leaving me wanting more after this group of episodes, but if they’re not careful, they’re going to leave me wanting anything, and then getting bored and not caring anymore.

(Season 2, Episode 4 “Comrades”)

Two episodes in a row with no Carla. This time, Sam’s on the case. Carla’s cover is an agriculture job, so Sam goes undercover to try to find out more information. He doesn’t achieve much, other than a raging hangover, but at the end of the episode he manages to extract a tiny bit of information: a P.O. box. Michael and Fiona go to stake it out, but I can’t imagine Carla checks her own mail, so even if they find out who does, it’s going to be a while before this little bit of information actually leads anywhere.

The case of the week was okay, but nothing that special. Nate is back though, and Michael is letting him in on things a little bit more, so that’s a plus. This week, he teaches us that torture is for sadists, and you can get a man to talk without resorting to it. Michael then lays out all of his plans, but all we really get to see is a guy getting a bright light shone into his face and being forced to listen to Bulgarian disco. Neither of which is pleasant, but I’m not surprised he didn’t talk. This is one of the rare occasions on this show where the set-up to the mission didn’t live up to the execution.

(Season 2, Episode 5 “Scatter Point”)

Let me see, we took, what? Half a step forward in the whole Carla mystery? Now, in this episode, we take two giant steps back. Michael manages to figure out where Carla’s office is, but just because she hasn’t been making her Michael puppet dance, doesn’t mean that she hasn’t been around. When he gets to her office, instead of finding Carla, he finds a digital picture frame with surveillance photos of himself out on his most recent job. The mylar balloons, champagne, and crossword puzzle only serve to, as Michael puts it, “twist the knife.” So right now, Michael is pretty clueless about all things Carla, and I’m right there with him.

The job of the week was pretty boring for me. There was no Westen family involvement, but there was a Robin Givens guest appearance. As a fan of Head of the Class, I have to say that totally makes up for an otherwise boring job of the week.

In other news, Sam gets dumped by his girlfriend. This doesn’t make sense to me. I know dudes like Sam; dealing with that guy on a day-to-day basis has to be a constant test in patience and understanding. So if he came to me and said, “Hey baby. I know you want to get married, but here’s the thing: I got married once in the ’70s. We realized the next day that it was a terrible mistake, but never got around to getting a divorce. I didn’t think it would matter because I’m not the marrying type — or at least I wasn’t, until I met you,” I would just roll with it. Of course he got randomly married in the ’70s, and of course he never bothered to get a divorce. I’m told there’s a lot of paperwork involved, after all. It’s Sam, for Christ’s sake. Has she never met him before?

(Season 2, Episode 6 “Bad Blood”)

A sniper rifle. Carla’s back (kind of) and she sends a minion to make Michael complete a job for them. He has to intercept a package. Michael, of course, has no idea what the package is, and they want to keep it that way. However, thanks to a hastily-rigged x-ray machine, Michael and Fiona find out that it’s what appears to be a sniper rifle. Now, these are not the type of people for whom firepower is tough to come by, so I have to wonder what the big deal with this particular gun is. It seems as though they’ve always been one step ahead of Michael, so maybe they want him to know it’s a gun? I’m still completely lost; I’m not even gonna lie.

The always-excellent Method Man is the special guest star in this episode. He’s playing Valentine, a Suge Knight-like Hip-Hop mogul. This was a pretty fun storyline, and different from the standard jobs-of-the-week, but I really wish Michael would have been more involved with the Hip-Hop side of things, instead of playing his fifty millionth real estate developer. That was disappointing, but my real problem with that storyline is that this rich, high-profile mogul is going to go kill a high-profile business associate. I don’t see how in this day and age that wouldn’t be on TMZ in like, 20 seconds.