Burn Notice – Michael almost loses everything

The Burn Notice season premiere is an explosive hour of TV, in which we see our hero, Michael Westen, almost lose everything and everyone he loves. When we left off, Fiona had turned herself in for the British Embassy bombing to stop Anson from blackmailing Michael into burning spies and being a general baddie. For a show that has long outlived its premise, Burn Notice has finally raised the stakes by giving Michael a goal viewers really care about: saving Fiona.

“Scorched Earth” gives us a Michael who is as low and broken as we’ve ever seen him. With Fiona gone and Sam and Madeline under threat at points during the episode, Michael almost loses it. His anger at Sam for letting Fiona go is undestandable, and that scene is well played by Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell. People keep asking him to back off or walk away from the situation, but he never does — and I don’t know why anyone expects him to at this point. The man is dogged, if nothing else. As each crisis comes up, such as finding Anson, the threat to his mother, creating the roadblock with the exploding truck, and dealing with the bombs in the plant, Michael deals with it all. At the end, when Michael lets Anson go to save his friends, the show really gets across how the family Michael has created for himself means more than anything in the world to him. Luckily, though Anson gets away, Agent Pearce now believes he is a real threat, and his destruction of the plant puts him on top of the Most Wanted List. This may help Fiona’s case.

Now in jail, Fiona finds she has to deal with one of the gang’s many past nemeses, Agent Jason Bly, who is trying to get her to confess to the entire bombing and to Michael’s involvement of it. Things look bad for Fi when he tries to convince her that Michael died in the truck explosion he rigged. She seems to have given up hope, but the explosion photos reveal the real story to her. Don’t try to fool a master of explosives, Bly. Also, it seems that the Death Penalty is on the table for her if she gets convicted. I guess it would be, in Florida, and perhaps the crime is too great for her confession to mitigate that. Yikes.

I suspect that saving her life, and getting Anson again, will take much of, if not the whole, season. Admittedly, my interested in this show had been waning, but now I am invested again due to these new developments. The Cases of the Week will probably seem more shoehorned in than ever, though, because wouldn’t Michael spend all his time trying to save Fi? We shall see.

Notes and Quotes:

• Hey, they changed up the intro! They mention Fiona as a girlfriend, not an ex, and Jesse now, too.
• Maddie saves Jesse when he comes to save her! She certainly has taken a few levels in badass since the show began.
• Fiona’s got the prettiest perp walk dress ever. Probably on purpose — all the comments about how dangerous she was considered contrasted with how pretty and girly she looked.
• The spycraft tidbits of the week were plentiful. This is how Michael thinks when his emotions are tough to deal with. The tips include: what kind of vehicle is best for chasing someone depends on where you are in the chase; how to steal a big rig; how to drive a big rig, and how also to make it jackknife and cause a traffic barricade; how making it explode will create an even more effective barricade; how to hunt for a fugitive in a large area with cover; how to escape being handcuffed; how to clear a structure on your own; how ultra-wide band frequency devices are useful; and how the hyperawareness and paranoia of stress affect a person.
• It was pretty satisfying to see Michael kick Anson in the face.
• The explosions in this episode were first-rate, especially the plant explosion.
• Agent Bly to Fiona: “You see how you’re chained to the table? That’s how  you know that you’re not in charge here.”
• Jesse after Madeline saves him by shooting a gun from her attic: “I’m glad you had more than Christmas ornaments up there.”
• Sam: “Security’s regrouping, and by ‘regrouping” I mean they’re arming themselves to the teeth.”
• Sam: “That’s why God made flash bang grenades.”

Clacked by Christina Furtado
on Jun 14, 2012 @ 22:00 EST5EDT