Burn Notice, Season 2, Episode 7

I got the impression that this may be a more comedic episode than most before the opening credits, when the illegal arms dealer; Seymour, that Fiona had contacted for information about the Russian sniper rifle that Michael had helped Victor steal, got out of his car and was played by Silas Weir Mitchell. For those that don't watch the TV show Grimm, Silas Weir Mitchell plays the Bluhbot (a kind of fairy tale werewolf) Monroe, and while Monroe is a key character, he's also often comedy relief. In many ways Seymour was a similar sort of character.

Clue number 2 came when Michael arrives back at his loft to find Sam (I was sure he had a place of his own, but he spent all of his time in this one at the loft. I guess it saves on sets) knocking back beers with his old Navy SEAL buddy Virgil. Michael and Sam helped Virgil out in Season 1 (the one where the piles of money were set on fire on the docks), Virgil, much to Mike's distaste, also slept with Maddie.

It turns out Virgil needs their help again. This time it's to recover stolen medicine that should have gone to a children's mission, but wound up in the hands of some drug dealing biker types. Michael spends a lot of the episode attempting to ensure that Virgil and Maddie don't meet. He gives the reason as the fact that Virgil seems to be a bullet magnet (which is true), but the real reason is that he doesn't want them sleeping together again. At times Michael is over protective of his mother and she can well and truly take care of himself. He's a little the same with Fiona, they're broken up, he's made that very clear, but he's not happy that she's dating other men.

Seymour comes through on the sniper rifle, for some reason this one has a fibre optic sight, which makes it more lethal than usual and has all of the gang asking some very hard questions.

Jeffrey Donovan unveils a new character for the other job, this one is a nerdy, twitchy, sweaty, meth cook. We also find out that Navy SEALs can apparently hold their breath underwater for 3 - 4 minutes, a skill Virgil has to put to use. Sam gets to play Chuck Finley again (he really does love that persona and name) and Fiona plays her flirty wealthy South Beach lady.

Everything ends up happily and this is definitely a one off standalone type episode, with Carla and Victor not appearing and playing a very peripheral role.

I had a little whine about continuity in episode 6, but episode 7 kind of made that invalid by bringing Virgil back for a guest role.