Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Burn Notice, Season 4, Episode 14



There are a couple of interesting guest appearances in this one and it's largely a standalone episode, although there's still some stuff about the Bible to continue the season arc.

One of the guest appearances comes about as a result of the Bible. It's going up for auction and while Jesse and Michael have some money (they must, they never seem to get paid for what they do, but also never seem short of money), they're not in the league they need to be to even get an invite to the auction. That's when Michael comes up with the idea of Jesse hitting his old boss Marv up for some seed money.

I knew they couldn't stop at one appearance from Richard Kind, he's like peanuts in this sort of role, you can't stop at only one. Because he likes Jesse and because he's believable and Marv is essentially a good bloke, he comes up with $5,000,000 for Jesse, just don't ask where or how he got it.

The actual mission centres around a character on a boat who claims his younger sister is being held against her will by a corrupt diplomat. Once Jesse has done some surveillance and worked out how to get in, Michael, much to Jesse's chagrin and obvious annoyance, takes over the job. Maddie says she wants to get the two of them together and have them be friends again, I thought she may suggest banging their heads together, but she didn't go that far.

It turns out their client is lying and while they're meeting with him, he ends up being shot. The killer is Natalie, a ruthless and amoral thief that Michael, Sam and especially Fiona have crossed paths with before. Natalie is played by Callie Thorne and that for me is weird, because I know Callie Thorne as the caring therapist Dani Santino in the dramedy Necessary Roughness, and that character is about as far from Natalie as one can get, to Thorne's credit she actually pulls it off.

She says the real reason the client wanted them to go into the embassy was to have a chemical weapon stolen. She wants them to help her get it, and if they don't she'll nail Fiona for the guy's death, she used one of Fiona's guns to do it.

Unsurprisingly Natalie tries a double cross, but they turn the tables on her and eventually leave her with little option but to turn herself over to the authorities for her own safety. It is nice to see Fiona go up against someone who can get her goat. I doubt we'll see Natalie again, which is a shame, because she's a fun villain to hate.

Worryingly they've kind of sidelined Maddie and Sam recently and that's not something I remember. Happily I know they both play large parts and get to do some really good acting in future seasons, even if they're pushed to the side for a good chunk of Season 4. Be surprising if this isn't the last standalone episode for the season.

No comments:

Post a Comment