Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Burn Notice, Season 6, Episodes 10 & 11



It's kind of fortuitous that I ran out of time to review Episode 10 before watching Episode 11, because they really are one episode screened over two.

Having the name of Tyler Gray really doesn't help Michael that much. The man is a ghost who doesn't really work for any one employer, he may not have even been using that name when he went after Anson. Fortunately Tom Card has access to all sorts of footage and technology and he's got a picture of Tyler Gray, he also knows where he can be found. Panama. Card gives that intel to Michael and tells him that it's his operation if he wants to take Gray out. Michael insists that because of their connection to the case he be allowed to take Sam, Jesse and Fiona with him. Card agrees, but also adds a CIA agent by the name of Brady Pressman be added to it. He had a vested interest in the Anson Fullerton case. Michael protests, but Card overrides him and says that Pressman is already in Panama City and will be waiting for them there.

It's a running gag in the show that Michael doesn't like working south of the border, he never even learned how to speak Spanish, despite growing up in, and now operating out of Miami. Fiona seems to have an even bigger issue with it, though. She was very whiny in a Season 5 episode when they did a job there and she's doing it again almost as soon as wheels are down.

Pressman is initially treated with suspicion as an outsider by the group. Jesse, himself an outsider to an extent, cuts him a little more slack, and is friendlier. Fiona is particularly hostile towards him, although Michael after hearing about his background and his reasons for joining the army and then the CIA warms very much to him.

Maddie meets with Card and manages to get some time alone in a room with Michael's file and the details of the Fullerton case. Maddie doesn't seem to buy Card's nice guy act, but nor should she, because his smiles don't ever reach his eyes.

Before the team in Panama can move on Gray they're ambushed and wind up stranded in a strange city with no support, largely useless weapons and Jesse is doing a John McClane and walking around without shoes, he even gets glass in his feet.

Despite the setbacks they do corner Gray and Michael gets up close and personal with him. Gray tells Michael that he was working for Card when he shot Anson, and if he doesn't believe him to ring Card and he correctly predicts that Card will lie about where Gray is and tell Michael to stay put.

Sure enough Card gives Michael false details about where they've tracked Gray and to stay where he is. Michael, already suspicious of Card, leaves the phone there and gets out of the building, just in time to see it bombed by a US fighter jet. They're now on the run from their own forces.

Pressman feels more betrayed than anyone and sacrifices himself to allow Michael, Fiona, Sam, Jesse and even Gray to live and go after Card.

So they're stuck in Panama City with no back up and no real way to get back home, plus they have a hostile prisoner in Gray with them.

Fiona manages to get a local cargo pilot interested in her and they concoct a plan to get on his plane and smuggle themselves on board and force him to fly to Miami.

Back home, Maddie receives a phone call from Michael on a neighbour's cell phone. Michael uses a payphone in Panama and identifies himself to the neighbour as Maddie's nephew. He tells Maddie about Card's betrayal and asks her to contact a hacker friend of Sam's who can fix the FAA records to allow them to fly into Miami.

The hacker; Dixon, who we have seen before, has only just gotten out of house arrest and is rather reluctant to do another illegal favour for Sam, that is until Maddie gives him an ultimatum. If he doesn't do this and Michael somehow manages to get home he'll kill Dixon. If Michael doesn't get home, then she'll kill him. Maddie is very believable, and she does some wonderful distracting of the security guard at the FAA building to allow Dixon to work his magic.

The problem for Michael and Co south of the border is that the pilot is the cousin of a drug kingpin and flies cocaine across the border. They all get successfully on the plane, then Gray throws himself off, taking Michael with him, and the pilot can't abort his takeoff.

So Michael and Gray are prisoner to a vicious drug lord who wants to know where his cocaine is and will torture his captives to find out, and the rest of the gang are stranded somewhere in the nearby vicinity with a plane full of cocaine.

Sam and Jesse barter for a cell phone with a local kid and call the drug lord. They'll give him the GPS location of the plane once he leaves their friends safe and sound at a local hotel.

Gray, who still believes what he read in Michael's file, turns on Michael and agrees to help their captor find his plane and kill the rest of the thieves. Michael tells Gray he knows how Card operates and that he can understand why he's fallen under his spell, but the man will turn on him. Then under torture he refuses to give up his friends, the drug lord starts kicking Michael to death and Gray demands to be let loose so that he can operate effectively. Once loose he kills a a guard, takes his gun and shoots the drug lord. When Michael refused to roll over on the rest of the gang, Gray knew that he wasn't the same heartless bastard he'd read about in the file, and while he doesn't say it, he does have his doubts about Card.

Jesse and Sam get Michael and Gray out and they all fly back to Miami. Michael then has to work out how to break the news to his mother that instead of killing Nate's murderer, he allied with him. Everyone is together on operations Get Tom Card, though.

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