Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Burn Notice, Season 7, Episode 11



The 3rd last ever episode of Burn Notice is structured oddly. There are two storylines happening. One concerns Michael and his mission with James and also features Sam and Jesse, and the other takes place in Miami and is mostly Fiona with Maddy. However both are part of the same story and take place concurrently.

Michael has gained enough information from Sonya by sleeping with her that Strong and his team, which now seems to include Sam and Jesse, despite them having no affiliation whatsoever with the CIA, can finally grab James and hopefully Sonya.

Strong either can’t, or won’t, protect Maddy and Charlie and Michael knows James has them watched and uses them as insurance. He asks Fiona to do it for him, because there’s no telling what may happen when he betrays James. Fiona sets herself up in a car outside the house, armed with a sniper rifle.

The CIA ambush James, along with Michael and Sonya, but he slips it and escapes with some of his team by carjacking a couple of Mexican locals. The CIA use the phone Michael took from the person he carjacked, to track him. Then James and Sonya split from Michael and agree to rendezvous down the track.

Fiona goes in, but doesn’t enter the house, just booby-traps it, but tells Maddy by pretending to be a neighbour calling her. Maddy plays it well, but all the while they’re hoping nothing will happen. Charlie is still in the house and vulnerable. Before Fiona can set off her explosive and go in guns blazing, the guards in the house receive a call telling them to back off. Fiona quickly hides behind a tree so that she isn’t spotted.

At the boat house Michael goes to, the CIA extraction team go into action and after Michael has disabled one of James’ people, tell him that he can come out. Only one member of the team is still alive, he turns around and he’s Simon.

Acting under Simon and Strong’s instruction, Michael calls James and Sonya and gets them to meet him. Michael and Simon talk. Simon was let out to do CIA dirty work almost from the moment Michael delivered him to them. He sees his situation and Michael’s as similar. They’re both weapons that the CIA or someone else takes out when they’re needed and use. The difference is that Michael’s friends and family give them leverage against him. With Simon they use the fact that he’s not locked up, and that he actually enjoys killing people.

Michael actually realizes that Simon is right. The two of them fight and Michael kills him. It was one of the best choreographed fights in the show thus far. I know Jeffrey Donovan has martial arts experience. I don’t think Garrett Dillahunt does, but he still looks to have moves, and he does often play that sort of role.

Instead of letting the CIA take James, Michael helps he and Sonya get away. At his safe house, a palatial mansion, James wants answers and blood.

As an aside I do often wonder where James gets his money, or if he’s being bankrolled by someone. He has all sorts of expensive equipment and toys. He razed a $10,000,000 mansion to the ground in Miami to avoid detection, and yes real estate in Mexico isn’t as expensive as in Miami, but it still isn’t thrown away, then he also pays the mercenaries he hires and they don’t come cheap.

James wants to kill Sonya, because she was the only one who knew his movements. Maybe she broke under torture and rolled over on him. Just when the trigger is inches from being pulled, Michael confesses. He was the rat, he’s been the rat all along.

He then makes an impassioned speech about how he believed in the CIA and by using someone like Simon they betrayed him and all that he stood for, so if James wants to now kill him, go ahead. James gives the gun to Sonya, she thinks about pulling the trigger and then lowers it. So who’s killing who now?

Sam and Jesse are incensed with Strong for using Simon.

It’s all up in the air for the big finale, which will more than likely run over two episodes.

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