Burn Notice, Season 6, Episode 8

Now that Rebecca has been cleared of any involvement with Anson's killing and Nate's, that character presumably rides off into the sunset and the appropriate authorities look into the incident. Only the FBI don't seem to be progressing to Michael Westen's schedule. I was rather interested that the matter was being looked at by the FBI. Given that it happened during a CIA sanctioned operation, both Michael and Pearce are CIA agents, and they were overseeing it, I would have thought that any investigation should be undertaken by the CIA.

Michael approaches one of the FBI agents looking after it with a loaded gun and demands answers. The agent says that they were told not to look too hard and to shut down the investigation. Pearce, while scolding Michael over his approach, confirms that the FBI have shut down their investigation and that the order came from within the CIA, which explains why the Agency didn't handle it. Pearce seems to have become a default member of the team now. She hangs out at the loft eating Michael's yoghurt with Fi and watching Sam drink beer. She regularly teams up with Jesse (Coby Bell and Lauren Stamile really did make a great couple). She's pretty much one of the gang.

Sam uses one of his FBI contacts (I thought it may be one or both of the agents that they've dealt with in the past, but it wasn't) to find out a little more. He can get them the file, which has information that they can use, but he'll want a favour for it.

The favour involves keeping a witness who can put a major crime boss away, alive. To do that Michael has to pretend to be a Boston based criminal who has just been taken into custody by the FBI. The agents are the one they're doing the job for and Agent Finley, Sam in his Chuck Finley persona, he does get to slam Michael's head into the headrest of a car, personally I think that was payback for some of the things Michael has put Sam though so far this season. Fiona insists on being involved. She bigs up her hair, puts on an accent and comes across as a believable modern day gangster's moll. That particular storyline is very standard for the show. Michael and Fiona get in car chases. Fiona seems to have traded in her blue Hyundai for a newer red model. Obviously Hyundai still had a product placement contract with the show. They get separated, into dangerous situations, stuff blows up, and ultimately they deliver the bad guy into the hands of the FBI.

Jesse and Pearce get information from the report that has the make of bullet used to kill Anson. It's something that's only used in a particular rifle and normal civilians shouldn't have access to it. It's a government issue thing and that means they're looking for an unethical weapons supplier. It isn't one of Fi's people, it's someone higher than that. Everything points to a hard partying government supplier by the name of Wayne Myerson. Jesse puts on a sting, Pearce is meant to remain in the background. However when push comes to shave with Myerson and Jesse, the salesman calls Jesse's bluff and threatens to bring his politician father into the mix, until Pearce shows herself and uses a counter threat. They get what they want.

Pearce arrives at the loft, but can't really join in the celebrations. Myerson's father made a complaint, and when the CIA stacked that up against some other things Pearce had done since joining up with Michael (getting Max's killer aside), they decided that she was a liability as long as she was of use to Michael, she's been reassigned to a dead end job in Mumbai. She has no hard feelings about it all though and actually tells Michael that he can pay her back by getting Nate's killer. I'll miss Pearce, but she really was too ethical to be a CIA agent. She'd be better off going into law enforcement, maybe even the FBI, or customs, possibly private security. Be interesting to see if whoever takes over from her puts Michael on a tighter leash and it was a good way to mark the halfway point of the season.

Burn Notice, Season 5, Episode 8

I don't know if the people behind Burn Notice had plans for Lauren Stamile beyond Season 5, but they did really want the audience to get to know Agent Pearce.

In this case Michael and Jesse are soloing with her somewhere on a Caribbean island while Sam and Fiona, with occasional help from Maddie, try to track down the bomber who attempted to blow Michael up.

While Pearce's superiors do want progress on the case of Max, they also want her doing other work, and one of those jobs is an extraction of a character called Cahill, who is selling classified information to the highest bidder. For an extraction like that Michael says he needs a team. Pearce tells him that they're it, but she is allowed to bring in an outsider, although they'd need government clearance. That rules out Sam, and very definitely Fiona, but Michael's smile tells Pearce that he knows someone and that someone is Jesse.

The meeting between Pearce and Fiona prior to Michael and Jesse taking off to the Caribbean with her is interesting. Fiona knew that Pearce was female, but Michael had neglected to mention just how attractive she is. Fortunately Fiona was wearing her trademark sunglasses, otherwise we would have seen glowing green eyes. Initially I was prepared to not like Pearce, both her attitude and her looks reminded me of Paxson (Moon Bloodgood, Season 3), however she grew on me very quickly.

It's kind of fun to see Pearce in the field and they soon realise that the job turns from a simple (when is anything in the world of Michael Westen ever simple?) extraction to a fight against a vicious mercenary. The mercenary in question is Miles Vanderwaal. Vanderwaal was another character first encountered in The Fall of Sam Axe. The name and occupation tends to suggest that he's South African, although David Dayan Fisher's British accent only has a nodding acquaintance with South Africa. I am pleased that they didn't attempt to overdo it with the accent, because they only would have messed it up.

Once they have to think on their feet Michael comes into his own and develops a plan of attack that Pearce says is insane, to which Jesse counters that she clearly hasn't known Michael for very long. There's a nice moment between Pearce and Jesse where she gets to know a bit more about Michael and starts to trust him more than she has before.

The rest of that story is pure Burn Notice. The three pretend to be consultants working for the mercenary's commander and they've found his operation wanting. Jesse gets to play the hard ass drill sergeant and we see some of Pearce's moves, too. Michael's speciality is turning one against the other and he does that here, letting Vanderwaal shoot his boss, then delivering the information and the mercenary to the waiting CIA team.

Back in Miami Fiona has examined the pictures Michael took of the boat bomb and the sliver of C4 he removed and has said that it's very good work, but she doesn't know who made it. She can find out, but it will require contacting and doing a favour for a slimy arms dealer by the name of Armand. Fiona doesn't like him, but he did get her out of Ireland when no one else could, so despite the fact that he's always hitting on her she does have an understanding with him and he will give them the information, especially after she and Sam agree to steal a specific arms truck for him. Fi does what he wants and says that this settles their ledger.

Fiona's less than happy that Michael only asks questions about Armand and how dangerous he was after he's gotten the information he required, whereas before he was okay for her to get it. They cut the argument short when Maddie arrives at the restaurant with her new boyfriend Benny, who seems refreshingly normal, he's either acting or he's going to wind up dead or in fear of his life, because of Michael's life Maddie can never have nice things. Sigh.