Burn Notice, Season 4, Episode 13

Episode 13 is very much like part 2 of Episode 12.

Barrett, as I had expected, was killed in the car accident. I found that a little odd, for a couple of reasons. It was an almost criminal underuse of Robert Patrick (a fairly popular actor in genre TV), and with his business interests and attitude as well as resources, Barrett could have been a serious thorn in Michael's side and a worthy adversary.

Someone, unknown at this stage, got hold of Simon's Bible, and that to Michael is a major problem, because that coded book is a recipe for disaster on a major scale.

For about the first time I can recall in the series Michael wound up hospitalised for more than a few hours being patched up. He was actually unconscious for a few days. He releases himself early, and the only real concession he makes to his injuries is that he allows Maddie to move him into her place and mother him a little.

As Michael walks out of the hospital there's an influx to emergency to an explosion down town. It's reported as a gas leak, but Sam and Michael know better. When they find out who is caught and almost killed in the blast the pieces fall into place.

It also killed off my fanfic idea involving Merle Dixon. He died in the blast (although we never saw the body, so he could have changed his identity and gone to ground in Atlanta. Merle was a great survivor until the zombies got him).

Who wanted Dale dead? Adam Scott, the slippery lawyer, whose daughter Dale kidnapped.

Michael confronts Scott and finds out that he put a mad bomber by the name of Dennis Wayne Barfield on the case, with instructions to blow up everyone involved in the abduction of his daughter.

Barfield, even if the name doesn't give it away, exudes serial killer. James Ransome's performance made me think of Finn Wittrock's Dandy Mott in American Horror Story: Freak Show, and he's also a serial killer.

Initially Michael pretends to be a worshipping weasel, it doesn't really do a lot for him, but he does find out a few things. Barfield isn't particularly good at the bombing, he's not mentally stable and he uses substandard equipment and methods, which means he doesn't care about collateral damage as long as he gets to blow things up. He's also fairly sure that Scott has lost control of him.

Despite that he does try to convince Scott to call him off, and when he does that Barfield kills his employer, Barfield is a trust fund kiddie, so doesn't need the money and has never worked in his life, that's another thing that makes him very dangerous.

Jesse rejoins Team Westen, he still hates Michael and that will be looked into down the track, but getting that Bible back is very important and has further ramifications than Jesse's personal feud with Michael.

Vaughn (apparently I've been spelling his name wrong) also wants the Bible, but Michael makes it very clear that he won't work with him anymore and he agrees to back off, although I doubt he will.

Barfield is stopped, although I was a little disappointed that Scott got killed, because I felt he had potential to be a frenemy down the track in future seasons even.

There aren't too many episodes left and the end game has been set firmly in motion.

Burn Notice, Season 2, Episode 12

I was pleased to see another guest shot by Silas Weir Mitchell as arms dealer Seymour. I love him in Grimm and Seymour and Monroe could just about be brothers separated at birth with the way he acts. Michael and Fiona turn up uninvited to one of Seymour's endless pool parties, they wanted to get information on the bomber, but it was also a great excuse for the producers to put Gabrielle Anwar in a bathing suit.

Fiona takes out Seymour's bodyguard Jackass (I think that may actually be his name. Seymour never calls him anything else) and Michael turns Seymour's gun on him. He agrees to help them out with some intel, but only if Michael agrees to let him come on a stakeout and teach him some of his self defence moves.

For some reason Michael suddenly realised that he needed a stream of income (no idea how he's made money until now, considering that he rarely accepts payment for what he's done and all his assets were frozen) and took a job as a security consultant for an art gallery that the owner had concerns about.

As soon as I saw Joel Gretsch was playing the art dealer I knew he'd be dodgy. Just something about the way he played it. I don't know I assumed that as the only other thing I can remember seeing the actor in was V, and he was one of the good guys in that.

Michael quickly works out it's an inside job and nabs the receptionist trying to steal data. This then completely changes the case. The girl is only doing it because she believes her employer murdered her father; a renowned artist, to get hold of a valuable painting. At Sam's urging Michael takes her on as a client and gets himself, Sam and Fiona in a caper involving the art dealer and a contract killer. He has to take the contract killer out of the picture long enough to convince the dealer that someone is trying to kill him. He winds up giving the painting to the girl and presumably doesn't get paid for the other job.

In the second story where, with Seymour's 'help', he's trying to catch the bomber, he does so. He really gets very little information, the bomber was paid by wire and the money was sent to an offshore account about which the bomber only knows the account number. Seymour wanted to torture him using a blow torch, although I think that was mostly for show and I kept flashing on Monroe trying to look tough. In the end they wound up shipping him with one of Seymour's regular shipments to Surinam. To be honest the bomber was rather disappointing and easily taken and get information from. I was surprised that Fiona didn't want to participate in some torture, she was nearly killed by one of his traps after all.

Burn Notice, Season 2, Episode 10

The cliffhanger was wrapped up so quickly that I'm not even sure why they did it in the first place. We knew Michael was going to survive, not just because he's the hero of the show, but because he dived over the balcony just before the explosion wired to the door went off.

Sam's the one who picks him and gets him out of harm's way. In fact a recurring theme in the episode is the loyalty of Sam Axe to his best friend Michael Westen. It hits home in this one how time and time again Sam inconveniences himself and even puts his life on the line for Michael. In this episode he even takes a few punches from Michael himself to make the former spy wake up to himself.

Carla's not at all happy about how things have panned out. She and her people didn't try to kill Michael and they didn't kill their own sharp shooter. It's highly likely that someone she's working for is playing her for their own ends, but this isn't looked at as a possibility. Michael may think it from some things he says, but he doesn't outright suggest it to Carla.

Despite being a target and being tasked with the job of tracking down whoever attempted to kill him, Michael still takes on a job for a random stranger. He meets the guy trying to kill himself by getting in the way of a bus.

A quick conversation establishes that the new client has a sick son and has been scammed out of money he could have used for the child's treatment. Something about that triggers Michael and he offers to help the man.

I wasn't aware that medical scams were a big business in Miami or anywhere in the US, but this episode seems to suggest that they are.

Michael uses Fiona and Sam to flush one of the scammers into the open and then takes the man prisoner, he tracks down the other member of the gang and takes him hostage as well. Sam plays the bad cop and uses an old CIA interrogation technique which involves making one hostage think you've killed the other to get them to talk. They give up the leader of the scam; a woman called Rachel.

Given Fiona's background you wouldn't think she'd have a strong maternal streak, but she does and it comes to the fore after she's played a game of soldiers with the sick little boy.

It unfortunately nearly jeopardises the whole thing when Rachel gloats how easy it is to play on the emotions of parents with desperately ill children and take them for everything. Fiona goes in fists swinging. She came off second best, which I felt was a little unrealistic. Fiona has plenty of combat training and we've seen her take down men much bigger and stronger than her, she can even hold her own sparring with Michael. Rachel, on the other hand, while showing off an impressively fit body, should have been easy pickings for Fiona, yet she had more dirty tricks and actually left Fiona on the ground when she was done.

The gang did eventually track her down and convince her that it was in her best interests to give herself up to the police. Again I felt it was interesting how they played the dynamic, despite Fiona clearly being emotional and therefore thought of as weak by Rachel they still said she ran the show and Donny (the name Michael used in his role as the muscle) did what she said, yet he thought better and kept her grounded.

Campbell finally realised that Fiona may have called him her boyfriend, but she was really still interested in Michael and would go every time he called. He was just convenient whenever she needed someone who had access to an ambulance, so that relationship came to an end and I really think it was best for both parties.