Burn Notice, Season 5, Episode 4

Burn Notice goes hi tech as Michael matches wits with a ruthless young hacker.

Because of the end of this episode I am now convinced that I never saw the first 4 episodes of Season 5, and the rest of it makes so much more sense.

Remember how I wondered where Barry was in the last review? Well, someone must have heard me, because this is a Barry centric episode. While Michael and Max are trying to recover some vitally important information off a table, and Michael is annoying the life out of Max by continually harping on continuing to go after who burned him, despite all evidence saying that chapter of his life is done and dusted, Barry comes to Fiona and Sam for assistance.

Apparently everyone's favourite money launderer has a brother (as people often say when hearing this: 'there's two of them?), Paul (played by John Ross Bowie, better known as the speech impaired Barry Kripke from The Big Bang Theory, he doesn't have the speech impediment here and he's slightly less nerdy, but I can't see him as anyone other than Kripke), who has gotten himself into financial difficulty with a computer hacker.

I didn't know who the hacker would be, but the moment I saw the name Big Show in the credits, I knew who a heavy would be. I'd actually thought Michael may encounter the 7' 400+ pound wrestler, but it was Sam and Jesse, it was rather comical to see him throwing the two men (neither of whom are really what you'd classify as small) as if they were rag dolls. He turns out to be scared of the hacker, who is a relatively petite 20 something called Eva (Aviva Farber's portrayal actually put me in mind of an older, tech savvy version of Loretta McCready from Justified).

Michael then has to pull double duty to help the gang out with Eva. Max showed what a genuinely stand up guy he is by pulling a few strings to get them government level access to help Michael out on what is an unsanctioned operation. Max seems to be slightly in awe of Michael by now, largely because he makes hard things about their job look so easy and he has time to do other things outside of it.

Eva turns out to be one of his most dangerous opponents. Possibly due to her sheer ruthlessness, she had her giant accomplice scared to death of what she'd do if he double crossed her. It winds up taking everything Michael and the gang have to foil her and pull Barry's brother out of his situation.

Michael's PTSD seems to have conveniently vanished, which makes me wonder why he had it in the first place. As he's wrapping up his mission with Max he finds his partner dying of a gunshot wound on the floor. It becomes apparent that it's a set up and Michael is meant to take the rap for it. Why? Maybe he wasn't being paranoid when he insisted that the people behind his burning hadn't gone away and that they were still inside the Agency.

The new improved Charger makes it's reappearance as Fiona roars to Michael's rescue, using it as his getaway vehicle. 

The gloves are off and Michael is back to being a marked man.

Burn Notice, Season 4, Episode 15

There was a character that's sort of Team Westen who hadn't really been seen this season, and that's Michael's little brother Nate. I guess with all that was going on with Jesse, Nate kind of got lost in the shuffle, although Maddie mentioned him occasionally, and he was in Vegas with his wife.

So while Michael continues to recover from his shoulder injury (a nice bit of continuity to keep that in our mind and at least they don't do it by showing the bandage on the outside of his clothing, ala Julia Shumway's leg injury in Under the Dome) he sends Jesse and Sam on a road trip to Santa Domingo to bid for the list from a former intelligence security expert, turned secret seller. This kind of gets Jesse out of the way and enables Michael and Nate to spend some brother to brother time Westen family style.

Michael knows something is up when he meets Nate at the airport and he has no luggage, it was weird enough he just flew in out of the blue the way he did. Before they even go home he wants to meet a couple of friends who run a car hire and mechanic business.

When they get there one of them is beating the hell out of the other, coincidentally, or maybe no, they're brothers. The full story is that the business was going to the wall, so one of them used some of their cars to help a local drug lord transport his ware. Now one of his cars has gone missing complete with $2,000,000 worth of heroin.

Nate immediately offers to take them on as a client. Michael counsels turning it down, but Nate won't let him, so he's drawn into the whole mess, as is Fiona, but she kind of enjoys it.

Despite Michael's continual protests to the contrary, Maddie believes Michael pulled Nate into this. Maddie's very protective of Nate, partly because he's her youngest and partly because she knows Michael can take care of himself and there's some rather dire threats made to Michael from her if Nate gets hurt. It later comes out that this is driven by Nate about to become a father.

For once Michael and Co don't have to convince the head bad guy that one of his lieutenants is betraying him. Well, they do, but this time they're not planting evidence, because he actually is doing it.

We don't get to see the aftermath, but it's made pretty clear that he's going to get a bullet to the head and unmarked grave and won't be mourned by anyone.

Michael also gets himself free mechanic work if he wants it. Along the way we also got to see Michael reconnect with a former enemy/ally to help he and Nate find the car. This was a recall back to a previous season episode where Michael protected Miami's king of stolen cars from a bunch of mercenaries out for blood.

The show does that well, brings minor characters in and out across seasons and it helps set up a sense or reality and shows that Michael and Team Westen are building up a strong network in and around Miami.

We got occasional scenes in Santa Domingo with Jesse and Sam, but that was only to remind us about them and to reference the season arc. This was mostly about the Westen Brothers taking down the bad guys and bonding, as well as setting up a complication with Nate's impending fatherhood. In a show like Burn Notice when a character like Nate reveals he's going to become a daddy, it's a kiss of death. Nate will die at some point, it's just a matter of when.

Once Michael has the list he has to decide what to do with it. Who can he trust with it? Does he give it to the government? Who can be trusted with this sort of information?

Burn Notice, Season 1, Episode 4

There's really about 3 stories going on in this episode.

Just after having a run in with a Czech assassin (story 1) Michael receives a call from his mother for assistance with her garbage disposal, at her house he meets up with his younger brother Nate (story 2). Nate has a job lined up for him, trying to track down the teenage daughter of an old high school classmate of Michael's (story 3).

The Czech assassin storyline tied into Michael's burning and he does get some information that he pissed off some very bad people, that's why he was burned and why an internationally renowned assassin is now trying to kill him. Having got what he wanted he delivers the assassin to his FBI tail via Sam.

Viewers had heard about Nate and they knew that Michael didn't have a lot of regard for him, but not exactly why. Nate's more like his father than Michael is. He doesn't seem to have uncontrollable temper or the alcoholic tendencies, but he is unreliable, he does let down those who trust and love him and he's a compulsive gambler. He basically sets a job up for Michael, and takes money for it without consulting his brother and he does it to try and pay off some people he owes money. At the urging of his mother Michael agrees to take the job and help his brother out, but he's clearly not happy about it. I had the feeling this was not the last we'd see of Nate and I was right.

The actual motw was what happened to the daughter of Michael's former school friend, although Michael asserts that he wasn't actually a friend. Michael worked for his father. It also transpires that Michael left Miami even before graduation and joined the army. Shades of John Cusack's assassin Martin Blank in Grosse Pointe Blank there.

The daughter has been 'procured' by brothers, who publicly are names in the fashion industry, but make most of their money by acting as pimps, and have a sideline in transporting innocent girls to Dubai and auctioning them off to the highest bidder. I was reminded of Taken, although the brothers were smarter and the girl's father wasn't Liam Neeson.

Using his resources and Nate, Michael gets the girl back by kidnapping one of the brothers and doing an exchange. I wondered if the brothers were going to cause a problem later on or whether they'd learned not to tangle with Michael Westen.

The first 3 episodes dealt largely in the seamier side of Miami, this one concentrating on the fashion industry was all South Beach hotels and resorts. It was quite bright and easy on the eye.

Mostly it existed to introduce Nate and show us Michael's relationship with him and further establish how much his family really does mean to him and what he'll do when they're threatened.