Contributor: Edmund B.
Written by Craig O’Neill
Directed by Renny Harlin
Over the years, the mid-season finales for “Burn Notice” have often outshone the season-enders. The cliffhanger format, and the attendant hook to hold interest for the impending second half, would provide more compelling and intriguing promise than the eventual resolution. Season 4, with Jesse’s vow to kill whoever burned him, then eventually meekly joining the team, remains the prime example. This season, the summer finale, “Desperate Times,” does deliver the requisite fireworks, a given with Renny Harlin at the helm, but still in the service of a storyline that is all too familiar.
After going off the reservation to get the name of the man who killed Nate, Michael reenlists the CIA’s help to track down Tyler Gray over Fiona’s (prescient) objections. Tom Card provides a location, Panama City, but can only spare one low-level desk jockey to augment the usual Team Westen. While fans of “The Wire” may enjoy seeing Chad Coleman, this was a role that screamed ‘Redshirt,’ and that expectation was met. After the mission goes south, and they lose most of their impressive CIA arsenal, Michael falls back on the improvising that has made him the 21st-century MacGyver. Some spark plugs, duct tape (and field cobblering by Jesse) combine with the requisite weak spot in the enemy’s defenses to flush out Tyler Gray.
While it provides the usual spills and chills, as with most of the developments these last few episodes, it didn’t break any new ground. Even the grand revelation, once they’d caught Tyler Gray, that Tom Card had hired him and is now setting them all up to be taken out felt pro forma. Yet another man behind the curtain is revealed for Michael and Company to pursue, joining the long list from Management to Simon to Vaughn to Anson. I’ve long before registered my complaints that the purported new approach also resembled the Great Oz, and other titular Emperors. This finale just reinforces my sense of déjà vu.
Maddy does make a welcome return, and reveals some hints of a different direction they might have gone in. Her much-anticipated (by me, anyway) confrontation with Michael is intense and heartbreaking, as she finally vents her anger not just at Michael, but also herself for failing to protect Nate. With Nate’s death, and the hints about their father the last two seasons, drawing back the curtain on the Westen family’s back story remains the show’s greatest wasted opportunity.
Maddy’s confrontation with Tom Card provides the other highlight. Despite the unoriginality of his role, John C. McGinley ranks up there with John Mahoney’s Management in the ranks of Burn Notice’s Big Bads. His broken bottle analogy for the Westen brothers is a deliciously off-kilter and vaguely inappropriate attempt at reassuring a grieving mother. It helps humanize the man, and make his betrayals that much more horrific. It is a beautifully played sequence between him and Sharon Gless, and yet more proof of what could happen if this cast is allowed to stretch its muscles a little more.
So, the team, minus the sacrificial black man (really, guys, that over-used trope, too?) is once again burned, but now stuck on foreign soil. At least that means they’ll be forced to cover new ground geographically to make it back to Miami. They have yet to do so in the story so far.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Directing: 2/2
Style: 2/4
Total Score: 7/10
