I love it when a show defies expectations, and “Burn Notice” pulled it off brilliantly in this episode. The majority of the situations this season have reinforced the notion of Michael splitting time between CIA asset and renegade operative, and a good chunk of this episode seemed to be pointing to further cozy interaction between the two sides. It made it so much more effective when the rug was pulled out from under Michael (and the audience).
It now seems clear that the organization that burned Michael is much more complex than originally thought, and part of it was sacrificed to execute this grand design. In essence, Michael is now in a much deeper hole. From the perspective of law enforcement, the organization that burned Michael is finished, and Michael’s inability to deal with that led to instability and eventually this violent outburst.
I would predict that Max suspected that this was coming, and left Michael information with his wife that will point him in the next direction he needs to take. Still, this resolves the issue of how to meld Michael’s new status into the series. Michael is back to being a rogue operative, only now he’s got to avoid law enforcement even more than usual. For that matter, his allies are now fully exposed, so they will also have to worry about consequences.
It definitely helped that the case-of-the-week was equally problematic. Eve was a great adversary, because she was clever enough to anticipate a lot of Michael’s moves. All too often, it’s a matter of Michael outsmarting the adversary, and rolling with the inevitable complication. Eve threw him off his game from the start.
After the second half of the fourth season, I was a bit worried that I had jumped into the series just in time to see it run into the ground. But it seems like the two-season pickup was just the incentive needed to jumpstart things a bit. I get the sense that there is a much bigger story taking place right now, and I’m happy to let them take me along for the ride.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4
Final Rating: 8/10