Burn Notice: Bad Breaks

Burn Notice begins this week with the unexpected return of Michael’s slimy nemesis Jason Bly, the pesky federal agent who initially appeared in the series to stop Michael from investigating his burn notice by any means necessary.  Michael eventually turned the tables by using his launderer associate Barry to put together a fake file making it look like Bly was taking bribes from Michael-a potential career ender.  Michael ordered Bly out of Miami and out of his life, but apparently Bly didn’t take too kindly to it.

Now Bly has the upper hand once again, because he caught Barry trying to investigate the bomber’s account number that Michael obtained last episode, and threatens to use it against Michael.  Blackmail is a way of life in the spy game it seems.  At the same time Madelyn ropes Michael into helping an acquaintance that has had a less than satisfactory online dating experience…imagine that.  It seems she has developed a stalker.

When said stalker shows up outside the private bank that Michael’s new client works for, Michael runs over to give him a message.  Michael arrives only to find Bly waiting for him, but before they can start going at it, the stalker enters the bank.  Except he’s not a stalker, he’s a high-powered, menacing bank robber with a foreign accent, who proceeds to take everyone inside hostage.  Someone cue the late great Michael Kamen’s score and track down Alan Rickman: It’s Burn Notice meets Die Hard.

That’s the simple and fun setup for this episode, but Michael Westen and John McClane are very different characters, and they fight bad guys while trapped in a claustrophobic setting in very different ways. Whereas McClane is a dogged cowboy with that inimitable working-class New Jersey attitude that wisecracks and shoots guns with equal measure, Michael is a tactical spy who thinks first and fights later.

This situation is a great opportunity to showcase Michael making his MacGyver-esque contraptions to outwit the baddies. Even Bly has a purpose: he’s the equivalent to Die Hard’s boob Ellis. Bly gets shot trying to overpower the robbers, even though Michael told him precisely not to do that. But Michael truly is a good guy at heart, for instead of letting his nemesis die and thereby making his life a lot easier, he patches him up and goes about trying to save the rest of the hostages. He rigs some wire voodoo device and is able to sporadically communicate with Fiona and Sam. He enlists their help in prepping the escape plan from the outside of the building, though Sam isn’t pleased that Michael interrupted his date with a low-maintenance babe with six beach houses…Sam’s perfect woman.

There is no time for any more Michael/Fiona relationship development, but the action and voiceovers are as fun as ever, and Michael’s spy implementations are just as ingenious. This is a consistently entertaining, well-run show, and with ratings strong and Jeffrey Donovan now earning nice paychecks for his work, it looks like we’ll have it for a good while. A show I like not facing imminent cancellation…what a novelty.

Season 2, Episode 13: Bad Breaks (originally aired February 12, 2009)

For more on Burn Notice, click here.

Thursdays at 10/9c on USA

Photographs courtesy of USA