Burn Notice: Enemies Closer

Last night’s Burn Notice marked the return of Michael’s twisted former associate Larry, one of the key factors that made it the best episode of the winter so far. Larry, as played by Tim Matheson, is a wonderfully malicious character that forces Michael to go to a darker, more violent place. Usually Michael is cool as ice, so when he starts to come unglued it’s all the more riveting to watch.

Larry shows up uninvited at Michael’s loft, much to Michael’s dismay. Larry has however been productive during his break-in: he killed a guy who was there to kill Michael. Of course, that would be more impressive if Larry wasn’t the cause for that guy wanting to kill Michael. See, Larry got back to town and used Michael’s name while he was stealing $2 million from Colombian gangsters/money laundering baddies. So now, like it or not, Michael and Larry are intertwined until they can neutralize these degenerates.

Naturally, Michael enlists Sam and Fiona to help him, but they become more and more reluctant the more Larry inserts himself. Fiona especially is distressed, because she sees the side of Michael that Larry brings out, and she realizes that she has more in common with Larry than she would like. Michael’s plan involves convincing the Colombian head honcho that Michael didn’t rob him, but rather, it was an inside job. We get all the usual espionage misdirection tactics and a cool pool/mattress/plunge escape scene…but the real highlight is the darkness that Larry brings to the proceedings.

Larry is so different from Michael, he’s completely amoral and self-concerned, and you can tell that Michael hates having been associated with him during his spy days. The fact that Michael worked with Larry for three years opens up really interesting narrative possibilities. Was Michael always the patriot that we have known him to be, or did he used to be less virtuous? At some point I would love to have a flashback episode that shows us Michael as he was when he was still a spy.

On the family front, Michael’s brother Nate returns unexpectedly. As if Nate weren’t handful enough, he shows up married! To a card dealer he met in Vegas! This would almost seem like a cliché, except for the fact that it seems exactly like something Nate would do, based on all we have seen from him. The woman is a flake that doesn’t eat protein and is allergic to cucumbers. To make matters worse, they start pushing really hard for Madeline to come live with them in Vegas, away from Michael and all of his explosive situations. Madeline is less than receptive to this idea.

The other big highlight of the episode is an emotional one: a blow-up between Michael and Sam. Gilroy asked Michael to obtain six weeks of flight data. Michael knows that Gilroy is looking for a specific flight, and giving him all of that information makes him nervous…but he knows that he has to keep building his relationship with Gilroy if he wants to eventually take him down and see how he fits into the scheme of who burned him. Michael asks Sam for help and tells him to get a temp job through one of his Coast Guard buddies in order to get the information.

Sam is reluctant because it puts him and his Coast Guard friend on the line. He agrees initially, but after he gets all the data, Sam figures out what flight it is that Gilroy wants and gives it to Michael to give to Gilroy. Michael tells Sam that he needs all of the flights because that’s what Gilroy asked for. Sam, in a rare moment of forcefulness, tells Michael that he won’t give him anything and won’t help him with anything else until Michael “gets his head out of his ass.”

Bruce Campbell is great in that scene, and the fact that Sam is usually the easygoing wingman makes his actions here all the more dramatic. There are several good, meaty scenes between Michael, Sam and Fiona, and that I’m all for.

Season 3, Episode 13: Enemies Closer (Originally aired February 11, 2010)

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Thursdays at 10/9c on USA

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal and Glenn Watson