Burn Notice Review: Let’s Take This Back Again

Okay, I’m just going to say it. There’s something seriously wrong with Michael Westen. Now last week I cocked it up to a fluke, to Mike being in a bad position, to the sun, the moon, to anything other than the fact that Burn Notice has seriously changed… and not for the better. This week’s episode of Burn Notice was a painful thing to watch and if I didn’t have to come back and tell you how bad it was, I would have skipped out entirely. So, here’s to you, and off we go.

We start off this week with Michael on vacation with Fi, they’re getting all romantic and what not until suddenly these GI Joe types come to bust up their playtime. Fi is of course ticked when Michael tells her that it’s time to go because he has work to do. Michael meets Max at some hotel in Miami where Max gives him his first “official” government gig. And that gig’s name is Carson Huxley, a genius who is a government asset but a fast liability if his proclivities for drinking and cheating on his wife leave him an easy target for blackmailers looking for some government info. Mike and Max’s job is to babysit him, and keep the predators at bay. Max has the first shift and Michael is sent away for the moment, and that’s just as well because he’s needed elsewhere.

Fiona’s gone apartment hunting and as the “boyfriend” Mike is tagging along to give advice. Well, actually Mike is hanging around to stand on the balcony and stare across the water moodily. It’s clear to both Fi and the real estate agent that Mike couldn’t care less about this venture. When Fi tries to push Michael into caring by talking about how to decorate, Michael again gets a convenient call saving him from another awkward conversation. Mike tells Fi that they have to go, and bails to wait outside. The real estate agent tells Fi not to worry about her boyfriend’s disinterest because they only really show up to sign the paperwork. Fi makes plans to meet with her again later telling her “this is for me.”

In the welcome back case of mercy, Jesse meets with Mike and Fi and tells him that he needs their help on a case. Michael refuses because he has a full time gig now with the government and he doesn’t want to screw that up. Jesse tells him that it’s a matter of life and death, that there are girls who are going to die without their help, but Michael still refuses. Even Fi can’t guilt him into it, so she calls Sam and tells Mike that they’ll handle it without him.

Sam, Fi, and Jesse go to meet their client, a Japanese woman named Ryoko whose 15-year-old cousin has been kidnapped and will be sold by the Japanese mafia. How do they know that she’s been kidnapped, well, one of the girl’s (whose name I either missed or they never said) friends managed to sneak away to a telephone and call home to tell her parents what happened. Unfortunately that girl was caught and killed, so it’s even more urgent that they get to the remaining girls quickly. Using his newly formed high level contacts, Jesse manages to track the number down to a local hotel. And there the team starts a stake out and asks around to learn that Takeda, a mobster with one missing finger, is the guy they’re looking for. But after Takeda gets tipped off that someone’s looking for him the guy goes running, leading Sam and Fi on a good-old fashioned run down which takes them (cue key “To Grandmother’s House We Go”) over the hotel and through the air, to the top of Jesse’s car. And that’s just for the mobster because he ran, but didn’t get far. (End note.) So the team hustle mobster dude into Jesse’s car where they kidnap him to an undisclosed location.

Now Mike has been busy babysitting Huxley by pretending to be a fellow good time traveler who just likes to drink and talk. Huxley takes to him and the two sit at the bar where Huxley laments to Mike about his miserable love life at home with the wife. Huxley basically warns Mike off marriage, telling him that things get stale very fast and to basically run away from settling down all together. Subtle, isn’t it? Two girls that Huxley was flirting with earlier come along and before they get settled Mike yells that he has a girlfriend and Huxley has a wife sending the girls scattering. Huxley looks peeved by the block, BFFs no more?

Back to the mercy case: Sam and Fi need Michael’s help to convince Takeda that they are part of a rival trafficking ring. They want Mike to join them as the big boss man, to get Takeda talking. In exchange, Michael says he will help them if Fi helps Michael in keeping Huxley busy, so she’s off for babysitting duty as Michael and Sam form a plan. In order to get the prisoner talking the team decides to use Madelyn, in the role of a nurse and fellow hostage. Michael is completely against this plan but for some reason Maddie seems determined to have a part in this. Michael warns her that it won’t be pretty but she says that she can handle it. In order to get her into character, Mike begins to yell at Madelyn scaring her into her role. This next part is hard to recount, not because it’s emotionally disturbing but because it’s so heavy-handed (no pun intended), with no subtly or finesse in the comparisons of Michael to his father, Madelyn’s dead husband, that it almost makes me want to throw up.

Fans of the show know that Madelyn had a difficult time with her marriage to her abusive husband, Mike’s father. So over the next 20 minutes Michael yells at Madelyn, threatens her and even hits her in front of their hostage in order to sell their story. Sure, I get that this was something they had to do, but trying to compare Mike to his father and shoving Madelyn’s terror down our face seems cheap. That’s the best way that I can describe it. It’s underdeveloped, overly dramatic, and not a good use of our time. And Mike and Madelyn dancing around the subject that we all know is riding underneath, that Madelyn was a victim of abuse, before the final ‘Hallelujah’ moment when Maddie makes it clear to all feels like a manipulative ploy. It’s like everything here was set up so that Michael can seem to be on the dark side, ‘oh look he’s just like his dad.’ Except it’s not honest and we know that it’s bull. It’s like the writers already planned out where the episode would lead and then were determined to move it there by giving the barebones of the story behind it. I honestly don’t see why Madelyn forced herself into this situation. Sure they needed her, and she’s worked with them in the past but for some reason the moment when Maddie fights Michael to get involved in this task seems weak. This whole situation seems inauthentic and forced and I don’t appreciate that.

So, at this moment Fi is now taking care of Huxley, and by that I mean leading him on like she’s the woman of his dreams before turning psycho on him. Hux tells Fi that his wife is a bore, all she wants to talk about is furniture and decorating (hint, hint).Fi gets that look in her eyes and you pretty much know Old Hux is going to regret this. She takes Hux on a joyride and while he’s professing his love for her she decides to let out her wild side and starts racing 130 mph and driving with her eyes closed. This of course freaks out her new love who runs from the car and back to the hotel with Fi chasing him all the way. These tactics do have their desired results as when Fi tells Hux (through a locked bathroom door) that they’re going to have a wonderful life together after he leaves his wife, Hux shuts her down and says that he would never leave his wife whom he loves. ‘Enraged’ Fi storms off leaving a shaken Hux alone to call back home and profess his love to his wife. It’s sweet I suppose, but I give him a month before he’s back sweating the sheets with someone new.

Back at the holdout shack, Mike, Sam, and Maddie make a plan to drug Takeda into giving them the information about where they are hiding the girls. But when Madelyn moves to give him the drug Takeda begs her to help him with an earnestness that is hard to resist. Madelyn doesn’t so she shoots the drugs into the mattress instead. When Maddie tells Mike what she has done, he gets upset because their plan is now ruined, but Maddie tells him that she has another plan. Takeda trusts her so she wants to exploit that trust and get him to tell her where the girls are. Here I must interject to say, it’s really sad when you start sympathizing with the bad guy. We know Takeda’s bad but seeing him held hostage so weak, vulnerable, and trusting hurts me, especially when I know that the people he trusts are working him over. The problem here is that the bad boy hostage is much more sympathetic that the guys who are holding him hostage for a good cause. Especially with the Mike/Madelyn drama playing out, the team is dealing with all these issues and this chaos with their various relationships. It’s like they’re imploding, and I really feel for the guy that gets caught up in their mess. This episode Michael just comes off like a selfish, manipulative jerk and I can’t get down with that. Someone needs to shake this dude up, find his heart and bring back the old Mike that we knew and loved. Anyway, Madelyn gets Takeda to tell her where the girls are being hidden and just like that she flips off the desperate act and hands Takeda over to Michael and crew. When Takeda realizes what’s happened, he gives the camera his most devastated face; I really hate that I feel for this guy.

At the end of the episode Madelyn gives the money from Jesse’s consulting fee to Michael with the instructions to fix up the charger. Mike thinks that the car should just stay dead but Maddie disagrees saying that it’s time to stop running away from the past and just face it down because it made them who they are today. Michael meets with Max who tells him that even though Fiona was effective, she has no place in his work from now on. And back at his place, Mike prepares a special evening for Fiona and gives her a speech about the big changes they’ve had in their lives recently. Fi cuts Michael short and tells him that she knows where this is going and that she understands that he has a new life and won’t stand in his way. Mike stops Fi and tells her that he wouldn’t have succeeded without her, he doesn’t want her out of his life, he wants to make sure that with his new job and new life, he lives it with her. So, she’s moving in!

Overall this was a horrible episode of Burn Notice that I would love to soon forget. Forced, inauthentic, and with all the subtlety and finesse of a raging bull, this highly ineffective episode layed it on thick and turned Michael into the bad guy because he’s such a prick. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes of Burn Notice but if the rest of the season is going to be like this, do me favor. Shut it down, take it back, and do this crap over again. I want my Mikey back because this just won’t do.

Season 5, Episode 2: Bloodlines (originally aired June 30, 2011).

Catch Burn Notice every Thursday night at 9 p.m. EST on USA!

Photos courtesy of Virginia Sherwood/USA Network.