Burn Notice Review: Bonnie and Clyde Attend Couples Retreat

On this week’s episode of Burn Notice, Mike and Fi ditch the country to go to a couple’s retreat. And far from being there to work out their escalating… issues, they are assigned here at the behest of the FBI to track down and kidnap a biological warfare expert so that he can stand trial back in the old U.S. of A. Also this week, Sam and Jesse finally track down the man who put a hit on Max, culminating in the promise of an epic showdown between Mike and the man who’s most recently trying to ruin his tidy existence. But it turns out that that will have to wait for another day as Agent Pearce takes one giant step further into her investigation proving that Michael’s time as a free man may be soon coming to an end.

We start off this week with Mike, Sam, and Jesse trying to track down Tavian Korzha, the man who ordered Max killed. Their plan is to follow the money trail from where Tavian spent his money to find out who gave him the money and ultimately track Tavian down. They come up with a guy by the name of Stigler, who basically serves as an ATM for Eastern businesses. Looking into it, they find out that when Stigler loaned Tavian the money, he believed that he was investing in an import business. In other words, Tavian didn’t happen to divulge that he would be using the money to kill a Federal agent and potentially put Stigler into the Federal doghouse. The guys decide to use this information to get Stigler to give up Tavian. But as the guys are working on the case, so is Agent Pearce. She also has a ton of agents working behind her to push her search into hyper drive. Since Pearce is just behind them, Sam tells Mike that maybe he’d be better off sticking close to Agent Pearce to see how much she knows. He and Jesse in the meantime will head up the search for Tavian.

Mike goes to chat up Pearce to see how the search is going, and just when he offers his services, Pearce tells him that she has a new job for him and Fi. Mike is of course surprised that Fi is to be involved in this because Pearce has made it more than clear in the past that Fi’s tactics aren’t agency worthy. But this week is the exception. Mike and Fi are going to travel to Porte la Cruz, to find the biological weapons expert known only as Cheshire. Cheshire and his wife are attending a couple’s retreat, so Mike and the Mrs. are charged with bringing him back to the U.S. and get him out of dangerous hands. While Pearce was initially signed on to play the part of Mike’s wife, the agency has decided it would be easier to send Mike and Fi, people unconnected with the CIA, in case things go badly.

Sam and Jesse find Stigler and by beating up a couple of his guards and locking themselves in the room with him, they score a little alone time while his guards attempt to break down the door. But really, that’s all the time that they need as they tell Stigler what’s up. And once he finds out what he’s attached to, Stigler very willingly tells Jesse and Sam that Tavian is due to meet him once again to pick up more money. Stigler warns them that Tavian is a very dangerous man, and that if they fail, the consequences would be very bad.

Back at Porte la Cruz, Mike checks in to the hotel with a very unwilling Fi who resents that Michael is so eager to deal with diplomats and drug lords but doesn’t know what to say when it comes to her. For a very kick butt type of chick, Fi is treating her anger with Mike with kid gloves and that’s surprising. It’s kind of like she doesn’t want to rock the boat just yet, even though she’s unhappy.

Although Fi and Mike are told that Cheshire will be there, they don’t really know who he is. So every other couple they meet on the island could be the guy they’re looking for. Mike narrows down this staggering equation by hacking into the hotel computers to find out which couples arrived on the same date as Cheshire. With only four couples with the same arrival date, the game has now become, “who is more likely to be the mad scientist?” Fi and Mike have a difference of opinion as to who they’re betting on. Fi’s bet is this Russian couple, while Mike focuses on the couple who have been arguing all night. Mike decides to put a bug in the couple’s room, and while Fi acts as stake out they find that they were both sort of right. Mike’s couple is the target, while Fi’s couple is their Russian bodyguards/wardens.

I say wardens because it becomes very clear that Kevin and Nikki Skylar (aka Mr. and Mrs. Cheshire) have a very restricted life. They can’t go anywhere without the body guards hired by the company Kevin works for. Nikki (guest star Charisma Carpenter)  starts arguing with her husband that she wants to have a life and she hates living under all these restrictions that come with his job. We hear this all through the bug planted by Mike which is also the reason why Mike is sitting up working and ignoring Fi. Even the enticement of sharing a bath won’t pull Mike away. You’ve got to love a man’s work ethic, but that just hurts.

The bug did provide some useful information as knowing that Nikki is unhappy and looking for a social life, they decide that Fi and Mrs. Cheshire should become great friends. Nikki is more than eager to take Fi’s extended arm of friendship and before you know it, Mike and Fi are having dinner with Nikki and Skylar while the Russian guards sit watching tables away.

Over dinner Mike reveals to Kevin that he knows his secret, he tells him that he’s a sort of head hunter looking to steal Kevin away from his current employer with the promise of a better life unencumbered by their own personal guards. Mike’s main sell is that if Kevin comes to work for them, he’ll get more money and also get his life back. Nikki eagerly urges her husband to accept this offer. And after little hesitation Kevin agrees. And so the plan is set, on a girl’s/guy’s day out Fi/Mike will each help Nikki/Kevin ditch the guard, they’ll meet up at for a scheduled helicopter and fly off into the sunset.

Now the boy’s plan goes without a hitch. Mike knocks out the guard and sprints Kevin away to wait for the chopper. When Mike sees that Fi and Nikki have not arrived, he knows that something’s wrong because they should have been here first. Mike tells Kevin that they have to go back and find the girls, and looks at Kevin sideways when he suggests that what they should do is just “cut our losses” and hop on the plane without their wives. But while Kevin is so eager to dispose of his better half, Mike is unwilling to leave his behind.

During girl’s day out, Fi and Nikki were supposed to make their escape during lunch at a hotel. But Nikki is an amateur when it comes to playing it cool and her wide eyed nervousness sends red flags to her guard who tries to crash the party. Nikki and Fi make a run for it, but they don’t get very far as Nikki has called for back-up who comes and shuts down the roads leaving Fi and Nikki hiding out a very last stand sort of situation. Nikki and Fi may think that they won’t get out of this alive, but Fi proves she’s going to go down fighting and she hides Nikki and prepares for a shoot-out. And then Mike shows up.

In a sort of Bonnie and Clyde last stand, except for the whole dying part, Fi and Mike manage to take on the whole Russian team sent to kill them. It’s sweet how they move to complement each other, and this scene goes to show that for whatever reason, Mike and Fi together just works.

Fi, Sam, Nikki, and Mike return back to the helipad where the helicopter full of soldiers is waiting for them. Now getting suspicious, Kevin asks where exactly they are going and Mike tells him that he’ll be traveling to the CIA headquarters before his long stint in a Federal prison. Kevin refuses to get on the plane and Mike tells him that that’s a risk he can take, but he’s sure that the Russians they just eluded wouldn’t feel so eager to welcome him back. Fi tells Nikki that the CIA would be willing to make a deal with her, and she should be able to walk away from all this relatively unscathed.

Back in Miami, the plan to track down Tavian didn’t go as well as expected as Tavian had a tip off and killed Stigler before he kidnaps Sam. But for the moment he doesn’t mean Sam any harm. Well, actually he does plan to kill him if Sam doesn’t take a message back to Mike. But then again that’s just the nature of negotiation; he might not have meant it…? Okay, he totally did.

Tavian tells Sam that he wants to meet with Mike for yet another negotiation. He wants full amnesty for Max’s death and in exchange he will give Mike information that he knows about him being burned. Tavian implies that he holds some very heavy duty information, answers to questions Mike doesn’t even know to ask. He wants to meet Mike the next day to talk about it.

Mike and Fi get back from “vacation” and for the moment it seems that all is well. Fi is calm and the two seem to be on one accord. Fi tells Mike to check in with Sam and Jesse and that later they’ll work on “reconnecting.” She leaves happy as Mike goes into his apartment to find that he has a visitor. It’s Agent Pearce. She seems friendly enough and tells Mike that they had a break in the case. Some new information they dug up from the security camera filmed Max’s murderer taking a getaway. She invites Mike to look at it and he does. I don’t think he’s too surprised to see that the car in the videotape looks just like his. Mike turns around to a now enraged Pearce holding a gun pointed at him. Mike tells Pearce that he is being framed and that this is all a mistake but Pearce tells Michael her only mistake was ever trusting him…

Stay tuned next week where Michael gets desperate in order to clear his name in Burn Notice’s Summer finale…

Season 5, Episode 11: “Better Halves” (original airdate September 1, 2011)

Burn Notice airs Thursdays at 9/8c on USA Network.

Image courtesy of Robert Zuckerman/USA Network.