Burn Notice Review: Love and Microchips

I continue to shake my head at the way things are progressing on the fifth season of Burn Notice. On the one hand, you have Michael Westen closer than ever to getting himself back in with the government that spurned him five years ago. And this is good; it’s great in fact. Michael is one step closer to getting his dream, and that’s a moment of joy until you realize that Michael living the dream is just that, a dream. Things can only get worse for Michael and the crew of Burn Notice and that’s a sobering thought.

As often happens in Burn Notice, on this week’s episode Michael finds his professional life put into jeopardy by the overwhelming presence of a personal crisis. And as Michael is forced yet again to dance to the tune of an unwieldy enemy, one must wonder when, or even if, this show plans to transgress out of the poor little Michael phase. Because frankly, it’s tiring.

Far be it for me to say that Burn Notice is getting stagnant. But the whole Michael working as a double agent to save himself from some secret enemy who holds his fate thing is getting kind of old. Actually, it was old two episodes ago, before the writers added Anson (Jere Burns,) another secret agent man who has it out for Michael. This week’s episode involves Michael playing to be reinstated in the government all the while working decidedly against the government to help Anson live outside of the law..

After being cleared in the death of his former handler Max last season, Michael is now being prepped for a higher clearance in the government. This involves Michael being questioned for hours by Agent Pierce and having his answers quadruple checked by other agents. During the interview Pierce asks Mike to the best of his knowledge does the network of burned spies that were working against the government still exists. Mike answers no, but of course we know this is a lie and Michael is in fact secretly working for the head of said organization. But Pierce doesn’t know that and neither does the CIA, so Mike gets his clearance even though Pierce clues him in that he’s nothing but a water boy. The agency, Pierce says, really likes having someone who can “work off the books.” So while Michael has a higher clearance he is still no closer to being an agent of the government and in fact this leads me to wonder that he is in danger of never being a part of the CIA. Michael is so good at working off the books, he’s had to for the last several years to survive, that it might just be too convenient for the agency to reinstate him. But that’s tomorrow’s problem, today Mike has his hands full with Anson.

In case you’ve forgotten you might want to take a moment to refresh from last episode, but if you don’t have the time I’ve give you the cliff notes. Mike’s new enemy Anson has some serious leverage against Fiona, who mistakenly confessed to killing the guards in a government building. This information was recorded by Anson and if Mike doesn’t do every little thing that Anson says, Fi may just find herself in a jail cell for life.

Against Fi’s protests, Mike promises to help Anson. Mike’s assignment: well, since Mike has done a fabulous job at bringing the agency’s attention on Anson’s secretive doings, Anson wants Mike to put a stop to that. He wants to continue to live under the radar, disrupting the agency from the dark. So, in order to fix this Anson tells Michael about this computer wizard, Oswald, who’s made a virus that can erase all traces of a person off a computer. Anson wants Mike to get Oswald and the virus so that he can delete Anson’s name from the CIA’s computers.

Oswald’s holed up on some island in Puerto Rico, but that doesn’t stop Mike and Fi from kidnapping him and taking him back to Miami, a place where he definitely doesn’t want to be. Oswald refuses to give Mike any information about the virus and Mike noticing Oswald’s edginess to get out of town tells Anson that he can just turn him in to the cops and watch as Oswald’s enemies come out for him. Under that threat Oswald breaks down and tells Mike that he doesn’t actually have the software, it was taken by the police when they caught up with him. Oswald tells Mike that before he was arrested he was given 5 million dollars by a coke dealer named Xavier who wanted to erase his name from the police’s computers. Oswald never got to complete that job so if Xavier finds out that Oswald’s in town, there’s going to be trouble.

And as we all know, once mentioned, Xavier definitely finds out that Oswald’s in town. This is courtesy of an ex-girlfriend/”associate” of Oswald’s that Xavier threatened. Mike and Fi take Oswald into custody and “kidnap” him yet again, this time to keep Xavier from getting his hands on him. Since Xavier needs Oswald alive and Mike’s pointing a gun at his head, Xavier lets them go but promises Mike that he hasn’t seen the last of him.

This is exactly what Mike needs to hear because once he learns that whoever goes to get the virus will be tracked by microchips (a building security feature,) they make the plan to let Xavier get the hard drive containing the virus and later steal it from him. Xavier will then have all sorts of cops on his trail while Mike gets a copy of the virus to pass on to Anson. That’s the idea anyway.

And their plan works. They call up Xavier who is more than happy to get the hard drive and settle his business with Oswald, for half the asking price (the original price was $10 million). Xavier’s ready to ride off into the sunset with the drive when Mike and Fi block their path and at gunpoint force Xavier to hand over the file which they then copy on a separate computer. Mike and Fi give Xavier the hard drive and cut ties with him right before Homeland security comes in and arrests Xavier, courtesy of the micro trackers.

At the end of the episode Mike meets with Anson to give him the drive with the software on it. Michael’s ready to conclude their business but Anson lets him know that he won’t be getting away that easily. The virus is, as Anson tells Mike, useless unless downloaded onto a CIA computer, and isn’t it fortunate that Mike’s upgraded security will make it easy to do just that. Mike hesitates, but Anson reminds Michael that he doesn’t have any choices left.

Season 5, Episode 12 “Damned If You Do” (original airdate November 3, 2011)

Burn Notice airs Thursdays at 10/9c on USA Network.

Photos courtesy of Quantrell D. Colbert/USA Network