Thursday night’s brand-new episode of Burn Notice was the second of the season. Called “Turn and Burn”, it pretty much followed the same formula as the S2 premiere, which means this is probably what fans can look forward to for most of the season. Specifically, the episode had three different storylines going at once. The A-plot dealt with Michael’s Odd Job of the Week as he tries to extricate another person from danger; the B-plot dealt with Michael’s new handler Carla; and the C-plot addressed personal issues with Madeline.
Personally, I like this formula, and think the writers do a good job of giving each storyline just enough screen time, so I hope they stick with this for the foreseeable future!
Odd Job of the Week: Michael takes on another client courtesy of Sam. This one is Sophia, a cocktail waitress who has a problem with one of her customers stalking her. The man’s name is Raul, and he happens to work for a major drug smuggler. Michael thinks that something about Sophia’s story doesn’t add up, so he presses her for info — and learns that she’s actually an undercover DEA agent. She doesn’t want to go to the agency for help because they’ll take her off the case, so she used Sam to get to Michael instead because she’d heard how Michael has a penchant for fixing things.
Michael reluctantly agrees to help, and takes his usual approach of getting the bad guy by role playing as someone who has something to offer the business. Raul buys into Michael’s shtick, and Michael gets close enough to bury him (and his boss).
Burn Notice Progress: Carla starts communicating with Michael via crossword puzzles in the local paper. She sets up a meeting to inform Michael that she has another task for him. She needs a super high-tech security card duplicated, and there’s only one guy in Miami who can handle the job. Michael is to locate the guy, get the card duplicated, and get it back to Carla quickly — all with no questions asked.
Michael handles the task with relative ease, but then the counterfeiter is killed by Carla’s people before he can tell Michael what the security cards are for. As a result, Michael is left with more questions than answers (as usual). At least this time he grabs a similar card which will presumably enable him to do a bit more legwork on his own.
Character development: Through some counseling sessions with Madeline, we learn a bit more about Michael’s childhood. Apparently, when he was nine years old, he had to go steal groceries for the family because his father either drank or gambled their money away. Michael was caught by the bag boy and received a black eye for his troubles, but at least he came home with food. Madeline accepted the food without asking questions about the black eye. That always bothered Michael, but he and his mom finally hashed things out and come to a bit of an understanding with each other.
My Reaction: I thought this was another solid episode. There weren’t quite as many laughs as last week, but it was still entertaining to watch. My favorite part of any BN episode is when Michael’s plan to take down the bad guy comes together, because I love seeing how he traps his prey. This week’s staged assassination attempt was pretty clever, and was actually something that the gang could reasonably accomplish. Of course, I would love to see the baddie be something other than a drug dealer, but they’re in Miami, so I guess this is going to be a recurring theme.
I didn’t quite like Carla as much in this episode as the last one. She came off as significantly more evil here, which I didn’t think she was supposed to be. Yes, she has information about what happened to Michael, but that doesn’t necessarily make her an evil criminal mastermind/unrepentant killer, ya know? Plus, I thought she worked for a government agency? If so, would she really have free rein to kill anyone who crosses Michael’s path?
I was glad to see Madeline again. I absolutely love Sharon Gless, and hope the producers use her a lot more this year than last year. She adds tremendously to the show in terms of helping viewers understand where Mike is coming from.
Next week’s episode looks like another good one, so I can’t wait for Thursday to arrive!