Burn Notice – Episode 4-4 Review

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My name is Michael Westen. I used to be a spy. Until… Well Burn Notice fans it’s another week and another review about our favorite burned spy. And no, I don’t mean Jesse Porter. So last night, we start out with Fi and Jesse hanging out in the Bahamas, trying to identify a dead body (allegedly the one Michael and Jesse spoke of last week that fell out of the plane they were looking into). They pickpocket the local coroner and Jesse sneaks into the morgue. He almost gets caught when the coroner returns to the morgue trying to locate his missing keys, so Jesse hops into a freezer, the coroner finds his keys, and Jesse leaves. On his way out, the coroner recognizes Jesse from earlier and the police give chase. Jesse runs to the docks, where Fi pulls up in a speedboat, and they both get away…obviously. Jesse and Fi meet with Michael, and we then find that Sam has run the information on the corpse. But Sam needs a favor from Michael. Apparently Sam volunteers for a charity group that helps families of soldiers killed in combat, and the head of the charity has gotten wrapped up in a scam and lost all the money. Even worse…Josh (the charity head) has gone to confront the scammers…with a gun. Sam and Michael track him down and try to reason with him. The scammer insists that he did nothing wrong, and that the money was lost through investments. Outside, the building, the police begin arriving, so Sam, who refuses to leave, barricades them in. Meanwhile, Jesse and Fi try to get the dead guy’s address from a local shop, and eventually get the woman behind the counter to give them what they need. Back at the bank, Sam makes it no secret that he is not leaving the bank. The police negotiator calls, and Michael answers pretending to be a hostage. He buys them some time, while the police cut the internet, AC, and phone lines. Michael and Sam interrogate the two managers (Nick and Patty) separately. Nick offers up his books as proof he did nothing wrong. Patty mentions Tom Norris (another person involved with Nick). Michael hacks a neighboring building’s telephone line to contact Fi. Jesse and Fi are trying to break into the dead man’s house, but get foiled by a nosey neighbor who starts asking a lot of questions and demands IDs when they claim to be census workers. Michael’s call comes in and they go to find Tom Norris. Back at the bank, Nick tries to pull a gun, forcing Michael to disarm him. By this time, the police lieutenant outside knows who is inside the bank after running the license numbers of the cars outside. Michael pretends to be a hostage and asks for a getaway car. Fi and Jesse find and take Tom Norris to the bank. He tells them that Nick has a hidden safe in the conference room floor. Michael tells Fi he needs a big distraction. Michael and Sam blow the safe out of the ground and find a lot of money hidden in it. When Nick and Patty are shown this, they scuffle a bit and Michael and Sam break it up. Sam and Michael decide to use a tactic to make Nick look like the hostage taker, based on a story that happened in Lima. They need Patty’s help though. Patty tells them that they all deserve to go to jail. Michael baits Nick into stealing his gun back, and just as Nick pulls the trigger on the empty weapon, the police bust in. Outside, Patty comes through and points the finger at Nick, who is immediately arrested. Afterwards, Michael and Jesse break into the dead man’s house, which is too clean. Michael talks to the neighbor, who claims to know nothing. Michael and Jesse figure out that the neighbor killed their guy and go after her. She escapes, but not before she knocks a hole on her wall, in which Michael finds a hidden tape.

So, this episode is the first to sort of separate the quartet into two teams. While Michael and Sam are the primary focus of the episode, Jesse and Fi’s side story fits perfectly into place for the overall storyline. The guest appearance of Frank Whaley (who I mainly recognize from the film The Doors when he played Robbie Krieger and from Pulp Fiction where he was Brett, Marsellus Wallace’s former partner), was definitely a plus in my book. Moving forward, we will see actress Navi Rawat return as the mysterious killer that evaded Michael and Jesse, in what I’m sure will be a role equally as good as Lucy Lawless’s assassin Evelyn from season 1. Of course she will have a longer storyline that the Evelyn character did. With every episode, we inch closer and closer to the first half season finale, and I for one have yet to be disappointed. I’m honestly hoping that Jesse doesn’t stay past the first half of the season, but even if he returns when the season resumes in December, I’m sure his character will be put to good use. Well fans, that’s it for this week. Remember, if you need your Burn Notice fix before next week, there’s always USA Networks’s website, Hulu, IMDB, DVR, or your local retailer where seasons 1 & 2 are available on DVD. See you all next week.