I enjoyed the Burn Notice summer finale, but then again, I always enjoy Burn Notice. And “Guilty as Charged” didn’t provide me with the extra adrenaline rush I typically get from the show’s climactic chapters. Part of that is because the bulk of the episode was devoted to a standalone case-of-the-week plot line, which is typical of a Burn Notice episode, but atypical of one of their finales. Another reason is because the character of John Barrett had just been introduced a few weeks prior, which means he couldn’t get the same mythological buildup as previous Big Bads of the series, like Carla, Victor, and Simon. The result was that he didn’t have the same intimidation factor or pose as understandable a threat to Michael as bad guys past. Moreover, Barrett, for all the evils he’s supposedly responsible for, has never done anything to wrong Michael personally, and so the satisfaction of personalized vengeance was absent as well. I didn’t fear Jesse’s retribution against Michael either, because Jesse has been established as such a good guy over the course of the season that I couldn’t see him actually trying to kill Michael (though the final scene leaves some ambiguity about that).
The standalone story involved the kidnapping of a little girl and Michael’s attempt to rescue her. It was very enjoyable, and had it appeared in a mid-season episode I’d have no issue with it. In typical Burn Notice fashion, Michael’s client decides to ignore his advice and completely screws up the rescue attempt. Why don’t these people ever learn? Just kidding. Obviously I get that each one only makes this mistake once and has no way of learning from the errors of past clients. I thoroughly enjoyed the execution of plan B, however. The kidnapper agrees to trade the girl in exchange for Michael breaking his murderer brother out of prison. I loved the whole notion of the fake prison break, as Michael and friends were able to setup a fake police transport vehicle, with a fake prisoner inside (whose head Fiona shaved and doused with blood to make him look like the brother from a distance), and stage a fake assault and rescue on their own fake van. It was both clever and a lot of fun to watch.
It was tough to see Michael continuing to refuse to look at what he’s done to Jesse. All season long, when confronted with it by Fiona and Madeline, Michael justified it by saying it was in the service of the greater good. Now that Jesse’s found out the truth, Michael still refuses to examine his actions by claiming that his tasks at hand require all his attention. And when he finally meets Jesse face to face, Michael gives what is arguably the lamest apology in the history of the world, if it can even be considered an apology at all. Michael justifies his non-apology by claiming, “I know you’re in no mood for an apology.” The truth is that an admission of wrong-doing and a sincere, well thought out apology might have meant a lot to Jesse.
I don’t believe Michael is acting this way because he’s a bad person. I just think he’s afraid that if he actually stops to confront what he did-bringing all the misery he, himself, has experienced these past 4 years onto someone else-he won’t be able to live with the guilt. So he’s set up many layers of defense mechanisms to prevent himself from facing the truth.
Did Vaughn’s betrayal come as any surprise? I’m surprised Michael didn’t plan for that contingency, given his discovery last week that Vaughn has been lying to him all along about how and when he came into Michael’s life. Vaughn’s betrayal proved not only that Michael can’t trust him, but that Vaughn is clearly willing to sacrifice Michael’s life to get what he wants.
In the climactic scene, Jesse actually does shoot Michael with a sniper rifle, though apparently only to get the henchman who was choking Michael from behind, while intentionally missing Michael’s vital organs. But at the end of the episode, after Michael has veered Barrett’s car off the road, killing him, an unidentified man grabs the suitcase containing the bible and flees, leaving Michael there to bleed to death. My money is definitely on Jesse, and if I’m right, that means Jesse really was willing to let Michael die for his betrayal.
Burn Notice doesn’t come back until November 11th, so we’ll have to wait until then to find out who took the bible, where things stand with Jesse, what Vaughn’s prerogative truly is, and oh yeah, whether Michael lives or dies. Just kidding about that last one. The odds of Michael dying are exactly zero percent. And that refers to a true death, not to a temporary heart failure followed by resuscitation which seems almost mandatory on shows nowadays.
Until November.
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