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Monday, January 25, 2010

Burn Notice: A Dark Road

I cannot say that I agree with the whole half season hiatus thing, but it works on the old premise of: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I have been missing Burn Notice since the hiatus was called. Whatever my personal feelings, here is the recap:

When we last left our group, Fiona had just been rescued from being returned to Ireland, and being put up on the auction block like a calf for the slaughter, by an openly distraught Michael and a less openly distraught Sam. Strickler, weasel agent to the spies, had just gotten two in the chest. I cheered, did you? Seriously, Victor (Season Two) was lovable. Strickler was just a pain. Diego, Michael’s legitimate contact, had just taken a swan dive off his balcony to splat on the pavement after calling Michael hysterical about the person coming to clean up after Strickler. I was actually starting to warm up to Diego. Pity.

Matt Nix and his team bring us off of hiatus with a bang. A Dark Road is all about fire, fast cars, and moral dilemmas. Fiona, in spite of the fact she was planning to go back home, has taken a job to help a widow being squeezed by crooks running an insurance scam. Calia, the poor widow, is being strong armed into suing the city to pay off the criminals her husband was in cahoots with. As Fiona is still suffering the ill effects of her near death experience, Michael takes on the job in her name, rather literally. As usual, nothing comes easy because while he is dealing with Fiona’s little problem, Michael has a bigger one in that there is a mysterious cleaner about who happens to use torching hotel rooms as his calling card and finds shooting high powered rifles at Michael to be therapeutic. Not exactly the kind of guy anyone wants to get too close to. Freelance psychopath describes him very well, I think.

The highlight of this episode: Michael in his wife beater showing off in the charger. The man is hot. The car is sexy. Together, brain disconnecting hot.

I promised you this was about fire (the burning hotel room), fast cars (the charger & the insurance scam), and moral dilemmas, didn’t I? Well, the moral dilemma is a classic: who gets to decide what is the greater good? Madeline gets a taste of the kind of math Michael does when he goes out helping people and what he does in order to balance things out in the end. In order to bring down the scammers, Michael realizes he needs records from the County Records Office. Records he cannot get. However, Madeline can. So she tells a little white lie to get the documents and in turn becomes friends with Tina, a woman who works there. The dilemma comes when Michael needs more records and Madeline is pushed into blackmailing Tina, her new best friend, to get them. Tyne Daly turns in a wonderful performance as Tina. In the end, Tina gives up the documents and Madeline loses a friendship, not to mention becoming rather upset with her son and his morality. However, Michael makes it all better by doing what he does best, covering his tracks. He stages a break in at the Records office so that no one will ever know what Tina took and the woman will not lose her job in spite of what she did for the greater good.

It all ends on a heartwarming note. The good guys win. The bad guys go to jail. Michael still has a psycho trying to decide whether to shoot him or invite him for a beer. All is right with the world.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this the Season 3 opener that you've written about? I think I saw this, last summer.

Alledria said...

Nope, this is the half-season premiere. One of the many reasons why I hate mid-season hiatuses.