501 - Company Man (63)
Writer: Matt Nix; Director: Stephen Surjik; Aired: 6/23/2011; Watch now:
Even after putting viewers through all the "gotta find out who burned me" back-story for four years, the creator decided to "handle" the entire dismantling of the "Organization" via video montage and voice-over in a five minute segment (see review). Michael Weston, being all philosophical, told us how one name led to the other until only two were left. He met Max, his CIA "handler" now that he was a "civilian asset," in the hallway at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in Ottowa. "You" Raines, their boss, was listening in on their wireless microphones as they hacked into the computer area to capture Hector Oaks, number 31 on Simon Escher's NOC list and agent number # RB609.10.96852, who was at that moment stealing data. Even after being told he could choose, he chose the "way that involved an ambulance" so was sedated and carted off. Over his objections, M was sent home to let "the big boys" interrogate Oaks - "We'll call you when we get something" Raines said. At least M is off the no-fly list now and was able to fly back to Miami where he was amorously greeted by Fiona in a Klingon love ritual which had M telling her "I think you broke a rib." Madeline had made improvements to her home and Sam had gotten back down to his "fighting weight." After putting viewers through an entire season of his adolescent, soap-opera angst about "I'm gonna kill whoever burned me," Jesse quit government service and was now working for a hotsey-totsey security firm. He was able to drag Ms old "totaled" Charger back to Madeline's garage as a "surprise present" for M.
Raines failed to extract ANY information from Oaks so called M to return and see what he could do. After dismantling all video devices in the room, and on shear force of personality and logic alone, M convinced Hector that if he wanted to protect his family from John Kessler, the last remaining master-mind of the Organization, "I'm your best bet." Then when Rains ragged on him, M revealed that he'd found out Kessler was Director of Operations for the entire Organization and was holed up in a compound in Caracas Venezuela under high security - along with the exact address. M said that if they wanted his help in extracting Kessler they would have to let Sam and Fiona come as well; to which Raines whined that he had "forgotten what a pain in the ass you could be." Despite being allowed to go, Sam and Fiona were relegated to inconsequential roles by Max. They were made to pretend to be Tara and Greg Winter whose car had broken down right in the middle of a government checkpoint gate in order to buy time for M to try and get Commandant Armando Puente to cooperate with Kessler's capture during one of his rare travels out of his compound. M pretended to be Vasily Andropov, a Russian FSB agent who knew the Russian friends of Puente. When he met with M later, Puente had done some checking and M had to do some fancy talking in order to keep from being shot or turned into the government.
Unfortunately, Kessler had scanners in his vehicle and didn't fall for the scam to get him out of his vehicle. Instead, he blew up the extraction team, jammed their radios and headed back to his compound. Sam and Fiona, who had decided to watch the extraction from the side lines instead of going to the airport like they were told, notified M on his cell phone and were able to provide both rescue and back up assistance. M followed close on their heels with Max whining about not having either a plan, communications or backup. M said "welcome to my world" and that Max could jump out when he slowed down but he wasn't going to stop. They crashed through the gates and had to take down Kessler's four guards before they could run into the villa after Kessler. They were nearly shot through a wall by Kessler before the guy ran into a metal-lined "safe-room." After calling Sam and Fiona to block the road and keep the police from coming, M MacGyver'd a bomb out of three hand-grenades and put it down the ventilation shaft in order to blow a hole in the wall. Once they got inside the room however, they found that Kessler had shot himself rather than being taken alive. Then M constructed a rube-Goldberg device using an oscillating fan and string to cycle trigger pulls of several machine guns to keep the police occupied while they escaped. Back at the bar, Max thanked Sam and Fiona who proposed a toast to having gotten rid of ALL of the Organization. M seemed preoccupied and disappointed at obtaining no answers, so had to be reminded to lift his glass.
If viewers thought they were about to find the luxurious cherry on top of the hot fudge sunday back-story about the "Organization," they were, at best, disappointed and at worst – insulted! After inflicting four years worth of "I've got to find out who burned me and why" crap on us, Matt Nix (the creator) summarily treated viewers as inconsequential and acted like explaining the NOC list and the take down of the organization was only an obligatory nuisance. Michael's voice-over narration was trite, childishly contrived and superficially inadequate. Nix seems to think that his audience is so brain-dead that we won't notice he didn't even mention "Management" featured in many episodes and who we know was still at-large? And what happened to Simon Escher? Sam, Fiona and Madeline were treated as mere afterthoughts in a story-line that was contrived, predictable and boring. The premise wasn't all that bad but the execution of the script was armature and inadequate. Michael demanded that "his crew" be allowed on the mission then completely abandoned them to the insulting menial background without so much as a protest. Matt, this is, in quality, so far beneath the writing that attracted us all to the series in the beginning that this may be its last season unless you allow some fresh writers to do the scripts. It seems like you should be spending your time in making the writers get the series back to its roots instead of turning this into a cheap day-time, soap-box drama with its lazy, amateurish script-writing. Let's see: Michael is scratching his head about something he can't quite think of. The show is called Burn Notice, he thinks he's back in but hasn't got it in writing, you ignored telling us about the Organization's take-down as if it didn't matter, M is beginning the series with writing that makes him look like an incompetent boob; the tired old title sequence hasn't even been refreshed; let's see… I wonder what will happen… a name change to "Un-burned Notice?"
Next, look at all the voiceovers and character quotes for this episode (501) here: Voiceovers and here: Quotes
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Burn Notice: Season Five
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