Burn Notice ended its run several weeks ago, and I'm still mad.
Not that the show ended, because it was struggling to churn out plot a season ago, and not even for the death of a beloved character who happened to be one of my favorites. I'm sad for the loss of potential.
It was once a champagne bubble of a show all about a spy who had lost complete control of his life. Burned by his agency, he was beaten by his final contact and dumped in Miami, where he found himself running a sort of private detective agency with his retired Navy Seal best friend, volatile ex-IRA on-and-off-again girlfriend, eventually an ex-spy who had been trapped a and yes, even his mother. The show drew its charm from Michael's deadpan observations, the way the crew applied their expertise to their client's problems, and the chemistry between the characters, which was strong and good right from the start.
I know EXACTLY how it went off the rails, and it all started with a gunshot.
Season six, and the killing Nate Westen was the move that completely sealed the door upon the old version of Burn Notice. Spending nearly an entire season on the character's angst, it also took the trouble to completely tear down Nate as a character before having him take a bullet in the heart. After Michael battled his former mentor Tom Card, burned down the loft for what turned out to be absolutely no reason, shot Card in cold blood (which is something the old Michael never would have done), sent the entire team on the lam, nearly got Sam killed, and was forced to take down Card's protege Olivia Riley, he found himself working for the FBI again, but lost Fiona, who jumped to conclusions about Michael's position with the organization.
The first scene of season seven was, in the end, emblematic of how troubled season seven itself was.
After all, it opened with Michael in deep cover, winning bare-knuckle fights and developing a form of alcoholism that is brought up and yet never, ever addressed again. We discovered that he hadn't contacted the rest of the team for six months, AND that all of them presumed that Michael's working for the CIA was a choice.
This is the most obvious example of the Idiot Plot in the history of the world. All Michael had to do was slip word out that hey, the CIA is forcing me to do this, I wouldn't be risking our lives if I didn't have to, but no, it's a requirement for most of the gang to be pissed off at him as the series opens for Extra Dramatic Tension. The fact that he eventually directly tells Sam and Jesse as much forces one to groan and slap their forehead in dismay.
In any event, in the six months since Mike's been gone, Sam's gotten on with his life, Jesse's continued with his desk job, Fiona's taken up pouring blood on canvases while hunting bounties with her smoking hottie of a new boyfriend, Carlos, and Madeline has quit smoking so she can attain custody of Charlie, because Ruth has collapsed into sudden alcoholism.
Ruth's addiction was never mentioned during season four, when we meet her, but the improbability that she would fall apart in less than six months - to the point where her parental rights would be terminated - makes little to no sense. But in any event, Maddie is chewing Nicorette and bearing it all in the hope that she won't repeat the mistakes that she suddenly thinks she made with Nate. Their lives are again disturbed because the contacts Michael's made in the Dominican Republic come knocking on their door, enough to force Sam to round up Jesse and Fi and create a search party to find Mike.
From the third episode on, the season then tread water, tediously introducing us to the terrorist network belonging to James Kendrick, James' right-hand (wo)man, Sonya, and the man who would gladly die for Sonya, Randall Burke. We spend episode after episode with these people, going to dinner parties with foreign diplomats and witnessing Fi have relationship angst over Carlos and see Maddie's foregone adoption of Charlie head into motion, and we're hammered again and again with how cute and sweet and innocent Charlie is (HEY DID YOU KNOW CHARLIE HAS A BIRTHDAY COMING UP? HE LIKES DINOSAURS). It's all tedious hokum better spent on character-building, something the show only does twice this season. By the time stakes finally get high enough that a battered and beaten Michael finds himself standing at the business end of James' gun prepared for the sweet release of death, it's too late in the run to care.
And so we arrived at the series finale. And the weird thing about the series finale is that it's initially impressive and satisfying..but the more you think of it, the less comfortably it hangs together, and the more questions rise up. And while Madline's noble sacrifice is in-character, and we're all glad Sam and Jesse survived and Mike and Fiona got to be together, in the end the show's chosen path just grated on me.
And here's a list of ways it went wrong:
1: Charlie's characterisation is given all of the thought of a speck of dust. And he has the personality of a football.
Don't believe me? This is little Charlie losing his mother forever:
This is Little Charlie's reaction to losing the only home he's ever known:
And this is little Charlie's reaction to the death of his grandmother and being whisked off to another country, where he knows no one, where he will never again see his Miami friends, and where he is totally reliant on the inexpert care of his uncle Michael and "aunt" Fiona.
...So I guess little Charlie's a Kathy Ireland fan, eh?
2: The show's frankly foul treatment of Sonya actually made me root for her: To be fair, the show established Sonya as a murderous terrorist who, in Sam's words, led many a good man to his death. But it also gave us reason to believe that she might have changed in her ways. And a good portion of her storyline involved Good Guy Michael seducing her for information in the very bed he shared with Fiona. Michael literally went from trysting with Sonya to putting a bullet in her chest, without even a shower between them.
3: The logic behind Maddie's death makes less sense onscreen than it does in practice. Maddie tells Jesse that she should be the one to die because there's no way she could fight off the guys surrounding the house...but after her sacrifice, Jesse shoots two guards to death and successfully escapes with Charlie. Either there should have been more guards outside or they should have put up a better fight, because Maddie could have easily shot those two men and escaped to safety.
4: If the list of Kendrick's associates was enough to clear Michael's name, there's no real reason for him to fake his death: Much less Fiona. If the concern revolves around Fiona's safety, what about Sam and Jesse, who did just as much, if not more for Mike during the op?
5: Just why is James Kendrick so powerful? and WHAT does his organization do? Don't ask, because the show didn't know, and never bothered to tell us. Then again, they were never certain if James was a savior or a villain until the last possible moment.
6: Michael and Fiona and Charlie escaped to Ireland...: Where Fi is wanted by numerous people, Michael is persona non grata, and neither of them bothered to change their appearances. Then again, they apparently plan to raise Charlie alone in the wilderness for the rest of their natural years, which will be really awkward when he's old enough to make his own life.
7: and Sam and Jesse aren't worried about him? The whole theme of Burn Notice is "you guys need to stick together?" What's Sam and Jesse's reaction to Michael and Fiona's permanent exile from their lives? Cracking jokes and getting on with life. We receive absolutely no closure between Sam and Michael (and Michael never directly apologizes for beating Sam up during their brawl in the penultimate ep), and no closure between Fiona and Sam or Jesse and Fiona, all important relationships that helped make the show what it is.
8: Worst, and most importantly, Michael already made this choice years ago: The show acts as if it's novel for Michael to finally pick between Fiona and his FBI career...when he's chosen her over his career several times before. Hell, he's killed men who tried to get between them.
9: Mike's narration has, over time, been a story he's telling to Charlie: Boy, I bet Charlie's glad he knows how to commit credit fraud, and about the time his uncle Mike and aunt Fi did it in a motel room? Can you tell that decision was made right in the middle of season seven?
And yet for all of it's flaws, they provided a fine episode, I just wish they'd taken a little more time in telling it. The season was very rushed and suffered for it.
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