BURN NOTICE 4.11 'Blind Spot'

Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) successfully negotiated a deal with Vaughn (Robert Wisdom) for a face-to-face meeting with Michael's nemesis Simon (Garret Dillahunt). Simon was actually glad to see Michael and demonstrated his affection by throwing them both out of a second story window to allow them a brief unobserved moment to communicate. Simon gave Michael the location of a tape hidden in a cemetery before Vaughn's men moved in took him back into their custody. 

 

Sam (Bruce Campbell) called in Michael's help to protect one of Sam's friends in prison, leaving Michael no choice but to go undercover inside the jail to protect the man until his release. In the meantime, Sam and Fiona discovered Simon's hidden files booby trapped within a casket. Fiona figured out a way to get around the trap and retrieved the tapes. When Michael got out of jail, he listened to the tape Simon indicated and heard Vaughn's voice boasting that he had selected Michael to be Simon's replacement; which meant that Vaughn had personal involvement in getting Michael burned.

 

Michael arranged one last meeting with Simon, in which Simon gave him the name of one of the men behind the terrorist network — John Barrett, a telecom mogul —  and told Michael to give him the encrypted Bible to get their mutual revenge on Vaughn. Michael passed on the information to Vaughn, who seemed grateful for Michael's assistance. Michael feigned his gratitude as well as he eyed the man who helped destroy his life.

 

In order to bring Jesse (Coby Bell) in on the new information without revealing their ties to Management, Michael, Sam and Fiona forge an intelligence report that links John Barrett (Robert Patrick) to the terrorist network that they have been investigating for weeks. Jesse is impressed with the findings of the report, but questions how it seemingly showed up out of the blue. Jesse and Michael call Barrett directly to tell him that they have the Bible and essentially challenge him to come and get it personally. 

 

While Michael and Jesse set a trap for Barrett or his men, Fiona and Sam take on a case for a woman who was scammed out of her life savings by a man named Charles. Sam goes undercover as another scam artist looking to bilk his latest mark (Fiona), who initially angers Charles by being so open about what he's trying to do. Turning on the charm even higher, Sam returns with a gold watch for Charles to make amends and buys him a round of drinks, which Sam slowly drugs over the course of a few hours. When Charles wakes up, Sam convinces him that he went on a wild spending spree the night before to get him to lead them to the stolen money. 

 

Taking a break from his stakeout with Michael, Jesse accompanies Fiona as they listen in on Charles' conversation with his crooked lawyer and money manager; who in turn notices that Fiona's car is parked suspiciously close to their office. When he sends some thugs out to intimidate them, Fiona kisses Jesse passionately to make them appear to be a couple, which Jesse seems to both enjoy and feel shame about at the same time. Afterwards, neither Fiona or Jesse are comfortable around each other and they split up. To further Charles' paranoia, Sam convinces him that someone is stalking both of them. He brings in Michael by presenting him as a crooked cop who can solve their problems for them.

 

However, the money manager learns about Fiona's client and tries to put a hit on her, before she is narrowly saved by Fiona. In response, Sam drugs Charles again and convinces him that he murdered the client personally, forcing him to burn his bridges with the money manager by removing all of his funds to pay Michael's dirty cop to make the evidence disappear. As Charles starts to celebrate his clean getaway, Sam breaks the news that he's been tricked, drugged and left with nothing before they abandon him on the highway.

 

Prior to that, Michael and Jesse captured one of Barrett's men who attempted to find the book and forced Barrett to come down to Miami personally. Barrett calls Michael and tells him that he'll be seeing him soon. All the while, Jesse voiced his doubts about the intelligence report and the parts of Michael's story that didn't add up. At the end, Fiona is surprised by Jesse, who confronts her at gunpoint with evidence that Michael burned him (based on the tip from his old boss that Fiona tried to bury) and he screams at her for helping to cover it up.

 

Fiona tries to plead her case to no avail and closes her eyes expecting to die, but she finds herself alone in the room. She immediately calls Michael and lets him know that Jesse knows everything and that he intends to make them all pay.

 

 

That was a hell of an ending. 

 

I knew that Jesse was going to find out that Michael burned him at some point (that was fairly obvious), but to pull that trigger right before the mid-season finale? That was unexpected. And huge. 

 

My earlier prediction was that Vaughn would have been the one to tell Jesse the truth, but it makes Jesse an even stronger character for having figured it out by himself.

 

And the thing is, Michael has no high moral ground here. Everything that Jesse is pissed at him for are things that Michael actually did. Michael is responsible for burning Jesse (unintentionally) and he also perpetrated the lie for weeks by withholding information and essentially using Jesse as an added resource. Sure, Michael saved his life a couple of times, but I don't think that's going to be very convincing for Jesse that he hasn't been played.

 

Michael is still the hero of the show, but this may be the shadiest thing that he's ever done and it definitely tarnishes him. As far as being pure and noble, Jesse has essentially supplanted Michael's role. Essentially, Michael is now a much darker reflection of himself and he actually has the same feelings towards Vaughn (the man who burned him) that Jesse has for Michael.

 

The interesting thing here is that I don't see any real way to repair that relationship. Michael essentially has to deal with two enemies coming for him now: Barrett and Jesse; which should make next week's mid-season finale even more intense. 

 

So as usual, the B-plot with the terrorist conspiracy was gold. But the A-plot dealing with the scam artist wasn't quite as interesting. Although Sam Axe is always fun to watch. Giving Charles a gold watch to cement their friendship was kind of over-the-top but effective. I guess Rolex is a man's best friend... or whatever brand that was.

 

The spending spree scam was also pretty funny to watch in action (though I do wonder how the crew was able to pull that Bentley out of nowhere at Charles' house). Sam and Fiona's final revenge against Charles was also cathartic.

 

I also noticed one of the first real moments of tension between Sam and Fiona in a long time when he stopped her from murdering or shooting Charles herself. It was almost a throwback to the days when they really hated each other. She even threatened Sam if they didn't get the money back and Sam seemed to work extra hard to win her favor back as well.

 

But really, this episode was all about the final few minutes and the twist ending which took an ordinary episode of "Burn Notice" and pushed it to greatness. I can't wait to see how this plays out.