'Burn Notice': Worst. DEA Agent. Ever.
No, Sarah hasn't been burned. Yes, she's off on a secret mission. This week, I'll be your Burn Notice handler. Like Carla, tall and dead sexy (but, you know, male).
Have this gift bag o' spoilers.
Speaking of Carla, her crossword from last week leads Michael to the Marina Mall. Sam's on paparazzi duty, while Fi gets to keep the car running. Not that it matters; they're both incapacitated off-screen. Mike has a nice chat with Cylon Carla, and it's sort of awesome how much fun Tricia Helfer is obviously having in this role. Anyhoo, Carla wants Mike to duplicate a super-high-tech security badge. The best person to do it? A Tunisian named Nefzi. Carla also gives Mike a bag o' cash, saying he can keep whatever he doesn't need to pay Nefzi.
Oh, and They want the badge in two days.
The obvious way to find Nefzi is through money launderer Barry, but Barry is dodging Mike after last season's finale. Why not send the crazy former IRA gunwoman? She agrees after Mike offers all the yogurt she can eat. An eyebrow-ring twist later, Barry has given up Nefzi's location.
Meanwhile, Sam asks Mike to help out Sophia, a cooking-class friend of Veronica's, with a stalker problem. Even more problematic? Raul the Stalker (Kevin Alejandro, Santos on Ugly Betty) totes a MAC-10 submachine gun. Sophia admits to being DEA; she was going to take down Raul, but he decided she'd make a good girlfriend instead, and now she needs Mike's help getting out and taking down Raul. Who is, it turns out, a drug smuggler in the employ of a bigger fish named Campos.
As for Nefzi (Erick Avari, who's been in pretty much everything), he wants 10 grand to dupe the badge. It just won't be done in time to meet the deadline. Mike isn't concerned, but Carla is. She leaves a new coffeepot and a crossword at Mom's place. At the resulting meeting, she combines shopping for sunglasses with dire threats about ever breaking deadline again. That's... sort of a mixed message.
Let's resolve the B-plot! Mike gets in good with Raul thanks to a fake tracking device and a fake gambling problem and a very real crisis when Raul finds Mike's number on Sophia's cellphone. Geez, what kind of DEA agent is she? Mike defuses the situation and then, during a meeting with Campos, sets up Raul as mastermind of a fake (natch) assassination plot. Raul runs to the feds, who trade his testimony for the safety of... maximum-security prison? Sure, nobody gets killed in prison by vengeful gang members.
Nefzi, meanwhile, has finished the badges. Mike pays, then realizes he's being sort of set up. Sure enough, Nefzi has been killed in his secret counterfeiting lair by nitrogen gas. Sure didn't take him long to suffocate, especially as big as the room was. Oh, well, the upshot is that Mike finds one of the prototype badges Nefzi mentioned in passing, plus the bag o' cash. He skedaddles.
Carla gets the cash and fake badge -- where'd she leave the crossword this time? -- but Mike doesn't tell her about the prototype. Bonus, he talks to Carla in Arabic and figures out she has a Kurdish accent. Hey, even a tiny clue's better than nothin'!
And yes, I've skipped the Mom-in-counseling subplot. It added nothing other than the fact that, geez, she's bitter about Mike's secret past. They hug it out (metaphorically) in the end.
Helpful Hints from Michael:
- Spies love steganography, the practice of hiding messages in places like, well, crossword puzzles.
- Want to forge a check? Use nail polish remover on an older check to dissolve all ink except the original signature.
- Perceived blackmail is a great way to get criminals to trust you.
- Beautiful women are a bad distraction because everyone wants them to stay. Big bumbling goofballs like Sam or Your Humble Scribe are better because people want them outta there.
I'm up first! Woo hoo! But as one of the three people who saw every episode of "Shark" (Mom and James Woods being the others), I should be remiss for not recognizing Kevin Alejandro. :-\
Awww, JW, I was gonna mention him, but ya beat me to it. :P
Yeah, I kinda am getting tired of Sharon Gless's whining, even though her presence is as much familial comic relief as anything. She needs to have more to do, especially now that she knows about Michael's job. She'd be a killer ***istant if her son ever had to go up against some villain of an older generation. As long as he wasn't allergic to cigarette smoke, or asthmatic.
I have to admit that something as simple as Michael's mom getting a new coffee maker was just a wee bit chilling. It was not overdone, and yet it put forth a touch of terror that was evident in Michale's face. Really, though, doing something as stupid as killing his mom would not make him fall in line; rather, it would enrage him to the point that no secret agency on the planet would be able to control him then. Same with Fiona. Sam, probably not so much. He eats too much of Michael's food. No worries, though...chances are pretty good that when all is said and done, the unseen Veronica will nail Sam to the door before anybody else.
And, not to admit to too much, but I already knew about the nail polish remover trick. Works for other, er, not-exactly-legal things as well. I can pick locks, too.
Have to draw the line at yogurt, though...they eat waaaay too much of that stuff for my blood. Sam's quesadillas, on the other hand...yummers.
I didn't think that this episode was as good as the premiere, but the ongoing mystery behind who really burned Michael keeps things interesting. I like Tricia Helfer as "Carla" the dangerous, yet stylish liaison. Her death threats come with fancy gourmet coffee makers!
Unfortunately, I did not like the predictable plot with Sophia, the careless DEA agent. Sorry, but I think that this was too similar to the plot of the movie '2 Fast 2 Furious' from 5 years ago. Sophia was like Eva Mendes' character who was only pretending to be the girlfriend of Cole Hauser's character, a crimelord in Miami, no less. She is really an undercover government agent (DEA or ATF?), and she needs Paul Walker's help (he's really undercover for the FBI). come on, writers, let's have a little originality here!
By the way, I really do like Kevin Alejandro, but he needs to stop using that terrible fake Cuban accent! We know he's Latino, so he doesn't have to try to use a fake accent (I know that he hasn't used it in Ugly Betty, Shark, Sleeper Cell or Drive!). Also, I immediately recognized "Nefzi" (Erick Avari) as Chandra Suresh, Mohinder's father on 'Heroes', and he also played the professor in the movie 'The Mummy'. :-)
Recent convert to Burn Notice. Watched the all episode marathon to get up to speed. Reminds me a little of Magnum PI, sans the Ferrari. The narrative style and helping sweet-young-things in distress.
We know Seal Man Sam can take a punch but I think he needs to throw a few! A tough guy like that..... Mom smokes too much. I hope Michael starts handling the handler soon. Somehow he needs to get on offence as he does with the other bad guys. I am looking forward to the rest of the season.
Paige, don't forget that he was also the clan leader, so to speak in the "Stargate" movie, and the Grand Inquisitor in "Zork: Grand Inquisitor." We could sit here all day listing Erick's credits...
I LOVED the first season of Burn Notice. So much that I watched reruns LIVE, thank you. That was to the chagrin of my husband. I got him to watch the season premiere and last night's episode. I have to say that I'm a little disappointed so far. I really like Tricia's character, but so far, its not doing it for me like last season. I wouldn't say its a sop****re slump, but if they're already recycling the plot from a VERY BAD, VERY BAD sequel, um. . . .
And I didn't care for the way the way the brushed off Nate's character. He was, what I believe, a huge part of the season finale and to just have him written off in an offhanded remark. I didn't think that gave the positive change in the brother relationship we got to see last year.
But don't attack me please, I LOVE Burn Notice, just not the last two episodes.
I LOVED the first season of Burn Notice. So much that I watched reruns LIVE, thank you. That was to the chagrin of my husband. I got him to watch the season premiere and last night's episode. I have to say that I'm a little disappointed so far. I really like Tricia's character, but so far, its not doing it for me like last season. I wouldn't say its a sop****re slump, but if they're already recycling the plot from a VERY BAD, VERY BAD sequel, um. . . .
And I didn't care for the way the way the brushed off Nate's character. He was, what I believe, a huge part of the season finale and to just have him written off in an offhanded remark. I didn't think that gave the positive change in the brother relationship we got to see last year.
But don't attack me please, I LOVE Burn Notice, just not the last two episodes.
I like Burn Notice. I tape it so I can fast forward thru Sharon Gless. Her whining is annoying, to say the least.
I love the show, but have to say, I've gotten confused in both of the episodes this season. I honestly didn't understand the dead bodies and burning plane in episode one - didn't make any sense to me. This ep I got confused over the Nefzi 'setup' thing. Was Carla setting Michael up? If not, then who? WTF?
The episodes have been entertaining but somewhat disconnected as far as I'm concerned. Hoping they will improve (or I'll get smarter) as the season goes along
wmeador, it's not a matter of you getting smarter (I'm sure you're smart enough already...at least you can type literately). The first two episodes have been mainly about Carla stringing Michael along and essentially breaking him in. He is being controlled at the moment by either his former employers or an organization yet to be named. Whichever it is, Michael is being intentionally left in the dark about the motives behind Carla's tasks for him. I'd imagine that later in the season, all of the various things Michael is doing now will make sense, especially if Carla is not who she claims to be, and Michael is being set up to be the patsy for some major chicanery. He already has one LEA on his ***...why not two?
In episode one, the bodies and burning plane were all part of Michael's "rescue" and forced joining of Carla's plot (in other words, according to Carla, "I saved your ***, now you owe me" kind of thing). Episode two had Michael getting Nefzi to get him a copy of a very intricate p***key (likely for some super-secret installation that Michael will probably have to break into at some point). Everyone who has died has been expendable once their usefulness has p***ed. Brutal, yes, but effective.
I think the creators are trying to make this season one long story arc, with each episode making up one piece of a larger puzzle. While they're stand-alone stories, I believe there's a cohesion to them that will become apparent later. Unless the writers have no idea what they're doing, in which case I'll be just as lost as you. :P