Burn Notice Review: The Long Painful Road
Christine Orlando at .Is Michael becoming the "Odd Man Out" of his own team? It felt that way this week, as things continued to go from bad to worse when the struggle to leave the country grew even more complicated.
There have always been moments when Burn Notice has me flashing back to my pre-teen days watching The A-Team. This was one of those episodes. A van chase, a fire fight, a cheeky villain of the week and our team trapped in a warehouse... the only thing that felt incomplete was that the van never flipped over. Even the floor of fire and the perils of the giant, industrial fan had me amused.
Although this unit's skills are easily A-Team worthy, the tone of their mission was far more serious. Yes, Vanek would have tortured Schmidt and killed them all without a moments hesitation but that wasn't what gave me pause. The sense of foreboding came from Michael.
Despite their never leave a man behind policy, Michael's intention was to hand Schmidt over to save his team. Was that decision fueled by their inescapable position or by his anger that Schmidt all but sold them out when he tried to eliminate his competition?
And even though it all worked out in the end, there was a look in Michael's eyes that spoke volumes when he told Schmidt in this Burn Notice quote…
All anyone needs to know is that I didn't want you to die and you didn't die. | permalink
He may not have wanted to Schmidt to die, but in this case that was an acceptable consequence and that's a side of Michael we rarely see.
What's worse was that Schmidt knew Michael was willing to sacrifice him. Are those passports really safe now that whatever bond of trust their was between Schmidt and the team has been irrevocably broken?
It's been a tough year for Michael. His brother is dead. His mother is heartbroken and his world is collapsing once again.
Watching his mother struggle through this wasn't helping his psyche. Madeline's realization that not only had she lost Nate but now she'd never be able to see her grandson again was hard to watch.
This team is running on the jagged edge. Will it all survive? Or is it inevitable that one of them will fall?
C. Orlando was a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow her on Twitter.