Burn Notice Season 5 annoyances (spoilers for S5)

Cafe Society
1

Okay, I’m behind, but I caught up on Season 5 last night. Please don’t spoiler Season 6 for me (or anyone else who hasn’t seen it yet).

I found myself annoyed at the gaping plot holes in the last few episodes. I know BN isn’t into really deep storytelling, and we’re fine glossing over details, but the entire premise of the Anson storyline is that he has Michael over a barrel because he has evidence framing Fi for the deaths of two security guards. That’s it - that’s the only thing he has. He’s not threatening Maddy, although he probably could.

And I get that Anson is a mastermind and is psychologically manipulating Michael, but Michael doesn’t come off as a superspy in these episodes, he comes off as a wet noodle.

The obvious course (to me, at least) is to go to Pearce with the fact that Anson is behind everything - the network is still alive, and he’s framing Fiona. Pearce could protect Fi, and even if she couldn’t, what’s being wanted for murder mixed in with the rest of Fiona’s rap sheet? She’d have to go undercover, but presumably she’s already doing that as an active gunrunner. I don’t know where she’s getting her money from, but it’s not from a straight job. She could get plastic surgery and a fake ID and live happily every after.

In one of the final episodes, Jesse and Fiona tell a banker they’re blackmailing to do exactly that - go on the run and stay there. While that’s not a happy life, it’s better than being in prison, and better than what Michael winds up doing - things like putting a virus into CIA computers, and helping burn Pearce and others (although he’s trying to stop that).

The ostensible reason is that Michael cares too much for Fi to let her go to jail, but that’s not the only choice. It’s not even the only choice if they are going to stay in Miami, but if it was, it would still be Michael choosing to stay in Miami and pursue his CIA career - which means it’s not really about Fiona, it’s about Michael. He’s being self-absorbed.

The whole thing just feels wrong - like the writers are staying away from the topic of other choices entirely. I get that there are only so many minutes to use to tell the story, but I think it could have been done better.

2

Just go along for the ride - learn how to use common household items to create bombs or break into homes or dismantle nukes…of course it is over-the-top, but realism is usually not a huge factor in series about a rogue/burned CIA agent and cronies who have blown up 3/4 of Miami in the past few years without any press hunting them down for an interview.

3

I am now almost completely convinced that the Chris Carter Effect is now in full swing-i.e. the show’s PTB don’t have an overarching and intricate plot laid out, but are instead making it up as they go along.

[NOTE: Spoilers are for Season 6]

[spoiler]“I think Anson has just about run his course as the Big Bad of this season! Let’s kill him off!”

“But what do we do then?”

“Well, lessee…how about we invoke a huge government conspiracy? We haven’t really done that one yet!”

“And when the conspiracy is finally unmasked and Mike has either put them all behind bars or killed them…?”

“We’ll have every baddie whom Mike ever locked up freed from prison on a technicality and he then spends the rest of the season dodging attempts on his life left and right!”

And I fucking guarantee that they’ll be back in Miami by the end of the next new episode, despite being stuck in Columbia out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas…[/spoiler]

4

DMark, I’m okay with going along for the ride - I don’t mind when we get 30 seconds worth of wrap-up at the end of an episode that has the bad guys off to prison and the client happy - but this isn’t just about willing suspension of disbelief. This is inconsistent with what we’ve seen Michael do before; when he’s being blackmailed, he turns the tables and gets something on the blackmailer. In Anson’s case, he has lots, in addition to simply being able to kill Anson.

It’s just odd and feels sloppy.

5

Of course they’re making it up as they go, and I have no problem with that. Season arcs aren’t the reason I watch a show like Burn Notice, any more than season arcs were the reason I watched MacGyver or A-Team. Same shows.

I watch because they do things like have Barry and Sam holed up in a house, and Barry passes Sam a homemade cannon while making a comment about the boomstick!

6

Yeah, me too (I strongly prefer character-driven drama vs. plot driven), but even for me this is starting to get a bit irksome.

7

Seems like a good place to drop a thought that I had. Anson had leverage over Michael in the form of evidence against Fi. It was held by someone, and Anson had to check in regularly or it would get released, safeguarding Anson against direct attack. Anson also had similar leverage over Rebecca, info about her brother’s whereabouts.

Now, Michael removed those two pieces of leverage. Fine. But I’d imagine that Anson had leverage against a lot of people still, given how many pies he had his fingers in. We know he still had an active network feeding him money and supplies and info, and his methods seemed to run to blackmail. And then he got shot.

When he died, I bet a lot of lives got ruined.

8

I got a brief glimpse of the autopsy report on Nate in the last ep.-we know from the ep. that he had what appeared to be an exit wound on the right side of his lower abdomen, which was replicated in the report. But it also showed a large entry wound on his upper left chest. The problem was that the one bullet got both him and Anson, and I can’t reconstruct a trajectory where it hits Anson first, then travels through Nate at a severe downward left to right angle-IIRC he was standing directly behind Anson facing completely forward. If the wound we saw was the only one he suffered, I don’t think it would have killed him, unless it was due to the shock-then again we did find out that the assassin used a Barrett .50 caliber.

9

They showed a huge hole in the wall behind Nate when it happened - I also think the shot to anson was thru the noggin’ - nate was far enough behind anson for the trajectory to kind of work -