# Does the Burn Notice premise make any sense? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 5, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-burn-notice-premise-make-any-sense/531414 "2010-03-05T14:57:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-burn-notice-premise-make-any-sense/531414/21 "2010-03-06T03:55:51Z")
As **VoluntaryPlan** noted, the intro is a left-over from season 1, where he was being tracked by the government after he was Burned. Even if he’s not being monitored anymore, he still wants his old job back, working for the USA. He can’t do anything that would annoy them, like working for another country; that would make him hard to find, like moving around under false aliases; or go against their rules, like that he stay in Miami. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-burn-notice-premise-make-any-sense/531414/22 "2010-03-06T15:46:07Z")
Well, at this point, he might not care about his old job. He does some pretty fun work now, anyway, saving the day and rescuing people and stopping bad guys. If he did just leave, well - where would he go? Why would he want to be there? He’s aparently something of a closet patriot - he’s not going to work against the States, so defection is out. That leaves criminal use of his skillsets or being a freelance avenger - which is basically what he usually pretends to be and actually is right now (respectively). ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-burn-notice-premise-make-any-sense/531414/23 "2010-03-06T15:49:45Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Well, at this point, he might not care about his old job. He does some pretty fun work now, anyway, saving the day and rescuing people and stopping bad guys. If he did just leave, well - where would he go? Why would he want to be there? He’s aparently something of a closet patriot - he’s not going to work against the States, so defection is out. That leaves criminal use of his skillsets or being a freelance avenger - which is basically what he usually pretends to be and actually is right now (respectively). He still wants his job back, quite definitely. It’s pretty much the only thing keeping him from marrying Fiona. That any time he could get his old job back and be an international man of mystery, too busy to settle down, is precisely what he keeps telling her to turn her down. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-burn-notice-premise-make-any-sense/531414/24 "2010-03-06T18:24:16Z")
> [@VoluntaryPlan](#): > > Spoilers, I guess. > > At the season finale of four, the spy whose file he had appended on to his own returns and wants to kill John Mahoney. The black ops and regular agencies don’t make contact too often, but the former can influence the latter with made up evidence or pulling rank, if necessary. [spoiler]Small nitpick (Maybe I should change my title to Picker of Small Nits. :D): This was still season 3. It was split in two parts. Part one began in June 2009, and part two started airing in January. Season 4 begins in June 2010. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_Burn\_Notice\_episodes[/spoiler]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Burn_Notice_episodes%5B/spoiler%5D) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-burn-notice-premise-make-any-sense/531414.md?page=1)