A quick review of last night’s “Burn Notice” coming up just as soon as I borrow your toaster…
I was surprised when I heard that “Breach of Faith” was going to have Michael involved in a hostage crisis, since the show so memorably presented its take on that old TV standby with season two’s “Bad Breaks.” But “Breach of Faith” turned out to be a very different animal, as Michael and Sam found themselves inadvertently on the side of the hostage-taker, and mainly trying to figure out how to avoid going to jail.
I don’t know that I entirely buy that Michael would just be allowed to walk away, scot-free. After all, they called back to the Detective Paxson arc with the hostage negotiator noting that Michael is fond of explosives(*). The exploded safe, the shady backgrounds of Michael and Sam, and the oddity of the con man going nuts and pulling a gun in his own office would combine to at least have everyone taken downtown for questioning for a very long time, and if this guy is clever enough to con people, I imagine he’s smart enough to have a lawyer who can start pointing convincing fingers at Michael and Sam.
(*) And shouldn’t Management have erased Michael’s police file again once he joined the team?
But if I wasn’t wild about the denouement, I enjoyed the hell out of everything that led up to it. I haven’t had the problem with Jesse’s addition to the team that some of you have, as I feel he adds an interesting new flavor to the group. But I was still glad that the bulk of the episode was just Michael and Sam trying to think their way out of a sticky situation.
Plus, the toaster-enabled homemade shape charge may be the single coolest thing we’ve seen Michael build over the run of the series. (Though I’m open to alternate contenders.)
“Breach of Faith” also did a very good job with the guest-casting, with Frank Whaley as Josh, Navi Rawat as the jogging assassin, and Clayton Rohner (who said the most famous line in “Just One of the Guys” and also delivered this speech, but who also starred in an early USA original series, the underrated “G vs. E”) as Nick the thieving bastard.
What did everybody else think?