Burn Notice "Necessary Evil"

This is my first review of Burn Notice, and well, any other show. This should be fun.




So, last night's episode found Fiona and Michael trying to hack a radio Anson has been using to keep his phone calls untapped. When they tace his call log, it turns out Anson's been using good old Benny, Madeline's new beau, to spy on Michael. Of course, when Michael tells Maddy about this, she wasn't having any of it. I thought this story did a good job showing the viewer that 1) Anson is someone to be reckoned with not just because he is completely capable of getting to Michael through his mother, but by blowing up Benny's house, and him along with it, Anson proved that he's always a few steps ahead of Michael. And 2) while Maddy may have experienced a lot of the spying that has gone on in Michael's life since he returned to Miami, she hasn't really experienced the true level of danger that Anson brings. She has never had to deal with the aspect of someone using her to get to her family, which can come to shock to anyone. And while she was definitely feeling betrayed by Benny, I think she still had some fleeting feelings for him, so watching him get blown up was hard.

In the B story, Pearce wants Michael to lead a team consisting of Sam and Jesse to stop a scientist (Band of Brothers' Rick Gomez) that is believed to have gone rogue and is helping make a bomb for an African warlord (Bones' Johnathan Adams). Of course, it turns out that the scientist, William Resnick, and his daughter are being held hostage. This story lets us have some good undercover fun with Sam and Jesse at the expense of a rather dumb warlord ( I mean seriously, the electric fence is interfering with the bomb? No wonder that continent is such a mess.) As with most of Michael's intitial plans, it doesn't seem to be working out. But improvisation has always been the strong suit for his team, and Fiona gets to blow up a gas line, so we all know she was happy, even if Pearce wasn't for not getting the bomb's specs. (Best line of the night "Giving the CIA half of what they want is a Sam Axe special.")

Overall, I thought the episode was good. Showed how smart Anson is being in his little game with Michael, and of course Team Westen saves the day again for the CIA. Everyone got to live on another day.

Except Benny, of course.