55 replies to this topic

[TWoP Roxy]

From zap2it.com:

Michael's actions force a tactical assault team to pursue him.

[moose135]

They blew up the Charger...those bastards blew up the Charger...

[AimingforYoko]

That was pretty damn good. I was actually worried about Mama and Jesse. (I knew they weren't going to kill any of the main 3)
So, Dylan Baker: Friend or Foe?

[caitlin claire]

Jesus, I can't believe they killed the car. That's just...I can't...*sniff* I was prepared to lose Jesse, but the car? Goddamn those bastards.

Mike and Fi ready to go out together in a blaze of glory may have warmed my cold, cold heart just a little. Or possibly that was the pain killers. One of those.

So Michael's back in. Bets on how long that lasts?

[speedroc]

Wow, they really pulled out all the stops tonight. I can't remember any episode of this show with as much action as these two. I used to get tired of Fi and her clinging, but now Mike's obsession with getting back in grates just as much.

Like the show (or at least the previews) said, be careful what you wish for.

[jediknight]

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Nice hilarious moment in the middle of all that. Massive props for that writers and Jeffrey Donovan.

I thought Maddie, or Fi would die. They were dropping hints in these 2 episodes that Fi would die. Jesse would have been way too obvious, so I knew he'd survive. I was surprised that everyone survived, with the exception of the Charger. That's crossing a line there, there better be hell to pay for Vaughn.

Mikey being back in, is a nice cliffhanger. I wasn't expecting that to end the season, when this season started. When Michael got in the car, I thought he would be back in, but that's something I didn't expect till the end of the series.

[petunia846]

Well you know, a few episodes back when Nate was in town, they did the job for the guys with the auto shop and the guys literally said they'd take care of the Charger if anything ever happened to it, so maybe there's still hope? That had to be in there for a reason, right?

I may or may not have not completely hated Jesse. Still far from my favorite, but not too terrible. Maybe I was just distracted by everyone else, who knows. I do feel bad though, because I totally laughed out loud when his leg got stabbed. It was rather cathartic.

So much more to say, but I can't quite think straight right now. That was great. I wish the rest of the season could have been this interesting and exciting.

[drazen]

Loved it, but two things kind of grated if Vaughn is supposed to be such an uber-badass:

One, where was Nate during all this? I don't even remember Michael giving him a mention.

And two... Vaughn had an army. Michael was clearly improvising. Seems like Vaughn had no reason to toy around, especially if he (as Michael speculated) was just going to kill everyone anyway.

Also, has Michael ever admitted aloud he loves Fiona? 'Cause you'd think when you're about to blow yourself to kingdom come would be as good a time as any, if there ever was one... was surprised (well, half surprised, it is Michael) he didn't.

Finally, were we supposed to recognize the person in DC at the end? I had no idea who he was, other than someone Michael once knew.

Edited by drazen, Dec 16, 2010 @ 11:44 PM.

[WomanWhoWeaves]

I new the guy at the end was a Washington big wig because I recognized him from the Bartlett era He was a republican!

[biakbiak]

I think we were just supposed to recognize that he was Dylan Baker and therefore AWESOME!

Great episode and makes me really excited for next season!

[Arrow]

Awesome finale! I love how there's a clear mystery/next step at the end, but no one in peril. I hate cliffhangers, the real kind.

Wow, did Sam shine in this episode. Bruce Campbell was everywhere, and Sam appearing at the end with the cavalry was just awesome!

Actually, everyone was on their A game--great jobs by all five of the main actors. I liked Michael's apology to "Agent Porter"--it seemed fitting.

Donovan and Anwar were as good as they've ever been in their scenes together.

[Renard]

I new the guy at the end was a Washington big wig because I recognized him from the Bartlett era He was a republican!

I doubt that; he was the Attorney General in Abu el Banat who was pushing his own agenda on assisted suicide.

I'm wondering if we will ever see Management again; my first guess was that was who "sent" for Michael at the end. I'm still a little confused about the resolution because Michael still had the thumbdrive; no one in the government had seen it.

[Solea]

The spy who came in from the cold. Literally.

Also, I think Michael passed the drive to Fiona when he kissed her.

[anatolealice]

Very dramatic episode, I was on the edge of my seat. Worked really well following on from the quite hilarious first hour.

Agree with everyone's devastation about the Charger. Noooooo! Still, they've put it back together again after many, many bullet holes (and that time Michael blew up the propane tank) so I have hope. It'll give the other three something to do until Michael gets back to Miami.

Getting out of the car into the dead of winter with only a light jacket, I bet the thought crossed his mind that Miami wasn't so bad after all.

I was surprised that Michael was willing to walk away (to probable death) with only the comment to Fiona about her thinking anything that they should take different paths. That was pretty harsh, it would've screwed her up pretty good had he gotten killed. I get annoyed when she nags about talking about their relationship (even when I understand where she's coming from) but I thought she at least deserved a farewell kiss and some nicer words before they parted ways once and for all. I was glad she followed him, especially since he'd been spending time with Larry who always likes to isolate Michael from the people who care and he gets caught up in almost believing that stuff.

I new the guy at the end was a Washington big wig because I recognized him from the Bartlett era He was a republican!

I doubt that; he was the Attorney General in Abu el Banat who was pushing his own agenda on assisted suicide.

Yeah, he looks a lot like the WW republican speaker of the house, but that was a Steven Culp. I didn't recognise him, it would've meant more to me had Michael's handler been the one to welcome him back, particularly since we'd just seen Jesse so upset about Marv. Oh well. The writers probably aren't obsessively re-watching eps as frequently as I am.

I was pleasantly surprised that Jesse turned out to be a true member of their team. And when things got tough, there wasn't even a hint of his usual whining. If he stays like this, I'll be very happy. He's cute, but he doesn't pull off pouting so well as JD and it was beginning to grate.

Michael being back in really shocked me. Intrigued now how the next season starts. And I gather it's going to be a really long wait.

[SanDiego]

Sharon Gless knocks it out of the park every time. She's able to convey so much emotion with the flick of a cigarette. And I love her big white spy sunglasses and the fact that Michael always sends Sam to convince her to help with a job.
Great episode! It had everything: exploding cars, car chases, shoot-outs, explosions, Dylan Baker(!), foiled plans, hostages, "I've got a half clip left," field medicine, bad guys posing as good guys. They really pulled out all the stops on this one. I just hope they bring the Charger back to life like they've done before. They can fanwank me all they want on that one, just bring it back all shiny and new.
Summer can't get here fast enough.

[Guywiththegun]

I'll just say it, that was fantastic.

To be honest I thought somebody was going to die, and I didn't know who. When Michael was gunning it to that shack in slow-motion I was even a tiny bit afraid they were going to kill him off and revamp the show or something. That's good writing, or maybe naive viewing. I thought Sam was done when Maddie gave him that hug (and because TV shows love to kill characters I like, and because he's got that movie coming). I thought Maddie was dead during that phone call. I thought Fi was dead when she followed Mike. I thought Jesse was dead for obvious reasons. I even thought they'd pull a wild card and kill off soon-to-be-Dad Nate.

They really made it tough on them. Nothing Michael did worked! You can feel their hearts sinking when all those police cruisers started to turn back. Not that it matters too much with Bruce Campbell on your good side.

What a great episode. Loved Michael apologizing to Jesse and Jesse getting teary eyed. I was expecting Jesse to turn on the gang (apologies to Always Sunny) but they pulled this off great. I feel like Jesse isn't a pledge anymore. Loved Michael/Maddie/Vaughn on the phone . . good acting by Jeffrey Donovan. Loved TWO straight episodes with Sam saving the day! Loved Fi running to be with Michael. Loved how you really had a sense that their enemies controlled pretty much EVERYTHING.

And then Michael is taken by two guys in suits . . snore. Wasn't that pretty much what happened last season?? I was thinking there'd be some twist like they'd take him to get some award or something, but I NEVER thought it would be Washington D.C. with Michael getting back 'in.' So to top off the great episode I get a genuinely "Oh SHIT!" moment to end it! This episode should be shown in TV writing classes when they're going over Season Finales!

(If I didn't make it clear, I tended to enjoy this episode.)

[TigerKitty]

And then Michael is taken by two guys in suits . . snore.

I disagree. We knew there had to be an unresolved situation of some kind since each season has ended that way, but this wasn't what I expected. Burn Notice from the start has been about Michael trying to get back in, and now he has. So the unanswered question this time is--will he be able to get back out?

And of course whether the Charger is really dead. After all, it seems to have more lives than not-dead-Larry.

[Guywiththegun]

I disagree. We knew there had to be an unresolved situation of some kind since each season has ended that way, but this wasn't what I expected.

Oh, I agree. I loved the ending. I meant that I thought 'snore' because at first it seemed like a retread. But it ended up being something totally unexpected and awesome.

Edited by Guywiththegun, Dec 17, 2010 @ 9:42 AM.

[cjl]

Best episode in a long time.

Gotta admit, I was starting to wear down with Burn Notice, because every time Michael seemed to be on track to find out who burned him and (say it all together folks) "get back in", it turned out to be a dead end or the next level in a nested series, like an infinite number of Chinese puzzle boxes. Also, Nix and Co. were accumulating a huge number of bad guys/tertiery characters, and trying to keep track of everybody who might be helping Michael/wanting Michael dead made my head hurt a little by the end of a half-season.

This two-fer episode changed everything, and almost made all those back episodes filled with x-tra characters worth the slog. Cawley, Vaughn, Brennan, Larry--with mentions of the Russian wetworks squad and Robert Patrick for good measure--all essential, nay vital, to the plot. (Dammit Sam, why didn't you shoot Larry while you had the chance?! I don't care if the grinning weasel put the gun down! Ahem. Sorry.)

Now it's all different. Michael is back in. Finally. Or is he? Is Dylan Baker just going to give Michael his old job back, or is Mr. Westen in on a provisional basis? Who's to say that Michael's old organization isn't an arm of Vaughn's operation now? (Maybe Management is Dylan Baker's boss. Wouldn't that be a twist for the end of next season....) Or--even more intruiging--maybe after working freelance for the little guys of the world, Michael isn't the same guy he used to be; maybe all the wetworks crap he did without question in the past will be more difficult to justify to his conscience. Very interesting. Potentially very exciting. Maybe he'll come around to Fi's point of view, after all.

At the very least, we'll get new location shots!

Loved Michael and Fi holding hands around the explosive as they waited to die. For any other couple, it would be a gold locket he bought her for an anniversary.

Bruce Campbell and Sharon Gless are, as usual, the real explosive weapons of this series. What an amazing cast. Onwards and upwards, people. Can't wait for the summer!

[cochise]

The first episode was terrific. But I don't really buy this was a two-part finale or fully understand why they aired these back-to-back. These were two standalone episodes by Burn Notice standards. The show always has the penultimate episode in a season lead directly into the finale and this was no different.

And to tell the truth, I thought the actual finale was lackluster. It was building towards something great, until Sam bursted into the scene with an army of pals ready to save the day. Seeing such a great buildup get ruined by Sam was tough to swallow, especially considering how in-depth Burn Notice explains all its plans normally. It was out of character for the show to not feature Sam at all and then only remember him in the nick of time, as well as lazy writing IMO. While it was surprising to see Jesse survive through the next season, I was disappointed with how the episode ended.

I also sorely missed Larry and Brennan from the first episode, as both are better supporting villains than anyone else on the show. It is a shame that they killed off Brennan so quickly, but the fact that they did so is what made the first episode so excellent. What happened to Larry anyways? They left him screaming in a room at Michael. Am I supposed to believe he gave up on the list despite knowing exactly who had it, or that the cops would be able to aprehend him? I kept expecting him to pop back in during the finale, but he never came. Which is another reason why I don't consider this a two-part finale.

I guess I'm a bit tired of the same old formula. You all who don't agree can argue semantics like "before he was still burned," but the fact remains that we now have four season finales where Michael is either captured by or willingly goes with strange people he doesn't know. In the first season he drove to Carla, in the second season he went into a helicopter with Management, in the third season he is kidnapped by Vaughn and held in a room, and now he goes into a car with agents he didn't know. Who wants to bet that by the end of the first episode of the fifth season Michael is back with his crew doing one-off jobs?

We can all pretend that the show is evolving, but I've been "burned" by the story not moving long enough to know they'll come back with the same formula next season. Not necessarilly an all bad thing as the show is still enjoyable, but I'm just a little disappointed that such a promising show never developed further.

[ReadIshmael]

Good to see Dylan Baker; I really hope he'll have a big role to play next season.

This episode was crazy good. So much action, without feeling muddled or padded. I loved seeing so much cool improvization, I loved how believably high the stakes were (I actually cheered when Sam and his army showed up, because I was so stressed out wondering how they'd get out alive), I loved how sincere and grounded the character stuff was, and ultimately I'm really excited to be able to follow the thread of the burn notice arc to the conclusion of this part of it and feel really satisfied.

[ZachPruckowski]

Well you know, a few episodes back when Nate was in town, they did the job for the guys with the auto shop and the guys literally said they'd take care of the Charger if anything ever happened to it, so maybe there's still hope? That had to be in there for a reason, right?

On Supernatural, Bobby (a junkyard owner the boys had met two episodes earlier) rebuilt the Metallicar after the Yellow-Eyed Demon ran over with a tractor-trailer. There's always hope.

When Michael got in the car, I thought he would be back in, but that's something I didn't expect till the end of the series.

As I see it, the show ends when Michael realizes he doesn't want back in - as Brennan and Larry demonstrated, Michael's changed over the last 4 years. That could be a major conflict while he's back in.

And two... Vaughn had an army. Michael was clearly improvising. Seems like Vaughn had no reason to toy around, especially if he (as Michael speculated) was just going to kill everyone anyway.

It made perfect sense to me. Vaughn has a boss (Management maybe?) breathing down his neck, who probably blames him for the loss of the Bible. Given all that's happened, the only way Vaughn comes out of this fiasco in one piece is by putting that list directly in his supervisor's hand. If I'm Vaughn, I can't risk the drive being lost in the firefight - that's what happened when they lost the Bible after all. So there's a lot of incentive to get it in his hand without shooting if possible.

Not to mention that they know what Michael is capable of, and probably want to avoid high bodycounts. Just because you have an army and massive funding doesn't mean you can be cavalier with agents' lives. And while you can play off a tripped alarm and a bunch of guys standing around, half a dozen dead bodies could be hard to cover up.

But I think the real reason was Sam. Vaughn can count, and he knows Michael runs a 4-man crew. Given Michael's history of pulling tricks, Vaughn had to realize it was possible Sam had the list and the whole nuclear facility thing was just a diversion. Tricking Michael or Fiona into dealing presumably circumvents that.

[bumblehare74]

Sharon Gless knocks it out of the park every time. She's able to convey so much emotion with the flick of a cigarette. And I love her big white spy sunglasses and the fact that Michael always sends Sam to convince her to help with a job.

There was one thing that annoyed me about Maddie. When the bad guys grabbed her she gets hit in the back, well below the head, and knocked to the ground. She grabs the back of her head which made no sense since the bad guy didn't strike her anywhere near her head.

I can't get too excited about this show because none of the main characters ever die. It is like watching a more violent version of the A-team where the good guys set up the bad guys to knock off other bad guys.

For this show to truly grow, they really need to bump off one of the good guys, preferably Maddie, Fi or Michael's brother.

Fi still has that annoying habit of talking/whining about personal issues at the most inopportune time which is irritating as hell. She knows what Michael is, she needs to either accept it and stay with him or move on without him.

[Bec]

There's no coming back for the Charger, is there? I wish it had been the electric blue car instead, but of course they can't say all the sponsor's car is good for is to be a roadblock.

Maybe they'll replace the Charger with another Charger. Just like Michael's sunglasses were replaced with sunglasses that look exactly the same. It's called shopping. Hee.

Jesus, I can't believe they killed the car. That's just...I can't...*sniff* I was prepared to lose Jesse, but the car? Goddamn those bastards.

Yeah, I was expecting them to kill Jesse off, too. What is he still doing here again? It being the end of the season, I can now say I gave this character and his arc a fair shot. He remains uninteresting and unable to make me care anything about him. And believe me, I wanted to be interested and to care. I guess the point is to have some good-guy character around that could get killed off, unlike the main cast, to give us more of a sense of danger, but that doesn't work so well when I don't care about this character. Oh well, he can live, I can settle for him just going someplace that's away.

Also, has Michael ever admitted aloud he loves Fiona? 'Cause you'd think when you're about to blow yourself to kingdom come would be as good a time as any, if there ever was one... was surprised (well, half surprised, it is Michael) he didn't.

The way he looked at her said more than any words ever could.

I was surprised that Michael was willing to walk away (to probable death) with only the comment to Fiona about her thinking anything that they should take different paths. That was pretty harsh, it would've screwed her up pretty good had he gotten killed.

I thought it was harsh, too, at first, but thinking about it a little more, that's his way to trying to make it easier for her to get over his dead ass so she can move on and live her life. There's more love in that than all the I-love-yous and kisses he could possibly have given her at that moment.

It is often said that Michael is bad at personal relationships, but I think he actually deals with personal relationships on a higher level than most people.

Edited by Bec, Dec 17, 2010 @ 2:17 PM.

[WomanWhoWeaves]

Mea Culpa, Dylan Baker did play a democrat on TWW, and he was only in one episode. I did not exactly confuse him with Stephen Culp but I do think they sort of blend in my brain. Did anyone consider the possibility that Michael has been on assignment the last four years? That bringing down Vaughn's group is what he's been doing? That the burn was, in a way, a cover story?

Also, Michael watches Firefly!!!

My ONLY complaint is that I want them to stop falling back on the Fi-gets-pissed about Michael's lack of relationship discussions. Would the hour have been any weaker if Michael had been the one who wanted to talk about it and Fi had insisted they get the job done first? Michael's behaviour vis-a-vis Fi in this episode did make me wonder if he knew it was either going to end in death or his return to the company. (see theory above)

I almost expected Michael and/or Brennan to say something about Brennan's kid.

[DanDanNoodles]

I liked the finale, though there were a couple of things that made me go, Hey, what? First of all, OK, Sam has a bead on Larry. Larry, step away from the frakkin' window! Walk toward the door, where your target is going anyway, and then threaten him.

Second, they see Vaughan standing around outside, and no one even thinks to take at least one potshot at him? I don't think so. If you're pretty sure you're going to die anyway, take the enemy out with you.

Also, Vaughan's army? Worst shots in the world. We're talking Imperial Stormtrooper bad.

[nikku88]

Also, Vaughan's army? Worst shots in the world. We're talking Imperial Stormtrooper bad.

To be fair, Michael and his team are just as bad.

[crowsworks]

Firefly???

[alexias75]

She grabs the back of her head which made no sense since the bad guy didn't strike her anywhere near her head.

I'd have to re-watch to make sure, but she was bleeding from the back of her head when the paramedics were attending to her.

[anatolealice]

I thought it was harsh, too, at first, but thinking about it a little more, that's his way to trying to make it easier for her to get over his dead ass so she can move on and live her life. There's more love in that than all the I-love-yous and kisses he could possibly have given her at that moment.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this and I see what you mean. But I remember back to the end of season 1 (which I watched just the other day) and she was so happy that they got to say a proper good bye. I think she's in way too deep to go for moving on because he annoyed her. I think she'd do better being left knowing he cared. While the way he looks at her makes me melt, she's really the type who needs to hear it.

It is often said that Michael is bad at personal relationships, but I think he actually deals with personal relationships on a higher level than most people.

He does seem a lot more aware of people's motivations than most people are. I guess it's part of his needing to read people for his spy stuff. But he does a good job at pretending he's bad because when it's personal, he doesn't want to deal with it. For a cover story, he's fine.