TV Review: Burn Notice – Truth and Reconcilliation

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on February 21, 2009

Burn Notice, USA, Airs Thursday 10pm

Episode: “Truth and Reconciliation” (Season 2, Episode 14)

Synopsis: Michael’s search for the man who tried to kill him gets interrupted when Sam pressures him to help a Haitian man find justice for his murdered daughter. Meanwhile, Fiona puts her reputation to work in helping to find the assassin, who turns out to have a familiar face.

Review: I can’t say that I loved this episode. This one felt a bit more like a one-off than many of the others recently. The series has sort of adopted this bookend feature, where the first and last five minutes are dedicated to advancing the assassination plot and everything in between is an isolated case. In this example, a man randomly shows up and has a job for Michael that involves a little role-playing but no good spy stuff. Sam is around quite a bit, which is always nice, and he does get to turn on the humor when messing with his CIA contacts.

If there is one really positive thing about this episode, it was the awesome flying elbow attack Michael launched against some unfortunate bodyguard. Total badass maneuver, worthy of someone like Batman. Sadly that was countered with some sappy mom and dad stuff. But then Sam puts a cold beer on his injured groin and we all laugh again. Like I said, this wasn’t my favorite episode, in fact it’s probably pretty low on the list. But even when Burn Notice isn’t great, it’s still pretty good.

There are only two episodes left this season, so I’m expecting things to kick it up a notch and get back into awesome spy stuff with equal amounts of asskicking. This is still a show to watch every week, but you knew that already.

Next Week: Michael’s ex-fiance shows up in Miami. Things probably go really smoothly with Fiona.