I've been rewatching Burn Notice over the last week. Started Season 3 today. Michael and Fiona have a little disagreement in the first episode because Michael's still determined to get his old job back, and Fi thinks it's stupid to go back to the people who got blacklisted him in the first place. She tried discussing it with Sam, and he just told her if she didn't get it, then she'd never understand Michael.
I'm with Fi on this one. I understand that as long as he's not employed by any agency, he and his family are unprotected against the various intelligence agencies out there that would like to kill him. Probably after torturing him, either for information, or just for kicks. Still, these folks kicked him to the curb, pinned a bunch of ugly stuff on him he didn't do, all to put the screws to him so he'd do what they want. "Management" claims to have been protecting Michael through the first two seasons (though that didn't stop that one Czech assassin from finding Mike*), but that's not benevolence so much as their own self-interest. Michael's of no concern to them beyond his potential usefulness in whatever it is they want him to do. If they find another prospective operative they think is as good, and more cooperative, they'll burn that person and probably kill Mike without a second thought.
Though with Michael, I think he's less interested in getting his old job back for the protection it offers, and more eager to be back doing what he's trained to do. He does those same things now, but I guess the stakes aren't high enough. He feels he could be doing so much more, making things better on a larger scale. We don't really know specifics on a lot of his missions pre-burn notice, so maybe he's right. Maybe he routinely made nations better places for more people at one time than he's helped through 3.5 seasons of doing this work in Miami. The cynic in me doubts he did more than enable different people to continue the same old song.
* I love that scene where Michael first spots him while in a sports bar. Just for Mike pretending to be a drunk fan and bellowing "Dwayne Wade sucks!!", then extolling the virtues of Kobe's multiple rings and superior free-throw percentage to the fat Heat fan that objected to the opening statement.
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2 comments:
I think Michael wants to get un-burned (is that a word?) partially because he feels he'll be able to help more people that way, and that his service to his country is somehow more meaningful then his helping people for hypothetical money (I say hypothetical money, because the majority of his clients can't really pay him).
The other half is because he feels if he's unburned he'll be able to find out WHY he was burned, which he feels he can't conveniently do in Miami.
seangreyson: I hadn't considered that getting the burn notice removed would help him understand the why behind it, but it's a really good point.
I had always figured his being burned was simply a matter of a specific group wanting him in a position they could more readily use him, and if there was anything more, Michael would figure it out as he worked on getting the burn notice removed. But he would have a lot more access if he was working for an agency again, and not reliant solely on Sam's large number of "buddies".
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