Burn Notice Scorched Earth

Full Summary of Episode 81

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601 - Scorched Earth (81)  

Photo of Burn Notice TV season six episode 601
Fiona once told Michael Westen: "Don't look at me like that, It's unsettling when you're this sincere"; which is doubly true now that Fiona has impulsively turned herself over to the FBI. More unsettled than we've ever seen him, Michael has become almost an entirely different character: moody, sullen, edgy, uncertain, impulsive – which is how Sam found him, sitting in his charger on a side street re-reading the "good-bye letter" that Fiona had left him.  Mike grabbed him by the back of the neck and demanded "How is that possible? She knocked you out?" Obviously reacting as someone carefully handling an unstable and possibly dangerous crazy person, Sam replied: "Maybe I could have fought her off. But did you ever consider that she was right? You were loosing yourself, selling out everything you've ever fought for!" "I was fighting for her," Michael screamed. "By burning spies?" Sam countered. "You were betraying your friends… about to betray your God damn government!" Finally breaking down, Mike confessed he'd been fighting for so long that he was wasted and asked "what do I do now?" Sam told him that Jesse was over at CIA headquarters and "this may not be over yet." Jesse called saying that traffic cams showed Anson going to Cutler Bay and Mike threatened menacingly "he's not making it to Cutler Bay." Agent Pearce uncharacteristically believed Jesse's explanation but said that she had no resources available for the moment – with the blazing plane, rogue agent (Rebecca) on the loose and the fact that Anson was completely unknown as a "bad guy" to ANYONE.
 
Photo in Burn Notice : Scorched Earth episode 601
Michael stopped and broke into a truck to use as a road-block. While Sam was trying to reason with the owner, Michael pulled his gun and shot at the guy, telling him to leave. Sam gave him some money for a new hot-dog and advised him to call his insurance company. Sam weaved across lanes to block traffic while Mike jack-knifed the truck and set it on fire. They traversed the shoulder of the road along the resulting back-up until they found Anson's abandoned green Jag and a witness who pointed them toward a chemical factory next to the bay. On their way there, Anson called Mike with yet another blackmail threat to get him to stop hunting. He revealed that he had lied to a violent, paranoid-schizophrenic, ex-ranger patient of his, Daryl Jordan, claiming that Michael Westen was the cause of all his troubles – and gave him Madeline's address! As expected, Mike flew off the handle and was going to drop everything for a fruitless race back across town until Sam demanded that he listen to reason. They called Jesse, and asked him to call the cops and get over to Madeline's immediately. That way they could continue to hunt Anson. Madeline was watching Fiona's arrest on television and tried to call someone. She discovered that her cell phone was jammed in addition to her house line. Then she looked outside to see that the phone box had been all mangled and that a fully-armed commando was coming toward her house. She was shown cowering into the back pantry then Jordan breaking into her house. When Jesse arrived, he found a cop shot dead in his car in the front of her house, so he went in – alone. Jordan got the drop on him and demanded to know Michael's where-abouts. He counted down from 5 before he was going to shoot and got all the way to "one" before Madeline shot him blind through the ceiling from the attic.
 
Photo in Burn Notice : Scorched Earth episode 601
Michael and Sam called Pearce and told her that "nothing was more important than this," then discovered the guard at the front of the plant dead on the floor. As they entered the guard shack, they heard Anson's voice come over the plant security radio and alert all other guards about two intruders who had just killed a guard. Then two arriving guards were blocking their way out of the shack with gunfire so Michael decided to return fire and just plow through them; but, Sam refused saying: "if this is going to be a blood bath then I'm out because the guys outside are just doing their jobs!" They needed to use an impressive con in order to get the drop on the two guards who came to handcuff them. As they led the captured guards back into the plant Sam quipped: "believe it or not, we're the good guys." Revealing that they were from the CIA and "Navy SEALs" – by showing them Sam's "good guy patch" – they got "cooperation" to pull an alarm and get all employees to evacuate the building. As Mike, in a borrowed guard's uniform, was watching everyone evacuate, Pearce showed up with a small group of CIA guys. Anson didn't come out but again called to gloat, allowing Mike to hear some mixing tanks in the background. He could see from the video cams where Anson was hiding and went flailing off to go kill him. Sam needed, yet again, to stand in his way and Michael pulled his gun on him! Pearce pulled her gun on Mike and ordered that "I'm not letting anyone who's pulling guns on his own team anywhere near Anson Fullerton." Mike was relegated to the video command post while they went to get Anson. They used an electronic gizmo to scan through the door and see that there was one live person in the room then began cutting into it.
 
Photo in Burn Notice : Scorched Earth episode 601
Meanwhile Mike saw that a camera had been turned and a fence was being rhythmically moved back and forth. When he checked, he found Anson sawing through a lock in the fence in order to get at the water where a boat would pick him up. Michael grabbed and pounded him with his fists in the head, so violently that it made even the viewers feel relieved that Anson was finally getting what he deserved. However, completely unbelievably, Anson picked up a convenient pipe and fought back as though he'd never even been hit. Yet again, he revealed another fiendish plot by grabbing a "dead-man" switch and gloating that if he let go, explosives throughout the building would kill Sam and Pearce. Michael let him pass out the gate then radioed Sam and Pearce to get out. Just as they were shown exiting the building, it blew up. When he saw that they all had exited safely, Mike emptied his full clip at the receding boat in anger. Mike called Madeline to hear that the police were there with her and Jesse and noticed that her voice quivered when she said: "I've never shot anyone before." As he hung up, he uncharacteristically told her "I love you." Pearce advised that Anson had "just made the top of the CIAs most wanted list"; but, they had no evidence which could exonerate Fiona. He asked "what If I caught him, would that be enough?" She responded, "it would be a start" and Sam grinned, "well a start's a start" and led Mike away to begin the next quest.
 
Photo in Burn Notice : Scorched Earth episode 601
The FBI, as usual and expected, turned Fiona's peaceful, voluntary surrender into a huge grandstand play with an entire company of macho, armor vested, mean-looking, men-in-black wielding high-powered machine guns on full auto.  The mother and daughter bystanders shown watching Fiona be led away were in more danger from the FBI grand-standers than from Fiona's empty purse. She was photographed and strip searched, then roughly handcuffed to a table awaiting the arrival of: Jason Bly! Claiming that he was "on loan from the CSS" he refused to listen to her explanations and baited her impatience by being patronizing, arrogant and lording his power over her. When she had given a complete explanation of her involvement in trying to prevent Larry Sizemore and Anson Fullerton from committing their crimes, he still demanded that she implicate Michael. He told her that he intended to see that she was charged with "three counts of capital murder… a ticket to death row"; but, then tried to bargain with her that "it doesn't need to happen"… IF she would just implicate Michael. When she wouldn't, he fabricated and falsified evidence of Michael's death, including forging a coroners report of his autopsy! Fiona did reveal to him that Michael had been kidnapped; however, before she signed the document, she put her considerable experience with explosives to work and discovered Bly's lies. "You're a liar," she told him, "this wasn't an accident, it looks like a road-block… Michael's alive." "How could you possibly know that from looking at a photograph", he countered.  Smiling, she calmly explained: "I know explosions, I know Michael and I know that we're done here."
When Michael took down the entire "Organization" the first time, he pretty much did it all over the summer break, when we weren't watching. This season opener, the episode took up almost at the moment we left them last season. However, we nearly have a completely different Michael character this season. He was so angry and spacey that it was unnerving. There may have been other inconsistencies, but the only one I saw which detracted from the believability was Anson's fight with Michael. Michael unleashed all his bottled-up up rage to the point that it even gave us viewers relief; but, after receiving blows that should have left him senseless, he grabbed a handy pipe and fought back as he had never even been hit! Overall, this was a well written and acted episode, even for the Fiona character. She is much more believable when they don't have her whining and nagging at Michael. However, if it were just up to me Anson would be history. I must admit I'm becoming quite weary of the guy.

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