Burn Notice: “Friends and Enemies” – review

At the end of Season 3, Michael was arrested after saving Management from Simon. After twenty minutes in FBI custody, he was moved to a private holding facility, part of which looked like a very comfortable library. The Season 4 premiere picks up from there. A man named Vaughn (Robert Wisdom) enters the room. By far the most reasonable, almost friendly, of the people who burned Michael, Vaughn asks for Michael’s help backtracking the larger forces behind Simon’s attack. Michael resists, but ultimately agrees to help.

Michael and Vaughn hunted down an arms dealer named Gregory Hart (Michael Ironside) in the jungles of South America, but Hart was killed before he could reveal anything. Michael and Vaughn returned to Miami, and Michael finally had a chance to reconnect with his mother, Fiona, and Sam. Fiona briefed Michael on a case she and Sam took in Michael’s absence. The client was Winston (Rich Sommer), a lawyer marked for death by a biker gang after he tried to help a woman get away from her ex, Hunter (Andy Mackenzie), a member of the gang.

After three seasons, viewers know Burn Notice‘s formula. The larger story of Michael tracking the people who burned him is sidetracked by smaller jobs. Sometimes these smaller jobs blend well with the larger story. Other times, they seem out-of-the-blue. Winston’s case was tied to Michael’s reconnecting with Fiona and Sam, but other than that, it was routine for Burn Notice.

With help from Barry the money-launderer, Michael made it look like Winston was tied to every one of the gang’s illegal activities. This way, Winston’s death would lead to an investigation the gang couldn’t afford. There was some suspense when Hunter went berserk after the gang leader called off the vendetta against Winston. However, I couldn’t help knowing that Michael would survive the smaller case and learn more about the larger story.

In the final ten minutes of the episode, Michael obtained some information for Vaughn from the civilian admin facility of military base, inadvertently burning a spy named Jesse Porter in the process. This sets Season 4′s first arc. Next week, Porter (Coby Bell) comes to Michael for help, and Michael tries to help without revealing that he burned Porter. It should make for some juicy internal conflict going forward.