Burn Notice – Recap & Review – Fast Friends

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Burn Notice
Fast Friends

Original Air Date: Jun 10, 2010

Sara M. – TwoCents Reviewer
sara@thetwocentscorp.com

Burn Notice has a unique gift, it constantly gives us characters that you can hate and like at the same time. Jesse Porter, a counter-intelligence agent, recently burned by Michael, is one such character. He’s desperate to find the guy who burned him and also avoid being killed by a former enemy. In this situation, whom do you go to for help? Michael Weston, obviously.

Before we get into that however, Michael is getting ready to meet with Vaughn. Sam is dead set against this. Considering it a bad idea to get tangled up with management again. Also he believes that Vaughn is a vampire name, he doesn’t trust it. Michael brushes these concerns off, convinced that helping put Simon away wasn’t enough. It’s his responsibility to get the man who paid to have him released in the first place. The meeting with Vaughn is short; the topic of conversation is Jesse Porter. Vaughn wants him found and handed over for some… persuasion. Michael isn’t going to let that happen. He feels a responsibility to help Jesse, to get the information himself. Vaughn agrees and gives him a lead to finding the man in question.

That lead takes Michael and Fiona to an office building where untraceable calls have been made. While Michael searches for the number to trace back to Jesse, Fi trashes the offices to make it appear that a disgruntled, former employee broke in and vandalized the place. They get the information and get out, with only one fairly small explosion going off.

Over at Madeline’s house the door is quickly thrown open followed by Michael and Sam entering, guns drawn. They both received a text message saying, “Need help now.” Not being up on texting etiquette, Maddie is surprised to see the two with their weapons in hand. There was no emergency, she’s simply decided to rent out the garage and needs the two to clean things up. Maddie has come to the conclusion that she needs more stable people in her life. Not people who sleep with guns under their pillows or who blow up her solarium. The guys do as she asks, while listening to the open frequency that they’re using to trace Jesse’s phone. A call comes through, giving them a location and time at which to find him.

When they arrive the whole thing turns out to be a set up. An SUV is approaching to extract Jesse. Fi is ready to open fire on them but instead Sam causes a distraction by hitting power lines with a bike chain, causing sparks to fly. Jesse gets away but his contact is ultimately killed. Michael returns to the loft and quickly notices that someone has picked the lock on his gate and put it back on, wrong way facing out. He goes on as normal, knowing that someone is waiting on the other side. He gets the jump on them, literally. Of course it’s Jesse, he has heard the Michael Weston stories and has come to him for help. The man coming after him is Ming Khan, a criminal who turned snitch but ended up loosing a large amount of money in the process. Jesse acted as his handler and Khan thinks that he’s the one who stole a large amount of money.

As counter intelligence, Jesse has a slightly altered version of how the whole spy business works. He doubts Michael’s ability to set up a sting that would result in Khan being arrested but goes along just the same. Michael goes to Khan, convincing him that they’re both after Jesse. Although Khan initially dismisses Michael’s offer to work together, there’s a plan already in place to gain his trust. Sam has a meticulous strategy laid out to make it look like Jesse was ready to take Khan out and have Michael roll in at the last minute and look like he saved him. Here’s where Jesse starts to be a character to hate. He doesn’t like Sam’s plan, not caring about their general rule to not injure innocent people. The next day, when the plan is put into action, Jesse decides to go rogue. Michael is forced to improvise and the whole thing is almost blown.

Khan is finally convinced to work with Michael. But there is a definite throw down when Jesse returns to the loft. Sam makes it clear that the lone ranger act is not appreciated. Michael intervenes, keeping the two from fighting (I would’ve loved to see Sam drop this guy). The job is going to progress and they can deal with problems afterwards. Khan is set up to be arrested with a trunk full of heavy-duty artillery. Things happen accordingly, but the next day Michael is unable to reach Jesse. Instead he receives a call from Khan. He had a friend in the system that got him out of trouble. To make matters worse, he already has Jesse but can’t make him talk.

Michael has a plan. They set it up to look like Khan’s second in command, Lee, was the one who stole the money. Fi and Barry find out the necessary information and Sam doctors an obituary. Michael than uses this to give clues to Jesse so that they can establish Lee as the thief. It works, Khan and Lee pull guns on each other and both are shot. During the confusion Michael gets Jesse out of there. They return to Fiona’s house where she casually mentions that Maddie has agreed to let Jesse live in her garage. Michael uses this as a pretext to find out more about what Jesse was working on. If he’s going to be living with Maddie, than Michael has a right to know what caused Jesse so much trouble. He reluctantly agrees, giving a small bit of information and wraps up by letting Michael know that he will kill the man who burned him.

This was only the second episode of the season! Which I had to keep reminding myself. It just amazes me how this show gets so much done in one hour of television. So, thoughts on the episode? Anyone else dislike Jesse, despite the smaller good qualities he seems to possess? Did you catch the reference to Bruce Campbell’s real life? Feelings about Michael working with management again? Put in your TwoCents.

Next Week: Made Man

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