photo: usa
Burn Notice
Made Man
Original Air Date: Jun 17, 2010
Sara M. – TwoCents Reviewer
sara@thetwocentscorp.com
This episode had a lot of things going for it. Jesse has become a temporary member of group, he and Michael have a lead on a man involved with Simon’s initial break out, and there’s a mob boss who needs to be taken down a notch.
However, this episode will be known as one of the best examples of why Bruce Campbell is the reigning king of awesome. Possibly his best episode out of all that have gone before. One of his top five, anyway.
Punctuality is important to a burned spy, a former IRA member, and a retired Navy SEAL. If you have a meeting, you’re on time. Jesse apparently never got this memo. He rolls in late, waiting for everyone to arrive because he doesn’t trust the location. Both Fiona and Sam are hesitant about adding “a counter-intelligence agent to our merry band.” Michael is working with Jesse for two reasons; 1) they are looking for the same person and 2) Michael feels like he owes him. A weapons dealer named Cobra, suspected of being involved with Simon’s breakout, has gone off the radar. However, there’s a weapons shipment going through the docks that Cobra is supposedly involved with. A plan is hatched to begin surveillance.
Things are going rather slow at the docks but the action picks up when Jesse decides to go rogue. Two thugs are roughing up a dock security officer named Hank. Without thinking, Jesse intervenes, almost compromising their main purpose of being there. Hank becomes their client, he and other security guards are being forced to help the mob steal expensive items from shipment containers. The person behind these crimes is Tony Caro, a representative of a New York City mob family.
They need to formulate a strategy to frame Tony for a crime that is big enough to get him put away. Jesse seems to be rather inept at any actual tactical and fieldwork, leaving the bulk of the planning to Michael, Fi and Sam. Which leaves me to wonder if the ‘intelligence,’ in counter-intelligence agent, is just there to keep ‘counter’ from being lonely. Because Jesse really seems to lack as an agent. He doesn’t follow orders, work well with a team, or know when to keep his mouth shut.
Michael goes in as an FBI agent, using the ID of a real agent who is on leave for hitting the bottle. However, this is rather ineffective given that Tony has a Fed in his pocket. He orders his men to take Michael out, there are more important things to focus on. A higher up from New York, Gio, has arrived to put the squeeze on Tony and his lack of large income. This provides another in for the group. This is a job for Chuck Finley.
Sam goes in as Chuck Finley, setting himself up as a hit man, hired by Gio. He and Jesse abduct Tony from a men’s bathroom at a nightclub. When Tony comes to he’s in a hotel, tied to a bed covered in plastic. His eyes focus on Sam, sharpening a large knife. He agrees to spare Tony in exchange for big money. There’s a shipment coming through the docks, worth 5 million dollars. 1 million of that is “Chuck’s” if he lets Tony go. They agree, but before anything else can be done they have to convince Tony that his crew is against him. Cue Fiona and one of her smaller explosive devices. One car bomb and Tony is in the market for a new crew to pull the heist at the dock.
As Sam prepares to take a look at the target location with Tony, it becomes obvious that he needs to take a right hand man in with him. They decided that he would actually need a man, so Fi is out and Jesse is in. The two go to work convince Tony that he has to participate in the heist, to gain some trust Jesse prompts Sam to tell a specific story from his SEAL days. He does, sharing how a buddy of his was shot in the spine and instead of continuing on with the team, Sam stayed behind. The two took shelter in a church, living off of wafers until help came. “No man left behind.” This convinces Tony but leaves Sam infuriated. “I don’t pimp out my past to bad guys.”
Michael and Jesse take the momentary lull between the recon work and the actual job to look for Cobra. They go to his private airport hanger where they find a large section of floor that has been bleached and scrubbed vigorously. They make the assumption that they can’t find Cobra because he was dropped out of plane via the wheel compartment. There isn’t more time to deal with this, it’s time for the job with Tony.
Sam, Fi and Jesse go in with him, Michael pretends to be various members of a support team. They get in and steal the truck. While Tony is on his way out, Sam makes it look like Hank has apprehended him. The cops have already been alerted to the stolen truck. Tony is almost away but stops, feeling compelled to come back and help Sam. The two have to ditch the truck and run for it. Believing Sam to be his new buddy, Tony proposes a plan to kill Gio and take over. It’s not an ideal set up, but it will work. Gio ends up dead, Tony is wounded and admitted to the prison hospital, and the docks are a safer place.
Sam is able to find out some information about the plane that was in Cobra’s hanger. The last day it was out was the same day a John Doe washed up in the Bahamas. Fi knows a few people and gets Jesse a place to hide on a cargo boat headed in that direction. Michael returns home to find an angry Madeline waiting for him. Through little things Jesse has told her during the episode, she has figured out that Michael is the one responsible for burning him. He tries to make it clear that this is a sensitive situation, she reassures him that she’ll keep his secret. But it will come out eventually, secrets always come out.
Fantastic episode in my opinion. Happy to see more with Sam. I maintain my dislike for Jesse. I keep trying to like him as they give out little bits of information. Like how his mother died while he was so young or that he tries to do the right thing by someone like Hank. But at the same time, he pulls that stunt with Sam, forcing him to use a real story to appease a bad guy. And he just doesn’t seem to play well with others.
What did you all think? Other people excited about the Sam heavy episode? Thoughts on Jesse? Amusement about Maddie slowly extracting information from Jesse via home furnishings and cookies? She figured out what Michael did in the course of a day, do you think Jesse has too? Share your Two Cents.
Next Week: Breach of Faith
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TheTwoCents 
I have to say, the Madeline/Jesse and Madeline/Michael scenes (especially the one at the end) were total win. Sharon Gless is awesome, and Coby Bell is still growing on me.
I also love Fiona: “You’re never packing the cooler again.”
I just love Madeline slowly working that information out of Jesse. And the last scene with her and Michael was just incredible. Part of me wants Michael to just tell Maddie some of the less appealing aspects of his job. But I also like that he protects her from that info.
Fiona was great too. I like that how annoyed she was when they said that the right hand man should actually be a man.
That look on Jeffrey Donovan’s face just killed me. KILLED ME. I wanted to hug him so very badly.
I love, too, how Jesse doesn’t fit perfectly into the team dynamic. He screws stuff up and he sees things differently. It’s not like they just stuffed him in and now he’s all perfect and he’s been there forever. We’ll see how he shapes up.
Nestor Serrano as the bad guy was pretty cool too. I remember when he was on 24, so I kept having flashbacks. LOL.
Yes! Although I want to hug Madeline too, because she’s kept in the dark still about a lot things.
I agree, I’m glad they didn’t have Jesse fit right in. And I’m trying to like him, but it just really annoyed me that he forced Sam to use one of his personal stories.
I kept getting flashes the other night when Rich Sommers was on from Mad Men. I was like “wow, he’s in 2010 instead of the 60s!”
True, but I think she’s getting wiser and wiser. She has to. As Zach Levi once said about Chuck, these are smart characters, you can’t keep BSing them all the time.
Jesse can be a bonehead. LOL. He’s entitled. We need more characters to be utter idiots sometimes, they are human after all.
When Arnold Vosloo was on 24 (and later Chuck), I kept going “dude. It’s the Mummy. Where are the rest of the weird Egyptian dead people.”
Great point about Bruce Campbell, who comes through with another fine performance once again. I was a little surprised that Sam told a real story about his past; surely an experienced guy like him should have had some fictional tale prepared for just such a situation? Campbell’s pain told me Sam was sharing an authentic tale.
And Jesse seems just a little too cool in my book. Is there something more to him? (If you’re interested, I also wrote about this episode http://wp.me/pFs3T-G9)
I think he could’ve come up with a fictional story, but was caught so off guard that Jesse not only knew about the story but was prompting him to tell it. And I’m curious as to what led up to Michael having shared the story with Jesse. If it was done in some attempt to see that Sam’s a good guy.
I find Jesse to be rather inept at most of the skills we’ve seen spies have on the show. Of course that could all be an act, counter intelligence and all.