Heys kids!
It’s time for Rev to give us the 4-1-1 on last weeks episode of Burn Notice.
“In this weeks Burn Notice Michael has to assist an agent called ‘Victor’ with a job while also helping a family friend who has a problem. The second season of the show has managed to juggle two storylines per episode with great ease, but this is the first episode where one of the stories suffers as a consequence.
Ricky is being set up for embezzlement by one Eddie, currently it looks like Ricky has stolen around two million dollars from an account owned by the hip-hop mogul Valentine (played by Method Man) and Valentine has noticed the loss. Method Man’s performance in this is superb, he’s clearly learnt a lot from his time as Cheese Wagstaff on The Wire and it’s a shame he’s put into such a short story. It would be wise of the writers to bring him back, the conference room scene where he repremands his people and the scene where he banters briefly with Sam/Bruce are the two best scenes in the episode. It would be great too see Valentine back on screen in a later episode.
In contrast the new agent ‘Victor’ was less palatable, he’s clearly set up as a loose cannon and is irritating, both for Michael and the viewer. He’s clearly more hands on than Carla, but also more reckless. The storyline involving him interfaces nicely with the Ricky one, especially when he directly interferes – just to show Michael who’s boss – but the scenes are not as strong as the ones from the other storyline. Ultimately it’s hard to see why he’s been introduced instead of Carla and it seems likely that he’s going to end up in a body bag soonish.
Overall it’s a pretty solid episode that has its good moments, but feels like there is too much crammed in. While Michael is clearly overloaded with demands from clients and the agents at the same time the viewer also feels somewhat overloaded as the episode runs at such a scorching pace it never lets up. This does mean it never has a dull moment, but it also means that neither story gets the full treatment it deserves.
It’s a great episode, but there have been better so far this season.”
