What I’m Watching: Burn Notice

Burn Notice: Season 3, Episode 14 “Partners in Crime” (B+)

This episode was very fun because it had all three of its main characters going undercover in untraditional roles. Michael has always been good at putting on accents, but for some reason I truly enjoyed his Russian accent from the very first moment, and it really makes me think about how much he puts people like Jack Bauer who think that being able to speak a language excuses the fact that you don’t even try to speak like someone from that country. Sam certainly had a lot of fun doing the Horatio Caine trademark effect with the sunglasses not once but twice. This show doesn’t tend to directly mimic other shows (unlike fellow USA series “Psych,” which references “The Mentalist” constantly), and therefore that threw me for a bit of a loop, but it worked quite well and was a lot of fun. Another surprise was seeing Fiona playing a part that didn’t involve aggression, intimidation, or seduction. Sure, she did have jump into that role too to flip the Polish contact, but the sight of her bound and gagged inside a trunk was unexpected. She certainly had fun with it, and it was also enjoyable to see Michael pretend to be so mad. It’s a relief to see Michael expressing an enormous amount of anger when it’s not actually real because, as much fun as last week was, it’s good to see all of the characters getting along once again. A particularly fantastic scene in this episode was the one featuring a delighted Michael picking up sharp things to make the guy think he’s going to hurt him.