Tuesday, July 27, 2010

What I’m Watching: Burn Notice

Burn Notice: Season 4, Episode 7 “Past & Future Tense” (B+)

It's quite a catch for this show to get Burt Reynolds to guest star as an old spy accidentally thrust back into the game and in need of some assistance from one Michael Westen. What's cool about this episode is that it does deviate considerably from the normal client-of-the-week episode because Jesse is the one in need of help and they just happen to come upon some seemingly criminal activity and Michael and company feel the need to start investigating. Reynolds is definitely a fun addition for this installment. The notion, reinforced by the title of this episode, that Reynolds’ Paul is the future version of Michael, is quite intriguing, but there’s also just the pure entertainment value of having the two of them on screen together. Michael yelling at Paul to “stop that” when he’s shooting at the Russians was particularly fun, and Paul’s closing assertion that he has the right to kill some Russians if they invade Florida was amusing as well. Madeline’s role in getting the congressman to meet with Paul was fantastic, and it gave her a great scene as well as a terrific departing quote: “That sounds like a really bad idea. I think I’ll just take a cab.” The casting of funnyman Richard Kind as Jesse’s generally humorless and scared boss is questionable, but it worked out fine and gave Fiona something enjoyable to do. The final scene with Fiona smacking Michael and then going at him a second time was a more dramatic closer, bringing back the idea that Jesse is going to want to seriously hurt Michael when he inevitably finds out that Michael was responsible for burning him.

Cool news: read about this Sam-centric prequel movie in the works, announced at Comic-Con last week.

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