One of the reasons I love Burn Notice is because it’s in many ways a sister show to my other fave procedural: Psych. Both air on the same network in the US and share more than a passing similarity: smart-alecky leads with amazing abilities, long-time buddies working together to solve cases, and – perhaps most alluring – picture-perfect backdrops. In Burn Notice, it’s Miami. In Psych it’s Santa Barbara.
Nearly three years back, I was in the doldrums. It was the taint-end of winter: pitch-dark at 5pm and as cold as a particularly bad weather analogy. I’d just finished ingesting an episode of Psych and was pining – nay, yearning – for the sunny climes of Santa Barbara, California. “Sweet Jebus, I’d give somebody’s right arm to be there,” I thought to myself.
The phone rang maybe two minutes later. It was a buddy of mine, sounding both freaked out and really freaked out. His words, verbatim-ish: “Steve, I just got engaged to a girl from Santa Barbara and I’m moving down there to be with her. Is that crazy?”
My words, verbatim-ish: “Dude, if you don’t do this, I will dismember you. Then I’m going to move down there and marry the crap outta her myself – do you get me?”
He moved down there.
The point of this story is that Santa Barbara has long been a TV paradise to me: a place where the sun always shines, the palm trees clack in the breeze, and enough fascinating things take place to keep my adult ADD in perma-check. And although I’d still slice and dice my friend for the opportunity to head down there, Santa Barbara’s been taking a backseat to Miami as of late.
Why? Simply put, Miami is Santa Barbara on crack. It has all the above attributes plus 200% more of the above attributes. This is a good thing, and it’s a fortified ingredient in the ass-kicking Burn Notice recipe. So the next time you’re feeling a little seasonally affected come wintertime, tune in to BN and soak up the Florida goodness, amigos. Then meet some crazy chick on the internet, get engaged a few days later and move on down there without employment or health insurance. Trust me, all will be set right in your life (*).
Which brings us to BN Season 3, episode 2: ‘Question and Answer.’ Here’s how things are shaping up in the enticing Miami sun... The lovely and beguiling Detective Michelle Paxson is back (rowrr!), and after a li’l sexy cat and mouse banter with Michael, it becomes clear she’s putting together a search warrant. Specifically, she’s hankering to get into his storage locker (not a euphemism) where he’s packing a massive amount of dynamite (also not a euphemism).
Before attempting to cross this conundrum off their week’s ‘to do’ list, Michael, Sam and Fiona meet up with Melinda, a.k.a. the new client. Although the case is originally thought to be a “track down my kid’s deadbeat dad” kind of situation, a visit to Melinda’s ex-husband Howard reveals a different story: their son Brandon’s been kidnapped by a rather nasty fellow named Santoras. To make things more complicated (or ‘less uncomplicated,’ as I sometimes say to make things more complicated), Santoras won’t give the cute little rugrat back until Howard delivers a shipment of diamonds from his work.
Grim indeed. Although one thing Howard has going for him is the fact he works for a place that ships diamonds. Had he been rocking the graveyard shift at Denny’s or holding down an entry-level customer relations gig at AT&T, the whole “give me millions in precious stones” thing might have been a pretty tall order.
Alas, since Santoras would probably kill the kid even after getting his preeeeecious, the gang gets to work real pronto-like. In the guise of a crooked police detective, Sam has Santoras believe a junkie snitch has some good intel re: one of his cronies potentially turning on him. And for a decent-sized bribe, they can conduct a little private interrogation at an abandoned warehouse (are there any other kinds of warehouses?).
The “junkie snitch” is actually Michael, and to make things look authentic, he takes a pretty darn good beating from Sam, thank you very much. But not before deducing where the young’n is being held. Bottom line: Mike beats the ever-loving sauce out of Santoras and escapes. This leads Sam – still in character as the dirty copper – to chase after him with bruised (ego and nards) Santoras in tow.
Michael and Fiona track down Brandon and rescue him from a not-particularly-well-decorated shed (décor tip for Mr. Santoras: stylish vertical blinds will brighten a room and make the ceiling seem higher). Meanwhile, Sam’s commitment to character really pays off as he cunningly lures Santoras into a Mexican standoff with his own men. And, well, let’s just say it goes about as well as the final coupla minutes of Reservoir Dogs. (*)
When the smoke clears, adorable little Brandon is returned to his parents, who decide to make another go at putting their faltered marriage back together. Very sweet. The end.
Oh wait, almost forgot: Mike still needs to get that C-4 from his storage locker without tipping off Detective Paxson’s men, who’ve been staking out the joint. Fortunately, he gets the job done courtesy of Sam, Fiona and a seriously awesome water cannon that cuts through concrete like buttah. No fuss, marginal muss. Naturally, Paxson is rather nonplussed when she pops by the next day -- an emotional state she expresses by looking a solid 13% hotter.
AfterBurn:
-- Oh, Fiona: every week you blow up my funny bone. FIONA: “This is a valuable lesson for you: C-4 is meant to be used, not stored. All those times you told me to make the explosion smaller? I shouldn't have listened.”
-- Showcase’s Burn Notice YogurtWatch©: As a kid, blueberries weren’t just my favourite fruit, they were my favourite food. That was, until “The Incident.” Now I consider them a vomit-inducing crime against humanity. So although Michael does plenty of brave stuff in this episode, ingesting a cup of blueberry yogurt is by far the bravest.
-- If someone were to write fan fiction about himself and Detective Paxson having romantic crime-fighting adventures in the steamy Everglades, do you think it could be green-lit into a Burn Notice spin-off? I’m asking for a friend.