TV Recap: Burn Notice Season 7 - Episode 2 - ‘Forget Me Not’

June 17, 2013 Television 1 Comments

Burn-Notice

Michael finally returns to Miami in this week’s episode, but his inability to separate himself from the gang’s predicaments jeopardizes his deep cover mission, forcing him to choose between saving Fiona from a murderous kidnapper or listening to his company head and maintaining his cover.

“Forget Me Not” is packed with lovely visual moments; my favorites were the dissolves into and out of Michael’s flashbacks to Ireland in the nineties, where “Michael McBride” is just beginning his love affair with Fiona Glenanne.  Those scenes pack the biggest emotional punch and are the best written;  the way they set up a chain reaction that continues to knock over emotional dominos far into the present is fairly artful.  The action segments build to a nice atmosphere of tension, with a bravau set piece in the last twenty minutes that provides quite a punch.

Burn-Notice-Forget-Me-Not

The acting MVP is definitely Sharon Gless, who packs so much power into the opening segment of the episode you want to follow Maddie and are disappointed when it switches focus.  It is, however, tiresome to see Madeline constantly whimpering at Michael for some level of emotional forgiveness after the emotional trial both went through after Nate’s death.   Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar pour every single ounce of chemistry; they are only momentarily  defeated in the flashbacks by lighting and make-up choices that make them look ancient instead of bushy-tailed twenty year olds.   Holding up the periphery, Bruce Campbell’s Sam becomes the group’s defacto leader and handles the responsibility beautifully; things only go south after Fiona makes a costly mistake and Michael inserts himself into the mission.  Coby Bell is given the least to do; Jesse continues to have amusing banter with Sam, but otherwise his existence in the plot is currently negligible at best.  It might be wise for the producers to pick up the thoughtline about his mother’s death and finally wrap up that thread.

The episode’s other problem is its reliance on clichés.  As lovely as the Irish scenes were, they were overloaded with groanworthy stereotypes and storytelling chiches, from the fiddle-filled bar that lets us all know we’re Really In Ireland Now to Michael and Fiona dancing ‘til dawn and learning that Fiona’s father nicknaming her “Little Angel” (really?  Is this our Fiona?).  It leads to a great catchphrase that will likely be plastered across gifs Tumblr-wide, but feel as well trod as a pair of dancing slippers.

There’s also the matter of time.  No way could Michael and Fiona have met in Ireland in the 90’s – according to the timeline the show’s set up, early 00’s at best might be more fitting.

Forget Me Not distills almost everything Burn Notice is down to a fine, well-aged wine. If they’d broken out a little bit of humor and a good client case, it would have scored a home run, but, laboring under the weight of its own clichés, it’s only a ground-rule double.

  • * Sam again refers back to his girlfriend, Elsa, and the penthouse he shares with her at her hotel chain.
  • * We spend a little more time with Charlie, Nate’s son, in this episode. He has a speaking part, and calls Sam and Jesse “Mister” Sam and Jesse.
  • * We meet up again with hacker Dixon, whom Sam and Michael saved from death back in season 6.
  • * In next week’s episode, Michael flies Sam and Jesse down to the Dominican Republic to help with a complicated deal while Madeline and Fiona try to outwit a bookie trying to collect a debt on Madeline in “Down Range.”

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Lisa Fernandes

Staff Television Critic: Lisa Fernandes, formerly of Firefox.org, has been watching television for all of her thirty-plus years, and critiquing it for the past seven. When she's not writing, she can be found in the wilds of the Northeastern United States.
  • Bryan Murray

    This is one of those cant miss shows for me …..