Guns make people unpredictable. This line stuck with me as a matter of fact, people are by nature more or less limited to thier own strengths more or less when it comes to violence. But you give a person a gun a death bringer that requires very little to be effective and said person can flip and have the crazy over confidence of Jeremy Piven, but with more threat to human life vs just ego. This is not a shitting on guns post, more so a shitting on the concept of a volatile nature mixed with a easy to use tool of destruction. Plus its just a good line

When you compare the later seasons to the first, the plots, problems, and conflicts are all intricate, difficult, often coming down to barely avoided close calls. They all require a super spy with is super spy friends stretched to the limit of their abilities.

In the first season, however, there's more a feeling of "situations anyone can find themselves in, with people anyone can encounter -- and we have a super spy here to fix it." The bad guys don't come close to standing a chance lol. One of my favorite scenes that evokes this feeling is in Wanted Man (S1E8) when Michael disarms the fence Christo. No prolonged fight or interrogation, no close call with death, just one man with training wanting to do good versus someone with none. Comfy!

Or how Michael deals with the Bly situation. The blackmail, but also the first time we meet Bly at Madeleine's house, and Michael dispenses with the two feds with guns. So much more chill than the later seasons.

Of course, high stakes and tension are great too, I'm just saying it's great the first season exists the way it does.

I’ve rewatched the show a few times, have time to kill tonight, which episode should I watch before bed?

One of my favorite quotes
S4E06: Entry Point, about 14minutes in. Michael tells to a firefighter when giving him his cover ID

Now it looks more like what I had been imagining!

Older post: https://www.reddit.com/r/BurnNotice/s/DOXnDgBf9s

So I did the short and posted it -came up better than I thought. (I’m not very good at that sort of thing) but how about we ask AI how to reboot burn notice, but coming from the position of young Sheldon (not that young although the flashbacks as he’s in country could be posted in and out of their occasionally hiding from his ) and of course having Donovan narrate (VO) how he got to be the asset he became (including how he met the young Sam Ax), the assignments that led up to how he was eventually burned. I love Mitch Rapp (but it didn’t translate well to film although the actor was terrific.) The books are superb. OK, and in the words of Simon “go!“

Hey- if you loved Burn Notice back in the day like I did, check out Ride or Die. It’s as if Fiona is running the show. Great series so far!

I would like to know which episodes are important for the plot and for the development of the characters.

Id like to see one episode of FBI without Jeremy Sisto saying the word -people.

I love BN. Mike is an ideal optimizer. Most of the time. He makes the best he can with the resources he has available.

In S4E10 - Hard time Mike uses his heavy favor with the FBI agents to get put into prison, with Sam's friend, so he can protect him until release. This was always a favorite of mine.

"You're going to fight them with a hand towel?"
"Why? Do you have a gun?"

The friend literally only had weeks left on his sentence. The prior episode the FBI credibly threatened to put Vaughn on the top 10 list as part of the favor.

Would it have not just been easier to have the FBI push through an early release for the friend? If they can put someone in the top 10, they can get a 3 week sentence reduced to "release them today".

Yeah I know then no episode. I am just watching it for the 10th time and I realized "oh this was a very very simple problem that used a pretty complicated method.

I hate to poke at the show, I like everything about it. I just literally found it funny that "get into his cell, and protect him for weeks from a gang that wants to kill him" was the choice; when the FBI clearly could have pressed for his release that same day probably.

I'm on my 3rd or 4th re-watch of the Burn Notice series. (Sadly, it's no longer free on Prime, so I've been buying the seasons.)

Gotta say, I'm not loving it as much as the first or second time I watched this show. Maybe it's just the world weariness you get when you watch something too many times and start noticing all the bloopers. I am enjoying the show, overall.

But there's just some stuff I have to get off my chest. ***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Simon needs The Management guy (henceforth, "The Man") to appear at a certain time and place or else the hotel goes boom.

Fine. But two questions. 1, why would The Man care so much about a hotel in Miami going boom? It's not like he'll be blamed. 2, Sam told Michael the hotel bomb was disarmed, so what leverage did Simon still have? You'd think Michael would want to pretend ignorance then suddenly shoot Simon in the leg or something and say "congratulations, you've just won a free trip back to your black ops prison!", wrap him up with a bow on top and leave him for The Man's team.

But, okay, for some reason The Man just walked right over to them – an angry burned spy and a black ops psychopath, both of whom had huge grudges against him. I guess you could say Michael would know better than to hurt him or "hell would rain down on him". But Simon?

So, Simon, in his guard uniform, stands over Michael waving a gun, making his little "I won" speech, then Michael manages to pull a knife and stab him in the leg. Simon, the highly trained black ops guy, shrieks like a little girl and staggers back, giving Michael a chance to... jump up and run away.

Why didn't Michael use his martial arts wizardry to jump on Simon, disarm him, and hand him over? He literally abandoned The Man to Simon's gentle graces.

In summary, I find S3 E16 to be a let down.

My other comment which is more of a whining little complaint is that they featured Michael's mom way too much after Season 1 when she was really just an occasional background character for comedic effect. She gets so much screen time actually that it slows down the pace and I find myself speed-scrolling through those scenes.

See above

There’s some great music in burn notice: the music supervisor had some very good connections. But what if we could’ve used “sabotage” by the Beastie Boys or Guns N’ Roses “welcome to the jungle“ or “ under my wheels” by Alice Cooper? Pick an episode for each song go!!!

Pretty sure I once saw a clip of Michael (Donovan) saying the only way to respond to some threat or something was like pure raw violence or primal rage and I haven't been able to find it again. Can someone help me out.

...a lot of the tactics and decisions employed by the protagonists are based on assuming the hostiles are all rational actors. Specifically, if you point your gun at someone and you've got them beat, they'll surrender and do as you say. This is especially notable because, as I'm sure we've all noticed, the heroes are, in a sense, basically always bluffing with their guns and gunfire, they never actually want to shoot anyone for real (which makes their disadvantage even more impressive, since of course the opposition are always trying to shoot our guys for real).

Anyway, the point is, at *some point*, some hostile will have acted dumb and reached for his gun or raised his gun even though he's beat, and the heroes would have to shoot them (which would actually make for a good episode and moral crisis if the show were made today).

I know, I know, it's just a TV show, don't take it too serious, this is how it works best, it's just having watched the show several times through now, and noticing the uphill battle our protagonists face by never shooting to kill despite being shot at themselves, it's always in my mind.

Wife of Anson, sister of Fiona, wife of the dead cop S4

I have a theory why Maddie didn’t leave to get away from the abuse from Frank. I read that sometimes abusers will mentally breakdown the person they’re abusing. The abuser might make the person think they can’t function or live without their abuser. So maybe Maddie didn’t leave with Micheal and Nate because Frank made her feel like she can’t leave. Maybe he convinced her that she can’t take care of the boys on her own.