Smallscreen Features

'Burn Notice' recap 'Neighborhood Watch'

By Alicia Sutton Jul 2, 2010, 6:02 GMT

02/25/2010 - Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell - 2nd Annual USA Network Character Approved Awards Cocktail Reception - Arrivals - IAC Building, 555 West 18th Street - New York City, NY, USA © Sylvain Gaboury / PR Photos

Catching a killer and running off drug dealers are all in a day’s work for Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donavan) and his team.  Full of great one-liners and unbelievable gizmos, this week’s “Burn Notice” was another fantastic (though cheesy, but that’s why we love it, right?) episode.

The tape that Michael found last week is so old that he is unable to find a player for it.  While scouting out electronic shops, Michael realizes that the assassin Kendra (Navi Rawat) is following him around.  He sets a trap for her, but she catches on and escapes.

After an episode-long absence, the marvelous Madeline (Sharon Gless) returns this week and has a case for son Michael.  A doctor is having some trouble with drug dealers selling outside his clinic and they won’t go away, even with police interference.  

After visiting the clinic and speaking to the doctor, Team Michael is on the way out to the car when Michael gets a call from Kendra.  After some flirty conversation, they set up a meeting location so Michael, in the hopes of capturing her, can “sell” her back the tape. 

Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), not to keen on Michael playing a flirt and says to Michael, “take the bus, Romeo.”  To which Michael replies, “But it’s a dangerous neighborhood.”   Such a classic “Burn Notice” one liner, it left me smiling through the commercials that immediately followed.   

Back to the case, Fiona and Sam (Bruce Campbell) track the drug money to a strip club and locate the big boss.  Fiona calls Sugar (Arturo Fernandez), Michael’s old drug dealing neighbor, for some information on the boss.  Once Sugar shows up to the club, he flips out on seeing the big boss, Cutler. 

He tells Sam this guy is bad news and that he has a big stash of drugs from the Mexican cartel that he needs to pay off, hence the push for the dealers on the street and the unwillingness of the dealers to leave.  Sugar had a run-in with Cutler in the past and in his haste to flee the club, he draws attention to himself and Cutler recognizes him. 

In order to save Sugar, Sam starts a fight with Cutler and escapes.  Making it to the car, Fiona asks how it went.  Sam’s response, in his typical adorably goofy Sam manner, replies, “Worst. Surveillance. Ever”. 

In the hopes of getting Cutler to give away the location of his stash so they can steal it, Michael goes to Cutler as a drug dealer that has a supply of horse tranquilizers.  Cutler takes the bait and purchases the drugs, but won’t take Michael to the stash house. 

Jesse (Coby Bell) follows Cutler to the stash house, but is caught in a trap in which he escapes.  Since they didn’t get the exact location of the stash house, Michael and Sam return to the neighborhood and use a gizmo comprised of a remote control plane and a camera to find the stash house.  This has to be one of the best team Michael gizmos ever, not only because of how inventive it is, but because Michael and Sam have trouble flying the plane and have a neighborhood kid fly it so they can get the pictures they need. 

In the meantime, the drug dealers are putting pressure on the clinic, sending not so subtle messages that the clinic has to close – or else.   Cutler tries to burn the building down, but Michael and Fiona show up just in time and shoot at him incognito to get him to run away. 

Michael calls a team meeting to brainstorm for ideas and is interrupted by his mother – she pulls him aside and tells him that David needs to scare the drug dealers away or they will come back.  The plan, which of course goes off without a hitch, is to fool Cutler into thinking the doctor is an ex-delta force. 

After lots of explosions at the stash house, some bullets, and a decent performance by the doctor, the drug dealers get scared off and leave town. 

The episode ends at the meeting between Michael and Kendra.  After they exchange money and the tape, Kendra pulls a knife on Michael and after some fighting; he knocks her out with his suitcase and stuffs her in the truck.  There was little Jesse in this episode and no mention of the overall story arc of Jesse’s burned status. 

It seems that Jesse will be part of the team for awhile, and the storyline will ever so slowly drag out until he finds out Michael was the one who burned him.