Burn Notice, "Rough Seas": Come, friends, who plough the sea

Spoilers for last night's "Burn Notice" coming up just as soon as I buy some golf balls...

"Burn Notice" always throws in a good mix of comedy with the spy stuff, but "Rough Seas" was an especially funny episode. We got Michael's disdain for Virgil being around his mom (and Virgil squeezing into his underwear; the second joke this season about middle-aged men with beer guts trying to wear Michael's skinny clothes), Virgil and Michael intimidating the golf/drug store owner, Michael playing at being an asthmatic dweeb, and Michael's deadpan reactions to the spaciness of Seymour the gun dealer (played by Silas Weir Mitchell, aka Haywire from "Prison Break"). I often smile throughout an episode of this show, but "Rough Seas" was one that made me laugh out loud a bunch of times.

I also think they've gotten better this year at the balance between the episodic stories and the ongoing arc. Until late in the first season, the trail to who burned Michael was so cold that the story barely figured into many episodes, and so if the case of the week wasn't that interesting, the episode was a whole would be a dud. Here, we're shifting back and forth so frequently between the two storylines -- and, on occasion, seeing them intersect like they did last week -- that the dull patches don't come up much anymore.

(A rare slow moment in this one: the car chase right before the credits. Nine times out of ten, Michael's narration over a cliched action scene will give it new life -- like his explanation about shooting the gas tank near the episode's end -- but it takes a lot more work to make a car chase interesting these days, and I imagine the "Burn Notice" people don't have that kind of time or money.)

I was glad to see Michael come up with a solution that didn't involve having one bad guy kill another, because they'd been playing that note too much lately, and I continue to enjoy the post-break-up interaction between Michael and Fi far more than when they were together.

One question: can someone who pays closer attention recall roughly how many times we've seen Michael actually accept payment for his services? Seems like he's been doing a lot of pro bono this year, and all those chemicals and other toys he uses, while they may be cheaper than big weapons, still cost a certain amount of coin. So does all that yogurt, for that matter.

What did everybody else think?