Burn Notice, "Partners in Crime": Crimes of fashion

A review of last night's "Burn Notice" coming up just as soon as I question the credentials of a lowly crime scene investigator...

After all the recent complaining about the Gilroy arc, "Partners in Crime" did a few interesting things. First, Fiona came right out and asked Michael why he can't just shoot the guy, and Michael gave a reasonable answer. Second, it kept Gilroy himself (and the hammy actor playing him) off-screen and just had Michael and Fi dealing with the Polish security guy. And third, the revelation of what Gilroy's trying to do - bust a terrorist supervillain off of a secured private flight - finally has me wanting to see where this goes from here. This mission has nothing to do (that we know of) with Michael getting unburned, but Michael trying to foil a mid-air hijacking, or whatever Gilroy's specific plan is, could be cool.

The case of the week was a mixed bag, I thought. Michael's cover identity was an entertaining one, particularly in the scene where he's going through the trinkets in his mark's office looking for something to kill him with. (And, since Jeffrey Donovan had already busted out a Russian accent earlier in the hour, he wasn't asked to provide a second, potentially goofy one for this guy.) We also need to see Michael take paying gigs every now and again just to explain how he affords to pay for yogurt and explosives and such.

But while I like the idea in theory of Michael screwing up and letting a client die, it didn't feel like "Partners in Crime" did enough with that, as it was too busy moving on to the new client, and contact mic shenanigans, and Bruce Campbell doing a Horatio Caine impression.(*) One of the series' big emotional arcs is Michael developing a conscience and a sense of compassion for others, and I think the writers missed an opportunity here to show how Michael dealt with the death of someone he wouldn't have cared about two or three years ago - particularly a death he felt like he could have prevented.

(*) Didn't love that, either. The "lowly crime scene investigator" line was about as meta as this show should ever get, and having Sam say a cheesey kiss-off line and snap on his shades - not once, but twice - was way off-tone for the way "Burn Notice" usually rolls.

Weird that we only have two episodes left of this season, but that's the way these USA shows roll in terms of splitting things up. The plus, I guess, is that the wait for season four won't be nearly as long as the gap between seasons of, say, "Breaking Bad."

What did everybody else think?