When You’re A Spy: Over the Line
The fallout from Michael’s shooting of Tom Card last week causes the Burn Notice team to go on the run from a relentless CIA agent in this week’s episode, Over the Line.
The episode picks up right after last week, with Sam bursting in to find Michael standing over the bodies of Gray and Card and chewing him out for blowing their only chance to get evidence. Michael claims he had no choice but there’s no time to argue as the hotel is almost immediately put into lockdown and a CIA team arrives, led by Olivia Riley (played by The Wire’s Sonja Sohn). Sam and Michael have to split up to escape the hotel, with Michael hitching a ride on the roof of the elevator and making his way down to the parking garage and smashing his way out one of the walls. Sam, meanwhile, tries to fake his way out by pretending to be a maintenance worker but Riley sees right through him and takes him into custody.
The rest of the episode finds the trio of Michael, Fi and Jesse trying to rescue Sam and trying to stay one step ahead of Riley. The gang manages to get some supplies from one of their storage units and Sam sets Riley up with a fake location for where the group was going to meet, at a local marina. Michael decides instead of letting Riley lose time searching the marina while they go the other direction, they should go and set up an ambush and rescue Sam in the confusion. The gang sets up their usual explosive trap but Riley again outsmarts Sam after he tries to BS which boat is Michael’s. Riley sends her team in on foot and they discover the explosives, forcing the team to rethink their strategy. Fi and Jesse head down a storm drain and into the sewers while Michael turns his phone back on and makes a phony call to his old buddy, Sugar, to lure the tactical team to him. Jesse and Fi manage to outflank Riley in the nick of time and she orders her team to stand down, letting Michael walk out through a gauntlet of dagger eyed CIA agents and the team now has to figure out how they can clear their names while dodging the relentless Agent Riley, who promises them all that she will capture them all, no matter what.
I like that, unlike, I believe, season four, where Michael was accused of murdering a CIA agent, Max, and then had to dance around and hide evidence until they could prove he didn’t do it; this time Michael definitely did murder Card and the CIA absolutely knows it was him. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of evidence so it will be interesting to see how the gang will be able to prove their innocence, if at all. Riley seems like a great antagonist as well, someone who will not take the group’s usual BS and cons so they will have to drastically rethink their strategy. The show is off next week for Thanksgiving but it’s back on the 29th with special guest, Patton Oswalt, so that should be fun.
- Who Am I?: Still just Michael this week, no crazy accents or identities
- Spy Tip of the Week:If you have to escape a parking garage, a heavy, late model car can allow to create your own exit.
- Sam Axeism of the Week: “I thought we were screwed seven ways from Sunday but you can add ways 8 and 9 to that”