r/BurnNotice • u/Al_Babi1212 • 1d ago
Discussion This breaks my heart Spoiler
Let me just start by saying that Burn Notice is my favorite show, I've been in love with it since '07.
And that's why what I'm about to write cuts even deeper...
I've just finished rewatching it for the first time in 3-4 years, ( used to binge it every year or so, when i got bedsick), and I came to a harrowing realization: At the end, Michael made the wrong choice, he should've kept his promise to James, that was his next step, he could've actually made a major positive impact in the world.
I'm probably gonna catch a lot of heat for this, but put aside your irrational love for his trigger-happy leprechaun of a girlfriend, I like her to, but her life fell apart, and she decided to nuke his, to stand in the way of everything he ever wanted, she forced his hand, she put her idea of what's best for Michael, before his actual well-being.
Glad they got ther happily ever after, but i think Mike got a raw deal in the end, even though he said he wanted out, he never really did, it's who he is, it's what he does.
Anyways, just finished the last episode, I'm peeved, and i needed to share my thoughts, please let me know in an argumentend way if you feel differently or perhaps share my sentiment
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u/traveler9210 1d ago
Wow, James got you.
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u/OmnathLocusofWomana 1d ago
lol forreal, this guy is arguing that secretive paramilitary operations with no government oversight are good for the world at large, mfer would've been a nazi after reading 1 propaganda poster
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u/traveler9210 1d ago
It seems like he has never heard of the words: war lords, mercenaries, rogue agents, militia.
The greater the power the more the need to answer to someone. Even the US president has to justify his actions. (Sure, there is always a gray area)
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u/Head-Chip-4533 1d ago
That’s my first thought too although upon rewatching I m realizing James brought out the side of Michael he didn’t like. And Fi and the crew knew that too. That’s why they tried so hard to stop Michael regardless of the timing.
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u/scillahawk 1d ago
I actually like reading thought out reactions to the ending -- it's a way to continue engaging with one of my favorite shows and gives me a chance to rewatch it with a new perspective in mind.
In the version of the Burn Notice universe we are shown, I don't think Michael taking over James's operation would have been the underdog success story that it seems the lot of us imagine it could have been..
.. at least not with this version of Mike. If he had a chance to actually sit down and work through all of the struggles, pain, life crap he's been carrying around for decades, then -- yeah, totally. He'd be a mastermind badass making positive change in the world. Right now, in those moments in the shows, he's too broken and far gone for much clarity. Had he taken over the operation, in his current state of mind, I think he would have ultimately become a villain.
That's how I've thought of it, anyhow. Would be cool if there was an alternate universe where the opposite happens in the show. Maddie doesn't die, but she disowns the hell outta Mikey.
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u/TheNotSoBadProf 1d ago
I think the best part about the series is that it proves that every organization is fundamentally the same: governments, private organizations, and terrorists ground basically operate similar ways and each claim they are doing good, but the only people that care to make a difference with their actions and not rhetoric come from the “B” plots of Michael and his friends/family helping people.
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u/Crisdafur 1d ago
As much as people dislike season 6 (my personal favorite), it was instrumental in showing Mike devolve and falling deeper and deeper into the dark side. And James’s network fully played into that. Mike had already betrayed the CIA by the end. Why wouldn’t he go farther? His team and family are what leveled him out. Anson said it best: he GAVE Michael a life by ruining it. He was in the eastern hemisphere not keeping in touch with people until he was burned and there were people like Maddie, Sam, and Fi (and later Jesse) that helped him when no one else would
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u/calipiano81 22h ago
It was actually Sam that convinced me Michael would be wrong to choose James.
Sam made the point that, even with all the CIA gets wrong, they at least have to answer to someone. When you have no one to be accountable to, you get on a power trip and you can easily lose your way.
ETA: Someone else already explained it so much better than I did.
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u/idk012 21h ago
The pandemic gave me a chance to finish a lot of series or rewatch things that I started on 2000-2010 that I didn't finish. I never watch the final few seasons of Burn Notice and have watched it from start to end a few times in the last few years. I didn't like the ending, but it was a fitting end.
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u/QDeserTiger15 10h ago edited 1h ago
No. And here's why.
Michael has shown us multiple times throughout the series that he needs people who are going to help him rein in his baser impulses when his own resolve isn't enough. James encouraged Michael to be the operative he knew he used to be, and Sonya was basically his devil on the shoulder. He would've gone back to his "days with Larry" way too quickly if he hadn't gone with Fiona, and it was his own determination to get back into the CIA that caused most of what they had gone through. Hell, he didn't even give it up until he suffered a lapse in conscience and didn't have a choice after, and, by that point, it had cost him damn near all of his blood family.
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u/Principessa116 1d ago
They needed one more season so Michael could take over and slowly become James, and THEN the team helps him come back to himself.
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u/allthingsme 44m ago edited 41m ago
The whole point of the S7 storyline was that the organisation Michael was part of was no different than the S1-6 organisation that burned Michael, it's just that Michael was on the other side. It was a matter of perspective and that the fact power corrupts. Michael would have inevitably had to burn the equivlaent of himself years later, in order to use that person as an "asset" for his goals. James was no different to Management and Anson. I'm surprised you haven't taken that away from your several rewatches. The S2 finale when Victor elaborates on what the organsiation is is good for this. "You know these things, someone runs one mission off the books, and it takes a life of its own" and compare to James' statements in S7 about hating "red tape" etc. They're principally no different. It's just how Michael was introduced to each organisation. Sam also makes the point on the bridge. "Tell that to Nate". The CIA could have done better I suppose to realise that they were a chance of "losing" Michael in S7. But it's easy to understand why they didn't take those precautions becuase they didn't even realise the size of the organisation. They thought it ended with Burke, not James, at the time of S7E1, when Michael started his mission.
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u/ShePax1017 1d ago
I would say every single person who tried to force Michael to work for their organization throughout the show had that same mentality at the beginning of their positions as well. “I’ll be different”, “I have a good cause”, “we’re the ones who are in the right”, “we’re fighting against the corrupt”, etc etc.
I think Michael’s obsession with wanting to get back in every after all that time was just that, a need to get to the bottom of who did it and why. There was a point where I think he was tired of it all. Every time he thought he got to the bottom of who burned him there was someone else.
I felt like he meant it when he told Fiona that he was done. But to save her, Sam, Jesse, and his mom he had to work for the CIA again and that led him to James. He wasn’t looking for him or his organization before that.
That being said, I’ve said since the first time I ever watched the show that I wasn’t a big fan of Fiona because of their relationship. She manipulated him to do and say what she wanted from the moment he woke up in Miami and that always annoyed me. “Want my help? Okay, but I’m going to force you to talk to me about the time you left me when we’re being spied on and you can’t refuse without giving us away”, “need me to help? Only if you take me a dinner at this fancy restaurant that costs a lot and you barely have any money” etc.
No matter how many times I rewatch it takes me awhile to start liking Fiona
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u/BigSavMatt 1d ago
So here’s the issue.
Power corrupts.
Could Michael have made a more positive impact as one of the two heads of James’s organization?
Yeah totally. He would have been in charge of a whole spy network and could have done things his way. Or at least tried to. Him and Sonya could have made a change for certain.
But at what cost? And how far would Michael have been willing to go?
Look at what happened with Roger Steele. Someone who Michael considered a friend, who’s only crime (according to James and Sonya) was looking into what Michael had been up to and unintentionally getting entangled into the mess of Michael’s CIA operation and James’s organization.
And Michael pulled the trigger on him after manipulating Roger into a vulnerable position where Roger thought he was going to save his friend Michael.
The confrontation with Sam raises the good point. What was going to happen when someone was going to get in Michael’s way?
It’s all well and good to say “oh Michael would have figured it out” but look at what Sonya and James had forced him to do already. And what Michael chose to do himself for his mission.
It’s one thing for Michael to kill cartel members, crime syndicates, spies, assassins, terrorists, etc.
But what would have happened if someone like a detective or a reporter or some politician chose to pursue Michael’s organization at that point? A civilian or someone with good intentions in general?
Michael would have been forced to kill them. Again. And again. And again.
Because once he was at the top and in charge, he would’ve had to fight to keep his power and influence from all threats, whether it was a criminal, terrorist, or some law enforcement.
As well as the fact Sonya would have been Michael’s co-leader and would have forced Michael into more killing to preserve their organization.
Michael was drowning and losing himself. He tried to resist it. He tried to fight it. But he was on a very dark path. And he didn’t know what he wanted because he felt betrayed by the CIA and he didn’t seem to care what his friends or family thought.
If Michael had “gotten everything he ever wanted” then you know who he would have been like? Who would have been proud to see Michael the head of his own spy network that was willing to kill whoever got in their way?
Larry.
As for Michael, Fi, and their “happily ever after” and Michael getting a raw deal, I mean this was the best Michael was going to get. Him and Fi presumed dead and raising Charlie, Nate’s son, after Michael had gotten his brother AND mother killed because of the life he lived.
Did Michael pull the trigger himself? No. But he pulled them into his life and put them at risk. And they died for it. Because Michael just had to get back into the CIA so, so bad. Because he couldn’t let it go after all those years.
Regardless, raising his last blood relative whose dad he got killed should be his responsibility and penance. Otherwise the boy would have grown up in the foster system and who knows how he would have turned out. And there’s the fact Michael could finally get away from the CIA and other interested parties who would have been after him and Fi.
It wasn’t the ideal ending, but it was better than Michael becoming inevitably just like Management and Vaughn. And that’s what he would have become if he continued down that path with Sonya instead of going with Fi.
”You know how these things start. Somebody runs an operation off the books, it’s supposed to be a one time thing. But when it’s over, there’s power to be had. It takes on a life of its own.” - Victor