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Burn Notice 5.01 Company Man
You know, normally Burn Notice coming back would be the main focus of my day, but Meet the Medic was coming out today and I hurt my back something fierce a few weeks ago, both of which kind of one-upped BN when it came to occupying my thoughts. As it turned out, we didn't even remember that today was when it was back until ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
relia was browsing the TV schedule and found out 50 minutes before it was due to come on. Thank god for that, Rel? Then again, USA reruns everything, we would've caught it in short order one way or another.
Oy. Hmm. In general, I'm happy that BN is willing (so far) to actually advance its plotline and get Michael un-burned and working with the CIA, though he's not technically un-burned yet, so it may be he just gets a taste of triumph and a hard fall afterward. At which point he'd basically be leading the most futile spy existence ever, like Number Six in The Prisoner. But at least it's some major setup change at the moment, and you don't often see that with TV series -- however, you don't often see that with TV series for pretty good reason. Already with the help of one CIA mission and one new CIA Boyfriend (so dubbed because apparently he is the season's first Michael foe yay, I guess they're getting an early start) it's getting awkward for Michael's team relationship with Sam and Fi: Michael already had problems treating them like equals, but their whole trio dynamic was built on not having anyone else; if he has other people, it gets even more uncomfortably patronizing on his part. I'll have to see where this is going.
Speaking of things that are uncomfortable and patronizing, I find myself more and more retroactively weirded out by Michael and Fiona's relationship. In the beginning of the show it's kind of vomitously Steven Moffat "woman is obsessively, over-the-toply into 'reasonable' man who's fondly indifferent to her." Subsequent seasons have gotten better on that front -- sometimes it comes off more like Michael's emotionally repressed, rather than just not-that-into-her, and they try to fix it a lot -- but the basic problem is still there. It's a show primarily marketed to hetero guys. The idea that some kind of sexy BAMF IRA sniper woman would still want to spend all her time throwing herself at you, a man who treats her like an annoying relative half the time, is kind of a hetero male fantasy. Michael doesn't really pay nearly enough attention to Fi to warrant the kind of devotion he gets from her -- but then again, that's how it is with Men On A Mission and Women Who Want Men And Family And Stability, right? Bleh.
Basically, why is it that Michael's hard-knock life has given him the right to be full of manpain and emotional problems and unfinished business, whereas Fiona's hard-knock life (which I think we all agree has been equally if not more hard-knock) has given her the right to... not get nearly as much character development, and obsess over Michael, and otherwise be kind of blandly well-adjusted (beyond 'violentness' played for laughs)? Of course, part of the answer to this question is: because Michael's the main character of Burn Notice, of course he gets the most development. But I think another part is: because Michael is a man and Fiona is a woman, so of course he gets the right to have more manpain. That's why it's called 'manpain.' Women exist primarily in relation to their men. I am getting sick and tired of "man is passionate about the cause, woman would rather settle down" stories.
Also, their sex scene was especially weird on that front. How many people are happy with wincing tolerant indifference on the part of their partner? I would like it for Fi if she got most anything but wincing tolerant indifference from Michael except from, say, when her life is in danger.
Aside from that, hmm. I liked the Sam-and-Fi dynamic in this, but of course I'm always going to be that passive-aggressive Sam/Fiona shipper just a little bit, and Sam is my favoritest. And he was a delightful Sam in this. He is incapable of not being a delightful Sam. They worked together really well, and even aside from shipping them, they relate on a way more lateral and equal level than either of them does with Michael. I think their helping on the CIA mission was kind of contrived, though, and tacked-on to avoid the otherwise glaring reality that CIA Boyfriend is right: why would they be needful on a CIA mission?
The Maddie-Michael exchange at the end of the episode was great, but I'm almost always a fan of the show's writing of the Westen family and the Westen family background, just in general: and also characters vindicating and validating the fact that there are some things you just don't get to heal from, yes, that was awesome. They have had a hell of a great complicated parent-child relationship over the seasons, and you don't often get that with mothers and sons.
I'm glad Jesse is still around! I'd like to note that Jesse is much better at making definitive decisions about his life than Michael is, though, of which Fiona may also want to take note for future reference.
I admit I like CIA Boyfriend. I wonder if he's going to have to die to keep Michael from having his help all the time and too much Sam Vimes Has Too Many Goddamn Friends Syndrome for Michael over time.
Can we talk about the trope of using Latin American countries as playgrounds for spy shows and action movies? Nothing in this episode made me specifically uneasy, but the trope in general does -- I feel like aside from the idea that they are full of "jungle," IE undiscovered land where bad guys can put compounds and people can be stranded, film and TV directors assume that their viewers aren't going to have any factual accuracy alarms going off in their heads and they can treat the laws and infrastructure there with alarming impunity. Whereas in Miami viewers may go "wait, Miami doesn't work that way," who's to say whether Venezuela works that way? It's some far-off Spanish-speaking country! For all they know it works that way! So let's stick all the corruption and firefights in here we like! Haha -- ah, no.
relia was browsing the TV schedule and found out 50 minutes before it was due to come on. Thank god for that, Rel? Then again, USA reruns everything, we would've caught it in short order one way or another.Oy. Hmm. In general, I'm happy that BN is willing (so far) to actually advance its plotline and get Michael un-burned and working with the CIA, though he's not technically un-burned yet, so it may be he just gets a taste of triumph and a hard fall afterward. At which point he'd basically be leading the most futile spy existence ever, like Number Six in The Prisoner. But at least it's some major setup change at the moment, and you don't often see that with TV series -- however, you don't often see that with TV series for pretty good reason. Already with the help of one CIA mission and one new CIA Boyfriend (so dubbed because apparently he is the season's first Michael foe yay, I guess they're getting an early start) it's getting awkward for Michael's team relationship with Sam and Fi: Michael already had problems treating them like equals, but their whole trio dynamic was built on not having anyone else; if he has other people, it gets even more uncomfortably patronizing on his part. I'll have to see where this is going.
Speaking of things that are uncomfortable and patronizing, I find myself more and more retroactively weirded out by Michael and Fiona's relationship. In the beginning of the show it's kind of vomitously Steven Moffat "woman is obsessively, over-the-toply into 'reasonable' man who's fondly indifferent to her." Subsequent seasons have gotten better on that front -- sometimes it comes off more like Michael's emotionally repressed, rather than just not-that-into-her, and they try to fix it a lot -- but the basic problem is still there. It's a show primarily marketed to hetero guys. The idea that some kind of sexy BAMF IRA sniper woman would still want to spend all her time throwing herself at you, a man who treats her like an annoying relative half the time, is kind of a hetero male fantasy. Michael doesn't really pay nearly enough attention to Fi to warrant the kind of devotion he gets from her -- but then again, that's how it is with Men On A Mission and Women Who Want Men And Family And Stability, right? Bleh.
Basically, why is it that Michael's hard-knock life has given him the right to be full of manpain and emotional problems and unfinished business, whereas Fiona's hard-knock life (which I think we all agree has been equally if not more hard-knock) has given her the right to... not get nearly as much character development, and obsess over Michael, and otherwise be kind of blandly well-adjusted (beyond 'violentness' played for laughs)? Of course, part of the answer to this question is: because Michael's the main character of Burn Notice, of course he gets the most development. But I think another part is: because Michael is a man and Fiona is a woman, so of course he gets the right to have more manpain. That's why it's called 'manpain.' Women exist primarily in relation to their men. I am getting sick and tired of "man is passionate about the cause, woman would rather settle down" stories.
Also, their sex scene was especially weird on that front. How many people are happy with wincing tolerant indifference on the part of their partner? I would like it for Fi if she got most anything but wincing tolerant indifference from Michael except from, say, when her life is in danger.
Aside from that, hmm. I liked the Sam-and-Fi dynamic in this, but of course I'm always going to be that passive-aggressive Sam/Fiona shipper just a little bit, and Sam is my favoritest. And he was a delightful Sam in this. He is incapable of not being a delightful Sam. They worked together really well, and even aside from shipping them, they relate on a way more lateral and equal level than either of them does with Michael. I think their helping on the CIA mission was kind of contrived, though, and tacked-on to avoid the otherwise glaring reality that CIA Boyfriend is right: why would they be needful on a CIA mission?
The Maddie-Michael exchange at the end of the episode was great, but I'm almost always a fan of the show's writing of the Westen family and the Westen family background, just in general: and also characters vindicating and validating the fact that there are some things you just don't get to heal from, yes, that was awesome. They have had a hell of a great complicated parent-child relationship over the seasons, and you don't often get that with mothers and sons.
I'm glad Jesse is still around! I'd like to note that Jesse is much better at making definitive decisions about his life than Michael is, though, of which Fiona may also want to take note for future reference.
I admit I like CIA Boyfriend. I wonder if he's going to have to die to keep Michael from having his help all the time and too much Sam Vimes Has Too Many Goddamn Friends Syndrome for Michael over time.
Can we talk about the trope of using Latin American countries as playgrounds for spy shows and action movies? Nothing in this episode made me specifically uneasy, but the trope in general does -- I feel like aside from the idea that they are full of "jungle," IE undiscovered land where bad guys can put compounds and people can be stranded, film and TV directors assume that their viewers aren't going to have any factual accuracy alarms going off in their heads and they can treat the laws and infrastructure there with alarming impunity. Whereas in Miami viewers may go "wait, Miami doesn't work that way," who's to say whether Venezuela works that way? It's some far-off Spanish-speaking country! For all they know it works that way! So let's stick all the corruption and firefights in here we like! Haha -- ah, no.