Burn Notice returned in the season five premiere with Michael still burned, but working with the CIA as an asset traveling worldwide to bring down the network of people who burned him four years ago.
The story picked up six months after the finale. Michael basically abandoned Fiona and Sam to complete this mission. I expected the season to start right where it left off, but I was pleasantly surprised in how the jump forward occurred. The short montage effectively showed the extremes Michael took to get the people who burned him and we, the viewers, got to avoid seeing Michael without the rest of his team. While I think that story would have been full of adventure and enjoyable to watch, it wouldn’t have been Burn Notice. It would have been the Michael Westen Show.
The creative decision to pickup the story with the presumably last person responsible for burning Michael, Kessler, was the correct one. I hope that over the coming episodes we get some further insight into what Fiona and Sam were doing during these six months. Perhaps, a case they were working on will come back up again.
The addition of Grant Show as the CIA agent working with Michael created an interesting dynamic. The dichotomy between Max’s methods and Michael’s were what makes Burn Notice not your everyday spy show. It is such a thrill to watch because of the team’s MacGyver methods and lack of official restraints. And, watching Michael try to conform to those standards was awkward and made the return to his free-spirited ways even more dramatic.
Michael’s insistence that Kessler be taken alive and him dying leads me to believe that the story of Michael’s burning is not over. Where does Michael go from here? When it comes to Michael, I don’t trust the CIA. I have a feeling they were just using him to eliminate this rogue organization and will betray him in the end. Unfortunately, that means Michael will remain burned. Will he turn against the CIA? Or, find a new foe to chase?
Notes and Quotes:
Clacked by Carla Day 
on Jun 23, 2011 @ 22:20 EST5EDT
I don’t know if I’m alone but I assumed from the moment that Grant Show was introduced that he would turn out to be the evil mastermind behind it all, while the Kessler person would just be a figurehead to hide behind.
After all of the build up, I find it extremely hard to believe that there’s not another twist coming soon. I’m still wondering if there’s more to the Max character than we saw in this episode.
Of course, I’m also the person who thought that Michael’s dad would end up being alive, a criminal mastermind, and the person behind getting him burned (so that he would eventually join him), so my theories are usually a little…elaborate.
*POST AUTHOR*
Hmm. I wonder if there is more to Grant Show. I usually have similar thoughts about characters, but didn’t with him.
About Michael’s father, I also always assumed he was alive and was somehow involved in Michael’s situation. Now that you mention it, how odd was it for Madeline to bring up Michael’s “dead” father at the end. Foreshadowing? Interesting….