Mixed Messages

The second episode drives home even more clearly that this is a whole NEW season with new rules - and a face-lift?. It is clear that Fiona no longer lives in the loft - it is reverting back to it's "wild and natural" state. The workbench is back where it belongs and it is clear that Michael is... let's say, "less controlled" as he threw it across the room after reading a letter written from her prison cell! With Michael begging for advice, Sam no longer can be just one of the "troops" and is letting his true abilities take action. That included pointing Michael toward an old favor he could call in from someone now high in the agency.

Jesse showed us what got him well known in his former counter-intelligence job dealing with cartels. Although, I must say, not without dealing with some more flippantly-evil terrorists than we have been used to dealing with on the series.

Even Fiona is a better character without anyone to "posture" for and her time being now absorbed by sheer "survival." She truly acquits herself well amongst the prison population, does have some privacy, being in a single cell for the "Worst of the Worst," and showed that she can be as innovative as Michael. Madeline and Nate seem less demanding and controlling, and more "back-story" is seeping out through the cracks.

If it weren't for a haunting premonition and concern that the tenor of the writing seems to be getting a bit more gratuitously "mean spirited" and the hint of some writing merely for "shock value" creeping in, we might be resting easy in an early presumption of a great season with a "number 7" close behind it. As it is, for now those of us die hard Burn Notice fans can feel as unsettled as Michael - what's happening to our world?