“Mike, you made me a promise. Now you look me in the eyes and swear to me you’re going to make this right,” says a dying Sam Ax (Bruce Campbell). “I swear I’m going to make it right Sam, Sam, SAM!” yells Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) to his unconscious best friend in the sixth season finale of the action/drama series Burn Notice.
Since executing his ex-mentor and friend Card after discovering he had been involved in originally getting him burned and tried to kill Mike and his friends while he was on a mission in Panama, Michael, Sam, Fiona, and Jesse have been relentlessly pursued by an obsessed CIA operative determined to bring in Westen dead or alive.
Just when the gang’s almost ready to leave the country, they get betrayed by the man who was supposed to aid their escape. While trying to get away, Jesse (Coby Bell) gets captured by CIA agents and Sam gets shot. Michael manages to make it back to the safe house with Sam and the CIA operative who shot him. After failing to extract any information from their prisoner, Michael and Fi let him get a hold of a phone and call special agent Riley (Sonja Sohn) so they can trace the call to find where Jesse is being held captive.
After rescuing Jesse from Riley and her goons with a gas attack, Michael and Fi return back to the safe house to find Sam in even worse shape. Realizing Sam had been underplaying how serious his wound was, he told them the bullet only grazed him, Fi calls an old surgeon friend of hers and tells him to expect them. As Fi speeds across Florida’s roads to get to the surgeon’s house, Michael holds a now dying Sam in his arms in the back seat. As Sam makes Michael swear to him that he will “make it right,” he passes out and seems to be on the brink of death. Michael, realizing he’s about to lose his best friend forever, uncharacteristically yells at Fiona, “Go Fi Go!”
Action-packed and riveting, the Burn Notice Season Six Finale closes what has been one of the best seasons in the series’ run. Jeffrey Donovan gives his strongest and most emotional performance as Michael Weston, the wronged ex-spy whose fight and struggle to clear his name has robbed him of his little brother Nate and now threatens to end the life of his best friend Sam. Donovan has moments of grief and fear his character rarely ever shows. It’s a performance worthy of an Emmy nomination. Gabrielle Anwar is tougher, sexier, and lovelier than ever as the loyal and loving girlfriend, Fiona. The concern and panic she conveys driving the car while her best friend Sam lies in the back bleeding out is perfect. Bruce Campbell is pitch-perfect as Sam, the retired Navy Seal who’s always willing to put himself in harm’s way for Michael, Fi, Jesse, and Mike’s mom. He’s the moral center of the group and in this episode the one who is facing the possibility of death.
The spy drama known for its top-notch action scenes and explosions ends this season with a two-hour finale with a high-speed race on the road, an obsessive CIA operative who just might be corrupt, two shoot-outs – including a drug cartel, a motorcycle chase around and through a hospital, and a chase and showdown on the ocean with the Coast Guard. Once again there is more action in this two-hour television series than in most big-screen action films, and it’s far more original than most.
With such high-caliber performances, excellent action scenes, wonderful writing, and a cast that has perfect chemistry, it’s going to be extremely difficult to wait until June for the brand new seventh season of Burn Notice.
GRADE: A-
