Yes, it’s cool and it’s glossy and it’s filled with attractive people. And guns and explosions and spy work and secret undercover coolness. And hilarity.
But that’s not why I love Burn Notice. (Those things don’t hurt, mind you.)
I love Burn Notice because of the characters. Namely one Michael Westen. (And no, I don’t mean Jeffrey Donovan, though he is quite attractive. I mean Michael Westen.) When USA says “Characters welcome,” they mean it.
Michael is a complex character—he’s terrible at interpersonal relationships. He does bad things. And though he wouldn’t talk about it and takes no pleasure in it, he has killed. He’s not above blackmail or letting the bad guys kill each other.
Though he’d prefer not to have to deal with them, Michael loves his mom and his brother and does all he can to protect them. In a recent episode (“End Run“), Michael was blackmailed into working for a bad guy because said bad guy threatened his brother. The writers even made it so that working for the bad guy wasn’t all that bad—he didn’t want a nuke, just a particular electronic interface. “People will go on killing each other in little wars all around the globe, whether or not you steal it,” he says. “The only difference is how much money I make while they do it.” To show he’ll make good on his threat, the bad guy even shoots Michael’s brother in the arm.
It wouldn’t be so wrong, then, would it? It would save his brother’s life (before he bleeds out, too), and it wouldn’t cost the world much.
Michael breaks into the office, gets the weapon and—sees a photo of a family. With kids. While that reminder helps him put together some of the scant evidence they’ve compiled about this bad guy, I think it also reminds him of the greater good. “I’m not handing over a nuke to save one life,” he tells the bad guy, “even if it is my brother’s.”
Michael is a great character because he’s strong—physically, yes, but more importantly, he’s extremely smart/savvy (mental strength, if you will). He even verges on too strong—as a blacklisted spy/former black ops soldier, he knows just what to do in any given situation. But he has weaknesses—the classics: children; his family; oh, and the fate of the entire world. Most importantly, he struggles.
And this time, he struggled because the choice was hard—it wasn’t save or destroy the world (or save the world, sacrifice integrity), it was save his brother or some small number of unknown people—possibly no one. The talented writers made it seem no great sin if Michael had decided to trade the weapon for his brother’s life. And he almost did.
But in the end, he didn’t. And that’s what I love most about Burn Notice.
Who are your favorite television characters? Why?
You can watch the full episode on Hulu until July 30.
