I always forget that ‘Burn Notice’ breaks up its seasons. The show has a summer finale and then comes back after a brief hiatus for a few more episodes and the fall finale. Yeah, it’s confusing, I know. I’ve spent all five years watching this show and still forget that it does this. This past week was the summer finale. What did you think?

I’ll tell you what I thought about ‘Dead to Rights’. Michael sure is letting his guard down far too often, but I like how his lack of focus is integrated into the story.

After the botched attempt to bring in Max’s killer, Michael is freed from CIA custody when the Agency realizes that he wasn’t the killer after all. That doesn’t stop Agent Pearce from glowering at him any moment she can, because her feelings are hurt that he didn’t tell her the truth from the start. Well, lady, if Michael would have told you the truth, then we wouldn’t have had a season, now would we? Sadly, the man Michael was hunting and the answers that he mysteriously held die with him when he jumps off a building before Michael can get to him. Back to Square One. Someone is trying to get at Michael and he doesn’t know whom.

Cue scumbag Larry, Michael’s “friend” who has been in a few episodes before this. Larry is a sociopath who doesn’t share the same morals as Michael. With Michael so distracted, Larry is able to get the drop on him. He’s kidnaps a man who knows the security codes to the British consulate. They’re supposed to break in and plant evidence so that Larry will get a hefty payday. In order to get Michael to go along with the plan, Larry threatens to kill the man’s wife with a bomb tied around her neck. Michael has no choice, so he goes along with the plan.

Most of the episode is Larry laughing maniacally as he revels in getting Michael to do whatever he asks. Fast forward to the last few minutes. Fiona and Sam have found the kidnapped guy. Fi has enough planning, and thinks she’ll take it upon herself to free Michael from Larry’s evil grasp. Always trigger-happy (or should I say bomb-happy), Fi sticks some highly explosive C4 or somesuch substance to an outer window and presumably blows Larry to bits.

Just when you think everything is going to end nice and happy, with a few random shots of the Miami skyline and the crew sipping mojitos, we find out that the guy who was kidnapped was really pulling the strings all along. Now he’s got dirt on Fiona, who blew up an international consulate. Come to find out he’s one of the last people left from the organization that Michael helped dismantle – the same people who burned him. Now, this guy has new puppets to do his bidding, or he’ll turn in Fiona, who’ll go to jail for a very long time. It’s a little corny how this plays out. It’s almost like that episode of ‘The X-Files’ where Krycek plants nano-machines in Skinner’s body.

This all sets up a situation that seems like it’s been played out over and over already on the show: Someone tricks Michael into working for him, just long enough until Michael can figure a way out. My guess is that he finds a way out of this mess by the season’s real finale.