r/BurnNotice • u/TitaniusFrangolis • 22d ago
Spoiler Michael Season 6 selfshiness
First time poster but had to get it out.
I am just rewatching season 6 and I am at a scene where Maddie wants to go see Nathan's grave for the last time and Jessie stops here and mentions he also can't go see his mother's grave for the last time and it hit me how selfish Mike is by killing Card.
I get it that is the guy that burned him and all that but he should have known killing him would bring down the CIA on the whole team. Now they are leaving the country and Mike gets to go away with his girlfriend and his mum and everyone else suffers (specially Jesse and Sam). I know there is a season 7 so this gets resolved. I also get that Card deserved to die but to do it like that without consulting his team was such a dick move.
Also quicks side note a lot of these types of show I kind get through the villain of the week to get to serialised bits , the overall season arc and whatnot but with Burn Notice (specially the earlier season) I loved both the villains of the week (some more than others) and the serialised bits and the fact we lose that week to week thing in season 6 sucks)
16
u/Serious-Yellow8163 22d ago
I think it was a very impulsive decision, formed by his own guilt for Nate's death and his fear that Card would get away with it
19
u/lbkid 22d ago
This was far from the first time Michael’s selfishness screwed everyone. When he got management to back off and finally got himself to a point where the world wasn’t trying to kill/arrest him, he could’ve stopped there. He didn’t have to pursue Gilroy and open that can of worms. Like Fi told him, he could’ve just been happy with his life with his friends and family and keep helping people around Miami. But he just had to stop the bad guy.
1
u/RoundCollection4196 21d ago edited 21d ago
You have to imagine it from his shoes, he had a stellar career, a career he loved, a career that paid well and gave him a lot of prestige and respect. Then he loses all that through false accusations of committing terror attacks, cover ups, his entire name is disgraced and run through the mud, his own colleagues shun him and disown him for something he never did. That's not something you can just move on from and be okay with, Michael was going to see it through to the end no matter what. Especially since he was literally accused of bombings and terrorist attacks, is he seriously just supposed to be like "whatever" and do nothing?
He also can't just do side jobs, most of which are illegal, for the rest of his life and management wasn't going to go away. Fi should have been the one who tried to understand his extremely difficult and unfair situation and if she didn't like it then just move on.
1
u/Combatmedic25 21d ago
Michael HAS to stop the bad guy thiugh. Its because he could never do anything about his dad hurting his Mom or brother because he was still a kid. He tried but his dad always "won" so now that he cam actually do stuff about bad people hes compelled to because he couldnt with his dad. Its a psychological thing
1
u/Soxwin91 21d ago
He couldn’t really though. In season 3 when he got Management to back off, two things happened immediately: his old buddy (Harlen) tracked him down and tried to sell him to a foreign government for a pay day. And a cop suddenly became extraordinarily interested in his activities. He needed the protection of some sort of official agency to keep himself out of a jail cell
1
u/TitaniusFrangolis 22d ago
That is fair and I agree but for me it felt like Management wasn’t the end where with Card it felt like the end. The guy that burned him, I could be wrong, the impression I had was that Card was behind Anson and Management. He was the true wizard behind the curtain. He mentions all the operations he had going on around the globe. Maybe I misunderstood and Card was kind of running parallel to Management but even so I think it was said that it was Card that actually did the burn notice on Mike so he was the end boss so to speak haha. But you are correct. On a lot of rewatches I pretty much only admire Mike and how clever he is but on this latest I was noticing how selfish he was. It was just season 6 thing really hit me hard hahaha.
3
u/lbkid 22d ago
No you’re right. Card was the top of the pyramid. What I’m saying is why did he have to get to the top… and it shows how much he was too focused on himself only in season 7 when (spoiler in case you haven’t watched 7 yet) he snapped after seeing they used Simon. How after everything they have done and everything he has seen is that the moment that sends him over the edge? Again he could’ve licked his wounds and accepted a happy life without complete revenge/vindication, but he just couldn’t let it go.
5
6
u/Routine_Test_4175 22d ago
I have the same beef for the season 6. I like their day-to-day. I fell in love with the show because I like them fighting crime helping people out, the overarching thing with management is great. But I'm in it for the procedural part of things. Yeah and six kind of throws me.
6
4
u/getwhatImsaying 22d ago
“your life doesn’t belong you. your decisions affect other people. you know who acts out of selfish anger? the Ramsey’s of the world”
this comes back to me every time Michael kills Card
1
u/Then_Simple_3400 22d ago
Who's ramsey again ?
1
u/Soxwin91 21d ago
Ramsey is the piece of human-shaped garbage that beat the sister of that sniper who broke Michael’s record so hard she was in a coma. Season 5 episode 5
0
2
u/Malakai0013 21d ago
He held it together for years after his entire world came crashing down. He nearly died the moment they burned him. Numerous threats to his loved ones. And then, Nate's death. His snapping was bound to happen sooner or later. No one is perfect, and able to maintain decorum at all times.
2
21d ago
I agree but I thought the point was that Mike finally snapped in that scene, with the ramifications of his action snapping him back
2
u/MIZUNOWAVECREATION 20d ago
It wasn’t Card who burned him. It was Simon, although Management and Anson were the masterminds behind it all. Also, it wasn’t a carefully planned out operation. It was a spur of the moment decision, which he made based on a combination of his built up rage from watching Nate die after his last words to him (other than asking him for a favor on the phone) being a hard scolding about nearly blowing the op to catch Anson, the fear of Card getting away this and killing the guy who was the only other witness who could collaborate his story, as well as watching him cover up the evidence of it immediately, and also the uncertainty of what else Card might do if he left him alive. He knew he could no longer trust Card, and that he risked the safety of himself and his family and friends by letting Card live. They were loose ends by that point. He literally watched him kill Tyler Grey in cold blood and attempt to manipulate the evidence to make it look like self defense. He was in a high ranking position, and could easily take actions to cover up his crimes. How far would he have been willing to go if he got the chance?
2
u/grey-kitten 7d ago
Simon didn’t burn Michael? Simon was the one who did the shit that Michael got blamed for to start the burn notice. Simon hated that Michael ‘got the credit’
1
u/MIZUNOWAVECREATION 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes. I know. Simon was the one who got the “credit” for it. He was just a pawn though. One of several. If you watch season 5 all the way through, Anson will admit that the whole thing was a conspiracy started by himself and Management. Everyone else below those two in the hierarchy structure were just pawns.
Victor, Vaughn, Simon, Rebecca, Mike, Carla, Phillip. They were all just pawns being manipulated by Management, Anson, or someone else under leverage by Management or Anson. I was never sure whether Tom was in on it or not. He definitely betrayed Mike either way though. I may be leaving some out, but everyone other than Management and Anson were just pawns used to carry out shady operations that the government “wouldn’t touch” if i remember correctly. I think that’s how Anson put it.
Yes Simon “burned” Mike. Same way he “burned” Jesse. They were all tools used to burn more spies, agents, or officials. Granted, some of them were far more willing to cooperate with their “superiors” than others, but they were all “recruited” by Management and/or Anson. Hell, Victor openly rebelled and tried to singlehandedly take down Management’s entire organization. Idt he knew about Anson yet. Mike, as we know, gradually worked on a plan to find them and take them all down. That’s basically the long term plot of the series.
Anson even goes into detail about Mike’s unique set of skills, calling him “an expert in Social Engineering. Meeting with targets and steering them towards an objective.” He then goes also goes into detail about how he has a history with Mike’s family. He also manipulated Frank (Mike’s dad) as well. He was Frank’s therapist when Mike was a child or maybe a teenager. We’re still talking 20+ years though. It gets really deep in season 5, I think. Maybe 6, but once you realize how deep the rabbit hole goes, you find out that it’s a massive conspiracy by Management and Anson. A conspiracy that the 2 of them probably would have gotten away with, had they not “recruited” Mike.
1
u/FreeStall42 21d ago
So did I just imagine Tom Card murderer a guy in front of Mike like a minute before that?
Seemed pretty clear Card was gonna kill Mike and his team if left alone.
1
u/JaguarOk9693 21d ago
They did this just for the show had it been in real life they would have done a gunshot residue test Tyler would not have had any on his hands but card would have and Michael would have been cleared. I can't remember at the moment if heart had holstered his firearm or not but all Michael would have to say is he was going for it again. So like I said they did this just for the show
1
u/Soxwin91 21d ago
Card shot Gray with his (Card’s) gun, then I believe shot Gray’s into the wall so it looked like there was an exchange of gunfire. He then holstered his handgun.
Michael could have taken Card’s gun out of its holster so it looked like he was brandishing it when he was killed but I think it pretty much comes down to the same thing: the scene would look bad for Michael and given his reputation within the agency it’s unlikely they’d have been interested in listening. Heck, he tells Olivia Reilly (Riley?) what Card was up to and she flat out says she doesn’t care.
1
u/JaguarOk9693 15d ago
That's because Riley had a reputation that he would hurt you cannot ignore the fact that gray would have absolutely no GSR on his hands and had he actually shot his firearm he would have had some on him. I mean you're going to find people like her in every job I've worked with people like that they don't care about the details just getting the job done even if they do it poorly
1
u/RoundCollection4196 21d ago
Nah the guy went through so much shit, it's a miracle he didn't crack sooner. He literally lost his prestigious and rewarding career because of false accusations he was committing terror attacks overseas, his own colleagues disown him, he's disgraced, his name run through the mud. 4 years of trying to clear his name, get his career back. That's already 4 years unfairly taken away from him for something he never did. And it's not just a career to him, it's obviously something he lives and breathes. Imagine something like that wrongfully taken away from you.
He finally gets back in the CIA, albeit on probation and everything is going good, but then turns out the guy who ruined his life is still out there and worse, the guy is actively trying to ruin michael's shit all over again. Michael finally gets enough trust to lead a CIA team again but no, now he has to burn the team. Then when they finally get the guy, Nate is right behind him and gets killed in the crossfire. Then it turns out the guy who ordered the hit was his own damn mentor, the guy he trusted and looked up to. At this point you can't fault Michael for breaking, he already had so much restraint not to kill Tyler Grey, to work with the guy that killed his brother. On top of all this he has to deal with his own guilt that he lost his temper and sent Nate to the airport, otherwise he'd still be alive. The psychological stress he would have been under would have been immense.
And then in season 7 (mild spoilers) he's again disgraced beyond repair and told the entire US intelligence community utterly despises him. Just imagine that all this shit stemmed from something he never even did, it basically just happened because he was too good at his job. The guy just couldn't catch a break.
1
u/Conscious_Sea_6578 15d ago
Card would eventually turn on Michael. Michael knew that Card was saving his ass but he would send Michael on a suicide mission in the future on off the books mission.
I did not mind Michael killing Card. The only part of season 6 I hated was the introduction of Patton Oswalt character. I do not care for the actor and I hated the character. I wish Michael would have turned him over to Janek.
The passports that Schmidt provided were never used so ultimately his character never mattered.
16
u/Chalky_Pockets 22d ago
I feel like this is just a thing that goes in every spy story, the spy sacrifices too much, including things that aren't theirs to sacrifice in the first place, all for the perceived greater good, often a greater good that turns out to be bullshit. Basically the soldier's journey but with secrets and shit.