Burn Notice: Season Seven (2013)
Action | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Burn Notice (1)  |  Burn Notice (2)  |  Burn Notice (3)  |  Burn Notice (4)  |  Burn Notice (5)  |  Burn Notice (6)  |  Burn Notice (7)
Fall of Sam Axe


--- The final season of Burn Notice ---

Tagline: Spies don't get fired, they get burned.

The seventh and final season, consisting of 13 episodes, begins with Michael receiving an assignment from Andrew Strong, a high-ranking CIA official with whom he made the deal that got Maddie and his team set free. Strong made the deal because he believes Michael is the only person he can entrust with a dangerous mission that involves thwarting an American named Randall Burke who is believed to be running freelance terror operations; he is someone Strong has been tracking for eight years. Fiona has moved on to a new job with her new bounty hunter boyfriend. Sam and Jesse continue to help Michael despite, or perhaps because of, intrusions on their personal and professional lives. Maddie, meanwhile, is trying to get custody of Nate's son, Charlie, to keep him out of foster care. It turns out Burke is part of a larger organization, and he sacrifices his life in order to help Michael rescue a woman named Sonya, whom Burke called "the key to everything." Michael and the team begin working with Sonya to get deeper into her organization. As they do, Michael meets James, the man calling the shots for Sonya and Burke, and after passing some intense tests, Michael is welcomed into James' "family". It doesn't take long for Michael to find out that James works for peace and justice in the world, but uses extreme methods to get what he wants. Once Michael kills Sonya to protect Fiona, James sends his men to kill Maddie, Charlie, and Jesse. Maddie sacrifices herself to protect them and Michael shoots James, intent on taking him in custody. James blows up the building, hoping to kill Michael and Fiona. They escape, but must be presumed dead to protect themselves. Strong releases Sam and Jesse, without imprisonment.


Disc One: (2:48) --- New Deal - Forget Me Not - Down Range - Brothers In Arms
Disc Two: (2:52) --- Exit Plan - All or Nothing - Psychological Warfare - Nature of the Beast
Disc Three: (2:50) --- Bitter Pill - Things Unseen - Tipping Point - Sea Change
Disc Four: (0:43) --- Reckoning


7.01 New Deal - After cutting a deal with the CIA and now apart from his team, Michael is in the Dominican Republic, where he has been sent by his handler, Strong to infiltrate a terrorist network run by one of Michael's old friends. Michael poses as "an alcoholic ex-spy committing the occasional crime to pay the rent" to get the attention of Burke, who runs a Blackwater-like defense contract facility. Back home, Sam plans a party for his love interest, Elsa, Jesse has returned to work at his security firm, and Fiona is a bounty hunter working with a new love interest, Carlos. Maddie is attempting to gain legal custody of grandson Charlie. The team reunites when a stranger starts asking questions about Michael, using multiple covers and several phony accents. The stranger poses as an HHS employee and interviews Maddie about Charlie's custody. When he expresses concern to Maddie about her son's exploits, she unwittingly gives up Michael's status (not his location, but that he is still working for the CIA). Michael and Strong must then head back to Miami to track down the stranger.

7.02 Forget Me Not - Now back in Miami, Michael is forced to not have any contact with his team. He is, however, allowed to visit Maddie, because she is endangering the operation. There are flashbacks of Michael and Fiona's past relationship from when they first met in Ireland, as he monitors the team's effort to track down the stranger who had been asking questions. The stranger has been identified as Dexter Gamble, a man hired by a mercenary from the Dominican Republic who had connections to Burke. Gamble captures Fiona, and Strong must send in a task force to rescue her and arrest Gamble. During the entire time monitoring his former team, Michael must endure their complaints about the mess he left behind nine months ago before revealing himself. Michael then manages to successfully rescue Fiona and Gamble is shot to death. Fiona then signals to Michael that their relationship is officially over.

7.03 Down Range - A sketch of Michael is shown on Dominican TV, so he shaves his beard. Burke informs Michael that he must return to the Dominican Republic and steal a truck carrying $25 million worth of satellite uplinks. Michael convinces Agent Strong that Sam and Jesse are needed. Strong tells the three that Burke will be meeting with a fellow international terrorist named Rafael Serrano, who intends to buy the equipment. When Strong's snipers are spotted at the meeting by Burke's team, Michael manages to convice Burke that he is loyal to Burke by having Sam shoot at him. It turns out that Burke never wanted to sell the uplink equipment; he just wanted to kidnap Serrano. Later, Michael demands an explanation for the mission, and Burke reveals he is not the leader of a freelance terror ring as Strong had long suspected, but works for someone else. Back in Miami, Nate's former bookie threatens Madeline, demanding she pay Nate's debts. Madeline wants to pay up, but Fiona talks her out of it, saying that if one of Nate's creditors gets paid, others will arrive. Together, they plan to make the bookie look corrupt by stealing his money. After cracking his safe, they find his ledger to use as leverage, and force him to leave Madeline alone.

7.04 Brothers In Arms - Burke tells Michael that they must free a woman named Sonya, whom he calls "the future, the key to everything," from a group of Russian spies. Burke knows that Serrano has information on the woman's whereabouts, and has Michael threaten Serrano's young daughter (forcing Serrano to watch via Michael's POV camera) to get him to reveal that Sonya is being held in Cuba. Shortly after, Burke convinces Serrano to commit suicide. With help from Sam and Jesse who come to Cuba, along with Fiona and Madeline back in Miami, Michael concocts a scheme to convince the leader of the Russian spies that he has a traitor in his operation, forcing him to hasten Sonya's escape. But the plan backfires when the leader hears that a Russian submarine is in the area and they don't need the boat that Michael is providing via Burke. So Burke, stating that Sonya is of utmost importance to his operation, sacrifices himself in a explosion so that Michael can free Sonya. But later, Sonya attacks Jesse when the two are alone, and she escapes the team. Michael states that they must find Sonya.

7.05 Exit Plan - Sonya threatens Michael, but he convinces her that he, Sam and Jesse are on her side and that they need to get her out of Cuba as soon as possible. When a Russian agent named Oksana, whose ruthless reputation is well known to Sonya, impedes their plans, the entire team has to think on the fly. Elsewhere, Strong blackmails a reluctant Fiona into helping Michael with the mission. At the end of the episode, Michael, Sam, Jesse, and Sonya return to Miami, where Sonya finds out that a hacking syndicate exposed her to Russian agents. Sonya tells Micahel that they will destroy the hacking syndicate.

7.06 All or Nothing - For her first assignment while in Miami, Sonya requests that Michael and the team bring down a hacking syndicate that specializes in pilfering offshore funds, and which ultimately exposed her to the Russian agents. Fiona is back in the fold, and she and Michael pose as professional hackers in order to approach a recruiter for the syndicate. However, they need Barry Burkowski's help in creating a convincing "resume" to show the recruiter. In exchange, Sam and Jesse help Barry track down his girlfriend, who went missing while he spent four months in prison. After successfully getting a virus planted that uploads data for Sonya before wiping the syndicate's hard drives, Michael requests a "seat at the table" in Sonya's organization. Sonya replies that agents in her group must be willing to sacrifice everything. Upon tearfully convincing Sonya that he has already lost everything (Nate, Fiona, his friends and his mother's trust), Michael and Sonya sleep together. The next morning, Sonya tells Michael that she will contact her boss.

7.07 Psychological Warfare - Sonya says her boss has agreed to meet with Michael, then she tases him. At a compound, the boss becomes Michael's interrogator, using sensory torture in a padded room and hallucinogenic drugs to learn all about Michael and ensure that he has no secrets. "Dead Larry" Sizemore returns in a hallucination, bringing back memories of an event in Kiev that forever changed Michael. Meanwhile, Fiona and Sam notice that Sonya and an accomplice have broken into Michael's loft, have removed several boxes, and are taking them to an incinerator. They tail Sonya's car to a gated bridge that leads to a private island (presumably where Michael is held), and Sam borrows a boat from Elsa so that he and Fiona can view the compound from the sea. Michael is shown hallucinating about his father, when he and Nate were very young, then he is back in the padded room after blacking out. Sonya bursts in and says that her boss found out that Michael has been disloyal, and they need to escape. While trying to escape, Michael again recalls his father, and that he never told him anything. Thus, he turns back to the compound, shocking Fiona and Sam who are watching from a distance. The boss, who now identifies himself as James, welcomes Michael to "the family", as a satisfied Sonya looks on. Michael then returns home and, after recuperating from the drugs, confesses to Madeline that his father's abuse is the reason that he is still alive.

7.08 Nature of the Beast - Michael goes deep undercover, unintentionally losing Strong’s surveillance team. James asks Michael to complete the mission that Burke was working on before he gave up his life – taking down a Dominican drug enforcement official who has used his position to become that nation’s largest drug smuggler. Meanwhile, Fiona and Jesse are asked by Strong to fly to Mississippi and investigate a criminally insane former special forces soldier, whose stay at a hospital is being funded by James. Michael confides in Sam that the more he learns about James' network, the more he questions his own motives. In the end, however, Michael meets the institutionalized soldier who was in Delta Force with James, and learns how far James will go to see his vision through.

7.09 Bitter Pill - James enlists the entire team to guard Dr. Hamed, a peace-seeking Middle Eastern diplomat who has a price on his head, and ensure that he gets to an important conference in Tripoli. At a press conference in Miami, Hamed ingests poison, and the team has 24 hours to locate the antidote. Meanwhile, Maddie notices she is being followed. She finds James waiting in her house, but he assures her he only wants to protect her and Charlie. Working with James' associate Snyder (David Meunier), Jesse and Fiona track down a lead through a strip club owner. Snyder injects the same poison into the club owner to ensure he will guide them to the facility where the antidote is stored. The three have to fight through a heavily guarded compound while Michael and Sam race the clock to get Hamed to the site. As Jesse gets out with the antidote to save Hamed's life, an explosion rocks the compound. Snyder sees that Fiona is trapped behind a wall of flame but only saves himself, leaving Michael to rescue Fiona. At a follow-up meeting, James praises the team for their efforts and says that Hamed will be okay. He scolds Snyder for leaving a family member behind, then shoots and kills him in front of everyone.

7.10 Things Unseen - Sonya informs Michael that his next assignment is to assasinate a person who has been overheard asking questions about him and his team. The man is a go-between that Michael once worked with named Roger Steele, whom Michael also considers a friend. To Michael's surprise, Strong authorizes the hit in order to protect his cover. Meanwhile, Carlos and Fiona learn that a man named Nando, whom Carlos ratted out for a cocaine deal 10 years ago, is out of prison has been looking for him. The only way out of the situation is to get Nando returned to prison on a murder charge, forcing Carlos to find a witness who has been in hiding for 10 years. Because Carlos can't show his face in his old neighborhood, he and Fiona ask for help from Sam and Jesse. When Carlos' life is in further danger, Fiona asks Michael if he can get help via Sonya's organization. Sonya informs Michael that killing Steele was necessary to "eliminate a threat", and she then informs Michael that James has big plans for him.

7.11 Tipping Point - Michael and Sonya prepare for a mission "somewhere in Latin America". After sleeping together again, Michael bugs Sonya's phone which leads Strong to discover that the meeting is in Veracruz, Mexico. On the ground, Michael and Sonya meet with James and proceed to the meet point in a heavily armed convoy. to avoid detection, Strong has hired mercenaries to make the grab. The mercenaries ambush the convoy, but James, Michael, and Sonya get away after James paves the way with a grenade launcher. Farther down the road, James sees that the group is being followed by Strong's helicopter and the group split up. Strong sends another team of mercenaries to intercept Michael while the group in the helicopter pursues James. In the boatyard, the mercenaries attack and kill two of James's soldiers and Michael knocks out the third. He emerges to see that the mercenaries' leader is Simon Escher, who has been running off-the-books ops for the CIA for nearly two years. With Strong's permission, the duo lure James to the boatyard, but prior to his arrival, Simon executes James's soldier. Michael attacks Simon and the two violently beat each other, with Michael gaining the upper hand and holding Simon at knifepoint. Simon questions Michael's morality and motivation, telling him that he was always been in it for glory. Michael stabs him in the chest, killing him, moments before James and Sonya arrive. Strong, Sam, and Jesse land the helicopter, damaged by gunfire from James and Sonya, near the boatyard with the intention of making the grab. Michael then guides James and Sonya to safety. At a safe house, an upset James holds Sonya at gunpoint, believing that she betrayed him. Michael saves her by blowing his cover. James hands Sonya a gun to finish off Michael with, but before she can, James asks him why he betrayed the CIA. Michael tells him that he always believed in what he was fighting for, and that if the CIA could employ a man like Simon, then he has wasted his life working for them. Moved, James decides to spare Michael.

7.12 Sea Change - The episode opens with Michael in the basement of James' safe house in Mexico, locked in a makeshift prison cell. Sonya questions him about their relationship, asking if any of it was real. Michael is brought to James, who asks him about his true motives, and it is clear Michael has given up on his life and mission for the CIA. James makes a surprising offer to Michael: he will keep Michael's family and friends out of prison and let Michael "capture" him for the CIA. In exchange, Michael will lie to the CIA (who assume he is dead), basically becoming a "triple agent," and James' organization will continue with Michael and Sonya in charge. Michael agrees, returning to the CIA where he and Agent Strong meet with the Director of the CIA. The Director wants to shut the operation down, but Michael convinces him to allow him 48 hours to finish. Strong contacts Fiona and tells her that she and the rest of the team are off the case, which makes them highly suspicious. Fiona meets Michael, and it is clear she is upset and not buying the story Michael tells. She plants a bullet in the magazine of his pistol which houses a tracking device. Sam and Jesse are incredulous, but agree to spy on Michael. They find out Michael is betraying them and the CIA, because he lies about meeting James. Sam is convinced Michael has gone to the "other side," and he and Jesse make a plan to stop him, not knowing the whole story. They want to "save" him by essentially abducting him, putting him in a boat plane, and getting him out of the country. Similarly, Fiona convinces Madeline to go on the run with them all, burning down her house so they can evade James' security men. Sam calls Michael with a ruse, claiming something terrible is going to happen unless the two of them meet Fiona. The plan almost works, but Michael sees through Sam's deception (from their past together, and because the meeting site is one that Fiona would never use). Michael explains the good he can do with James' resources, then Sam reminds him that the people who killed Nate believed they were "doing good." The two fight, Michael wins, and warns Sam to "stay out of my way." Michael meets with Sonya to put the final pieces of James' "capture" together. Unable to let Michael go, his friends show up at the capture site. Fiona goes in to try and stop Michael, who is on a roof waiting for James to arrive via helicopter. Sonya arrives as James is minutes away, and is angry that Fiona could compromise the entire organization. Michael, unable to make Fiona leave or tell her the full story, is torn between what to do. Fiona refuses to leave until she sees "the old Michael." The episode ends with Sonya saying that if Michael won't act, she will. She draws a pistol from her waist and the screen goes to black as a single gunshot is heard.

7.13 Reckoning - Michael shoots and kills Sonya to protect Fiona. James sees this from the helicopter, and orders his men on the ground to engage Michael and Fiona, but Sam and Jesse help the two escape. The four are now fugitives in the eyes of Strong and the law, and Michael states that their only option left is to take down James and his organization. Using Jesse's help, they locate an engineer who helped James build a satellite uplink facility, and kidnap him to get the facility's location and other useful information. Michael, Fiona and Sam go to collect a hard drive from the facility, while Jesse goes to Maddie's house to help Maddie and Charlie escape James' security forces. Inside the satellite facility, the team locates and secures the hard drive, but James contacts Michael and threatens Maddie if anything further threatens him or his operation. Maddie sacrifices herself to protect Michael, his friends and Charlie. Intent on taking him into custody, Michael shoots James. While dying, James reveals a dead man's switch that will blow up the building, and he pushes it. Just as Sam escapes with the hard drive, multiple explosions rock the building, presumably killing Michael and Fiona. Some time later, Sam and Jesse meet with Strong, who says the information on the hard drive led the CIA to over 100 members of James' organization. Strong says there are still many who want Sam and Jesse imprisoned, but he thinks they are heroes and lets them go. He also says that Michael will be getting a star on the CIA Memorial Wall. It is later shown that Michael and Fiona escaped the explosion, but must be presumed dead to protect themselves and Charlie, who now lives with them.

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--- JOYA ---

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