While no where near the awesomeness of last week's hostage episode, "Neighborhood Watch" reached the level we've come to expect--fun, informative (about how to be a spy in Burn Notice world), and an unspectacular but decent story.
Lots of the episode seemed very familiar to me, but there are so many episodes I have no clue whether any specific plots were reused in the episode. Drug dealers--very familiar. Unwilling client--again, very familiar. Michael making the client seem scarier than he really is--very familiar. The plot wasn't original at all, but I liked the interplay between Michael and David (the client), and the slow breakdown from David not wanting any help to Michael letting David take some control.
Sam has been the good guy lately, and proves himself again, allowing Michael ex-neighbor, the drug dealer Sugar, to stay alive by taking a beating from the drug dealer.
Each episode is dependent on the client stuff and I don't bother about the burn notice business, unless it really bothers me as it did this week. I thought Navi Rawat was fine last week, maybe because she was only on screen for a few minutes, but she had a lot more lines in this episode and she was flat out terrible. She tried to do the charming flirty voice and it came out highly annoying and unrealistic. Now, Kendra sounds like an airhead assassin, an unlikely combination created from bad acting. Kendra better be gone so on. And I'm guessing she will, because Michael pulls through in the end, knocking her out for interrogation.
I know this will never happen, but I wish Burn Notice went away from the burn notice (yes, it is the conceit for the entire show) and the rather pointless spy world and focused on the characters instead. Case in point: Fiona acted jealously over Michael "flirting" (using the word liberally since the conversations were so bland) with Kendra. Will anything come of it? Probably not, but on another network, HBO perhaps, her actions would be interpreted to no end. And I'm not saying Burn Notice has to be The Sopranos, but it would be nice to see something other than the stagnant spy games.
Score: 8.5/10
