Comments on: The Spy Who Came In From The Sun

By: perich

perich — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:18:33 +0000

@detail smurfer: huh. I recall that only now that you’ve mentioned it (I think the S1 finale had Michael rifling Sam’s storage unit for a Navy SEAL picture), but I just had him linked in my mind with the FBI for so long.

@stabbim: I think Martin Blank was already pretty far along the Ferris Bueller route (“I killed the President of Paraguay with a fork”), but that’s a really good analogy.

By: detail smurfer

detail smurfer — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:47:36 +0000

Sam Ace is an ex-Navy SEAL. Didn’t work for the FBI. He just has a lot of FBI contacts.

By: mlawski

mlawski — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:44:40 +0000

Over at Alan Sepinwall’s blog, several commenters have taken up narrating their lives in the Michael Westen way for the fun of it. “When visiting overthinkingit.com, it’s usually best to read through the entire article before commenting. Unfortunately, when you’re on the run from a shadowy non-governmental organization, sometimes you’ll have to make do with a quick skim…”

By: stabbim

stabbim — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:39:44 +0000

The narration and Spy-101 aspects of Burn Notice have always been the biggest draw for me. Even when the in-text circumstances are being sold as dire, there’s usually a great impishness to the tone — it’s as if Ferris Bueller went the Martin Blank route, and learned to adapt his particular skill set for brilliant use in the government cloak & dagger world.

By: Cash

Cash — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:00:14 +0000

I’ve witnessed an interesting twist on the ex-spy phenomenon. I never directly worked for the government; the closest I ever came to the US govt was subcontractor to DOD. But my life has been shady and complicated enough, that my friends over time realized that I was some kind of spy. When confronted, I’ve had to deny it and convincingly. I’ve done my best. They seemed to resent me for the denial. I can’t tell if a) they believe the denial and they’re annoyed with me for some aspect of that reality, or b) they don’t believe the denial and are annoyed that I won’t share with them.

In Burn Notice, Michael’s predicaments always end happily. My social predicaments, originating from very similar conflicts, go to worse. Being caught in a lie, letting people believe one version of your events (and character, and motives) when the truth is far whiter — these realities are nearly unacceptable. Maybe if I had ‘saved the world’ I’d feel it worthwhile. The best I ever did was give a bunch of analysts more color and flavor and nuance to lose themselves in. I feel like I did something very similar to a junior, second-rate programmer who was assigned to do interior design for a popular video game. Except that coder walked away with bullet points on his resume, and friends who knew he was what he seemed. I had to pose as a shiftless, serial-unemployed loser working well below his capacity, doing jobs like construction, being an extra in movies, working in a theme park or in retail.