I’m a huge Burn Notice fan and created ebooks containing the plot summaries and voice over narration for every season. It makes for an awesome summer read. Here’s a sneak peak at Volume One of every voice over tip from the hit TV Show Burn Notice. I put this together in my spare time and triple checked every word from each episode. You can see the first few episodes for free and purchase a downloadable PDF version for $3.00. That’s a great read for less than a fancy cup of coffee or even a used book.You can share it with your friends and family without restriction. I will be adding every season including the fourth season soon.
*Alternatively, You can always click on the donate button on the right and donate any amount you prefer and write me an email and I’ll send it to you.
What’s different about my ebook? There are many, great fan websites and pages dedicated to Burn Notice, but all of them, including Wikipedia are unorganized, full of errors and misquotes. This ebook includes the plot summaries for each episode followed by the voice over narration, which are all the useful tidbits from the show and all of it is accurate.
1.1 Pilot
Plot Summary
While on assignment in Nigeria, covert operative Michael Westen learns that he’s been “burned.” For a spy, it is the equivalent of being fired. A burned spy is blacklisted from all government agencies and resources; his bank accounts are frozen and his credit is trashed. Michael barely escapes Nigeria and wakes up, battered, in a Miami motel. In order to survive and fund his own personal investigation, Michael enlists the help of the only two “friends” he has: Fiona Glenanne, an ex-IRA operative who also happens to be an ex-girlfriend, and Sam Axe, a washed-out military intelligence contact who has been under FBI surveillance. He is also forced to deal with the family he went halfway around the world to get away from—particularly his mother, Madeline Westen, who could not be happier to have her son back in town.
Through former spy-turned-security consultant Lucy Chen–whom Michael helped learn the trade–he gets a lead on a small investigation job: a caretaker of an estate, Javier, has been accused of stealing valuable art from his employer, Graham Pyne. All evidence points to it being an inside job and Javier, with very little money to offer, has nowhere else to turn. When Michael begins to dig around, he quickly discovers that it was in fact an inside job: Pyne orchestrated the robbery and framed Javier in order to collect insurance.
Michael confronts Pyne with the incriminating evidence. When Pyne and his bodyguard come after Javier and his son, Michael is already a step ahead of them and has set up a trap at Javier’s house. After the smoke clears, Pyne has accidentally shot his bodyguard, and Michael has enough evidence to send both of them to jail for conspiracy to commit kidnapping. With the mounting evidence hanging over his head, Pyne agrees to clear Javier’s name and provide financial support to Javier and his son.
Meanwhile, Michael keeps trying to get in touch with his old government handler, Dan Siebels, who will not accept his calls. Deciding to get creative, Michael resorts to mailing Siebels a fake bomb in order to get his attention. The ploy works, and Michael finally gets to confront Siebels about the burn notice. Siebels believes Michael has probably been framed and there is nothing he can do to help him, but that he still has allies within the Agency. He tells Michael not to leave Miami, unless he wants an FBI manhunt after him. To top it all off, Michael returns home to find his door open and the floor covered with surveillance photos. It is not the FBI, but whoever it is, they have been tracking his every move. And they have left a message: “Welcome to Miami.”
Narration
Covert intelligence involves a lot of waiting around. Know what it’s like being a spy? Like sitting in your dentist’s reception area twenty-four hours a day. You read magazines, sip coffee, and every so often, someone tries to kill you.
[Michael Weston is Crammed in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan, pinned between two armed thugs and sarcastically making them aware that Mercedes also makes an SUV. The thugs think he is a CIA operative.] What do you say to that? No? Explain A lot of spies do not work directly for the CIA? A lot of good that will do.
[While getting the crap kicked out of him, caught off guard by a group thugs]Sometimes the truth hurts. In these situations, I recommend lying.
In a fight, you have to be careful not to break the little bones in your hands on someone’s face. That’s why I like bathrooms: lots of hard surfaces.
Southern Nigeria isn’t my favorite place in the world. It’s unstable. It’s corrupt and the people there eat a lot of terrible smelling preserved fish.
I will say this for Nigeria though: it’s the gun running capital of Africa, and that makes it a bad place to drive a passenger sedan into a crowded market.
If you’re going to collapse on a plane, I recommend business class. The seats are bigger if you start convulsing. Although once you pass out, it really doesn’t matter.
Most people would be thrilled to be dumped in Miami. Sadly, I am not most people. Spend a few years as a covert operative and a sunny beach just looks like a vulnerable tactical position with no cover.
I’ve never found a good way to hide a gun in a bathing suit.
When a spy gets fired, he doesn’t get a call from the lady in HR and a gold watch. They cut him off. They make sure he can never work again. They can’t take away his skills or what’s in his head, so they take away the resources that allow him to function. They burn him.
When you’re being watched, what you need is contrast, a background that will make the surveillance stand out. An FBI field office is full of guys in their forties. At most South Beach business hotels, it would be tuff to tell which middle aged white guy is watching you. So, stay in the place where everyone is a jell-o shot away from alcohol poisoning. If you see someone who can walk a straight line, that’s the Fed.
Need to go someplace you’re not wanted? Any uniform store will sell you a messenger outfit, and any messenger can get passed a security desk.
[While entering a luxurious mansion in Miami] With this much money things get complicated. Change a light bulb in a place like this, and a week later you’re on a speed boat to the Cayman Islands with someone shooting at you.
M y mom would have been a great NSA Communications operative. Drop me in the middle of the Gobi desert. Bury me in a God-damn cave on the moon, and somehow, she’d find a way to call me and ask me for a favor.
I don’t like stealing cars, but sometimes it’s necessary. I have rules though. I’ll keep it clean, and if I take your car on a work day, I’ll have it back by five.
Figuring out if a car is tailing you is mostly about driving like you’re an idiot. You speed up, slow down, signal one way; turn the other. Of course, ideally, you’re doing this without your mother in the car… Actually, losing a tail isn’t about driving fast. A high-speed pursuit is just going to land you on the six o’clock news. So you just keep driving like an idiot until the other guy makes a mistake. Again, all this is easier without a passenger yelling at you for missing a decade’s worth of Thanksgivings.
Sleep through an aerial bombing or two, and noise isn’t an issue. You just need some privacy and a bed. In a pinch, you can lose the bed. But the privacy’s important for projects like this one. With everyone X-raying and chemical testing their mail these days, a box of wire and pipe and batteries sprinkled with chemical fertilizer is a great attention-getter.
Whether you’re a coke dealer, a thief, an arms dealer, or a spy, you need someone to clean your money; which makes a good money launderer the closest thing you can get to a Yellow Pages for criminals. Even better, a money launderer will always take your calls burn notice or no burn notice.
Pilot Part 2
When you work as a covert operative, meeting new people becomes a real headache. Chances are anyone who wants to meet you is someone you don’t want to meet.
It doesn’t matter how much training you have; a broken rib is a broken rib.
I never run around the bushes in a ski mask when I’m breaking into a place. If somebody catches you; what are you going to say? You want to look like a legitimate visitor until the very last minute. If you can’t look legit, confused works almost as well, maybe get a soda from the fridge or a yogurt. If you’re caught, you just act confused and apologize like crazy for taking the yogurt – nothing could be more innocent…
Cracking an old-school safe is pretty tough, but modern hi-tech security makes it much easier. Thing is, nobody wipes off a fingerprint scanner after they use it. So what’s left on the scanner, nine times out of ten, is a fingerprint.
Fighting for the little guy is for suckers. We all do it once in a while, but the trick is to get in and out quickly, without getting involved. That’s one trick I never really mastered.
Powerful people don’t like being pushed around. You can never quite predict what they’re going to do. Or have their washed-out special-forces, security guys do. Point is, blackmail does a little like own a pit bull; it might protect you, or it might bite your hand off. That’s why it pays to make sure you know what they’re thinking, and that means eavesdropping.
To build a listening device, you need a crappy phone with a mike that picks up everything. But you want the battery power and circuits of a better phone. It’s a trick you learn when the purchasing office won’t spring for a bug.
Once somebody sends a guy with a gun after you, things are only going to get worse. But like it or not, you’ve got work to do. For a job like getting rid of the drug dealer next door, I’ll take a hardware store over a gun any day. Guns make you stupid. Better to fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart. Every decent punk has a bulletproof door. But people forget walls are just plaster. Hopefully you get him with the first shot, Or the second. Now he’s down and waiting for you to come through the front door. So you don’t come through the front door.
People with happy families don’t become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops – you don’t trust anyone, you’re used to getting smacked around, and you never get homesick.
Thirty years of karate, combat experience on five continents, a rating with every weapon that shoots a bullet or holds an edge; I still haven’t found any defense against Mom crying into my shirt.
Airbags save a lot of lives, but they also put you out long enough to get your hands cable-tied to the steering wheel.
When you work solo, it’s about prepping the ground. Home-court advantage counts for a lot. You never know what’s going to happen. You prepare for everything. Most bad guys expect you to just sit there and wait for them, like those are “the rules” or something.
If you’re going to put prints on a gun, sticking it into somebody’s hand isn’t going to do it. Any decent lawyer can explain prints on a gun. But try explaining prints on the inside of the trigger assembly.
As a spy, it doesn’t matter if you’re helping rebel forces fight off a dictator or giving combat tips to a third grader, there’s nothing like helping the little guy kick some bully’s ass.
There’s nothing worse for a spook than knowing you’re being played. Someone is pulling strings. Who? Not some intelligence agency bureaucrat in a cubicle. This is someone with more style. Not FBI either, they’re not this creative and they don’t do surveillance on their own guys. This is someone who knows what he’s doing; someone who wants to send a message: Welcome to Miami.
1.2 Identity
Plot Summary
The episode opens with Michael trying to track down where the photographs that he found on his apartment floor were taken. After talking to his mother, Madeline Westen, he found out two government agents were in her home, and after checking the wiring, he finds a bug. He tracks the bug down to an abandoned house only to see two guys taking off in a car and their equipment left in flames.
Madeline refuses to tell her son anything more about the two men that came to her house until Michael agrees to help one of her friends, Laura, who got scammed and beaten by a con artist. Laura is able to provide only a weak description, but the fake certificate she has leads Michael to a copy shop, where he’s able to eventually trace it back to the master criminal.
Sam Axe finds that the con artist’s name is Quinten, and provides Michael with a brief background of Quinten’s run-ins with the law. Michael decides to use this information to attempt to trick Quinten into thinking that Westen is a fellow con artist. After their first encounter goes poorly, Michael pushes Quinten harder. Sam sets up some fake papers to make it look like Quinten’s partners are about to betray him. However, everything falls apart when a device meant to disable Quinten’s car is set incorrectly by Fiona Glenanne, and accidentally blows it up right before he steps inside.
Now that Quinten is scared, Michael is playing his cards carefully. He sends Sam & Fiona to play FBI agents and convinces Quinten’s partners to leave town. Meanwhile, Michael takes advantage of Quinten’s paranoia and convinces Quinten that he cannot go to the bank to withdraw his money because the police are watching him. Michael then cons Quinten into giving him full access to his bank accounts so he can withdraw the money in his place. Once he has the information, Michael proceeds to return all the money Quinten stole, along with providing his name to several “colorful” organizations.
After all of the money is returned, a thankful Madeline finally divulges all of the details about the two government agents. They came into the house and asked whether Michael had returned to Miami. She told them no because to her, “family comes first.” She then gives Michael a number the agents had given her to contact them. Michael calls the number and speaks with an anonymous voice, who congratulates Michael for his hard work, but does not provide any helpful information.
Narration
A surveillance photo can tell you a lot about the photographer. Surveillance takes planning. You have to scout the area. You need a place to sit and wait for the target for an hour or 10. Lots of chances to get seen.
You can’t choose your intelligence sources. (They) might be a heroin smuggler, a dictator… or your mom.
My mother’s understanding of my career changes with what she wants from me. One day, she can name everyone on the National Security Council. The next day, she thinks I work for the post office.
Not all bugs are the same. If it has got a battery; it’s disposable; short-term. If it’s wired into the house power, it’s a longer term thing. If it has a transmitter, you can figure out how close the listener is.
Once your surveillance knows you’re on to them, the clock starts ticking. They know you’re coming so the question for them is whether they can destroy their equipment and get out in time. The question for you is whether you can find them before every bit of useful information is turned into a pile of burning slag.
There’s a reason spies don’t have a lot of parties. Everybody’s got a history with everyone else.
Often, the best way to get intel is to provoke action; set people in motion. Pros know better, but they usually have to work with a few amateurs, and they panic. So you beat the bushes a little and see what flies out. Once your frightened amateur leads you to the pros, the work begins.
Con artists and spies are both professional liars. Cons do it for the money and spies do it for the flag, but it’s mostly the same gig. They run operations. They follow security procedures. They recruit support staff and issue orders.
When you go after a spy, you send another spy. The same goes for con artists. To catch one you’ve got to beat him at his own game; be a better liar than he is.
No matter how good your cover identity is, you’ve got to sell it and that’s not always easy.
Sometimes you have to decide just how committed you are to pretending you are who you say you are.
I don’t like running from cops, but it has its advantages: it builds your credibility with a criminal when you flee a crime scene.
Eavesdropping and fieldwork go hand-in-hand. You want to know what your target is saying, what he’s typing into his computer. But technology can’t work miracles: bugs don’t plant themselves. Fact is, even the fanciest equipment usually needs help from a good old-fashioned crowbar.
It’s always useful to disable a car remotely; a cell phone, some wire, you can ground the circuit on the electrical system with a phone call.
A good cover identity keeps the target feeling in control. You talk too much; drink too much just to let him know he’s got the edge.
Go after a group of people directly, and they pull together. They get stronger. Taking out a tight knit group is about making them turn on each other. You plant the seeds of distrust and watch them grow. Of course, sewing seeds of distrust is harder when nobody trusts you.
Sometimes a great plan comes together just a little bit too early.
You’ve been in the business way too long when you recognize the sound of a .45 caliber over a phone.
[Car explodes unexpectedly] That’s what happens when you wire a cell phone to a blasting cap in the gas tank instead of the electrical system.
Whether you’re in Moscow, Tehran, or Miami, club girls are a good source of information. Men say things to a beautiful woman. They give out phone numbers, hotel keys; they let down their guard. Getting information from a club girl means buying drinks. It’s no problem with an operational slush fund. It’s a big problem if you’re spending cash scrounged from your mom’s purse.
A hit-man is like a plumber, a dentist or a mechanic. Everybody is always looking for a good one.
Truth is, identity theft isn’t hard. A number and an ID is all you need to drain a bank account, and return a lot of money to some very surprised retirees. But why stop there? As long as you’re stealing someone’s identity, why not use it to contact some known terrorist organizations on unsecure phone lines; why not use it to threaten federal judges, and insult the local drug cartel? Most fun I’ve had in Miami.
1.3 Fight or Flight
Plot Summary
Michael’s landlord Oleg convinces him to earn 4 months’ rent by resolving the threats which keep his star waitress, Cara Stagner, stuck at home, scared-stiff. It turns out she was the sole witness to a drug cartel crime. Michael barricades Cara and her willful teenage daughter Sarah, in his mother’s garage, then approaches the cartel’s lawyer. All the while Michael’s ex-girlfriend, Fiona pressures him to pick up his hated father’s old Charger. Meanwhile, he leans on an Egyptian spy to help trace his burn notice.
Narration
International conferences attract spies for the same reasons hotel bars attract hookers. You can do business and drink for free.
Any high security function is going to have a lot of oversight; a lot of meetings, a lot of bureaucrats checking up on each other. In all the confusion of the big event, it’s easy for another bureaucrats to…just show up (posing as a bureaucrat). The important thing is to disappear before people can ask questions. If they do decide to ask questions, you just have to hope you’re in a building with a lot of hallways, a good service basement, and plenty of exits. But in the end, sometimes making an escape is just about being willing to do what the guy chasing you won’t; like jump off a building.
Asking my mom for anything is a lot like getting a favor from a Russian mob boss, he’ll give you what you want with a smile, but believe me, you’ll pay for it.
My father’s approach to machinery was similar to his approach to family. If you don’t like how something works, keep banging on it until it does what you want. If something doesn’t fit, force it and above all, make sure it looks good on the outside.
Convincing a bully to back down is usually just a matter of showing you’re not afraid of them. Of course, some bullies have guys with 357 magnums, then you change tactics. [Michael then changes to an accommodating tone and scrambles to escape.]
When faced with a superior force, you can do two things. You can retreat quietly or you can attack with as much fan fare as possible.
Outfitting a safe-house is about two things. You need to know if someone is coming and you need to know how the folks you’re protecting are going to get out of there if they do. And if you can’t be on babysitting duty all the time, you need to make sure that you know the minute something is wrong. A 35 dollar outdoor floodlight has a decent motion detector on it. Wire that to a cell phone and you’ve got a remote alarm system that will call you if there’s trouble.
I love commuters. Anybody who drives the same route to work every day; it’s like they’re doing the work for you. And a punctual commuter, a guy who is in the same place every morning at 8:36AM: it’s almost too easy.
Threaten any serious criminal organization and they’re going to do one of two things. They’ll send someone to make a deal or they’ll send someone to make a corpse. Either way, you’ve got something to work with.
When you go on the run, the first thing you do is lay down tracks in the opposite direction, but that only works if the bad guys find the trail and believe it’s for real; which means selling it. You need to put on a little show, make them feel clever. When you make somebody work to get a piece of information, they’ll believe it that much more because it’s hard to get.
Approaching a spy in the middle of a job, gives you a lot of leverage. They’re playing a delicate game and the last thing they want is someone coming in and smashing their delicate game with a brick.
Basic rule of body guarding: Never fight with the protectee around, mostly because if they happen to catch a stray bullet, you just lost your job.
Modern technology has made it possible to do sophisticated electronic surveillance with stuff from your local electronics store. It sounds more fun than it is.
Faking surveillance video has come a long way. It used to be that you’d spend days slaving over a VHS tape with a razor blade.
A drug cartel is a business. If killing a witness to protect a valued employee from jail time is the best way to keep making money, they’ll do that. If it looks like that employee is testifying to the FBI though, they’re just as happy to leave the witness alone and take care of the problem another way.
An alpha-numeric tracking code and a special access code name, it’s not much but it’s a start. [While reviewing a report from the Department of Home Land Security that offers a clue to Michael’s burn notice.]
