'Burn Notice' Series Finale Recap: Madeline Sacrifices Herself, Michael And Fiona Take Down James, Escape From Life As Spies

Burn Notice ended its seven-season run with the series finale “The Reckoning”: Michael’s mother, Madeline, sacrificed her life for her family and Fiona and Michael are living happily ever after.

“The Reckoning” picked up where the last episode left off, with Michael (Jeffrey Donovan) shooting Sonya (Alona Tal) and saving Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), essentially choosing the CIA over James’ super sketchy organization. Michael and Fi get away with Sam (Bruce Campbell), but James is not done with them – he wants revenge – and the Strong (Jack Coleman) turns Michael away, saying the CIA won’t offer him any more deals.

Michael forms a plan: he is going to go after James without the CIA. Fi and Sam are by his side, and he gets his CIA buddy Jesse (Coby Bell) to track down James’ tech guy. The plan is to find James’ hard drive and turn it over to the CIA. Michael also asks Jesse to protect his mother (Sharon Glass) and his nephew, Charlie (Wilson Pennell) at Madeline’s safe house.

Michael, Fiona and Sam find themselves at an abandoned newspaper building, the home base of James’ operation, face to face with James himself. James threatens the group and Michael’s family. Michael calls his mother to warn her, but she already knows what’s coming, and she has a plan: she will stay in the house and manually trigger an explosion as soon as James’ men enter the house, giving Jesse and Charlie a chance to escape. On the phone with her son during her final moments, Madeline tells Michael that she is proud of him and that she loves him before hitting the button, killing herself and James’ team.

At the newspaper building, Michael and Fi are caught in a firefight with James while Sam grabs James’ hard drive and runs out of the building. Out of ammunition, Michael rushes James, giving Fiona the opportunity to shoot the last of James’ men. Things look good until James reveals he’s holding a trigger that will blow up the entire building.

Cut to sometime in the future, Sam and Jesse are declared heroes of the CIA and plan to continue their do-gooder spy work. The two attend a funeral for Michael and Fiona. Of course, Sam and Jesse know that Michael and Fiona are not dead at all, but dead to the CIA and spy world. The only way to stop being a spy is to die, says Michael in a voiceover, so, he ‘died. In reality, he, Fiona and Charlie are safe, living far away from Miami.

And, with that, Burn Notice, created by Matt Nix, has ended after seven seasons and 111 episodes.

– Olivia Truffaut-Wong

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