Michael was burned during an operation with a Russian mafia guy in Africa. The op went bad and he was beaten but escaped only to wake up in Miami where he has to stay until he can find out what happened to him. He got a little closer at the end of the season after talking with Philip Cowan, but Cowan was killed before Michael could learn more than there were "big plans" for him. He's contacted by Carla and ordered to meet with her, which he does by driving Sam's car into a trailer. By the beginning of the 2nd season, he is contacted by Carla and forced to perform tasks for her or else she will hurt or kill Madeline, Fiona or Sam. Carla mentions that she "wants this relationship to work" suggesting that Michael will benefit from these tasks, perhaps learning more about who burned him. Michael goes along, in the meantime he's trying to find out more about Carla in the hopes it will lead to more information about his BN.

So, my question is: Was Michael burned in order to have him be in Miami to "jobs" such as breaking into Security Associates for data and copying security badges? It seems kind of low-ball for Michael given what he has been doing with the Agency. My feeling is that Carla may know about his BN but had nothing to do with it and she's just using him. Given the nature of the CIA, if Carla was forcing Michael to do things, she'd never reveal herself to him. Her greatest asset would have been her anonymity. And if that is true, Michael is wasting his time with her. Granted she has threatened his mother, and that may be a reason to go along with her for now, but I believe Michael is too smart and experienced to believe she has anything on his BN unless she provides it to him.

What are other people's thoughts on that?

yeah, thanks.

I think that Carla works for the people who work for the people who burned Michael. I think that they need Michael's expertise to help them with very important and dangerous jobs. I think they may have been looking for and operative and Michael fit the bill. With his mom living in Miami they have more leverage than if he lived somewhere else. Also Miami may be the base of there operations. But I do know that Carla is not the end of the rope of this whole BN thing. Hopefully the writers will give us a great explanation.

My thoughts:

Michael has been singled out for some ultimate purpose, whether that be for good or evil, is still unclear. He must have been choosen becuse of some ability or connection he has to 'the other's" goal. Is that goal to deafeat a higher power or to commit an unthinkable crime; there lies the debate.

I think season one was to to see how Mike would handle his fish-out-water situation -- to see if he had the chops to do what comes next, by surviving with no real resources, except his own innate abilites.

Season two appears to be some kind of aptitude test, to see how well he does and also to see if he will play ball. But are these tasks meant to evalute him or build evidence against him in a horrific blackmail scheme to implicate him in a world-wide or epic crime, that the other plan to commit. Again, it could be some kind of reversal, to see if he is uncorruptible and can be trusted or is he at the hands of a ruthless cabal, and he must figure a way out, without getting entagle in their plot.

Currently his only major option is to follow his instincts; to find out who burned him and why. Forced to play their game to save his friends and family, he must be always on the ready to one-up his opponets with retalliation

I think there is still room for a number of varients, which make the series so compelling. But thru it all we root for the man who is fighting the good fight, with the help of a few good friends and family.

Just one guys thoughts--

-Mac

I think that the organization that burned Michael had expected him to 'stew' for a while, maybe a year before they planned on approaching him with the offer for a new job. I don't think they had expected him from the very beginning to be so tenacious in trying to find out who burned him and why. This is why I think they assigned Carla to him directly, to sort of feel him out but even then, he wouldn't let go the idea of finding out WHO is behind his burn notice, so then Carla sent Victor to see if Michael is somebody they will ultimately be able to use or not.

That makes sense to me.

I think Victor could have been burned because he was too much of a wild card - his handlers couldn't be sure exactly what he'd do on a mission so Victor became a liability and got burned.

In contrast, I get the sense that with Michael, he was burned because they want him specifically for some thing or maybe it was done as a petty revenge thing. [for example, maybe michael found someone double dealing or taking bribes and stopped it, not knowing it went higher up, and now the higher up is pissed]

It seems like Carla is Michael's case officer (aka handler) and Michael is the agent. After the security card job, Michael gave all of the money he didn't use back to her, to show her that he couldn't be bought. Enter Victor, who is probably an enforcer of some type. Carla also made threats against Michael's family (like giving Michael's mom a gift other than a new coffeemaker) but it didn't stop him from investigating his own burn notice. So, Carla calls in the "stick".

But I'm still not sure if Carla & Victor are part of some secret organization within an organization (in this case the CIA) to have Michael steal data from a private security company, duplicate a security card and steal a sniper rifle. Victor also said that he'd see Michael around suggesting there would be more jobs. But all of this seems a bit small-time, unless they are going to do something very bad and blame Michael for it.

Michael needs to stop helping his friends out, as desperate as they may be, and come up with a way to outsmart Carla & Co. I like the fact that he's using his skills to help people, but he hardly ever gets paid and I'm wondering what he does for money.

I believe that the people that burned Michael are self-proclaimed freedom fighters (or eco-terrorists depending on your point of view). Here's why. Notice the logo on the doors of the warehouse that Victor broke into. It is almost identical to the logo of Chiquita Brands International. A company which has been accused many times through out its long history (see United Fruit Company) of committing various crimes and illegal operations in many different Central American countries. The sniper rifle that was stolen might not be for Michaels new employer to commit an assassination , but to prevent one. The information from Security Consultants might be to prevent them from committing unjust/illegal actions around the world. The security badge might be to gain access to some corrupt mega-corporation. My guess is that these people do not work for any government, but rather for (right or wrong) their idea of justice in a world they see as phenomenally flawed and broken. Whether Michael agrees with their views or not remains to be seen. He might see it as fighting for the 'little guy' or he might see it as the wrong way to work for change. I'm very excited to see where the writing staff goes with this.

I believe in an episode from season 1, there's a scene where they have this whole stack of cash, I mean LOADS of it, and they are going to blow it up. Sam, Mike and Fi are there, and if I recall correctly, each of them end up taking a huge stack of cash so I'm thinking Michael isn't necessarily hurting for money.

I wondered about the similarity to the chiquita banana logo and whether that was a clue of some sort for us viewers! I still think this stuff that Michael is doing indicates a political assassination of some sort, but it could also very well be something connected to a multi-national corporation and its association with guerrilla fighters/paramilitary groups in foreign countries. Those scandals at both United Fruit Company and Chiquita Brands are rife with intrigue and corruption. Here's a little blurb about United Fruit Company via that font of all knowledge, wikipedia:

_{The United Fruit Company was a major United States corporation that traded tropical fruit (primarily bananas and pineapples) grown in Third World plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. ...Critics often accused it of exploitative neocolonialism and described it as the archetypal example of the influence of a multinational corporation on the internal politics of the so-called "banana republics." (A term coined by O. Henry). After a period of financial decline, United Fruit was merged with Eli M. Black's AMK in 1970 to become the United Brands Company. In 1984 Carl Lindner, Jr. transformed United Brands into the present-day Chiquita Brands International. ...}

And this, from the wiki entry on Chiquita Brands International -

_{Chiquita was formerly controlled by Cincinnati billionaire Carl H. Lindner, Jr., his majority ownership of the company ended as a result of Chiquita Brands International exiting a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 19, 2002. In 1969 it was bought by Zapata Corporation, an enterprise related with George H. W. Bush. The enterprise changed its name to Chiquita Brands and operates with that name to this day. ...On March 14, 2007, Chiquita Brands was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the United States Justice Department for having ties to Colombian paramilitary groups. According to court documents, between 1997 and 2004, officers of a Chiquita subsidiary paid approximately $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the AUC, in exchange for local, employee protection in Colombia's volatile banana harvesting zone. Similar payments were also made to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as the National Liberation Army (ELN) from 1989 to 1997. All three of these groups are on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. ...}

OMG thanks for that bit about Chiquita bananas! I made a comment in the "Bad Blood" thread after I saw the episode hoping that this didn't all boil down to something about bananas!

The United Fruit Company did allegedly have help from the CIA and the Secretary of State Allen and John Foster Dulles. Perhaps this will all come to a show down with Michaels former employers and the people that burned him.

Wow. That's a long stretch. John Foster Dulles was CIA director (or DCI) a long time ago, probably even before Michael was born. Yes, the United Fruit Company did have ties to CIA, but I don't see this show reaching that far back to make a connection. But anything is possible.

Yes, they did. If memory serves me correclty, they (Michael, Fiona, Sam, Sam's friend & even Nate) kept a small stack each. But most of it was burned up.

Interesting points of view, here are a couple of things to consider. A sniper rifle can be picked up almost anywhere. Good ones to, so they wanted that specific rifle, why? The only thing I can think of is it was used elsewhere. They needed it for the balistics. To link it with another crime or assassination.
The second thing is the CIA by law cannot operate a mission inside the USA, also the CIA would have a department of dirty tricks that could easily have forged the high tech ID card, and provided a sniper rifle, probably right off the shelf.
Whoever is behind the burn notice has the connections though.
I get the feeling Mike is being prodded and set up to take a big fall.

All good questions, Hooch.
But we're gonna have to keep watching to find out the answers (if we got them now, the show would be over--wouldn't it?)

ANYWAY: here's mine"
As of now we have no idea who burned Mike.
We don't even know if Carla is involved, or has inside and is just taking advantage. (BAD AGENT)!!!!

As for Victor?
I think he is a non entity. I can't believe the press he is getting on this board.
He just follows Carlas orders...because Mike is too dangerous for her to deal with one-one-one

I'm thinking Carla & Victor are just using Michael and are probably not working for CIA or even contracted by them. So far we have the stolen data, a duplicated security card and a Russian sniper rifle. If they all tie in together somehow (and I hope they do) it would be great to see where this storyline goes. In Rough Seas, Michael tries to find out who could calibrate that weapon and add a fiber-optic camera (or something like that) so I'm wondering what that's all about.

Plus said calibrator is dead and his place in ashes. They did get a name of the person who brought in the sniper rifle for calibration (but I forgot it), so now they have one more clue to follow up on. The plot thickens ...


-Mac

I was wondering if maybe Victor didn't steal the sniper rifle from the guy who was actually going to use it (and buying all the bits and pieces for it)? Could they have been attempting to stop an assassination?

I don't really believe Micheal was REALLY burned. I believe it was a set up for Mike to go under cover inside this enemy(terrorist) organization.
Think about it, thats how he solves ALL of his cases.He sets HIMSELF up to make the bad guys FORCE him to work for them.(which is what he REALLY wants in the first place) Then the bad guys "Force" him to commet crimes w/them, he gets evidence and calls the police ,gets away from the scene of the crime & the criminals get caught.

I think Fi & Sam are in on it.