After seven amazing seasons, Burn Notice is coming to an end. What will happen to Michael Westen? After being left burned in Miami, he created a life and family for himself and that is all threatened now. He went deep undercover to protect those that he loved and in the midst of his mission began to lose himself. “Reckoning” will be the end of Michael’s story. Will he get a happy ending?
Executive Producer and Creator Matt Nix, Jeffrey Donovan, and Bruce Campbell spoke with reporters about the finale, the end of the show, and a few tidbits. Check out edited excerpts from the interview.
Too much has happened and with lives on the line not everyone will make it to the end of the journey. Donovan said that “there’s nothing that can prepare [fans]” for the finale.
Will the Burn Notice have a happy ending?
Donovan: I would say that if you’re telling a real story … and you think about any classical story it’s like the ending will have both triumph and tragedy in it. You know what I mean? Like I think if you’re just telling a story that just has a sad ending, then well that’s a bummer.
At the same time if it is just happy then it really feels like the story doesn’t have any weight or consequence. And so I think that it’s always got to be a mixture of those two.
Why end the series now?
Nix: … when you’re making a series you really have a choice. You can either end it on your own terms in which case you will be invariably ending it what feels like a little early. Or you can end it when you get yanked off the air in which case you will invariably be ending it a little bit late.
And so that – so between the two of those, I mean I think that, you know, there are obviously positives and negatives and, you know, but I think that everybody – we were all I think very happy this season, you know, when you know you’re ending. That’s – you think about loss, like they asked for an end date so that they could bring things to a close.
The secret origin of the “Michael Westen” sunglasses
Donovan: What actually no one knows is that I actually own and possess one of the most iconic things that was actually on the show. But I owned it from the get go and that was my original Oliver Peoples aviators. When we shot the pilot those were my sunglasses.
And when you know, a choice that was cleared, I didn’t like any of the glasses. So I said I’d like to use my own and Matt said, yes, that’s fine with me. And so we shot the pilot with my own. Then when the series was picked up they got a replica of it and changed the lenses so that they would be less reflective.
But the original Michael Westen sunglasses are in my possession. And I don’t – obviously I don’t wear them anymore because they’re too iconic and I’d get bothered everywhere I went. But so I’ll always hold onto those forever.
What special item did Bruce Campbell take from the set?
Campbell: But the most important thing I wanted was it’s a Sam Axe notebook. It’s a spiral notebook. Sam is a little more old school where he does jot down actual notes when he’s listening to people talk on the phone.
So I have a spiral notebook that throughout the last five years of the show that I used that I put dates. Every time I did a little notepad, I put the dates on it. And so to me it’s a little Smithsonian piece that I’m going to keep that nobody else. It means absolutely nothing to anyone. And that’s why I like it.
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(Image courtesy of USA.)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
Contributing Editor and Writer for Collider, BuddyTV, TV Fanatic, CliqueClack, and other publications. TV criticism, reviews, interviews with actors and producers, and other related content. Founder of TV Diehard.
