The sixth season of the American television spy drama Burn Notice premiered on June 14, 2012, on the cable television channel USA Network.
Season overview
Immediately after Fiona is arrested by the FBI, she is processed and taken into an interrogation room, where she is interrogated by Agent Jason Bly (Alex Carter), who is on loan from the CSS. Bly tries to get Fiona to implicate Michael in the British Consulate bombing, but she refuses to cooperate. Meanwhile, Michael and Sam pursue Anson Fullerton (Jere Burns) throughout Miami and corner him in a chemical plant, with eventual help from Agent Dani Pearce (Lauren Stamile). Anson does everything he can to stop Michael from pursuing him, even going as far as sending a former patient of his to Madeline's house. Michael brutally attacks Anson upon finding him, but is forced to let him escape after learning that he wired the building to explode. After warning Sam and Pearce, they make it out of the building when it explodes. Michael tries to shoot at Anson, but is furious that he got away. Pearce informs Michael that Anson just hit the top of the CIA's most wanted list, but all they can prove is that Anson tried to blow up her extraction team.
After Fiona is taken to a federal prison, she becomes marked for death and is targeted by inmates, but she makes an ally named Ayn in prison. Michael visits his former training officer, Tom Card (John C. McGinley) for help getting visitation rights to see Fiona, but Card initially denies his request. However, after Michael, Sam, and Jesse help Card take down a drug cartel, Card agrees to pull strings to grant him visitation rights. Michael also learns from his brother, Nate Westen (Seth Peterson) that Ruth left him and took their son with her, so Michael invites him to stay. The team help Pearce track down the man who killed her fiancée, who is currently a protected CIA asset, and trick him into giving up the intel the CIA needs in order to remove his protection.
Michael visits Fiona and promises to get her out, and they reminisce over their time in Belfast. Afterwards, Michael receives a note from Fiona, learning that someone is trying to kill her and is working with a dirty guard. Michael, Sam, and Jesse pay the guard a visit in the Everglades, only to find him dead. Sam is then kidnapped by former CIA operative-turned-traitor, Rebecca Lang (Kristanna Loken), so Michael and Jesse work to rescue him. However, upon learning that Rebecca is being blackmailed by Anson, who is threatening to have her brother killed, they offer to help her save him. As the team works to save Rebecca's brother, Michael also simultaneously works with Card to take down one of Fiona's weapons dealer in exchange for her release from prison. Both plans work, so Fiona becomes a CIA asset and Rebecca provides Michael with Anson's location where he's expecting his latest drop of travel documents and cash. After Michael tells Fiona that they found Anson, he informs her that she has to plead guilty to a few weapons charges and her sentence will be time served. Her release is put in jeopardy, however, when an MI6 agent tells her to either accompany him to their new British consulate or sign a new confession. His plan fails, however, when Fiona disappears for a little while and has Ayn find her.
Michael, Nate, and Jesse join Pearce and her extraction team in Atlantic City, but Michael gets angry at Nate for nearly jeopardizing their op twice, forcing him to leave. However, upon learning Anson's location and realizing that Nate is closer than they are, Michael has Nate keep eyes on Anson but warns him not to approach him. Nate, however, punches Anson and captures him, bringing him outside at gunpoint. Just when Michael and Pearce are about to arrest Anson, a mysterious sniper shoots Anson and Nate, killing them both. A heartbroken Michael breaks the news to Madeline, who does not take it well. Fiona is finally released from prison into Michael's arms, with Michael telling her he needs her more than ever.
After discovering that Rebecca has gone on the run, Michael and his friends believe that she was the one responsible for killing Nate. At the same time, Sam and Jesse have to help Elsa's (Jennifer Taylor) son, Evan, who's gotten into trouble with a loan shark. After taking the loan shark down, Michael sees Rebecca who shoots him, but he's wearing a bulletproof vest. Michael shoots Rebecca in retaliation and catches her in his loft. Rebecca tells Michael he wins and swears that she didn't kill Nate despite wanting Anson dead. Michael lets her go, and she says she hopes he finds whoever pulled the trigger. When Michael discovers that the FBI has closed the case on Nate's death, Sam tells Michael that a buddy of his at the FBI is willing to give him the file in return for taking down a Boston mob boss. As Michael, Sam, and Fi take him down, Jesse and Pearce work together to find the gun used in the shooting by tracking down the company who made it. Jesse plans to blackmail the VP of sales, who is the son of the company's owner. When he blackmails the son, Pearce comes in and backs Jesse up, concerning him since she showed her face. They get the records of all the gun sales, but since the CIA learned that Pearce was involved, she is reassigned to Mumbai.
Later, they learn that the group that bought the gun is the Pyron Group and its CEO is Jack Vale, so Michael and Sam pose as billionaires in the market for private military services when meeting him. Meanwhile, Fiona is recruited by CIA officers Matt Bailey and Gabriel Manaro to work a job for them, as part of her agreement with the CIA to get out of prison, so Michael helps them with their mission as Sam and Jesse infiltrate a mercenary training camp to track down a sniper. Once Fiona's CIA job was completed, she has Bailey and Manaro "lose" their agreement. Michael and Sam meet with Vale again, who is angry that they're looking for Tyler Gray (Kenny Johnson). When Vale is shot by an unknown operative, Michael tries to get answers but Vale dies.
Michael meets with Card who shows him a picture of Tyler Gray, the man who murdered Nate. Card sends Michael and his team down to Panama off-the-books, so before leaving, Michael talks to Madeline, who still blames him and everyone else for Nate's murder. After the team heads down to Panama, they meet with a CIA operative named Brady Pressman, who joins them in hunting Gray down. The op goes sideways as they're blown, but they continue to hunt for Gray. While in Panama, Michael promises Fiona that after they capture Gray, he'll leave the CIA, which makes her happy since she misses the times when it was just them working together. Eventually, Michael finally captures Gray, who reveals that Card sent them on a suicide mission to die. After learning that Gray was telling the truth, Michael grabs him and escapes with the team as an F18 air strike tries to kill them. Brady sacrifies himself to save the team as the air strike kills him, leading Card to believe that they were killed.
Stuck in Panama, the team resort to desperate measures to get back to Miami. They try to hijack a plane, but Gray tries to escape and Michael goes after him, but they're both kidnapped by a drug kingpin. Michael tries to work with Gray, who refuses to help since he read Michael's file. However, upon seeing Michael take 1500 volts to protect his friends, Gray helps Michael and they both escape. They hijack a plane again, and Gray regrets taking that shot to kill Anson since Nate was killed. Michael wants his help to go after the man who gave him the order, so Gray agrees to help him take down Card. Back in Miami, Gray lies to Card and makes him believe that Michael and his friends are dead.
As Gray works with the team to feed Card information they want him to believe, Ayn, who was released from federal prison, asks the team for help to get a dirty cop off her back since he's trying to send her back to jail. However, after the dirty cop grows a conscience, the team save his life and protect Ayn. They then have Gray wear a wire to get Card to confess his crimes, but when the frequency is jammed and a team shows up, Michael and Sam go in since Card plans to frame Gray. Michael confronts Card at gunpoint, who then kills Gray. Michael confronts him over not only ordering the hit on Anson that got Nate killed, but also trying to have him and his team killed. Card justifies his actions and makes it seem like he had to kill Gray in self-defense. After asking Michael if they can move into the future, Michael seems to agree, but then shoots Card in the head, killing him in cold-blood.
Sam angrily confronts Michael, who justifies his actions since Card was going to get away with it. The CIA respond to the scene and Michael becomes the target of their task force. Although Jesse and Fiona help Michael escape, Sam is caught by Agent Olivia Riley (Sonja Sohn), a heavy-hitting CIA Officer who literally "wrote the book" on counterintelligence. They set up an ambush in a boathouse and although Michael is almost killed, Riley is forced at gunpoint to order them to stand down. Michael and his friends capture Riley and take her someplace remote where Michael explains his side of the story, but Riley doesn't care and calls all four of them enemies of the United States of America, vowing to hunt Michael down to the ends of the earth.
Now fugitives, Michael, Sam, Fiona, and Jesse turn to smuggler Calvin Schmidt (Patton Oswalt) for help getting out of the country; in exchange for his help, first they take down a Syrian spy and get a piece of high-tech equipment that Schmidt's friend wants for $1,000,000. Meanwhile, Riley focuses her attention on Madeline, hoping to track down Michael. Madeline signs an agreement for Riley to provide her full cooperation, but Madeline continues to secretly help Michael and his friends. As Riley is spying on her, she eventually finds out that Madeline had Barry Burkowski (Paul Tei) throw up a financial smokescreen, leading to his arrest and Madeline becoming a fugitive as well.
Sam and Jesse get passport chips from James Vanek (Kevin McNally), who wants revenge against Schmidt. The team receives their new identities, but end up in a standoff against Vanek, who wants Schmidt dead. After learning that Schmidt knew Vanek tags his chips to give up the whereabouts of fugitives if he ever gets caught, Michael makes Schmidt believe that he's about to hand him over to Vanek until telling him to duck, shooting out an electrical box, giving them all a chance to escape with Madeline and Jesse. Schmidt tells Michael that their passports should be good but they shouldn't sit on them for too long in case Vanek gets caught. Madeline goes to visit Nate's grave and Michael joins her there, finding flowers and a card saying "Would love to chat. A friend."
Michael meets this "friend" at a diner in the middle of the night, who turns out to be Bly, hoping to offer him a deal. Bly wants Michael to let him be the one to bring him in. If Bly brings Michael in, then he can make Michael an official witness of the CSS since he's investigating Card due to him not being the "White Knight" the CIA believed him to be. Bly warns Michael that his actions have put Riley's reputation on the line and now she doesn't care who she has to hurt to get to him. Bly promises to look into it after Michael asks if his friends would be kept out of jail. The cops come for Michael, who realizes that Bly called them since Bly isn't supposed to have secret meetings with fugitives. Bly provides Michael with a burner phone before he leave.