#split decision

Split decision. 6:45am Cloud Cover

I mean, it's kinda cheesy, but it's sweet and fairly tidily written. I like Ronnie. I am amused by Mac getting semi-reluctantly dragged into co-parenting and then throwing himself into it because adopting teenagers is what he does when left to his own devices anyway.

I also cracked up over the whole exchange about: "I hate boxing - I think it's barbaric." "There's some people who'd say the same about hockey." "Well, I happen to have hope for hockey!"

The Split Decision demo is out both on Steam and on Itch! (web browser supported) After working on this game for a couple of years, that feels kind of nice to say out loud. This is also our first game done in Godot after a couple of years of working with Un*ty.

This 6-fight demo introduces the core cast, the scoring mechanics, and a first glimpse into the shady world of Brickton boxing. We’ve polished as much as time has permitted us: bug squashing, dialogue cleanup, and fine tuning the art style. It feels like a game we’re proud of.

Split Decision takes a fresh angle on the fighting game genre: you’re not throwing the punches, you’re judging them. Your calls decide careers, stories, and who walks out of Brickton with a future. It’s the kind of creative risk we can take because we’re not driven by commercial pressure. We’re just making the game we want to make.

The podcasters are surprised to see the return of Tom Card – they truly weren’t expecting it.

Bri: I feel like it would be better if he was his original handler. We would have some grounding for their relationship, like, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that I ignored you when you got burned, but I’m back.’

Chris: It’s because it sits in this weird moment in television history where, a few years earlier they wouldn’t dream of bringing that old person back, because who can remember?

Bri: I don’t care if it’s that guy, they can still cast him as a different actor, he could still be John C McGinley, shows do that all the time. Game of Thrones had different actors playing the same character basically the whole show. Even if we don’t remember, referencing enough specifics makes it personal to us. Him being ‘a guy from Michael’s past’ is meaningless, but him being Michael’s handler from when he first got his burn notice, who is now sidling back up would be an interesting tension. It would be a more interesting conflict if he was the guy who Michael was trying to get on side when he got burned and the guy was toeing the company line, and now he has to crawl back to Michael Westen because he needs him.

Chris: Having him be the guy who trained Michael makes no sense.

Bri: Especially because they haven’t done anything with it!

Chris: They’ve done nothing about it. Which is why I’m not harping on it too much now, because we talked about that.

(In the last Card episode I could understand that position, but now that we know Tom Card isn’t a one-off character, that he’s sticking around, it makes more sense that they don’t info-dump all the background stuff on first sight. I agree that it would have added more layers to have him be the same guy Michael was calling back in the pilot, though I definitely see why they didn’t get the same actor – the actor you cast for a bit part in a pilot six years ago might a) not even still be acting and b) might not be the calibre of actor you want for a key recurring role. But also, that actor could not have been McGinley, because the original character was Black, and replacing a Black actor with a white one gives all the wrong vibes…)

Bri: This is an interesting episode. It’s very chock full, a lot of stuff happens, but we move along at a quick pace and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. This is a pretty good episode where even the transitionary scenes feel like fun. It doesn’t feel rushed.

Chris: It feels like everything just kind of happens. I really enjoyed this episode.

Rebecca’s brother Trent was doing accountancy work for a nightclub and realised it was a crime front. He told the police, the club owner was arrested, and the rest of the gang, including the owner’s son, wanted to kill Trent, so he had to run and hide. Since they can’t actually find Trent, Michael instead comes up with a plan to convince the son (Wes) that it wasn’t Trent who informed on them to the cops.

Nate and Jesse go to find an old cellmate of Wes’s dad (who died in prison) so they can get details from him.

Bri: This is my favourite Nate pairing ever. Nate and Jesse are so funny, because Jesse’s like, dude, I don't care at all about what you have to say, but I’m not gonna be mean about it.

Chris: I’m a nice person, so I’m not gonna be mean to you, but I don’t care about you. That’s what Nate needs – someone who is nice to him but doesn’t care about him, because all he has is the opposite, people who care about him, but also hate him.

(There’s a strong element of that to Nate’s relationship with Michael – Michael finds him frustrating to deal with a lot of the time. But Madeline is very protective of Nate and she's always making excuses for him. Which is totally understandable when she feels so guilty about his childhood, but also I don’t think it’s doing Nate any favours, having his mother so willing to cover for his mistakes.)

Bri: I like that Jesse has a playlist that’s exclusively Queen and that his car is uncomfortable despite how much he loves it. I love learning these little details about Jesse, and this whole time I’m like, Jesse is such a good character, I’m so glad he’s on the main cast. He brings a charisma and energy. Look, I love Jeffrey Donovan, I think he’s great, but Jesse adds so much to this ensemble.

Chris: Jesse has such a good energy. I don’t know why the world has wasted Coby Bell, he’s so charismatic.

(The way that Jesse just walks onto this show and fits right in like he's always been there continues to amaze me on every rewatch. So many shows introducing a new character half way through the run have shown exactly how hard it can be to make that work, but with Burn Notice, the writing and Coby Bell are just so damn perfect, it looks effortless. I remain in awe ❤️)

Michael approaches Wes pretending that he’s his dad’s old cell mate.

Chris: This is my favourite kind of Michael Westen alias.

Bri: Twitchy ex-con!

Chris: Twitchy ex-con who’s kind of dumb.

Bri: Coming to this from a Jesse scene, they really do have such different aliases. Coby Bell has had dumb aliases before, but they play dumb in completely different ways, it’s so fun that we have these two options now. Coby Bell is loud and dumb, Michael Westen is simple. And both are good, I like both of them.

(It’s true – Jesse plays over-confident idiots full of bravado, Michael plays a lot of intimidated idiots who’ll do whatever a stronger guy tells him to. It’s a good contrast.)

Sam and Rebecca plant a file in a police evidence locker suggesting that Trent wasn’t the person who informed to the police. Michael and Wes then do a dramatic break-in to steal the file so that Wes will be convinced to stop trying to murder Trent.

(This is actually a really good plot. Sometimes Burn Notice has a plot where people are convinced by Michael and co in a way that seems a little too easy. Why would somebody believe this person they met yesterday? But this plan, with a faked police file that they actually have to break in and steal, that’s convincing 👍)

Meanwhile, Tom Card is trying to get Michael to help him arrest a gun-dealer associate of Fi’s as part of the negotiating strategy for getting Fi out of prison.

Chris: This is very tense. It’s super well done.

Bri: We were already on a timer of shit they gotta got out of here before all the cops come, and now there’s a second thing they’re on the hook for that also has a timeline on it.

Chris: I always love it when Michael has to be in two places at once.

Bri: It gives us a reason why we’re cutting between scenes very quickly, it gives us a reason for the other teammates to get involved. It stretches them thin and it forces them to improvise, and that’s what we love about Burn Notice, when they have to improvise.

(That is one of the joys of Burn Notice – they’re good at coming up with plans, yes, but they’re amazing at making shit up when the plan starts to go wrong)

Chris: One of the things about Michael’s aliases is that they are kind of simple, when he’s doing this kind of alias, but also have to be really competent in places. So he has to be kind of dumb, but also be coordinating a whole bunch of stuff really well in a way that’s impressive, but also has to be kind of dumb, and I really appreciate when he does that.

Bri: It’s a tight line to walk on and he does a good job.

(Michael does play a lot of characters who are generally not that smart at life, but have one specific area of skills/expertise, and it’s a combination that works well and must be a lot of fun to act.)

Sam and Rebecca draw the cops away from Michael and Wes so they can escape from the evidence warehouse, but then they need help evading the cop pursuit themselves, and they call Jesse to meet them with a fast boat.

Chris: One of my favourite things about this show, one of the things I enjoy the most, is that whenever someone calls another member of the team and says, ‘I need you to do an impossible thing,’ they immediately go, ‘Yep.’ They know there’s no time to question it or go what the fuck, it’s just like, okay, and they do it.

Bri: It’s a ride or die impulse that I’m obsessed with. (Me too! 😁) This is what makes a good procedural, is a team that you really care about, that works really well together, that has complementary skillsets, but that ultimately they work well together. A great procedural lives or dies on its characters and I like watching this well-oiled machine.

(It’s true, Burn Notice has that vibe down so perfectly with these characters. But I also love that we saw how they got there. In the first season and part way into the second, it very much wasn’t that way with Fiona and Sam. They did constantly question each other, argue about tactics and intent, they didn’t like each other and they didn’t trust each other. It took time for that to develop, and it was awesome the way it did.)

Bri: Back at the bad guy’s house, the thing that I was suspecting finally comes to pass. Michael’s original plan was for Sam to make the file vague, so that the dude would tear his organisation apart looking for a mole that isn’t there.

Chris: Trent innocent, definitely not him, but unclear who it was.

Bri: Wes concludes from this dossier that the only person it could be was his wife. I assumed that Michael now has to switch to, ‘Oh, no, not the wife,’ but I guess we’ve set her up to be enough of a bitch and enough in on the bad stuff that we don't care that much. Michael does manage to convince Wes not to kill her, but just to kick her out.

Chris: I’m genuinely kind of torn about this, and the actor does a very good job. This dude genuinely loves his wife, this dude is a wife guy and he has to not be a wife guy any more, and it really hurts him. And Michael's like, in the voiceover, oh this sucks, I have to just go with this. This dude might kill his wife or something, I have to ruin this marriage because I've got shit to do.

Bri: He does say before Michael leaves, Wes is like anything you need, I got you, so I wonder if he's gonna come back.

Chris: This is a really standard Burn Notice play, where it's convince the bad guys that someone else did whatever, and normally they're able to tie a pretty firm bow on it. There's no tying a bow on it here - the marriage is over, this guy's gonna be thinking about this for the rest of his life. I don't feel like Trent is safe.

Bri: Me either, which I hope comes back. I don't think that part will come back, but I think the rich guy Wes will come back. It behooves Michael to leave some bad guys alive in Miami so he can make use of them later.

(This is a thing Burn Notice does, and since Wes is one of the rare ones not dead or jailed, he could potentially be of some use. The Trent thing could go either way - maybe Wes will ruminate on it and eventually see gaps in the story. But also, that would require him to recognise that he kicked out his wife for no reason, and that might not be something he's willing to contemplate. Either way, temporary safety for Trent is enough to remove Anson's immediate hold over Rebecca.)

Chris: Trent is not safe. He's just in less immediate danger. As the guy's not in jail, this seems incredibly dangerous. I don't have that much faith in Burn Notice.

Bri: Season six is getting places. I'm not overall unhappy with season six.

Chris: We'll talk about next week next week… (The podcasters watch two eps back to back and then record one pod each week. So half the time they have no idea what's coming next and half the time they've already seen it. Both of those scenarios can definitely affect their takes, in good ways and bad. In this case, they've already seen the next ep… 😱)

Tom Card explains to Fi that he pulled Michael out of Ireland to save his life - that Michael wanted to stay with Fi, but he would have been killed. So every happy moment they've had since then is thanks to him.

Bri: I don't care about this conflict. I don't see why Fi would be upset when he was literally a CIA agent, of course he was going to leave at some point. I think what she's really mad at is Michael for not leaving the CIA. She's redirecting a bunch of anger towards this guy that we don't know and I don't care.

Chris: It makes Fi seem immature.

Bri: It would be one thing if she was projecting on him and she was still really mad at Michael, but I think we've resolved her being mad at Michael going back to the CIA. So this feels misplaced and unnecessary.

(I disagree with that. Fiona found out Michael was CIA shortly before he left Ireland, so she did know that he'd leave at some point, yes, but the thing she was so mad about was the way he left - disappearing in the night without a word, leaving her not knowing anything. She didn't know if he was alive or dead, she didn't know if he'd really loved her or if the whole thing was a lie. If they'd had a conversation where Michael said, 'My cover's blown, I have to go now, but I do care,' that would have left Fi in a very different place. I don't think she ever truly got over Michael leaving that way, and she blames Tom Card for that part of it. And also, while she's accepted that Michael went back to the CIA because that's what he wanted to do, she still hates that choice. Especially since that choice is partly responsible for her predicament now. Anson's decision to frame Fi and blackmail Michael was made because Michael was back inside, because he could suddenly be far more useful to Anson than he had been in his four years bumming around Miami. Fi is in prison right now because Michael went back to the CIA, and there's a CIA target standing right there in front of her. I'd be pissed off and lash out too, and Fi's temper is established canon.)

This gets to be a great ep of Burn Notice - it fails on spy tips, but Michael has a good alias and Sam and Jesse had fun roles, so it makes it through.

Is it a great episode of television?

Bri: It's a well structured episode of television. The things that we didn't like about it weren't the episode's fault, like the Card-Fi relationship. It was exciting, the tension worked, it was a good use of the full ensemble. I think it was a great episode of television. I didn't feel like there was any wasted time. I would watch this again, I had a lot of fun with it.

Chris: Then I'm with you on it.