Did MacGyver Just Kill Off [Spoiler]?
The following contains spoilers from the Jan. 15 episode of CBS‘ MacGyver.
This Friday on CBS’ MacGyver — nearly two years to the day that original cast member George Eads made his final appearance as Phoenix team member Jack Dalton — the action-drama revisited the long-gone character’s fate.
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Meaning, it was discovered that Jack, while working undercover as “Ozzie Ulrich,” died during his hunt for “the world’s most dangerous terrorist,” named Tiberius Kovac.
Yet Jack left behind a mystery to solve, having seemingly set up a “fail safe” letter to be delivered upon his passing. That led the team to an apartment in Zagreb, where an Eye of Horus drawing/nod to Mac and Jack’s infamous Cairo op pointed them to a hidden safe, which Mac used freon to crack open. Inside said safe was a photograph of a smuggler named Tibor (Arrow‘s Nick Tarabay).
Interpol then busted in, led by Agent Vitez (Instinct‘s Bojana Novakovic). She has heard tell of Russ Taylor, and says she knew Jack well, so she agrees to help them find Tibor. Tibor in turn recognizes Mac’s handiwork and claims that he and Jack were “BFFs” working to take down Kovac.
The team uses Tibor as bait, setting up a meet with Kovac to deliver fake passports — but they are ambushed by a car bomb, followed by two arriving SUVs full of goons. They fend off the attack thanks in part to an ersatz railgun made by Mac, and take a concussed gunmen prisoner. Convening in a hotel room, the team interprets a message from Tibor (about Mac and Jack’s “manniversary” in Vegas) to mean that Kovac is a “mirage” and not a real person. But before they can get anything out of the gunman they had nabbed, he is shot dead through the window by a sniper. Mac, Russ and Desi chase after the sniper, and after KOing him realize that he was active military — meaning, Agent Vitez is in on it.
In fact, Agent Vitez reveals to Riley and Bozer — as she puts a bullet into the latter’s leg — that she is Kovac.
Vitez lures Mac, Russ and Desi to where she is holding Riley and Bozer, while she uses Riley’s laptop to fabricate a narrative that will suggest that Jack Dalton was Kovac, and the Phoenix team died while trying to cover up his crimes. Mac arrives alone and seemingly unarmed, while Russ from the floor below uses a supermagnet that Mac made to move Riley and Bozer’s rolling chairs out of harm’s way. Soon as they roll aside, Mac quotes Jack’s movie hero, “Yippee Ki Yay,” and pulls out an explosive that was duct-taped to his back. Desi meanwhile springs out of an air vent, and they get the drop on Vitez and her goons.
A livid and bereft Riley then gets in Vitez’s face and vows to “make sure you rot in a cell,” for what she did to Jack.
On the jet ride home, Mac shares with Riley that the will left him Jack’s Metallica t-shirts and his DVD collection — after which he invites her over for a Die Hard marathon. Later in the flight, when everyone is asleep, Mac retreats to the lavatory to have a meltdown of his own, letting loose with some tears and a punch at the vanity.
The next morning, once back home, Mac pulls up to Riley in Jack’s GTO convertible, and not only invites her to drive Jack’s pride and joy… but reveals that it was bequeathed to her, knowing she would love it as much as her father figure did.
What did you think of the episode “Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO”?
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