​"Guts +Fuel + Hope " - MacGyver S03E04 Review

Oh, goodie, with "Guts + Fuel + Hope" the pre-credit tag is back. However, I think I've realized why I've hated the majority of them. Because they had George Eads in them. Tonight Eads is not only not in the tag, but he's not in the rest of the episode. I wouldn't say that I hate Eads. Let's just say that , egad, a little of Eads goes a long way. And tonight it took him all the way out of the episode. So... yay.

The tag is set in an expensive apartment supposedly in Abu Dhabi. After some stock footage, we cut to an interior set where an agent is showing a couple an expensive apartment. Mac and Riley burst in, have the people lock themselves up in the playroom, and Mac "borrows" stuffed toys, a purse, a belt, and a squirt gun. They go out, you hear screams and gunshots, and when the trio come out, they find all of the thugs tied up and powder burns everywhere. Mac is brandishing the squirt gun, which is flaming a tad.

And if we have to have tags, I'd rather have tags like this. It's less about showing off how smart Mac is, which we've already figured out after two seasons but they thought it was a good idea to keep telling us. And more showing the impact Mac has on people's lives. Credits to Rob Pearlstein on his first MacGyver script, although he's also worked on kindred-spirit show Scorpion.

So if we got to have tags, this is the tag I'd rather have. Although the first three episodes this season survived just fine without them.

We get a brief bit of Oversight (Tate Donovan) sitting alone in the world's largest diner, sadly ordering his usual and glancing at the clock.

Mac and Riley head by Phoenix plane back to LA, and they mention Jack is in DC answering to the Secretary of Defense about his shenanigans in the premiere episode. And it's subplot ahoy, as Riley discovers Mac is standing up his father and still hasn't forgiven him for walking out on Mac when Mac was 10 or so and his mother died. And I'm still with Mac on this one. Leaving your young son alone after his mother and your wife dies is a dick move. I don't care if you have to go run a super-secret world-spanning organization that "helps people". Granted, Phoenix security sucks pop rocks, as we've seen over and over. But if you're worried that your son is in danger, you put him in protective security and fricking raise the boy.

That said, Tate Donovan is growing on me. His "World's Loneliest Dad" routine helps. It still doesn't entirely overcome the whole "Mac's Father is a Dick" plot but it helps.

Leanna (Reign Edwards) is off somewhere doing something no doubt important. So it's just Wilt and Matty, who call Mac and Riley and say rebels have taken over a city in Georgia, Russia. There's a children's hospital running out of oxygen for twelve of its patients, and nobody will deliver them the tanker of liquid oxygen they so desperately need. Won't someone think of the children!

Mac and Riley do, and soon they're in Georgia driving around looking for the tanker. They find a guy, Vasil (C. Thomas Howell?!), driving it down the highway and intercept him. He explains his son Vano is one of the children at the hospital and he's driving the tanker there because no one else would. Vasil is real effusive with the praise for Mac and Riley, heroes all. Mac does something MacGyver-ish to the tanker, but it looks just the same to me so I'm not sure what and he doesn't explain.

A couple of rebel trucks intercept the tanker, and we get a couple of decent MacGyverisms. Mac uses water to seal a leaky valve by the simple expedient of pouring a bottle of water on the valve, and the cold freezes the water and creates a seal. Then he makes a Molotov cocktail out of a road flare and a bottle of rubbing alcohol and blows up one truck. I'm not sure what happened to the other one.

This all uses up time and gas, and the clock is ticking. Vasil directs them to a fuel station and keeps calling his son. Some bad guys show up and Vasil reveals he's a bad guy stealing the tanker to sell the oxygen on the black market so he can get enough money to get his family out of the country. He knew the tanker was heading to the hospital because of the onboard navigator and bluffed the rest.

During this, Mac and Riley have had several chats about their fathers (remember Elwood?). Vasil's betrayal for the sake of his family lets Riley make the point that if a guy refusing to help people for the sake of his family is a bad man, then maybe Oversight helping people and giving up his family is a good man. And... I don't follow the reasoning here. Yeah, if it was just Oversight she might have a point. But he hurt his 10-year-old son, too. Spock may have a point with "the needs of the many", but Kirk was right, too. I recall in some novel or another (I think Spock's World by Diane Duane) that Kirk noted what if the "one" was Surak? When you invoke the "needs of the many" argument, you're saying that some people don't matter as much and reducing it down to quantity rather than quality. If Oversight's decision had turned Mac into an evil Murdoc type and killed a few dozen people, would it still be the "right" decision?

But enough philosophizing. Vasil and his band of thieves drive off with the tanker. Mac and Riley get to the hospital and there's a lot of technobabble here that I don't understand. It boils down to the fact the city has a highly-pressurized reserve oxygen supply nearby. To get to it, Mac has to MacGyverize a pressure suit, go through the airlock, enter the high-PSI chamber, hook up the hospital air line to one of the valves, and let the high-pressure flow into the hospital oxygen converter and save the children. Because he's the someone thinking of the children, damn it!

I have no idea how this all works. So the city they're in can afford what looks like a high-tech oxygen storage area with an airlock and everything. But they have no way to pump the air out without someone in. And they keep the chamber at thousands of PSI. And don't have any protective suits around. And don't have a pipeline or hose leading away that Mac can tap into. And the hospital isn't part of the backup high-pressure oxygen system: shouldn't it be? They're running out of oxygen, and they don't even know about the oxygen supply unit what appears to be a few dozen feet from their doorstep. At the very least, this whole things sounds incredibly dangerous. One leak and a whole city block could go up. I smell shenanigans.

So Mac goes in, the hospital hose isn't long enough, and he uses his own air tube to extend the hospital hose. This forces him to hold his breath, and to paraphrase Leslie Nielson, "Mac can hold his breath for a long, long time!" Mac's improvised suit cracks from the pressure, and there's lot of dramatic pauses and cutaways to Riley. But Mac does indeed hold his breath, gets out through the airlock, and shares a chuckle with Riley about his cardio.

At the end, we find out Wilt tracked the cellphone that Mac used to repair the truck to track down the tanker. Which Vasil sold to the rebels, so that led Phoenix and the UN to the rebel base. What happened to Vasil, we never find out.

In the end Riley convinces Mac to link back up with his father. We go to the Diner of Hugeness and Oversight is getting ready to order his usual lonely order when Mac sits down with him and gives a patented Lucas Till smile. And thank god, because sulking isn't a good look on Till, even if it's justified.

We also get a brief little scene of Matty (Meredith Eaton) telling Wilt (Justin Hires) that she's there if he wants to talk about Jill's death. So at least Pearlstein remembers Jill. Maybe we'll get more references to her when Murdoc shows back up in a couple of episodes.

"Guts" really doesn't stand up to scrutiny. But then again, a lot of the original MacGyver episodes didn't, either. It's got lots of actions, a third-act betrayal, some good MacGyverisms (the ice seal, the Molotov, the pressure suit), and a decent opening tag. The episode benefits mostly from having Pearlstein as a writer, and not having Eads there. Again, no offense to Eads, but Jack Dalton's character is there mostly to shoot things. When he's not there, Mac has to do more thinking and thus, more MacGyverisms.

Riley (Tristan Mays) doesn't have much to do. She basically drives the truck, kicks a bad guy, and keeps giving Mac pep talks about his father. She does mention Elwood (William Baldwin), so at least Pearlstein remembered she has a father. Not that the character or Baldwin were that great. But continuity, damn it, continuity!

We also get to see Riley with Mac and her not spouting computer technobabble. And Matty and Wilt get their scene. And Wilt (who some men call... "Bozer", but hey, I don't call Riley "Davis") doesn't have too many annoying "comedy" scenes. There no Jack, and no Leanna, and the show is better for it. Gives the characters remaining more room to breath. Eads in particular tends to steal every scene he's in, and often it's to the detriment of his fellow stars. I doubt we're rid of him, but it was nice to see an episode without him. I could get behind the "Team MacGyver" approach more if this was the team and Jack wasn't a part of it.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?