#210: Three for the Road (15 December 1986)

The episode begins with the old guy from Night Rider on a road trip with some old woman talking about some bullshit nobody under the age of 100 could possibly give a shit about. They pull up to a hotel where MacGyver happens to be staying, out of the city where “time moves a little slower”, which simply means the town sucks.

At this point in time it is safe to say the women is old, but certainly not too old for MacGyver to bang. This leaves the door ajar for a disturbing three way later in the episode.

We learn that MacGyver is out in the middle of nowhere to meet Tony Sullivan, part of the syndicate, who has selected this location as the rendezvous point, so something big must be going down. Before MacGyver gets the chance to meet with Tony, some goons show up and shoot Tony dead, but not before he had the chance to stash a bag in the old guys car, which I’m certain will be of major significance in the episode.

It turns out Tony saved MacGyver’s life twice when he was running guns into Afghanistan and MacGyver was running for his life. MacGyver wishes he could have returned the favour but he was too late. Nobody should really give a shit about Tony; he was a dickhead and traded in weapons. What was MacGyver doing in Afghanistan? Almost certainly sourcing a cheap supply of heroin for personal use.

Back at Phoenix Foundation headquarters, Pete has decided to call MacGyver home, as there is nothing MacGyver can do and frankly Pete doesn’t want the Phoenix foundation involved. I never know what type of missions the Phoenix Foundation will take on. They’ve been involved in some sketchy shit in the past but other rather normal missions are rejected. I’m pretty sure they go where the cash is. Or the drugs. And always where they’ll be hot bitches.

The old dude gets into a fight with some guy who sits a beer on his car. It turns out old dude is a famous actor of sorts. He’s obviously dealing with some certified bassasses, as the dude comments “hit me and I’ll make mashed potato out of your face”. Holy shit!

MacGyver shows up just at the right time and takes the dude out with a sweet move that involves beating someone up with a jacket, leather at that.

We soon discover the goons who killed Tony are part of the mafia, and their boss wants the satchel Tony threw in the old guys car. The old guy finds the satchel and opens it. Turns out it’s loaded with money. Looks like things are about to get interesting or dog shit boring depending on your perspective.

It turns out the old guy is broke. All of his cards are declined when he tried to pay for the hotel. Just when the hotel owner is about to beat the living piss out of him, he used the cash found in the satchel and then quotes some play “kindness to any creature as I’ll never pass this way again”.

MacGyver finds himself with a fucking garbage rental car, broken down in the middle of nowhere. “Rental cars, a lot like playing hot potato and I got burned by an over heated air conditioner”. No idea what the fuck that means. How is renting a car like playing hot potato? What even is hot potato? Most people would be kind of pissed and demand a refund from the rental company. MacGyver will probably beat the living piss out of the guy and may even kill him and then dissolve the body in acid. He’s not quick to forgive or forget.

Back at the hotel, the goons and their boss have shown up. They get some change when checking into the hotel and it’s all new $20 notes. They proceed to interrogate the manager who says he doesn’t know where he got the notes. After jamming his fingers in the cash register he remembers he received them from the old guy who is on his way to Hollywood in a red car.

MacGyver meanwhile reveals a few tricks of the trade. “A paperclip can be a great thing.  It’s got me out of a jam on more occasions than I can remember”. Yeah it’s held documents together when otherwise each individual page would have flown around all over the fucking place. They are great. This time the paperclip isn’t able to assist him and he finds himself stuck in the middle of nowhere. Just when all hope is lost, the old dude and his wife show up and give MacGyver a ride.

The old dude explains the premise of his new movie Space Pirates to MacGyver, and the general consensus is that it’s going to be fucking garbage.

Just when it looks like the creepy three way I was envisioning early is about to take place at a truck rest stop, the goons show up.

The old dude drives off as quickly as he can but not fast enough. MacGyver is able to slow them down by throwing luggage in their general direction. Stepping it up a notch he removes the top from the convertible and throws it at them, causing the goons to fly off the road. This luckily leads to them puncturing a tire, buying MacGyver and his new old as fuck posse some time.

Unfortunately the time bought is minimal as their fuel line is cracked and the car comes to an abrupt halt only a few miles from where the goons are stopped. MacGyver is able to repair the fuel line with a pen after reluctantly getting an autograph from the old guy. His wife thanked MacGyver for playing along. She knew MacGyver didn’t want his autograph as his films are all dog shit and this dude is like a poor mans Jack Lemon, only way older and D-grade city. Life imitating art I ask you.

The previously pristine vehicle is not completed fucked, mostly due to the works of MacGyver ripping it apart. I don’t actually think most of it was necessary, MacGyver just hated the old guys shitty stories.

The goons get the tire changed and the chase continues. MacGyver makes a rocket launcher out of the exhaust and used the gear stick knob as ammunition.  The rocket surprisingly worked very well, completely fucking up the goon’s car and allowing them to get away.  It appears the goons will have to walk all the way to Hollywood.

In an unsurprising turn of events MacGyver and gangs’ car is also fucked, so the excruciatingly slow chase continues.

The old guy decides now is the time to confesses to MacGyver that he is in possession of what the goons are looking for, a satchel filled with cash.

They see a deserted town just off in the distance. MacGyver decides this is the perfect place to hide and ambush the goons in a storyline almost fucking identical to the recent episode involving his grandfather.

They may run with the ambush technique or they may just decide in stay in the ghost town forever, start a production company and put on dog shit plays for passers through.

Once in the town, MacGyver has a look at the $20 bills. The money is counterfeit, in a twist that probably won’t have any impact whatsoever on the outcome of the episode.

MacGyver decides the car is practically a write off so there is no reason why he shouldn’t continue to deconstruct it. He pulls out the battery and the car horn, which he will be using to construct a brutal doorbell. They may have no weapons but that doesn’t mean MacGyver can’t deafen the goons.

While this doorbell construction is taking place, a hilarious conversion takes place where the old guy is talking about his wife but MacGyver thinks he’s talking about his car. Hilarious! And by hilarious I mean fucking stupid.

MacGyver makes some paper flowers to give to the old guys wife in one last ditch effort to try and sweet talk her into a three way. It looked like it was going to work when the goons show up.

MacGyver subtlety takes out the first guy by slamming his head under the car bonnet.

The old guy chooses the most inopportune time apologizes to his wife for everything he’s ever done to her, including the shitty films. The boss of course shows up during this apology and the old guys fortunes have taken a serious turn for the worse.

MacGyver’s horn alarm blasts the second goon and then MacGyver proceeds to beat the shit out of him.

The old guy does some radical swashbuckling with the car aerial.  Just as shit starts going even further downhill, MacGyver takes the boss out with a hubcap. The boss was actually totally weak as shit.

MacGyver finally remembers who the old guy is and can even name a few of his shitty films. It’s kind of like spending the day with Pauly Shore then finally remembering Encino Man after 8 hours of talking to him.

Back at the Phoenix Foundation Car Repair office / money laundering outfit, MacGyver has repaired the old guys car! The old guy finds a scratch, well what he thought was a scratch but it was just a thread and MacGyver blows it away and they all laugh. A hilarious ending to a boring as fuck episode.

MacGyver taught us that the best way to end a car chase is to throw luggage at a vehicle, that D-grade actors can be annoying as shit, if you find a bag of money it always belongs to the mafia and that it isn’t as easy to get an old aged pensioner into a three way as one might think.

#209: Silent World (24 November 1986)

Paris, France. A clandestine meeting is taking place between some of the most dangerous men in the world. This is speculative just how dangerous the men are, but the fact the meeting is taking place in a dark room, probably underground and the discussion revolves around stealing a missile indicates that they are indeed dangerous. The man they are meeting with is David Crane. They wish to hire him to steal a missile. He’s the best around and they need him, as they do not want certain activities traced to their organisation. One of the men believes he is is too caviler and strange, very strange.  He doesn’t play by anyone’s rules. He’s a maverick, but one on their side. If you're going to hire a joker, make sure he's in your deck. In all of his years as an international thief, he’s never been caught, convicted or even suspected. The men want Crane to steal the Moorelock missile. It's currently in pieces scattered all over the county. He just needs to retrieve these pieces and put it together. 

Crane blows up a chair for no reason, just to be a badass. Just to show these guys he’s unfuckwithable. He does a lot of speaking in French, showing he has completed high school.

We find MacGyver at the Phoenix Foundation Test Site, a fake town where missiles are exploded. The General isn’t the biggest fan of MacGyver. Just to break with traditional of how military types are portrayed in television and movies, he doesn’t like civilians at all. 

This missile can be guided by voice and MacGyver has to test it out. Can he get the missile through the town without destroying anything? It would appear so. Even the General is impressed. He may end up liking MacGyver after all.

The next scene sees MacGyver doing some volunteer work down at a local deaf school. His sign language is shitty as fuck and the kids laugh at him. He then signs something along the lines of “go fuck yourselves, you deaf fucks” and then signs something for the teacher, something along the lines of "I want to dick you". After that he probably cranked some tunes on a ghetto blaster and danced around, just to rub it in that the kids can’t hear. What a cunt. But justifiable, the kids did give him shit.

Things start getting weird really quickly. The teacher has a premonition of MacGyver getting hit by a car. It looks like the episode is heading in some sort of Charmed direction. At this stage I’m predicting the episode is going to be a shit one as MacGyver works best when there isn’t any weak supernatural bullshit.

Pete and MacGyver test out some new devise that allows deaf kids to hear. Pete comments “I cant imagine what it would be like, hearing for the first time”. Unfortunately none of the kids could hear what he was saying so the sentiment was lost on everyone, except MacGyver who wouldn’t give a shit anyway. He's too busy trying to bang the teacher. This volunteering thing is probably part of some compulsory community service MacGyver had to do to avoid a prison sentence for either drug trafficking or statutory rape. Or both.

The teacher has another premonition taking the episode from potentially shit into most certainly absolute dog shit. This time it gets into fucking stupid territory and features a horse and a hovercraft. What the fuck?

Meanwhile Crane is working on getting the pieces of the missile together. He dresses as a cop, stops a military vehicle in the middle of nowhere and his team steals some shit from the back. Getting the pieces of the weapon is going to be easy as piss with such weak security measures in place.

We cut back to MacGyver’s place, where he and the teacher are having a rather frank discussion.

MacGyver: What’s bothering you?

Carrie: I had a dream about you.

MacGyver: Oh yeah?

Carrie: Not like that, you were killed and I was watching. You were almost hit by a lightning bolt, then we were being chased by a Moorish warrior past a steel skeleton, you were hit by this old car that came at us out of a lake, then you were killed.

MacGyver decided this wasn’t the time to go into details about the dream he had about Carrie, as this would have certainly creeped her out. How do you broach the subject of a dream involving a wine bottle inserted into an asshole? MacGyver clearly wants to bang her. This would have been the perfect time to do it. Instead MacGyver is interested in hearing about the dream. He’s hoping this dream was filthy as shit and wants to get her involved in some sleep research the Phoenix Foundation is conducting.

Crane has made quick time and already arrived at the next destination, a museum with a replica of the missile that contains the real propulsions system in a move that on the militaries part was erroneous to say the least. Crane gets the propulsion system and gets the fuck out of there commenting to his crew “6 months of planning and in 25 hours we’ll be done”.

Pete and MacGyver finish up lunch at a restaurant.

MacGyver: How do you like Indian food Pete?

Pete: To be honest I don’t know, my taste buds burned out after the second bite!

He’ll be shitting all over the place within the hour. I hope the restaurant is located in close vicinity to the Phoenix Foundation.

MacGyver pushes Pete out of the way, saving them both from being hit and possibly killed by a van with a lightning bolt on the side. The lightning is from the first part of Carries dream. This convinces Pete to let Carrie get in on the dream research, as her dream was really intense and clearly holds the answer to something. Bullshit I believe it’s called.

They race back to the Phoenix Foundation to do the tests. Getting to the bottom of what this dream means is of upmost importance. It could hold the secret to the cure for AIDs or who will win the Super bowl. It could also just prove that Carrie is as cracked out as MacGyver.

The dream sequence is replayed, this time in extended remix form. The researcher comments, “the signals are not of a normal dream, the waves are too intense”. A intense dream! Holy shit!

Crane and crew arrive to collect the last piece of the missile from the Phoenix Foundation test site. MacGyver, Carrie and Pete are there still talking about that fucking dream. Just as the crew collect the last piece, Carrie points out Crane as the man from her dream. What in the name of fuck? How did that happen? Crane does a runner and one of the crew opens fire on MacGyver and co.

Crane escapes but not before MacGyver takes out one of the dudes. They’ll be able to get answers from this guy so all should be fine. No it won’t be! Crane kills his own man so he can’t reveal the plan. What a fucking badass. It kind of doesn’t matter as MacGyver figures out the plot of stealing the missile piece by piece.

In a miracle of modern science, Carrie reveals just who is responsible for stealing the missile through her dream. MacGyver proceeds to draw the lake from her dream on a Commodore 64 for no fucking reason. MacGyver then uses software that certainly didn’t exist at the time and probably still doesn’t to match the lake from her dream with a real one.

They take a trip out to this lake and it turns out to be the exact lake from her dream. What a load of fucking horseshit. MacGyver considers all this to be completely normal no doubt because of the large quantity of LSD in his system. The Phoenix Foundation do research on a lot of things, not just dreams. MacGyver figures that they’ll be able to use her dream to solve the case. There is no way he isn’t on drugs at this point. The metal skeleton from the dream shows up in the form of old buried car parts, and then a dude on a white horse shows up. What the shit? Then a fucking dude pops out of the bushes and starts shooting at them just like in the dream. Fuck me. The only thing left is the fucking hovercraft.

I only had to wait 30 seconds for Crane to show up in, you guessed it, a hovercraft. MacGyver gets hit by crane and left for dead. Carrie is taken, ending one of the most bullshit scenes in the series to date.

MacGyver is as predicted not dead and is on a mission to save the girl. Saving her life should get him some pussy, his main concern at this stage.

Back at Phoenix Foundation headquarters, Pete discovers that Crane has every piece of the missile. Shit is getting real.

The dude on the horse gets through to Pete and lets him know where MacGyver is. They’re sending out a rescue team but will there be enough time? Now that Crane has the entire missile he’ll be offloading it to the buyers and disappearing.  

In what seemed like 3 minutes, MacGyver tracks down the hovercraft and Crane’s headquarters. One of the crew heads outside to see if anyone is around. MacGyver punches him in the face from under the water in a fucking radical move that I don’t think is actually possible but badass nonetheless.

Crane asked how they found him. Carrie explains the dream and Crane understandably thinks she’s nuts.

MacGyver makes a water clock out of a plastic bag filled with water and a hole in it. Once the water drains out of the bag it will turn the ignition, starting the hovercraft and creating one of MacGyver’s tried and true distractions. It totally works. The hovercraft starts up, one of the dudes walks outside to see what’s up and MacGyver pulls a rope flipping him into the water.

MacGyver runs inside and takes Crane out with a pot before commenting, “don’t worry about him, he’s just dreaming”. Fucking awesome. Mostly because it ties in with the theme of the episode. Dreams. You know how the episode has had lots of dreams in it? And MacGyver said "he's just dreaming". Get it? Dreams.

Pete comes and collects them in a helicopter.

The next scene utilises soft focus, sexy saxophone and candles. MacGyver is going to bang Carrie like there is no tomorrow. Just when things are about to get somewhat inappropriate the scene ends. It turns out it was just Carrie daydreaming about MacGyver banging her. I’m sure the Phoenix Foundation have the technology to turn this dream into a VHS which MacGyver will watch and then sell. Or use to blackmail Carrie into actually banging him. It’s hard to say which.

Just to tie up loose ends, Pete reveals Crane and Crew have all been captured.

We cut back to the deaf school where Pete announces the Phoenix Foundation are going to provide $50,000 for deaf research. The girl who had never spoken before speaks, ending the episode on an emotional note. There were tears but not from MacGyver as he was too fucked up on drugs.

MacGyver taught us that the military keep components to highly dangerous and top secret weapons is museums with low levels of security, that it’s possible to teach deaf people to hear, that once you save a chicks life she has to bone you and that it’s possible to solve complex crimes through experimental dream analysis.

#208: Eagles (17 November 1986)

The episode starts off in questionable fashion, with the first ten minutes consisting of nothing more than close ups of MacGyver allegedly on a hang glider interspersed with stock footage of Eagles and hang gliders, with a voice over of MacGyver discussing his mission to save a pair of endangered Golden Eagles. Boring as fuck. Saving birds? Who gives a shit. Pete also knew the exact located of where MacGyver could find these birds and I have no fucking idea how. Sounds like bullshit to me.

Eventually a helicopter shows up. A hunter onboard starts shooting at the endangered birds taking both of them down with a bow and arrow. One of the pilots warned against shooting the birds, claiming it is illegal. The shooter clearly doesn't give a fuck. Both of the eagles were injured but are alive.

MacGyver attempted to stop the hunter from killing the birds by reflecting sun into their eyes with a mirror or as MacGyver put it “showing them the light”. This strategy ultimately failed and now it appears MacGyver’s mission will be to rescue the birds before the hunters get to them and finish them off.

A boy finds the wounded bird. MacGyver lands in his vicinity, captures the bird in his coat and they head back to the boys grandfather’s cabin to repair the broken wing.

Back at the cabin, the mother, Susan, is having problems starting her car. MacGyver will most certainly fix it for the right price and that exchange won't involve cash.

Apparently MacGyver is a fucking vet now too and is able to remove the arrow and set the birds broken wing.

Susan isn’t really hot at all, but that won’t stop MacGyver from trying to bang her. The time isn't right now with that fucking kid around, but as soon as he's gone or dies, MacGyver will be dicking Susan.

It turns out Susan is up at the cabin trying to fix some things. MacGyver thinks she means home repairs, to which she replies she wouldn’t know a hammer from a chainsaw. Who the fuck can’t tell a hammer from a chainsaw? Anyway she actually meant she was there to try and fix her son Darren and herself. Metaphor alert. They’ve had a tough time recently so the cabin gives them some respite. MacGyver gives Susan his concerned look, which 8/10 times gets him at least a blowjob.

The helicopter lands and we discover the pilots have some concerns. For starters there is a $5000 fine for killing Golden Eagles. Secondly, they are worried MacGyver will alert the Park Ranger to their activities leading to the suspension of their license and loss of their business. Thirdly, one of the pilots has actually broken out of prison and moved to the middle of nowhere to ensure he never gets caught. If federal agents start investigating this attempted eagle murder he’ll be found and will end up back on death row. He just “ain’t gonna let that happen”.

The hunter who shot the bird isn’t concerned. Speaking of MacGyver he believe “maybe he has a soft spot. Women, booze, owe the bookies, something he doesn’t want out of the bag. Find him and buy him”. Little does he know with MacGyver it’s all of the above and much, much more. The only problem is MacGyver is cashed up to the max, so if he wants to buy him off, he’s going to need a substantial quantity of high quality methamphetamines.

After repairing the wing, MacGyver goes for a walking, running into Darren on the way. Him and his mother have been fighting a lot recently. He just wants to get out and explore, live a little, but his mother is too worried he’s going to get hurt and won’t let him do anything. MacGyver is definitely thinking, “fuck her, do what you want”. It also turns out Darren is some sort of bird expert, especially eagles, which he’s been studying for years.

Back at the house Darren asks his mother if MacGyver can stay over. She is says he can, opening the door just that little further for MacGyver. It’s also conveniently Darren’s bedtime, giving them the place all to themselves.

MacGyver comments “the only arguments I ever had with my mother were about bed time. I finally let her stay up until ten.” This hilarious joke eases the tension but not for long. Susan hands a knife to MacGyver, one he’d previously given Darren without her permission and she’s pissed. There will be no dicking tonight for MacGyver. Instead he uses the time to read up about Golden Eagles in one of the Darren’s shitty kids books about birds.

The next morning MacGyver feeds the injured bird some sugar cubes and asks “are you gonna let me touch you”? I’m sure MacGyver asked Susan the same thing last night. I’m not exactly sure what happened between them but judging by the awkwardness when she entered the shed, they probably boned.

MacGyver collects some climbing equipment from the shed and embarks on the mission to find the other bird. Susan warns him, “the North Face? It’s pure granite”. MacGyver doesn’t give a fuck what she says and heads off. He just wants to bring the two birds together.

The pilots track down MacGyver’s jeep. The plan is to kill MacGyver, as “when you’ve killed one man, killing another doesn’t really matter, especially when it means staying out of jail”. Looks like MacGyver may be in a little trouble.

Enter a shitload more stock footage of some guy climbing a mountain. MacGyver slips and almost dies. Luckily he’s connected the ropes well enough to the mountain face. It’s a rough as fuck mountain to climb. I have no fucking idea why MacGyver is risking his own life to save a shitty bird that may not even be on the top of the mountain once he gets there.

The pilots find the hang glider at Susan’s house. They speak with Susan and make up some bullshit about finding MacGyver’s car destroyed by a fallen tree. They decide to wait for MacGyver to get off the mountain. The boy spots the bow and arrow, instantly recognising the two men as pilots of the helicopter.

Once on top of the mountain, MacGyver finds the fucking bird in about 10 seconds, which is absolute bullshit. Why it hadn’t flown away was anyone’s guess. MacGyver gets caught in a storm and has to spend the night in a cave on the mountain. He made a point of stating in the voiceover that he would do absolutely anything to keep the bird alive. He stressed this way too hard. The bird needed something to keep it alive but MacGyver had no food on him. There is no doubt that he jizzed into the birds’ mouth to keep it alive. This may be some sort of low level bestiality but MacGyver doesn’t give a fuck. He’d bang a dog if needed.

Meanwhile back at the house, the death row pilot has cut Susan’s radio, making it impossible for her to contact anyone. At this point she realises they are bad motherfuckers.

The next morning, MacGyver’s decent of the mountain is captured in a musical montage set to some weak as shit ripoff Indiana Jones music.

He finds a dropped arrow just outside the house, tipping him off that the pilots are inside and aren’t to be trusted. Lucky he found the arrow, as without it, it would have taken him another 5 seconds to spot them through the window. He lays the bird down in the bushes and prepares to take them out. Shit is about to get real.

Death row pilot reveals to the other rather normal guy that he’s going to kill the boy and mother, as they know the truth. The normal guy doesn’t want to do it; he’s just a businessman, to which death row pilot replies “if it wasn’t for the proceeds from that bank job that put me on death row, you wouldn’t have a business”.

Out in the shed, MacGyver is going to create a diversion with a propane tank and a grindstone. I think this diversion is called “blowing up a shed”. He runs back to the birds and creates a slingshot out of an old bicycle. The plan is to shoot ball bearing at the grind stone, creating a spark and blowing up the propane tank.

Back inside death row pilot tries to smooth talk Susan, “I’m just being friendly, this is the last chance you’ll have”. He’s pretty much saying “I’m going to murder you soon, so if you want one last bang, this is your only chance”. He touches her face and just as things are looking like they might get a little sketchy, Darren hits him in the balls with a log of wood and runs. Normal pilot grabs Darren and heads back inside, while death row pilot starts investigating outside.

MacGyver uses the slingshot bicycle to try and hit the grindstone, but it is proving a little harder than he expected. The death row pilot thinks MacGyver is inside the shed, so he fires off a few shots with his bow and arrow, hitting the grindstone, blowing up the shed and knocking himself unconscious in the process. Boom. Plan worked.

MacGyver plays dead, one of his finest moves, luring the normal pilot over and then proceeds to awaken from his fake slumber and beat the living piss out of him.

Moments later the cops show up and take both pilots away. A perfect ending, except the bird MacGyver rescued from the mountain died anyway. Probably in the shed explosion. Fucking nice one brother.

Not content with climbing what appeared to be North America’s most dangerous mountain, MacGyver decides to follow the living bird to its nest to collect the eggs.

This sequence is of course made up of 5 minutes of stock hang glider footage. The nest is located in the hardest possible spot imaginable, perched on a pillar about 1 square metre large. MacGyver pulls off a near impossible landing, grabs the eggs and heads back to Susan’s house.

MacGyver makes an incubator out of cushion stuffing and vegetable oil. It’s now just a waiting game.

The episode ends with the eggs hatching and the species saved followed by more hang gliding stock footage.

MacGyver taught us that being a vet is mostly bullshit, that you can’t evade the law forever simply by moving to the middle of nowhere, that birds are for the most part boring and that climbing life threating mountains will get you chicks.