#113: Flame's End (29 January 1986)

Amy's boss is dead. Killed in a car accident. The news would have sent shock waves through the Westport Nuclear Processing Facility if anyone was there. Amy is working late yet again. Her colleges all left hours ago, gone home to be with their families, while Amy is still there. Alone. I actually have no idea who the fuck Amy is, nor the work patterns of her colleges. All of what has been written so far is made up, except for the part about the boss. He really is dead.


MacGyver is at home dressed in hockey gear. I'd go as far as saying he looks "hockey as fuck". He is involved in a table hockey battle with a young lady whom he will most certainly be banging later. For some reason he is also putting on a shitty Canadian accent and by "putting on" I mean using his regular accent and saying "eh" at the end of every sentence. One possible explanation for this is that he's doing a Wayne Gretzky impersonation, but to be honest I have no idea what the fuck is going on.

Back at the facility, Amy tries to make a phone call but the line has been cut. Feeling that something isn't right, she grabs a confidential file and gets out of there. After hiding the file in the facility, she finds a phone in a corridor and makes a call, a call to MacGyver.

Amy: Mac, I need you. I think someone is trying to kill me. I don't have any right to involve you in this, but...

MacGyver: Wait a minute. You've got every right. Where do we meet?

Amy: Our beach.

MacGyver: I’ll fly out tomorrow.

The phone call is cut short, as Amy had to flee when she noticed a guy in a yellow suit coming after her.

MacGyver and Amy know each other, but how? I need to know, and I need to know right now. Luckily the agonising wait didn't last long as in the next scene a MacGyver soliloquy heavy on the bullshit filled in most of the gaps.

The past is a strange country, you go back and it doesn’t recongnise you. I’ve changed in ways I didn't know and if I was a stranger, who was Amy? It used to be Amy and me. One word back in that time and that place. Amy stayed. I moved on and what was between us changed, stretched out over distance and time.

So MacGyver and Amy were a couple back in day. What made MacGyver leave? What made Amy Stay? Having already used a soliloquy, these burning questions had to be answered in the form of a flashback.

At first I wasn't exactly sure it was a flashback as no soft focus was used and Amy looked exactly the same age, but when MacGyver pulled up on a motorbike wearing a leather jacket it was clear that this was a simpler time. Amy was also listening to "Crocodile Rock" but I wasn't sure if that meant it was 1973 or that she just had shitty taste in music. Either way it was amazing how the producers could so effortlessly recreate the 1970's through the use of only a leather jacket and Elton John.

The flashback showed an excited MacGyver telling Amy how he'd signed them up for a job on a boat travelling to Italy, North Africa and Sicily. Amy seemed unexcited, possibly because MacGyver tried to sell Italy and Sicily as two separate countries or that North Africa is rather vague and could mean anywhere, including some pretty sketchy places, like Libya. 

Amy: What about your degree?

MacGyver: What about it?

Amy: 10 miles down the road they are building a Nuclear Processor and they are going to need people with science degrees.

MacGyver: I took physics because it interests me, not to buy myself a job.

Amy: I don't know.

MacGyver: It will be all about us.

Amy: Maybe you should go.

MacGyver: Just like that.

MacGyver wanted to see the world and Amy wanted to get a shitty job at a potentially dangerous Nuclear Processing Facility, so they had to go their separate ways. I'm not saying that Amy isn't hot, but I will say that he most certainly made the right decision.

Just as the flashback sequence comes to an end, a car pulls up at the beach earlier referred to as "our beach". I'm not sure if that meant MacGyver and Amy purchased a beach while at University or if it was more metaphorical, but that place certainly had meaning for the both of them.

MacGyver looks over toward to car just in time to see Amy wave at him and the car explode. 

MacGyver was clearly shocked and devastated at the events that had just taken place. Although Amy and him had parted many years ago, he clearly still had feelings for her. If MacGyver had have known in advance that she was going to get blown up in a car before he'd had a chance to bone her or at the very least get a blow job, then there is no way he would have travelled all that way. 

The police arrive on the scene to investigate the blast and in the report put it down as a gas leak. MacGyver isn't so sure. He finds a piece of the gas tank that appears to have been pierced by something and shows it to the police. MacGyver wants it taken down to the lab for testing because this wasn't no mother fucking gas leak.

MacGyver is reacquainted with Tim, a friend of his from College who worked with Amy at the plant. The meeting was short and almost pointless, indicating that Tim will be of significance to the plot at some later stage. MacGyver didn't seem that excited to see his old friend, but someone he was about to bang was just blown up, so he is justified in acting like a bit of a dick.

MacGyver attends Amy's funeral which appeared to be held some 45 minutes after the explosion. I guess that is the way they do it there. The explosion probably took place really close to the graveyard so it was just easier to bury her then and there. That would also explain the low turn out. It was just MacGyver, Tim, the cops and one other dude. Maybe she was just a dick and nobody liked her.

After the funeral MacGyver gets in his car but just before he starts the engine someone jumps forward from the back seat. It's Amy. But how?

She must have faked her own death in order to make the episode less shitty.

She explains to MacGyver that it wasn't her in the car but her roommate Bonny. After the death of her boss, which she knew was no accident, she feared for her life so send Bonny to pick MacGyver up. What a great fucking friend you are Amy. There was a high probability that you'd die going to collect MacGyver so you sent your friend instead. Fucking nice one.

MacGyver had never met Bonny so didn't really give a shit she'd died. It meant that he'd almost certainly get to bone Amy, but just to make sure, he had to make Amy feel really guilty about what had happened so he pulled out the "you have no idea what it did to me watching you die and then watching them lower your coffin into a grave".

I'm pretty sure this worked and he finger blasted her in the car ride home.

MacGyver wanted to know what the fuck was going on. There were so many questions that needed to be answered. Why were so many people dying? What is happening at the plant? Did Amy's coffin have a jet-ski in it?

Amy explained that a few days ago she found out someone has covered up the theft of enough uranium to build a nuclear bomb.

Back at the plant we see Tim flicking though an old year book where we learn that MacGyver was the science officer and that Tim, Amy and himself haven't aged since the picture was taken. This is lucky for Tim who looked old as fuck as a College student.

Meanwhile the Coroner has discovered that Amy wasn't the girl who burned up in that car. This information is passed onto the Police Chief leading to an international manhunt. I assume it is international, but for the time being the search is confined to the perimeters of the town. 


Amy knew she was safe with MacGyver, "you always carried a pocket full of junk and you always fixed everything".

MacGyver has come to the conclusion that the uranium was most likely stolen by someone from inside. Seeing as Tim is the only other character we've been introduced to in the episode, even at this early stage it is pretty fucking likely he was the one responsible. MacGyver and Amy head back to the plant to get the report she had hidden earlier.

Amy made an unsubtle "I let go too easily once" comment at the plant which made things pretty awkward. I understand that seeing MacGyver for the first time in several years has brought back a lot of emotions and she clearly still has feelings for him, something that needs to be discussed at some stage, but not fucking now Amy, not fucking now. You are on a mission to get stolen Uranium back, which is priority number one. You can't let your feelings get in the way at a time like this.

The files were still hidden and easily retrieved. The guy dressed in yellow was camped outside the fucking door from about three days earlier, just biding his time until Amy came back.


He locked them in the room where the file was hidden, a room that has the main purpose of receiving radioactive sludge as Amy indicated with "if we were in here when that valve opened we'd be covered with 5000 gallons of radio active sludge".


Almost immediately the valve that releases the radioactive sludge opens. The door is attached to a timer and cannot be opened for 60 minutes, yet the sludge will reach them in around 10 minutes. Simple math for indicate that they are indeed fucked.


MacGyver suggests they do some time travel and speeds up the clock by shorting it out which opens the door just in time.

Amy comments that macGyver should run for president, which is a great suggestion as what The United States needs amidst this current economic turmoil is someone with the ability to open a fucking door that is usually difficult to open, and I mean that literally, not in some kind of shitty "open to the door to economic freedom" metaphor.  

Once they break out, Tim arrives on the scene and showcases his acting ability with a weak as shit "what's going on"?  I can only assume the director told to ask what was going on yet to do so in monotone voice that indicates you don't really give a fuck what is going on. If that was the case then he nailed it. He backs this up with "never a dull moment with MacGyver", which I assume is ironic as he is "with" MacGyver yet his delivery is a dull as shit.

Amy comments "he does a lot of that, thinks about the past. So do I".  


I can't feel sorry for Amy. This really is a story as old as time itself. A girl has a great boyfriend who seeks adventure, but she decides to not follow him. Years later his life is great but she has ended up married to the job, never finding true love again. Her life is filled with regret and all she wants is to turn back the clock and make the right decision this time. The lesson is if you have a great boyfriend don't be a fucking dick and just do whatever he wants to do.


MacGyver tracks down the missing uranium in what appeared to be a cloakroom. Great hiding by the party responsible.


Guy A: Where should we hide the uranium?
Guy B: How about under that pile of coats.


With the uranium found, the only missing piece of the puzzle was who stole it?


The mystery doesn't last long, actually only about 5 seconds, as Tim shows up pointing a gun a MacGyver. Fucking Tim. I didn't see that coming. No wait, I did about 20 minutes ago. Being the only other character in the episode apart from the police chief made it pretty fucking obvious. My advise would be to get some more supporting characters in the future, that way it keeps the audience guessing as to who may be responsible.

MacGyver knows that Tim is a pussy and that he won't shoot them if they just walk away, so they just walk away and Tim doesn't shoot them because he is a pussy.

MacGyver just has to alert the authorities about the missing uranium and this whole situation can be over. Just as macgyver is about to get on the phone the police chief shows up also pointing a gun at MacGyver. It appears he is in on it too. Sure why not?

It is revealed that they can get $50 million for the uranium on the open market and that a deal has already been set up. Tim redeems himself by trying to stop the chief from shooting MacGyver and Amy, getting shot himself in the process. One of the stray bullets hits a console in the control room sending the plant into meltdown. The chief grabs the uranium and makes a run for it.


Tim has lost all hope, but if there is one man who can stop a nuclear meltdown with no formal training or prior experience, it is MacGyver.

His plan is to open the reactor manually, "taking the pressure down" John Farnham style and stopping the meltdown. Amy suggests that this will kill him in which he responds "no way I haven't paid my taxes", showing that his ability to make great jokes in a critical situation is still intact.


MacGyver heads off to undertake the dangerous procedure which in the business is known as a "high pressure bleed and feed". MacGyver runs into the chief on his mission. The chief pulls out his gun and starts shooting. MacGyver yells back that if they don't co-operate and stop the meltdown they will all die and having the uranium won't matter. The chief isn't interested so MacGyver has no choice but to spin kick him in the face.

MacGyver knocks the chief into a stream of highly contaminated material. This dose is enough to turn the chiefs badge black. Earlier in the episode everyone was given a badge that starts off white but if it turns black it means you have been exposed to too much radiation and you will die.  


MacGyver doesn't give a shit about the soon to be dead chief and who can blame him, he was a bit of a dick.


Amy tracks down macGyver and and the two get to work on stopping that meltdown. The two need to climb a very long ladder to get to the vent which is a problem for Macgyver due to his extreme fear of heights but he handles that dilemma with minimal fuss.  


MacGyver finds the vent but drops his wrench down a hole so is forced to use a gun to open the vent. I assume this was some kind of symbolism from the director showing that guns could be used for good as well as evil in addition to the fact that it was against everything MacGyver believed in to handle a gun, but sometimes the ends justifies the means, especially when you are using a gun to open a vent that will stop thousands from dying and not shooting someone in the face. 

Amy and MacGyver would have made out at this point in time but they were wearing the masks so it was impossible. This was for the best as Amy is harbouring feelings that just aren't reciprocated by MacGyver so the kiss probably would have been something MacGyver would have regretted later but then again he did finger blast her in the car, so maybe I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about.

The next scene showed MacGyver leaving Amy's house clearly in the morning, so he banged her and I was wrong.

Amy's parting words went something along the lines of "sometimes I wish we could find our way back to the crossroad Mac". She wants to go back to that time, the time when it was Amy and MacGyver, inseparable, in love, their whole lives ahead of them. She wants to find herself at the crossroads so she can take that road least travelled, the road that isn't for everyone, but the road that was for MacGyver.


MacGyver already had the car started and was reversing out of the driveway so he clearly just wanted to get the fuck out of there. I think the other chick was still at his house waiting to finish that fucking game of table hockey.


At the end of the day MacGyver and Amy just weren't meant to be.


Tim also died back at the plant. I forgot to mention that, but fuck that guy.

MacGyver taught us that it is ok to bone an old flame after years of not speaking, that you can stop a nuclear meltdown with no training and a wrench and that ex-girlfriends of his are always living in the past.