#122: The Assassin (7 May 1986)

There's a break in at the Melrose Arms. A woman is stabbed by a man dressed entirely in black. A few minutes later her sister walks in to find her struggling to breathe and the woman dies in her sisters arms. 

An emotional beginning to this, the final episode of Season 1.

Pete is staking out a clock shop while MacGyver is inside playing the role of clock shop owner. His acting really came through last week as a mental patient so 'clock shop owner' shouldn't be a stretch for him at all. The actual owner of the shop supplies highly sophisticated and illegal timing devices for explosives. Pete is expecting Piedra, an extremely dangerous and highly skilled assassin who's done 14 hits in 8 countries, to purchase a timing device from this clock shop today. Piedra is also a master of disguise rumoured to have executed each hit with a different name and face.

The woman murdered at the start of the episode worked as an escort and her sister Teri has approached her madam for some work. Teri asks to see the man her sister had just been on a date with, stating that he was a great guy, but in reality she wants to find the killer and get revenge. The madam gives Teri a card and tells her to call Mr. Smith, the man who sets up the dates.

A guy enters the shop with his son and buys him a watch. After the purchase the kid leaves the shop alone. It turns out it wasn't his son and the guy is none other than the assassin Piedra. He used the kid to throw anyone who may have been following him off his tail as Piedra doesn't have a son. This certainly fooled Pete until the kid left without the guy indicating to Pete that it 100% was Piedra. Shit execution Piedra, perhaps you're not as badass as Pete had lead us to believe. You'd built up quite the reputation over the past 90 seconds.

With the kid gone Piedra gets down to business. He tells MacGyver exactly what he wants which MacGyver finds and begins making the required adjustments to. It looks like MacGyver will be Piedra's next victim, as he prepares to strangle him with wire contained within his watch. Irony? Because he's trying to kill MacGyver with wire from his watch. And MacGyver is playing the role of a watch maker. And it's in a watch shop. Fuck it.

MacGyver sees Piedra's reflection in a grandfather clock, meaning that a clock has saved his life. Could this be the director indicating to the audience that clocks can save lives as well as taken them? Probably not.

A fight breaks out, the best fight of the series. MacGyver gets the upper hand with a few blows, knocking Piedra into a glass cabinet. Piedra recovers, pulls a ninja star from his belt and throws it at MacGyver, who saves himself by catching it in the end of a wooden mallet. The comedy sound effect was a little out of place but eased the tension. Piedra grabbed hold of MacGyver, threw him into the grandfather clock and pulled out a knife. With MacGyver on the ground and Piedra hovering over him, things didn't look good. Just as Piedra was about to end MacGyver once and for all, Pete casually strolls into the shop and pistol whips Piedra, rendering him unconscious. This really was a close call. The light hearted banter eased the tension some more.

MacGyver: What took you so long.

Pete: I wanted to wait and see who was going to win.

MacGyver: I had him right where I wanted him!

Teri makes contact with Mr. Smith who agrees to set her up on a date. She will be called later with the meeting time and place.

Piedra is the most ruthless motherfucker MacGyver has faced off against in the series to date. He may look like a used car salesman or 80s porn star, but this guy does not fuck around. Back in his hotel room, the location of which I have no idea how Pete and MacGyver discovered, the pair find a plethora of badass weapons. There are swords, knives, guns, bombs, ninja shit and even his watch contained enough plastic explosives to blow his way out of a prison cell if arrested by incompetent officers who allow him to keep his possessions. His watch may be pretty awesome but not awesome enough to keep the right time, with MacGyver pointing out that it currently says it's 1:22am despite it being the middle of the day.

Pete's plan is to keep him in a safe house while they set about tracking down the person who hired him and who the next target is. I don't know why Pete keeps persisting with that fucking safe house. It's been nothing but trouble from day one.

MacGyver and Pete catch a break when a guy calls Piedra using a state of the art scrambled that cannot be traced. The guy on the phone is Mr. Smith, the same Mr. Smith who contacted Teri in regards to a date. As if it wasn't already abundantly fucking clear, Piedra killed Teri's sister. Mr. Smith asks for the time. MacGyver realises this is why Piedra's watch was set incorrectly and responds with 1:24am. With Mr. Smith believing MacGyver is Piedra, he's happy to arrange the drop of Piedra's payment and information on the next target which is to take place at the North West corner of Our Holy Father Cemetery at 3:00pm. The case will be left there for 1 hour only. Mr. Smith also informs MacGyver that his date will call him at exactly 2:00pm. It seems Piedra always uses call girls to do his pick ups and then he kills them.

With everything seemingly falling into place, all that is left to do now is wait for Teri's call. MacGyver is anxious to meet Teri as for one, she is integral to the mission and secondly, he'll be able to bang her without putting in much effort as she is a call girl and in addition should be hot. 

MacGyver however could be in serious danger. Teri is loading a handgun and has a murderous look in her eyes. If she believes MacGyver is Piedra, he'll be shot dead on their date. Teri looks over at a photo of herself and her sister having fun which really makes her pissed. She is ready for vengeance.

Mr. Smith leaves his hotel to deliver the suitcase and two men start following him. I have no idea who these men are, but it looks like they are after Piedra too and believe Mr. Smith can lead them to him. The plot becomes more complex with this ever expanding cast of characters. 

Teri calls MacGyver, posing as Piedra, and he tells her to follow his instructions precisely. A short time later the two meet up and head to the cemetery to retrieve the suitcase. MacGyver doesn't make any comment but he definitely wants to bang Teri.

Teri collects the suitcase and the two get out of the cemetery. MacGyver realises that they are being followed by two men, the same two men following Mr. Smith earlier. MacGyver drives off at great speed and a car chase is on. The chase doesn't last long as the driver of the car in pursuit runs over a set of spikes leading out of a car park puncturing their tyres. A few seconds early, MacGyver placed a plank of wood over the spikes so they could drive into the car park and then threw the plank away. Teri dropped the hotel key MacGyver had given her right where the spikes were placed, found by the guys in pursuit so they now know where MacGyver and Teri are staying.

MacGyver opens the suitcase which contains a shitload of cash and the identity of the next target, Archbishop Fierro. 

MacGyver calls up the safe house looking for Pete but he isn't there. He's probably banging that Russian chick he smuggled into the country at the end of the last episode. MacGyver reveals that he has a lock on the next target and needs Pete to get in contact with him as soon as possible. Obviously the dude on the phone didn't have a high enough clearance level to be trusted with such information. There have been moles within the organisation before so precaution must be taken at all times.

Teri comes back from the bathroom with a gun pointed at MacGyver. She is fucking angry and ready to kill. "You killed my sister" she yells at MacGyver, with the gun still firmly pointed at his head. 

MacGyver tries to explain that he didn't kill her sister. She isn't buying it though. The best option for MacGyver is to take Teri out but she is too hot to kill so instead he runs with throwing some of Piedra's exploding toothpaste at her feet and grabbing the gun from her hands while she's distracted. A risky ploy but one that worked.

He explains to Teri that he isn't the man responsible for her sisters murder. He is on a government assignment to try and find the man who killed her sister in addition to the man who employs him. Now maybe I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about but wouldn't the best option have been to have captured the guy who employs Piedra, Mr. Smith, when he dropped the fucking suitcase off at the cemetery? They already have Piedra in custody, so they could have grabbed Mr. Smith when he dropped off the suitcase and the whole thing would have been over by now. Fucking sloppy work by MacGyver and Pete if you ask me.

Teri is visibly upset by the loss of her sister and justifiably so. MacGyver comforts her with a line I'm sure he's used before on dozens of occasions, "I know you've had a tough time but if you need someone to listen, I'll listen". MacGyver certainly will listen, and by listen, he means bone.

Since his arrest, Piedra hasn't seemed too concerned about his state of affairs. He has an escape plan, the question is how is he going to pull it off? Piedra removes his fake moustache as this is where he's hidden a lock pick. 

Must be uncomfortable as shit, but in his line of work you need to put comfort aside for practicality. He easily picks the lock on his handcuffs and gets to work on removing a fake scar containing a poison needle. This fucking dude has thought of everything. Finally MacGyver has a worthy opponent.

Piedra turns a paper cup into a dart gun with the poison needle inside. He calls one of the guards who approaches with extreme caution. Piedra fires the needle, paralysing the guard, enabling him to steal his keys and gun and get out of the cell. He's now loose in the safe house. Fucking anything could happen.

MacGyver and Teri leave the hotel and the following conversation goes down.

MacGyver: I feels good doesn't it.

Teri: What scares me is that I almost killed you.

I'm not sure what they're talking about but it is most likely some weird sex shit that MacGyver's into.

A few seconds after leaving the hotel, Teri and MacGyver are captured by the guys previously chasing them. These guys don't look like they fuck around.

Piedra is on the loose in the safe house and it doesn't look like it will be long before he strikes again. One of the other guards hears something and does a little exploring. He walks into one of the rooms at the back of the house where Piedra is doing some ninja style hiding in the roof. 

The second the guards back is turned, Piedra jumps down and takes him out. It looks like Piedra will kill every dude in that safe house, escape and then make a play for MacGyver.

The guys who captured MacGyver are the Archbishops bodyguards. They'd caught wind of the plot to kill the Archbishop and their obvious mission is to stop this from happening. They think they have it all figured out, but in MacGyver they've captured the wrong man, meaning the assassin is still out there. The problem is they don't believe MacGyver. They don't believe him one bit.

An old guy has shown up at the Archbishops congregation. It's none other than Piedra in heavy disguise. This guy is good. Real good. I just don't know how the fuck he knows that the Archbishop is the target? Teri and MacGyver intercepted the suitcase containing details of the target, which Piedra never saw. MacGyver didn't pass this information to the guys at the safe house so he couldn't have found the information there. I guess we'll just have to chalk it up to Piedra's ability to be able to read the minds of people not in his immediate vicinity. Or bullshit. 

MacGyver is having a real fucking hard time convincing the head bodyguard that he isn't the killer. The guy just wont believe him, so he has no other choice but to flip a telephone off the end of a ruler into his face and steal his gun. That shit was rad as fuck.

The bodyguard seems to be more receptive to MacGyver's claims now that he has a gun pointed at his head. MacGyver gives Pete a call with the same brutal telephone in the hope that he can talk sense into the bodyguard. Pete informs MacGyver that Piedra killed all five guys at the safe house and has escaped. In Pete's words, it was a bloodbath.

They run off in search of Piedra, knowing he's at the congregation. 

Teri secretly grabs the gun MacGyver left lying on the table. She still wants revenge for he sisters death and with the killer close by, she may just have that chance.

MacGyver instructs the guards to look for someone unlikely to be an assassin, like an old guy or someone with a disability. He hit the nail on the head, as Piedra is disguised as an old guy with a walking stick. He also asks the Archbishop not to make an appearance as it's too dangerous. The Archbishop refuses because he's a silly old cunt who doesn't know good advice when it's given to him. He's probably also a pedophile, but that's pure speculation.

One of the guards spots him, while another finds a walking stick. They know he's loose in the house somewhere. There may be some 20 guards on the premises but this wont stop Piedra. This guy is a fucking maniac. 

Piedra kills a nun, which I can't say happens on TV that often and while I'm not condoning it, I'm certainly not condemning it either. I think the odd nun murder really spices things up. Killing a kid, sure that happens all the time, but killing a nun really steps it up to the next level. Piedra also just doesn't give a fuck.

Inside the chapel all of the nuns are waiting for a blessing from the Archbishop. One of the people in the chapel is Piedra dressed in the habit he stole from the nun he murdered. This explains why he killed the nun, as before I thought he may have just done it for fun.

Piedra is waiting for the Archbishop to approach him so he can make his move and kill the him with another of his poison needles. As the Archbishop approaches, Piedra looks up and realises that it isn't the Archbishop at all but rather MacGyver dressed in his Archbishop wear. MacGyver has out disguised Piedra in classic MacGyver style. 

Realising that it isn't the Archbishop, Piedra punches MacGyver in the face, takes out about 10 guards with his sweet ninja skills and makes a run for it. If he can just find the Archbishop he can still complete his mission.

Pete and his posse show up, making things that little harder for Piedra. I say a little, as Piedra will be able to take out every single person on the premises. He is that much of a bad ass.

Piedra runs outside an is confronted by Teri with a gun. Piedra freezes, MacGyver runs outside and yells at Teri not to shoot. Piedra's poison needle is fired inaccurately and gets stuck in the ground.

The second fight of the episode breaks out between MacGyver and Piedra. Kicks and punches are thrown before MacGyver trips Piedra up with a garden hose, causing him to fall on his own poison needle. That needle is poisonous as shit as it doesn't take long for him to die. Piedra is out in a matter of seconds.

Pete asks what happened, to which MacGyver responds "the wages of sin". This was particularly apt as MacGyver was dressed as an Archbishop.

The Archbishop does his speech to the crowd despite surviving an assassination attempt mere minutes ago and the status quo is returned.

When MacGyver made the comment that Piedra was dead I was expecting a long speech from Pete about how he was a really bad guy, one of the toughest they'd faced and how society is better off without him. Instead Pete simply offered up "fair enough".

This was a great ending to the series. The story was much better than most of the episodes and Piedra truly was a badass villain as opposed to some of the weak as shit dudes MacGyver has faced in the past. Teri was also hot and MacGyver did get to bang her.

This episode taught us that assassins are usually pretty bad guys, that prostitutes can also be used to collect luggage, that you can hide weapons in fake moustaches and that everything always works out in the end.

This is what we learned about MacGyver in Season 1.

• He studied science at University.
• He was a bomb expert in Vietnam.
• He loves banging chicks.
• He is bisexual.
• He loves taking drugs, especially cocaine.
• He works freelance for DSX.
• He doesn't like guns but is happy to blow someone up if needed.
• He doesn't have a problem banging underage chicks.
• He spends most of his time in East Germany.
• He has a grandfather.
• He loves leather jackets.
• Many of his friends end up dying, sometimes due to his own negligence.

On to season 2.

#121: A Prisoner of Conscience (30 April 1986)

Pete has taken an unannounced trip to Russia in search of Alexander Karsov, an old friend in trouble with the secret police. MacGyver, worried for the safety of his boss follows him there. Pete is extremely surprised to see MacGyver, but glad to have a friend in these trying times. It seems Karsov died 3 days ago while under police interrogation because of his contact with an American secret agent. That agent was Pete, who now feels responsible for the death of his friend. Pete fears the police will now arrest and kill Karsov's daughter Maria, so his mission is to find and protect her.

Pete tells MacGyver he doesn't want any help, to which MacGyver replies "I've travelled 10 000 miles to be here, so like it or not you've got me". The only place 10 000 miles from Moscow is Africa, so MacGyver must have flown there directly after his prison experience.

The location of Maria is conveniently just a few minutes walk from where MacGyver and Pete had rendezvoused. Pete wants to meet Maria alone. MacGyver agrees to this, but the second Pete's back is turned he starts following him and hides in the bushes outside Maria's house.

It immediately becomes clear why Pete wanted to meet Maria alone, he wants to bang her. The warm welcome she gives him indicates that will probably happen, especially as she'll need someone to comfort her after the recent death of her father. It looks like Pete has taught MacGyver everything he knows.

Just as things are about to heat up in the cabin the secret police show up, ruining everything Pete had hoped would happen in the next 8 minutes.

The police are there to arrest Maria, just as Pete had suspected. As they try to enter the house, Pete slams the door in their face sending them into the water out the front of Maria's cabin. This gives the pair time to escape. MacGyver is right behind them, he just has to jam a potato into the exhaust pipe of the police officers car first.

As expected the car wont start so the chase takes place on foot. MacGyver and co. jump into a nearby speedboat, as do the police, taking the chase to the water. We have another high octane persuit on our hands.

MacGyver needs to get them off their trail, so be ties a few cans, a blanket and a life jacket to a rope and throws it into the water. This causes the police officers boat to lose control, run aground and explode.

They've managed to avoid capture thanks to Maria's great driving and MacGyver's quick thinking. Pete did fuck all, but was probably still thinking about banging Maria.

Maria reveals that her father isn't dead, he is being secretly held in a state mental hospital. The media announce his death and if there isn't much protest from the public they will kill him. There doesn't seem to much protest meaning that apart from Maria and Pete no one really gives a fuck about Karsov, so the only option they have is to break him out of the mental hospital.

Pete and Maria are heading to Leningrad to break Karsov out. MacGyver asks "what about me, I've never been to Leningrad, I hear its a real party town". They agree to bring him along for the ride.

The plan is for MacGyver to pretend to be a mental patient, with Pete playing a doctor sent to Russia to observe him. Once inside they can find Karsov and break him out in a plot that sounds only marginally different to that of the one in the last episode. I guess the network assumes people don't watch the show every week.

MacGyver's acting work has been superb up to this point in the series, so him playing a mental patient should prove to be nothing short of spectacular. It's the role he was born to play.

MacGyver and Pete check into the hospital with minimal effort. Dr. Suvarin informs Pete that the hospital is full of people with mental issues as well as political prisoners. MacGyver is immediately into character as a convincing mental patient.

Dr. Suvarin leads MacGyver into the common room where he is introduced to  the other patients, a typical cast of characters you tend to find in pretty much all mental hospitals on TV and in film. There's the huge crazy guy who looks like he could kill you, the guy who seems normal so you don't actually know if he's nuts or not and the guy who has an unhealthy obsession about something to the point that every time he has a line, he either talks about this obsession or makes references to it while engaging in otherwise normal conversation. In this instance it's chess. There are also some other guys that weren't introduced in this scene so they won't have a speaking part but will have to act crazy during a scene later on in the episode.

MacGyver doesn't want to be caught out as sane, so starts his "I'm bat shit crazy" routine by stealing chess guys chessboard and jumping up and down on a bed. The dudes bed he's jumping up and down on doesn't seem impressed at all. This seems to do the trick and within a few seconds one of the guards has pistol whipped him. They don't take any shit in this mental hospital.

I'm not sure if it's Russian style or if the hospital just doesn't have the budget for straight jackets but the method of restraining MacGyver after his outburst was to wrap him up like a mummy. Pete was called into the room to take care of things and just laughed at what a dick MacGyver looked like. He eventually unwrapped him but waited for a good 30 minutes before doing so. Those crazy Russians and their restraining methods.

Pete has only brought one set of lock picks with him, which is a problem as MacGyver needs to break out Karsov and Pete needs to break into the drug cabinet and secure some drugs for an as of now unspecified purpose. Possibly to give to MacGyver in lieu of payment for the mission. Who knows what sort of budget issues he has to deal with.

The big issue for MacGyver is that he has no idea where Karsov is hidden in the hospital. Once Pete gets him back into the common room he sets about asking the other patients if they know where he can find Karsov. I would have assumed trying to get reliable information out of mental patients would be very difficult if not impossible but MacGyver is able to get the answer he requires after about 2 minutes from the chess guy who answers "ward zero, bishop to queen four", just in case we'd forgotten from the last scene that he was the chess obsessed guy.

MacGyver takes a light bulb from one of the lamps, smashes it, removes the Tungsten and uses it to pick the common room door lock before wittily commenting "let there be light". The mental patients didn't find it that funny. Tough crowd.

MacGyver finds ward zero easily enough after getting directions from the 'I don't know if he's crazy' guy. The entrance to the ward is guarded by one guy so MacGyver is going to have to create a diversion. 

MacGyver is the fucking king of diversions so even in a mental hospital with limited resources he'll be able to come up with something effective. He finds the janitors storage room and quickly gets to work. MacGyver coats a metal bucket with some kind of sealer and adds another chemical to create what he refers to as Russian crazy glue. He then attaches a mop handle with a white flag on one end and places this in a sink full of water. When the guard returns he sees a stick with a white flag that appears to be waiving at him. He heads into the storage room to investigate, picks up the crazy glue bucket which becomes attached to his hands and cannot be removed. He tries and tries but that fucking bucket is stuck for life. He may even need to have his hands amputated. 

MacGyver sneaks past the guard into ward zero where he finds Karsov. He enters his cell, introduces himself and the two plot their escape. The guard spots MacGyver and triggers the alarm. The huge crazy patient shows up and beats the the shit out of the guard with the bucket stuck to his hands. It wasn't really a fair fight as it's hard to defend yourself when you're stuck to a bucket but the huge crazy guy would have pummelled him anyway.

Two other guards come to investigate and the huge crazy dude beats the shit out of them also. MacGyver and Karsov are able to sneak out of the infamous ward zero to safety.

Just incase you'd forgotten we were in Russia, the director zooms past a well placed portrait of Lenin reminding the viewer exactly where this jaunt is taking place. I saw the body of Lenin when I was in Moscow and lets just say it looked like a deleted exhibit from Madame Tussauds.

The other patients are going absolutely apeshit in the common room, a scene I predicted would occur earlier, as you can't have anything set in a mental hospital without a scene involving the patients getting crazy as fuck.

Pete picks the medicine cabinet lock and grabs a heap of drugs, including a few bags of suspicious looking powder that have MacGyver's name written all over it.

The huge crazy guy is finally brought under control and Dr. Suvarin threatens to inject him with something that will render him paralysed permanently. The other patients may be mental but they quickly get the point that they shouldn't fuck around. Dr. Suvarin looks like he's on the fringes of insanity anyway, so I wouldn't fuck with him.

Dr. Suvarin leaves the common room without injecting anyone with anything. He stumbles upon a bag of drugs in the hall that Pete had recklessly dropped. For fuck sake Pete, you had one job, to get the drugs and do it with stealth. I thought you were more careful than that. You could blow the whole mission.

MacGyver sneaks back into the common room with Karsov and makes sure none of the guards will be able to discover his location by hiding him behind a curtain. It's so simple it might just work.

This completes phase one.

Phase two involves Maria posing as a local girl and getting a job in the dining room. Once she's inside, she'll drug the staffs food with the shit Pete took from the medicine cabinet. With Pete dropping some of the drugs and MacGyver receiving his mission payment in a large portion of the rest, I just hope she fucking has enough.

Pete will kick off stage three in the morning.

Dr. Suvarin confronts Pete and one of the other doctors in regards to the drugs. He believes Pete and the other doctor are working together to steal the drugs and sell them on the black market. He places them under house arrest. They will not speak to, nor see, anyone.

Dr. Suvarin also believes MacGyver is in on the drug operation and confronts him too. MacGyver pretends to be a KGB agent sent into the hospital undercover to actually stop the drug smuggling. Dr. Suvarin doesn't believe MacGyver and decides the best way to uncover the truth is though chemical interrogation. It sounds good in theory but MacGyver has built up such a tolerance that I doubt the drugs will have any effect on him anyway.

Just as Dr. Suvarin is about to administer MacGyver with his truth drug cocktail, chess guy starts going fucking crazy and, metaphor alert, knocks out Dr. Suvarin by breaking his beloved chess board over the doctors head. 

Destroying the only thing he held dear to take down the oppressive regime, all in slow motion might I add, makes this one of the most powerful scenes in the series. 

MacGyver takes out two other guards, one with a badass flying two handed spinning punch, and they make a run for it.

The 'I'm not sure if he's crazy' guy yells "Power to the people" and then looks at one of the guards and says "Remember I'm mad". It seems the power had shifted from the guards to the inmates which is always a positive thing in a mental hospital. In real life, one of the inmates would probably freak out and cut MacGyver's throat, but I don't see that happening here for some reason. 

MacGyver tracks down Pete and releases him from his captivity, which was just his office with the door locked. Pete passes the psychotropic drugs over to Maria who puts them in the staffs tea.

Meanwhile chess guy is playing a game with Dr. Suvarin who now finds himself in a straight jacket. There isn't a board but that really doesn't matter in a place like this. Some wacky music lightens the mood bringing some much need 'comic' relieve to this otherwise serious episode. 

Karsov and Maria are finally reunited in the dining room after all those days. The drugs kick in 30 seconds after ingestion making the staff relaxed and carefree. This allows MacGyver and co. to simply walk out the front door.

Everyone is free, including some people potentially dangerous to society but MacGyver and Pete don't seem too worried about that.

Pete suggests they get out of Russia. They can do some of MacGyver's patented border fleeing into Finland, but Karsov wants to stay. He is too famous to kill now and he can use this fame for good.  MacGyver states "with more people like you around, juts about anything can happen".

Maria has decided to go to America but Karsov is insisting on staying. He gives a stirring speech about how Governments can change, but the soil cannot, it is part of him and he wants to remain, even in the bad times, which he knows will change and that he isn't designed for exile. The speech is ruined by MacGyver who for some reason is wearing a ridiculous fur coat. That's all I could focus on, so Karsov's words were lost on me and probably the entire audience. 

The daughter bids her father farewell in what is truly an emotional end to an emotional episode. 


This episode taught me that it's possible to get into a mental hospital with nothing more than solid acting skills, that boats explode if they touch land and that most people in mental hospitals are loveable characters with hearts of gold.