Episode Title: Countdown
Airdate: 2/5/1986
My Age at Airdate: 2 years, 6 months, 20 days
Episode Type: Bomb Defusal
Before I get into talking about MacGyver, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who reads this series and I hope you're enjoying it and I hope you'll forgive me calling this WacGyver Wednesdays, but I thought it was kind of funny and cute. :)
Alright, so my conundrum with this episode is that I've seen it SO MANY TIMES. When I press play for this post, it will be at least my 6th viewing of the episode. That might not seem like a lot, but think about the episodes of an hour-length show that you've watched 6 times. I think this is the only one on that list for me.
So how do I go about writing this episode if the relative unfamiliarity that I bring to the rest of these episodes is absent?
I embrace the familiarity.
Here's the plan: I'm going to write a numbered list of plot points/scenes that I remember in as close to the order that they occur as I can manage. I will number this list. Then I will start the episode. As the plot points present themselves, I will talk about them and parenthetically refer back to my numbered list! I'm not sure how this will go, but let's find out together!
Ok.
1. A cruise ship is sailing in the Pacific Ocean.
2. The captain gets a call that there's a bomb in a lower deck or something. He goes off to investigate. Oh! And right before he gets the call, he's being briefed on a typhoon (because we're in the Pacific) that's heading straight for the ship.
3. The bomb explodes.
4. MacGyver is showing the lady that's his landlord (the one that he was playing table hockey with last week) his breakfast machine. It's kind of like Doc Brown's machine in Back to the Future only MacGyver has to run the machine by remote control. Hilarity ensues and the landlady gets egg on her shoe.
5. Pete calls to tell MacGyver that he needs to come in. Even though it's his day off.
6. MacGyver pulls up to the Federal Building (I'm doing some highwire memory work, here. Guessing the building that Mac and Pete worked in before the Phoenix Foundation). As he's walking in, he sees his friend Charlie, who was his partner on a bomb defusing team in Vietnam.
7. Charlie reveals that his wife is pregnant. Mac is super stoked.
8. Charlie reveals that he's here to do a job for Pete Thornton. Mac is less than stoked.
9. They go up and are briefed by Pete. There's another bomb on the boat. A dude calling himself Viking is claiming responsibility and wants money. Also, there's a bomb expert that will be consulting. He's kind of squirrely, but Mac and Charlie remember hearing about him in 'Nam. They only have so long to get the bomb defused and they can't evacuate the boat because of the typhoon.
10. Viking gives them a time limit and makes his money demands.
11. Mac and Charlie arrive at the boat in a helicopter. They can't set the helicopter down on the boat for some reason. So they'll lower them down on a winch.
12. They put their old, reliable bag of bomb defusing tools on the winch first to get a sense of wind resistance. The winch malfunctions and all of their tools drop into the sea. Crap.
13. So Mac pulls the rope out of something. Like netting or something and rigs up a new way down. He and Charlie go down to the boat.
14. They meet the acting captain who is a woman. There's nothing in the episode that talks about her being a woman and all the men in the episode having a problem with it, but I always imagine this plot point.
15. She takes them to the bomb.
16. She tells MacGyver that she hasn't told the passengers what is going on. He convinces her that he would want to know and that it's her responsibility and all that. So she does. I think this may have happened on route to the bomb.
17. While they're looking at the bomb, the second in command comes up and tells them that they've found another bomb at the other end of the boat. Mac goes to look at that one. He and Charlie are going to each defuse a bomb slowly, step by step.
18. Charlie pokes a probe into the seal on the side of the bomb to try to get a sample of this yellow powder that's in a tray in the middle of the bomb. Air sucks in, Charlie shouts to Mac that it's a vacuum and then the bomb blows up, killing Charlie.
19. MacGyver is upset for a second but then he pulls himself together and he goes back to one bomb while the Girl-Captain goes to the one that was found while MacGyver was mourning Charlie. Four bombs on the boat. Worst security on a cruise line, ever.
20. While this is all happening, Pete's people make the money drop. These two guys have this funny exchange and you get the feeling like they were THIS CLOSE to becoming recurring characters. Or spin-off characters. Anyway, somehow Viking gets the money out from under their noses because they didn't think to watch the back of the building in case there was another way into the locker at the bus station where they dropped the money.
21. Viking calls Pete's people and says since they tried to catch him, he won't be giving instructions on how to defuse the bomb. While this is happening, the camera slowly pans over to show that the voice on the other end of the phone, the voice of Viking, is a tape recording.
22. On the boat, MacGyver uses neon tubing from the ship's bar to create a vacuum to suck up the yellow powder, which turns out to be phosphorus.
23. Then they take the panel off and see more bomb stuff. Four cylinders with bubbling liquid. Mac pries the lids off each cylinder and smells acid. So he neutralizes the stuff with oven cleaner and milk.
24. Now they think they've defused the bomb. Everyone is celebrating. Then Mac notices a blinking light under where they thought the bomb ended. It's more bomb!
25. This one comes down to pulling either the yellow lever or the blue lever. MacGyver asks the bomb expert which one to pull. Then he pulls the opposite one and the bomb is defused. Oh, and the Girl-Captain is doing all of the same bomb stuff on her end.
26. So the bomb expert is revealed to be Viking and everything's all good
27. MacGyver wraps things up with the captain and decides to stay on the boat for a while longer. He asks if he can sit at the captain's table. They're probably going to do some kissin'.
28. I just realized that no one mentions the typhoon ever again. Do I just not remember it? Weird.
So there's that. I feel like I've watched it again. The cool thing here is that I don't have to worry about spoilers or pointing out foreshadowing, because you've already read the whole plot. So I won't be doing a lot of plot re-recapitulation. Not so cool thing? Not as many clever nicknames for incidental characters.
Actually, I don't think I'm going to do much more commentary. But you should watch this one. All I'm going to do is watch it quickly and put the correct order for the numbered list above if I've gotten something wrong. If you've read this far, you've read a lot already. I don't think it's going to help things by trying to comment MORE, you know?
Haha, in watching through the episode quickly, K (not a MacGyver enthusiast like you and me) just told me a bunch of stuff that she remembers that happens in this episode. This episode has been viewed a lot, you guys.
Ok, first thing: I WAS RIGHT ABOUT IT BEING THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
As far as order goes, I'm good up until 17 (with a minor forgiveness for 16 being talked about after it happens in the middle of 15) but then 21 happens before 18. And Viking isn't calling about the money being gone at the time, he's just calling to make more demands. He calls Pete later to tell him that they won't be getting disarmament instructions because they tried to catch them.
The events of #22 happen while the Bus Station thing from #20 is happening. Mac and Girl-Captain do the Phosphorus thing and THEN the money is discovered missing.
Hm. In #23, I said that Mac smells acid and THEN decides to neutralize it with milk and oven cleaner. But he decides to do that before he pries the lids off. Oh RIGHT. Because he knows that it's probably acid because this one bomber in 'Nam that made bombs like this one used an electrolyte fluid as a trigger and so if it carries a current and is bubbly, it's probably an acid. Fair enough. He smells it later when he's prying the lids off. Oh well. It's more scientific this way. Not to say that smell isn't a good way to characterize an unknown substance, just be careful, people. And waft, don't sniff.
Also, I said in #26 that that's when Viking's identity was revealed. It's mostly true, but Mac's suspicions are pretty much confirmed during #24.
And finally, I was also right about them never mentioning the typhoon ever ever again. Isn't that a weird bit of plot-dropping?
Anyways, how odd was this post? I guess "WacGyver Wednesdays" was more apropos than I had thought. Talk to you soon, you guys! Hopefully next week!
NEXT WEEK: THE ENEMY WITHIN!
And for extra Wac-iness, here's a little victory lap for me and my memory. And also in memory of the second Charlie killed on this damn show.
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