MacGyver Mondays: "Slow Death" (Season 1, Episode 19)

Sorry it's late, folks. But I suppose it's not THAT late. Enjoy!

Title: Slow Death

Airdate: 4/2/1986

My Age at Airdate: 2 years, 8 months, 17 days

Episode Type: Hostage, Hijacking, Didactic (I may stop putting this one if MacGyver keeps teaching lessons every episode ;-) )

Y'know, a lot of people say reading these MacGyver Monday posts is like a slow death. STOP LAUGHING! :)

OPENING CREDITS

A train is rolling by. At the wheel is a Hispanic man with VERY large glasses. Ok, maybe not Hispanic. I immediately regret saying he was Hispanic.

So between looking at some of the passengers on the train, we are seeing a bunch of guys pulling sticks of what appears to be dynamite out of boxes and loading them near the tracks. I suddenly remember this episode, I think.

Now MacGyver is racing along the side of the train in the back of a taxi. All the passengers are looking and laughing at him. The engineer refuses to stop the train for a bit and then he gives in. With basically no further argument than "C'mon! Please?"

Mac is friendly with everyone and particularly to a young girl who is staring at him. He does a little magic trick. Wait, no. Not a magic trick. He's making her a doll. Awww :) What a sweet little moment.

Ok, they're still loading explosives onto a bridge.

And Mac finishes the doll. The girl smiles widely.

The two factions are about to meet. The bandits are communicating by flashing sunlight with mirrors.

This one-armed Englishman (I KNOW he's English. He has an English accent.) is asking Mac if he wouldn't like something to drink with his sandwich that he's ordering in the dining cart. Bourbon and rye, perhaps. And MacGyver, being MacGyver, orders a glass of milk. He's so wholesome!

An awkward left-to-right-handed-handshake is given. Then the train lurches and the guy I guess goes to catch himself with his right hand and stumbles. Mac catches him and says that a recent loss of limb can be hard. A lady also tries to console him  but he says that he's a cripple and she's black and neither is a case for sympathy and storms off. Mac apologizes to her and she says that she noticed her color a long time ago. Very intense race stuff already in this episode.

They introduce themselves and sit down to eat.

Meanwhile, the guys with the explosives are now unspooling fuse line. This attack is taking FOREVER. But I guess you have to get all the characters on the train introduced.

Mac tells the Lady that he has hijacked proof of an illegal arms deal and so he's rushing it out of the country in the hopes of preventing a war. But I think she doesn't believe him. 

Now we're on this American couple and the guy is trying to get the girl to say that she loves him. But she's reluctant to. 

This episode might be the most complicated yet.

Wait no. They met in Spain, hit it off, and now are about to return to America and he wants to marry her. Whoa. He convinces her in half a speech. Geez. This is the train of effective arguments.

And still the terrorists lay their explosives. You know, the way things are going, they could probably just ask for whatever they want. The people on this train are easily convinced.

Lefty comes back to Lady and apologizes and then they're ok (this train!)

So I guess the last characters we need to talk about are this mom and her daughter. Or, put another way, this woman and her mom. Her mom is snooty and says things like "kids of your generation have no respect" and even MacGyver refers to her as a dragon to be slain. 

This episode is very heavy on the characters, isn't it? Also, I have remembered what the title refers to and it's pretty cerebral. I'll let you know when we get to it.

Now a guy blows a goat horn and two guys on the train draw knives and guns and hijack the train. They shoot the conductor. Lefty says that he's a doctor and he should tend to the guy. The hijacker says that shooting him was an accident.

You couldn't show this episode on TV, I don't think.

Dragon Daughter offers to help Lefty and Dragon Lady (her mom, if my code is too intricate) says that she'll only be a hindrance, but DD shakes her off and goes to help.

The guy that shot the conductor says that they are not bandits. Mac asks what they want. And Quick Draw replies that they are looking for two men on that train. And that it's a matter of justice. They want to execute these men.

MacGyver: A man puts a gun to my head and tells me he's not a terrorist, I take it with a grain of salt

So, Lefty is talking to Quick Draw about the status of the conductor and Mac is doing something with salt. And a seltzer bottle. And some olives. 

Quick Draw walks by to go the sleeping cart, Mac drops the jar of olives on the floor. When Quick Draw pauses to berate him, he hits the seltzer with his elbow, it goes into the bowl of salt and the salt/seltzer combo goes into Quick Draw's eyes.

Mac grabs a jug and runs out and two other terrorists follow him onto the roof of the train car. He pours a line of the liquid that's in the jug (local moon shine: tastes and burns like kerosene) along the length of the car and, as the terrorist reach the top of the ladder, lights it. He manages to light a match on the top of a moving train, so I KNOW the train is magical. 

The flame races towards the terrorists and they both leap off the train.

Mac goes to the engineer's compartment and tells him what's up. The engineer tells Mac that they are being followed on foot but that they'll never be caught. They just have to make it past the bridge up ahead and they'll be out of bandit country. The bridge is the one that they've been loading with explosives for the whole episode, btw.

The engineer picks up speed, confident in his train.

A guy on a horse has a gun ready, another guy has a detonator ready. The gun guy fires, the detonator guy detonates. And detonates. And detonates.

The engineer brings the train to a halt. A whole band of guys on horse and foot with guns and stuff approach.

Meanwhile, a guy we've seen a couple times, but who hasn't had a character establishing mini-scene with MacGyver, stows a briefcase in one of those drop down bunks that trains have. Like in North by Northwest.

Mac rigs the (WARNING: complex train jargon ahead) train-starter-thing to shock anyone but him or the engineer if they try to start the train. Also not being shocked: anyone who sees the bright copper wire wound around the starter thing.

So the fat guy with the gun tells his guys to bring all the westerners out of the train.

Lefty and DD are still tending to the conductor and when Quick Draw tells them to get out, Lefty shames Quick Draw into letting DD stay. There's kind of a romantic theme playing.

Fat Tony talks to the Westerners. He talks about how his villagers all pitched in to buy medicine from two Westerners for the children of the village. The medicine didn't work and 26 people died, including Fat Tony's son. But he doesn't know who the two Westerners are. He tells all the Westerners that they will not have food or water until they find out, among themselves who the two guys are.

So, two guys, one of whom is the shady who hid the briefcase and the other whom we haven't met before come up to MacGyver saying that they need to find these guys. Now, I'm no TV genius, but that seems suspicious, no?

Romeo (the guy who got the girl to agree to marry him before) wants to steal a horse. Juliet is freaking out, but Mac comes over and consoles them both, but he also tells them that no one is going to miss them for a week, so they're on their own.

Lady (I didn't want to call her Black Lady, but I think that distinguishes her more) comes and finds MacGyver. They have some sweet chat.

Lefty and DD are still treating the conductor. Lefty has brought soda to keep the conductor hydrated. And also he brings some charm. It's soul-baring time, folks. He also talks about ghost pain, which is a fascinating aspect of amputation, to me.

DD asks Lefty how he lost his arm. He got it shot off by a shotgun wielding maniac. Yikes. That's awful. He's so brave.

She bares a little soul. And then they kiss.

Black Lady and Mac are talking about this whistle Mac has made from a spigot of some sort. It bugs the horses. Look for it later.

Mac and Black Lady give Fat Tony grief about the wounded conductor. He tells them about all the people that died. But they make the point that death won't bring his son back.

The sun is up. And they're still sitting there. Mac is saying inspirational stuff about mornings. They go inside the train.

Juliet is sleeping, but Romeo gets up. He thinks no one sees him, but Shady Guy is watching him. He sneaks off the train and goes under it, army crawling along the length. He's getting pretty far. He gets out and starts to run. Shady Guy yells at him, Fat Tony comes towards him with a gun. There's turmoil. But then Mac comes and like jump kicks into a guard and runs in between Romeo and Fat Tony and blows his whistle. This pretty much calms things down.

Everyone's outside of the train now and The Other Shady Guy points the finger at Shady Guy for calling attention to the escape attempt. He says that maybe he was trying to draw attention away from himself.

Shady Guy's accent is ALL OVER THE PLACE, PEOPLE.

Mac suggests that they should look in his compartment. He pulls down the bunk and finds the briefcase. And it's lots of money. Shady Guy says that the money is his and that he hid it because he didn't want them to steal it. But Fat Tony confirms that they didn't pay in paper money, but rather in gold. So Shady Guy was just a Red Herring! Gotta love red herrings.

This whole situation has given Mac an idea. He's constructing a lie detector from a blood pressure cuff and an alarm clock (naturally. what do YOU make your lie detectors from?)

He's hooking Romeo up to it. Everyone's watching.

So when the alarm goes off, it's a lie. He demonstrates with Romeo. He declares his love for Juliet and the alarm goes off. Mac tells Fat Tony that that was love, not lying.

Fat Tony says that he intends to have the two men administer the medicine/poison to themselves, killing themselves.

Mac says he won't condone murder. He makes Fat Tony agree to accompany them to Rajmir (I'm not sure how to spell it) where the culprits will stand trial.

Other Shady Guy doesn't trust Fat Tony. MacGyver responds that he does trust him and that Other Shady Guy should go next. He asks Other Shady Guy if he sold the poison. OSG doesn't even say anything, but the alarm goes off. He leaps from his seat and the other conductor (the young British one that I didnt even think to mention!) pulls a gun and gives it to OSG. OSG runs off and Mac follows. OSG shoots at MacGyver but (stormtrooper aim) misses. He runs into the steering compartment. Mac takes off his shoe and throws it onto the roof.

But OSG isn't fooled. He punches MacGyver, but then he tries to start the train and gets shocked and killed.

Fat Tony asks Lefty to be the Village Doctor. DD offers to join him. Dragon Lady questions her sanity, but she stands up to her. And Dragon Lady is pleased and proud. Aww. She offers her help if they need anything.

And then the non-Westerners come back and the little girl gives Mac the doll back.

THE END.

Hmm, the phrase "Slow Death" didn't appear at all in the episode, that I noticed. I thought it was part of something MacGyver said about revenge or harboring anger or something being a slow death, but I guess I was wrong. So I'll say it.

Harboring vengeance or anger in your heart is like a slow death, kids. Don't do it.

See you next week!!!

NEXT WEEK: THE ESCAPE

MacGyver Mondays: "Last Stand" (Season 1, Episode 7)

Title: Last Stand
Airdate: 11/17/1985
My age at Airdate: 2 years, 4 months, 1 day
Episode Type: Hostage

This episode is one I remember watching as a youth. And it also is special because it is from the set of this episode that we get the famous RDA "Oh I didn't see you there, but I'm happy to see you" opening credits shot (at the top of this entry). So let's not waste any more time talking about it....let's start talking about it!

OPENING CREDITS

No Opening Gambit this week. The episode has so much packed into it, I'm amazed there's not a shortened credit sequence...

The episode begins with MacGyver jauntily driving to "the ol' fishing hole" that his Dad took him to as a kid. He is the bastion of health as he eats an apple and makes his way to Sparrow Ridge Airport to ask for directions.

There's a waitress and a guy in front of her. A guy playing pinball. And outside, watching MacGyver walk in, is a shaggy-haired, hoodlum-looking guy. Mac walks in and asks where he could find Sparrow lake. Pinball Guy says they're closed, but Waitress (we know she's not going to be Mac's next kissing conquest because she lovingly stroked the hand of the guy in coveralls as Mac was walking in) tells him it's 2 miles thataway. She seems jumpy. The black cook (at the back of the restaurant. typical) looks nervous, too.

There's an awkward moment and then MacGyver asks for coffee. Waitress owns the joint. Her Dad was a flight instructor at there.

MacGyver takes a sip of coffee and sees HELP written on the inside of the mug. Hairy Hooligan sees the message and tells MacGyver to "finish it....or I will" and has a big gun pointed at him. HH looks at the mug and slides it down to Pinball. MacGyver tries to break the tension by saying the coffee was a little strong, but when Pinball laughs, it doesn't get better. It's a creepy laugh.

Pinball introduces himself and tells us that Black Cook will make him breakfast while he empties his pockets.

HH does this weird "hit on you and threaten you" thing to Waitress and Black Cook ambles over (he's old, too.) and tells him to knock it off. HH has a temper, clearly. He grabs OBC by the shirt and looks menacingly at him. But Pinball says that they should try to get along and stay calm and they'll be gone within 3 hours time.

HH hits on Waitress and this time Coveralls stands up for her. HH gets mad again and threatens Coveralls. OBC says that if he points the gun at her again, he'll show him where he can stick the gun. So HH goes over and threatens OBC. Most of this guy's role is looking scarily at the last person that talked. Pinball says that HH likes killing people and he'll take any excuse to do it.

Meanwhile a tractor trailer is rolling up to the diner. Pinball has been expecting it and has everyone in the diner go outside to meet the truck.

Leathervest and Excited Teenage Thug hop out of the truck. ETT is played by the guy that was the loose cannon pitcher in the original Bad News Bears and would go on to play, among other roles, the Sex Offender in Little Children, and Rorshach in Watchmen. I think he has the most lines in this episode by a mile. He's a talkative fellow. And he wears a headband like a champ.

He tries a Bogart impression on Waitress but is interrupted by Pinball telling him to unload the truck. He says that it's Storage Van from Dallas as a van backs out of the tractor trailer. I guess it's like an armored truck? There's a guard inside the van who has no key, so they're going to just blow the door and probably kill the guard.....

....but MacGvyer won't stand for it. He says that if they blow the door, the money inside will burn up. He could open the door and no one would get hurt. He'll make a thermite torch, of course. The magnesium from a bicycle, rust from rusty paint cans, mixed together with a road flare as an ignition source. This is kind of a CLASSIC MacGyver maneuver.

Pinball: MacGyver what do you do, as a profession?
MacGyver: I, uh, move around a lot.
--MacGyver being coy with his adversary

The thermite torch cuts through the lock like the hot knife through butter that MacGyver claimed it would. The guard comes stumbling out...and HH shoots him anyway. These guys are kind of messed up, you know?

HH tasks Coveralls and MacGyver with burying the Guard. This gives MacGyver a chance to get to know Coveralls (and, of course, take a look around the surroundings to see what he can use.) Coveralls used to be a Medivac pilot, but he was taken prisoner in Vietnam. The Vietnamese soldiers made him dig his own grave and then psyched him out by just holding a gun to his head and letting him stew. It messed him up. He's showing severe signs of PTSD.

Coveralls: You and [Waitress] are about the only one's who didn't just pass judgement.
MacGyver: I can't stand in judgement of you, [Coveralls]. I'm not perfect....yet.
--MacGyver being egotistical AND lightening the mood. And also still sounding kind of Messianic.

Inside, Pinball, Leathervest, and HH are counting the money. ETT comes back with Coveralls and MacGyver and fawns over the money, and then starts touching Waitress's ass. She slaps his hand away, Coveralls looks upset (we're going to have to get him to have some courage by the end of the episode, aren't we? It's kind of like it was with DSLI in "The Golden Triangle", isn't it?), but it's HH who tells him not to touch her. ETT asks HH if he has a claim on her or something and she says NO ONE has a claim on her. HH gets all creepily sadistic and Mac steps in and tells him to have a little class, for a change.

HH, as is his wont, goes for his gun and his menacing look, but Pinball stops him before he can do anything.

Right at that moment, a call comes in over the radio. It's the charter plane to Mexico that the bad guys are using to get away. He's having electrical problems that they'll need to make repairs on, but he'll see them in 15 minutes. I wonder if MacGyver will have to make those repairs.....

Yep, he's going to make the repairs. ETT, MacGyver, and Waitress go out to look at what spare parts they have on hand. Waitress is confused about why MacGyver needs to jury rig the switch when the repair is so simple. He tells her that they're the only ones that know that.

Now Mac gets to have his heart to heart with Waitress about how she and Coveralls usually make a good team, but he's freezing up today and all that. Mac asks if the fire truck in the garage works and she says it does, but they would be going up against 4 guys. So, to even the odds a little, Mac takes a random heavy metal object over to ETT. When ETT asks what it is, MacGyver says "Lateral. Cranial. Impact. Enhancer." and THWACKs him on the side of the head with it, knocking him out. Kind of badass, actually.

Ok, so now this is where MacGyver makes the same bombs that the kids would later use at Columbine, I believe. I don't have proof of that, but I remember this scene was full of dark portent post-1999. Fertilizer+starter fluid = bomb, basically.

Mac sends Waitress back inside so that she can get OBC and Coveralls out when shit starts going down.

He throws a fertilizer bomb and all the bad guys run outside, leaving their prisoners alone to escape. The good guys all run out to the fire truck. HH jumps on a dirt bike but is immediately blasted with the hose. Leathervest drives a car while Pinball shoots at them. The water tank on the fire engine goes dry, so it's a good thing MacGyver made so many fertilizer bombs.

HH, back on his bike, speeds past the fire truck and takes out a tire. The truck crashes and Coveralls and MacGyver jump off the top of the truck, preparing to fight, but HH is suddenly there, holding a gun to Waitress.

So now they're recaptured and EVERYONE is pissed at MacGyver (well, ETT and HH, mostly. they're fighting over wanting to kill him in a callback to the way they fought over Waitress, minutes ago)

The charter plane finally arrives.

Pinball takes Coveralls out to meet it.

HH throws MacGyver and Waitress into the meat freezer and puts a spoon into the latch so that it's locked. HH and Leathervest take OBC out to get on the plane, leaving MacGyver and Waitress to try to escape, or die trying!!!!

The MacGyver Thinking Theme starts playing and MacGyver uses a meat hook to unscrew the knob on the door.

Meanwhile, the Pilot and Coveralls set to work fixing the plane with Pinball and HH pointing guns at them.

MacGyver takes  piece of cardboard and puts it into the hold where the knob was. Then he pulls the track where the meathooks were hanging off the ceiling. Then he pulls the cage off the lightbulb overhead.

All this time, Mac and Waitress are talking about Coveralls and how messed up he is. But it'll be ok. And she loves him and all that stuff.

So now comes the obligatory "MacGyver, what are you doing??" question that is the ONLY reason she is in there with him. Because now he can explain about how water expands as it freezes, but he doesn't have to do it in an inner monologue. I mean, he COULD, but this way he doesn't have to.

So the setup is this: He has a piece of ice. He has hitched the meathook track to the cage that is hinged to cover the lightbulb. The track runs down to the cardboard that goes into the door. So he'll melt the ice up at the lightbulb, the water will run down the track, and, by the time it goes into the door, it'll be freezing. It will expand and pop the door open. Easy peasy.

Dave and the Pilot have gotten the plane fixed enough and the bad guys are about to leave as MacGyver and Waitress get out of the freezer. The radio's busted, but MacGyver sees a remote control airplane and some olive oil. He still has a fertilizer bomb (why didn't they take it from him??) that he tapes to the plane and covers in olive oil. He lights the fuse on the bomb and gets the RC plane going. He lands the RC plane next to the real plane and all the bad guys run to investigate and Waitress runs out to herd OBC, the Pilot and Coveralls to safety. Seriously, why don't the bad guys leave one guy behind to watch the prisoners? It's just poor planning, you know?

So now the bad guys are looking for MacGyver. Stalking him. He ducks under the tractor trailer. The rest of the good guys are in the garage. ETT gets taken out by MacGyver. HH is wandering towards the garage, but then Leathervest calls him over to see if they'd heard from ETT.

Waitress gives Coveralls some tough love about flying the helicopter that he already told MacGyver he couldn't fly. Newly resolved, he sets off.

MacGyver takes out Leathervest.

Coveralls is kind of freaking out, but he's at the helicopter. All he has to do is get in and fly!

Pinball tells HH to warm up the plane.

MacGyver runs up to Coveralls trying to convince him to fly the helicopter. MacGyver and Coveralls argue about why they should stop the bad guys and MacGyver wins by pointing out that they killed that guard. He runs off and jumps on the back of the plane and starts steering the plane by moving the....rudder? Is it still a rudder on a plane?

Pinball starts shooting at him but I think he's probably pretty safe (Stormtrooper Aim)

Suddenly, there's Coveralls in the helicopter. He knocks Pinball over with one of the helicopter feet (which is what we're calling them from now on).

HH stops the plane and jumps out with his gun, he sees Coveralls in the helicopter and raises his gun, but MacGyver jumps from the plane and dukes it out with HH. HH pulls a knife, so Mac SOCKS him with the butt of his gun. He's knocked out. Coveralls runs over and turns off the plane as the rest of the good guys run up.

Coveralls and Waitress embrace. Everything's better with them. Yay!

Good episode. It always reminds me of that Jamie Foxx movie Held Up. Similar setting I guess. You know, watching the episodes like this is probably the only way I would have seen the similarities between this episode and The Golden Triangle episode. Fun stuff. See you next week!

NEXT WEEK: HELLFIRE