Whoa. So Blogger's all weird now. I know that probably most of my listeners don't blog themselves (you should though!), but I guess they've changed the setup of what it looks like when I write a blog post. Things are in different places. It's like someone cleaned my house and moved all my stuff around. Eh, I'm sure I'll get used to it.
So, we're in the 2nd 100 episodes now, huh? Pretty sweet. :)
Enjoy this week's show!
Countdown #101
***Featuring***
The Black Keys
Foo Fighters
fun. featuring Janelle Monae
Gotye featuring Kimbra
Grouplove
Lostprophets
M83
Neon Trees
Of Monsters and Men
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Carl Dennis "A Maxim"
Read this in a New Yorker from 2010 this morning. I loved it and have been thinking about it all day.
A Maxim
by Carl Dennis
To live each day as if it might be the last
Is an injunction that Marcus Aurelius
Inscribes in his journal to remind himself
That he, too, however privileged, is mortal,
That whatever bounty is destined to reach him
Has reached him already, many times.
But if you take his maxim too literally
And devote your mornings to tinkering with your will,
Your afternoons and evenings to saying farewell
To friends and family, you’ll come to regret it.
Soon your lawyer won’t fit you into his schedule.
Soon your dear ones will hide in a closet
When they hear your heavy step on the porch.
And then your house will slide into disrepair.
If this is my last day, you’ll say to yourself,
Why waste time sealing drafts in the window frames
Or cleaning gutters or patching the driveway?
If you don’t want your heirs to curse the day
You first opened Marcus’s journals,
Take him simply to mean you should find an hour
Each day to pay a debt or forgive one,
Or write a letter of thanks or apology.
No shame in leaving behind some evidence
You were hoping to live beyond the moment.
No shame in a ticket to a concert seven months off,
Or, better yet, two tickets, as if you were hoping
To meet by then someone who’d love to join you,
Two seats near the front so you catch each note.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Top Ten Tuesday: Gotye featuring Kimbra "Somebody That I Used To Know"
What I'm trying to do is hamstring myself by doing all the easy ones now. That way, I make it really hard when I have to decide whether I want to talk about Flo Rida or One Direction.
Plus, I've been singing this all day and so it seems fitting to talk about it.
Finally, you definitely know this song if you have listened to any of the past 10 or so countdowns (which, I'm kind of guessing you have?)
So here's a Gotye smorgasbord.
The original video:
Plus, I've been singing this all day and so it seems fitting to talk about it.
Finally, you definitely know this song if you have listened to any of the past 10 or so countdowns (which, I'm kind of guessing you have?)
So here's a Gotye smorgasbord.
The original video:
He was on SNL recently. And they did a Digital Short that is funnier if you've seen the above Original. Here's the Digital Short:
And here's the fantastic SNL performance:
And then here's the performance from Glee that I also love (so sue me.):
It's a great song. And I imagine it'll be sticking around for some time.
Monday, April 23, 2012
MacGyver Mondays: "Flame's End" (Season 1, Episode 13)
Title: Flame's End
Airdate: 1/29/1986
My Age at Airdate: 2 years, 6 months, 13 days
Episode Type: Conspiracy Investigation
We've officially started the disc of MacGyver that I have watched the most. Just a fun bit of trivia. It's Season 1 Disc 4. And if I do my job, you'll understand next week why I've watched this disc so much!
We open on what looks like a nuclear power plant. A cute blonde is doing work when the phone rings. It's the cops telling her that her boss's car ran off the road and he's dead.
Cut to MacGyver in full hockey gear. He's playing the hockey equivalent of foosball with his cute landlord. I don't remember her being a recurring character, but she's definitely in the next episode as well. MacGyver has affected this Canadian accent that's weird. He's doing voiceover work and it's all fun and games.
Back to CB who is just getting off the phone. The music shifts back to ominous. She goes to a file cabinet and starts rifling through some files. Finding the one she needs (marked 'eyes only') she pulls it out and dials the phone. A pair of gloved hands cuts the phone line. Someone's in the lab with her. It's super ominous. She quickly leaves the room and right behind her is someone in a radiation suit.
Back to MacGyver's recreational activities. He's a kind of a jerky competitor, actually.
CB is running into some sort of containment chamber and hiding the file. Radiation Suit is after her with a flashlight. She ducks out of the way and RS passes right by her. So she starts to hurry back the way she came.
It's a weird juxtaposition between the lighthearted table hockey scenes and the very tense, almost slasher movie style scenes. Mac's flirting pretty hard with this lady who I just realized we don't know is his landlady, yet. She's just some blonde, so far. I think.
CB has found another phone. She calls and the phone rings at MacGyver's house. She tells him that she needs him, that she's in trouble. He tells her he'll be there in the morning. She tells him to meet her at "Their Beach". Suddenly RS is behind her. She runs off and Mac frantically calls after her. RS slowly and creepily hangs up the phone. RS breathes like Darth Vader.
OPENING CREDITS
A plane lands. MacGyver drives up to the beach in an Oldsmobile. He's reminiscing about the past. He dated CB way back when.
Flashback: CB is in her truck listening to "Crocodile Rock" and MacGyver drives up on a motorcycle. He's going to travel around the Greek Isles as a cook on a freighter. She's upset. They're building a nuclear plant right down the road. She says that he should get a job there and use his newly acquired science degree. He wants to see the world. She says she didn't realize that his dreams were this crazy. He is surprised that she thinks that his dreams are crazy. She drives away in her truck and he stands there in his leather jacket, brooding. "Crocodile Rock" has ended and "Time in a Bottle" is playing. Good choice for mood music, MacGyver crew! Also, the music sets the time to be roughly spring/summer of 1974 (because "Time in a Bottle" came out in November 1973 and if they just graduated from college, that would make the most sense. Although that's not necessarily true. It just can't be BEFORE November 1973.)
Back to present day. MacGyver is still looking wistfully at the sea when a brown car drives up. It parks some distance away from MacGyver. The driver honks and Mac turns. He smiles at the cute blonde behind the wheel and waves (this is the image at the top of the page). AND THEN THE DAMN CAR BLOWS UP!!!!
I can't really describe the surprise and horror of this turn of events. It's very surprising. Let's just leave it at that. They do a weird slow-mo/freeze-frame of MacGyver shouting CB's name, but they don't go to commercial. They cut to the coroner's car driving away. And a guy pulls up. Hey, it's Nightmare on Elm Street's Robert Englund! He comes over and says hi to MacGyver. It's been a while, but they know eachother.
The sheriff comes over and tells MacGyver and NoESRE that the lab boys think it was a gas leak mixed with an overheated tail pipe. MacGyver gives the sheriff a piece of gas tank he found. There's a hole in it that is going INTO the tank instead of out of it like you would expect from an explosion like the lab hypothesized. There's some residue around the hole that Mac thinks is probably Magnesium Oxide.
Mac asks if CB was still in contact with her Aunt or this one friend of theirs and NoESRE replies no to both, but she was rooming with this girl who called in sick to work on Friday (I guess this is like, Sunday?) and she probably won't be back for the funeral tomorrow. TOMORROW?! Ok, so this car blew up a matter of hours ago and the funeral's already scheduled? Can someone talk to me about the accuracy of this? Does this ever happen? The sheriff says it's a "coroner's case". And CB's mom and dad are already dead. So, maybe she doesn't have any next of kin, so they just bury her? It seems really weird, though, doesn't it?
Ok, so now we're at the funeral. But this is more than just a paperwork thing. This is friends and loved ones. Weird.
So MacGyver's leaving the funeral. CB IS IN HIS BACK SEAT! SHE'S ALIVE!!!!!!
MacGyver drives up to CB's Dad's old place. She explains that it was her roommate in the car. CB was too afraid to meet MacGyver at the beach so she sent her roommate instead.
She cries on Mac's shoulder for a bit and then he asks her why someone wants her dead. She says that she was going through some records at the plant and found that someone had covered up the theft of a bunch of Uranium. Enough to build a bomb with. She told her boss this. Her boss that ended up dead.
Now we're at the plant. A clean-cut security guard asks NoESRE if he wants some coffee. NoESRE declines. He's busy reading some data, or something. Oh. It's a yearbook. He's looking at the page with the "Science Club" officers on it. Him, MacGyver and CB. NoESRE's caption says "Most Likely to Succeed" and C-CSG ribs him about how wrong they got that. Under MacGyver's picture it says "Already Has It" which is a weird thing to say, isn't it? NoESRE's lab coat is blocking what it says under CB's picture. NoESRE is really brooding over the hopes he had when he was in school.
He gets a phone call. It's the coroner's office telling him that it wasn't CB's body in the car. He thoughtfully chews on his thumb.
MacGyver gives CB some coffee to...calm her nerves? She cries a little more and then is suddenly "ok now". I mean, I guess when you're done crying, you're done crying, right? But she's looking up at him. I'm betting on a kiss in the next 10 seconds. Ok it was like 30 seconds. But there it was. (Kiss slut.) She tells him that she still remembers how he tastes and that phrase always gives me the heebie-jeebies. She tells him she's glad he's here because everyone she knows and trusts is dead. He tells her that they'll get to the bottom of it.
So here's something to consider. It's 23 minutes into the episode. That's basically halfway. We have yet to see any sort of MacGyver trick. He hasn't really done anything stereotypically MacGyver-ey at all in this episode. Weird.
So basically, the Uranium has been slowly being stolen in small increments which means that it's probably someone inside the plant and the Uranium might still be hidden somewhere in the plant. So they're going to go to the plant to get that folder she hid and then they're going to publicize the theft.
They pull up to the plant and the security guard lets them in, but a shady looking guy in a shady looking Ford Taurus stops all of sudden and watches them enter. Then he drives off.
Mac and CB are going to where she hid the folder which she reveals is the "disposal chamber". Oh no! There's RS! So they go into the disposal chamber and CB starts telling MacGyver about how bad it would be if they were in there when the valve opened and all the radioactive slush came pouring in. See, that's the kind of thing I'd want to hear about LATER. But no, they're just taking their sweet time...
So MacGyver moves the party along a little by suggesting CB grab the report and they get out of there, but when she grabs the report, they look at it and comment about how it's all downhill from here. They DESERVE to get slushed on for that kind of hubris, you know?
Of course, the chamber closes and RS walks away. The door can't be opened for another 60 minutes. And the valve opens. CB tells an incredulous MacGyver that they have about 10 minutes before the heat from the oncoming slush makes it impossible to breathe. So, plus side: they're not going to have to deal with the slush. Minus side: they're going to die.
We've got some nice interstitial stock nuclear power plant footage.
C-CSG is watching a ballgame and NoESRE is reading some data with his back to the board telling him that the chamber is closed. So no one knows that they're down there.
Mac's plan is to speed up the timer on the lock to the door. They'll hit the timer with a hot electrical surge and set up a violent secondary vibration. Basically, this involves taking a wire from the timer and hooking it to another wire. It's certainly not very impressive, MacGyver-wise.
C-CSG notices the flashing warning lights indicating the chamber is open. He tells NoESRE and NoESRE runs to the chamber just in time to see MacGyver and CB get out of the chamber and close the door before a bunch of yellowy-orangey puke-looking stuff comes pouring out. Of course, CB said that they would be dead LONG before the sludge came out, so I guess she was a little off in her estimation of their demise, huh?
NoESRE comes over and does some poorly-acted stuttering about "What's going on?"
So now MacGyver and CB are going to suit up in Radiation Suits to try to find the missing Uranium. NoESRE is going to go call the NRC (that's Nuclear Regulatory Commission to you and me) and get some authorities down to the plant.
CB gives MacGyver a film badge to test for radiation. Now, when I was in school (and also later, at my job), our film badges measured the dosage of radiation we'd encountered over the course of the year. You sent them to be tested and that was it. Here's CB explaining this slightly different film badge:
CB: Mac, this film badge reacts to radiation. When you're near anything hot it starts to turn black.
MacGyver: When it's all black, do they give you a new one?
CB: When it's all black, they give you a coffin.
MacGyver: Oh. Good....
Now it could be that they have these badges in places where the potential to encounter acute, lethal amounts of radiation is high. Because you want to know right away if you're in that kind of trouble. So it's not completely farfetched, but it DOES feel a little TV-friendly, you know?
So now they're in the storage room. Their radiation suits don't have opaque black respirator masks like the radiation suit that RS wears. That's because it's ok if we know who they are. This is how you build suspense, you know? And intrigue.
CB tells Mac that she and her boss checked through all these containers and didn't find the Uranium anywhere. They know it has to be in this room, because the alarms would go off if that level of radiation was present anywhere else in the plant.
Mac's Geiger counter starts going crazy near a sign that is being held in place by one of those concrete bases. CB tells him that there's no way the Uranium is in there, but then Mac tips over the base and shows her that it's hollow and contains the Uranium. This is actually pretty ingenious because concrete would emit a low radioactive baseline and would be good to conceal something like that. Good job again, writers!
So now they have some evidence.
They go into the decontamination chamber and there is NoESRE pointing a gun at them. MacGyver is not surprised (is "nonplussed" the right word here?). CB asks why NoESRE did all this to her when they had grown up together and everything. He says he never intended for it to go this far. However, when Mac asks him to put the gun down, he refuses, saying that it's too late now. He's in too deep now to get out.
MacGyver guides CB away from NoESRE, even though he's pointing a gun at them. Mac basically says that he doesn't believe NoESRE will shoot them. That he's not a killer. And NoESRE doesn't shoot them. It was pretty tense there for a moment.
So MacGyver and CB run into the control room and tell C-CSG to call Washington and alert the authorities, but he just sits there, stonefaced. All of a sudden, there's the Sheriff holding a gun on them. He's selling the Uranium to a buyer in Canada, but that shouldn't concern them because they won't live to worry about where the Uranium goes.
NoESRE runs in and tells him not to shoot them. There's been enough killing. But the Sheriff is going to shoot them anyway. NoESRE lunges for the gun and gets shot in the struggle. The Sheriff also shoots the control panel and the control panel starts talking about a pressure overload. Sending the reactor out of control into a meltdown situation.
So, C-CSG has a bullet wound in the arm and NoESRE has been shot in the gut. The reactor is heating up and when it gets to critical temperature, it will explode and meltdown. Or maybe just meltdown? I don't know how these things work exactly. They have about 12 minutes.
Basically, if MacGyver can open this one valve manually, then this other coolant injection system can get in there and fix everything.
CB: Mac, no! It'll kill you!
MacGyver: No way! I haven't paid my taxes, yet.
--MacGyver: Badass. Responsible citizen.
The Sheriff is carting the Uranium off and MacGyver is running to the valve. CB and NoESRE are sitting at the control station trying to get that injection system to do the whole "stopping the meltdown" thing from happening.
MacGyver happens upon the Sheriff who, of course, shoots at him. MacGyver runs off and the Sheriff takes chase.
Here's something that bothers me about this episode: NoESRE is basically bleeding to death. I guess they don't call an ambulance because that would endanger more lives? I dunno. I recall there's an opportunity to do something later on. We'll see when we get there.
NoESRE tells CB to go help MacGyver. He can stay and regulate the flow (or whatever it is that makes the valve the only thing needed to fix this problem).
Sheriff and MacGyver are yelling back and forth about the Uranium and the money and all that. Then MacGyver swings around and knocks the Sheriff down. His gun fires and he's hit by a bunch of radioactive steam. His badge turns black. Suddenly afraid, he doesn't fight them as they carry him off to washdown, the only place where he has a hope for survival.
The core temperature continues to rise.
NoESRE sends C-CSG off to tend to his flesh wound. C-CSG doesn't really think twice about leaving. What a jerk.
So Mac and CB are at the valve. Mac gets the wrench and has CB shoot him with washdown water. It's kind of like in Hellfire, actually. The valve is stuck. Mac tries really hard to pry it loose, but the wrench slips out of his hand and goes down a grate. MacGyver asks for the Sheriff's gun. He takes the barrel off the gun and uses the gun as a wrench to successfully loosen the valve. It works!!! They celebrate.
Cut to NoESRE who is DYING in the control room. Um, Mac? CB? he could use a little help, you know? He sees the temperature fall back down and his hand goes limp.
I guess he died because now we've cut to MacGyver and CB later. She's walking him to his car.
They do a little bit of final reminiscing and he leaves. To a sexy saxophone version of the MacGyver theme.
So they really just left both bad guys to an unknown fate? I mean, I GUESS they could both be ok. But they are probably both very dead and it feels like maybe that should have been addressed, you know? Or at least the fate of NoESRE. He redeemed himself in the end! Shouldn't that mean that we get to find out if he lived or died?
Also? I'm not really sure why this episode is called "Flame's End". Ideas? Thoughts? Pop 'em in the comments section!
Thanks for reading! See you next week!
NEXT WEEK: THE EPISODE THAT WILL VERY LIKELY BREAK THE BANK ON YOUR PATIENCE FOR MY RAMBLING EPISODE COMMENTARY: COUNTDOWN
We've officially started the disc of MacGyver that I have watched the most. Just a fun bit of trivia. It's Season 1 Disc 4. And if I do my job, you'll understand next week why I've watched this disc so much!
We open on what looks like a nuclear power plant. A cute blonde is doing work when the phone rings. It's the cops telling her that her boss's car ran off the road and he's dead.
Cut to MacGyver in full hockey gear. He's playing the hockey equivalent of foosball with his cute landlord. I don't remember her being a recurring character, but she's definitely in the next episode as well. MacGyver has affected this Canadian accent that's weird. He's doing voiceover work and it's all fun and games.
Back to CB who is just getting off the phone. The music shifts back to ominous. She goes to a file cabinet and starts rifling through some files. Finding the one she needs (marked 'eyes only') she pulls it out and dials the phone. A pair of gloved hands cuts the phone line. Someone's in the lab with her. It's super ominous. She quickly leaves the room and right behind her is someone in a radiation suit.
Back to MacGyver's recreational activities. He's a kind of a jerky competitor, actually.
CB is running into some sort of containment chamber and hiding the file. Radiation Suit is after her with a flashlight. She ducks out of the way and RS passes right by her. So she starts to hurry back the way she came.
It's a weird juxtaposition between the lighthearted table hockey scenes and the very tense, almost slasher movie style scenes. Mac's flirting pretty hard with this lady who I just realized we don't know is his landlady, yet. She's just some blonde, so far. I think.
CB has found another phone. She calls and the phone rings at MacGyver's house. She tells him that she needs him, that she's in trouble. He tells her he'll be there in the morning. She tells him to meet her at "Their Beach". Suddenly RS is behind her. She runs off and Mac frantically calls after her. RS slowly and creepily hangs up the phone. RS breathes like Darth Vader.
OPENING CREDITS
A plane lands. MacGyver drives up to the beach in an Oldsmobile. He's reminiscing about the past. He dated CB way back when.
Flashback: CB is in her truck listening to "Crocodile Rock" and MacGyver drives up on a motorcycle. He's going to travel around the Greek Isles as a cook on a freighter. She's upset. They're building a nuclear plant right down the road. She says that he should get a job there and use his newly acquired science degree. He wants to see the world. She says she didn't realize that his dreams were this crazy. He is surprised that she thinks that his dreams are crazy. She drives away in her truck and he stands there in his leather jacket, brooding. "Crocodile Rock" has ended and "Time in a Bottle" is playing. Good choice for mood music, MacGyver crew! Also, the music sets the time to be roughly spring/summer of 1974 (because "Time in a Bottle" came out in November 1973 and if they just graduated from college, that would make the most sense. Although that's not necessarily true. It just can't be BEFORE November 1973.)
Back to present day. MacGyver is still looking wistfully at the sea when a brown car drives up. It parks some distance away from MacGyver. The driver honks and Mac turns. He smiles at the cute blonde behind the wheel and waves (this is the image at the top of the page). AND THEN THE DAMN CAR BLOWS UP!!!!
I can't really describe the surprise and horror of this turn of events. It's very surprising. Let's just leave it at that. They do a weird slow-mo/freeze-frame of MacGyver shouting CB's name, but they don't go to commercial. They cut to the coroner's car driving away. And a guy pulls up. Hey, it's Nightmare on Elm Street's Robert Englund! He comes over and says hi to MacGyver. It's been a while, but they know eachother.
The sheriff comes over and tells MacGyver and NoESRE that the lab boys think it was a gas leak mixed with an overheated tail pipe. MacGyver gives the sheriff a piece of gas tank he found. There's a hole in it that is going INTO the tank instead of out of it like you would expect from an explosion like the lab hypothesized. There's some residue around the hole that Mac thinks is probably Magnesium Oxide.
Mac asks if CB was still in contact with her Aunt or this one friend of theirs and NoESRE replies no to both, but she was rooming with this girl who called in sick to work on Friday (I guess this is like, Sunday?) and she probably won't be back for the funeral tomorrow. TOMORROW?! Ok, so this car blew up a matter of hours ago and the funeral's already scheduled? Can someone talk to me about the accuracy of this? Does this ever happen? The sheriff says it's a "coroner's case". And CB's mom and dad are already dead. So, maybe she doesn't have any next of kin, so they just bury her? It seems really weird, though, doesn't it?
Ok, so now we're at the funeral. But this is more than just a paperwork thing. This is friends and loved ones. Weird.
So MacGyver's leaving the funeral. CB IS IN HIS BACK SEAT! SHE'S ALIVE!!!!!!
MacGyver drives up to CB's Dad's old place. She explains that it was her roommate in the car. CB was too afraid to meet MacGyver at the beach so she sent her roommate instead.
She cries on Mac's shoulder for a bit and then he asks her why someone wants her dead. She says that she was going through some records at the plant and found that someone had covered up the theft of a bunch of Uranium. Enough to build a bomb with. She told her boss this. Her boss that ended up dead.
Now we're at the plant. A clean-cut security guard asks NoESRE if he wants some coffee. NoESRE declines. He's busy reading some data, or something. Oh. It's a yearbook. He's looking at the page with the "Science Club" officers on it. Him, MacGyver and CB. NoESRE's caption says "Most Likely to Succeed" and C-CSG ribs him about how wrong they got that. Under MacGyver's picture it says "Already Has It" which is a weird thing to say, isn't it? NoESRE's lab coat is blocking what it says under CB's picture. NoESRE is really brooding over the hopes he had when he was in school.
He gets a phone call. It's the coroner's office telling him that it wasn't CB's body in the car. He thoughtfully chews on his thumb.
MacGyver gives CB some coffee to...calm her nerves? She cries a little more and then is suddenly "ok now". I mean, I guess when you're done crying, you're done crying, right? But she's looking up at him. I'm betting on a kiss in the next 10 seconds. Ok it was like 30 seconds. But there it was. (Kiss slut.) She tells him that she still remembers how he tastes and that phrase always gives me the heebie-jeebies. She tells him she's glad he's here because everyone she knows and trusts is dead. He tells her that they'll get to the bottom of it.
So here's something to consider. It's 23 minutes into the episode. That's basically halfway. We have yet to see any sort of MacGyver trick. He hasn't really done anything stereotypically MacGyver-ey at all in this episode. Weird.
So basically, the Uranium has been slowly being stolen in small increments which means that it's probably someone inside the plant and the Uranium might still be hidden somewhere in the plant. So they're going to go to the plant to get that folder she hid and then they're going to publicize the theft.
They pull up to the plant and the security guard lets them in, but a shady looking guy in a shady looking Ford Taurus stops all of sudden and watches them enter. Then he drives off.
Mac and CB are going to where she hid the folder which she reveals is the "disposal chamber". Oh no! There's RS! So they go into the disposal chamber and CB starts telling MacGyver about how bad it would be if they were in there when the valve opened and all the radioactive slush came pouring in. See, that's the kind of thing I'd want to hear about LATER. But no, they're just taking their sweet time...
So MacGyver moves the party along a little by suggesting CB grab the report and they get out of there, but when she grabs the report, they look at it and comment about how it's all downhill from here. They DESERVE to get slushed on for that kind of hubris, you know?
Of course, the chamber closes and RS walks away. The door can't be opened for another 60 minutes. And the valve opens. CB tells an incredulous MacGyver that they have about 10 minutes before the heat from the oncoming slush makes it impossible to breathe. So, plus side: they're not going to have to deal with the slush. Minus side: they're going to die.
We've got some nice interstitial stock nuclear power plant footage.
C-CSG is watching a ballgame and NoESRE is reading some data with his back to the board telling him that the chamber is closed. So no one knows that they're down there.
Mac's plan is to speed up the timer on the lock to the door. They'll hit the timer with a hot electrical surge and set up a violent secondary vibration. Basically, this involves taking a wire from the timer and hooking it to another wire. It's certainly not very impressive, MacGyver-wise.
C-CSG notices the flashing warning lights indicating the chamber is open. He tells NoESRE and NoESRE runs to the chamber just in time to see MacGyver and CB get out of the chamber and close the door before a bunch of yellowy-orangey puke-looking stuff comes pouring out. Of course, CB said that they would be dead LONG before the sludge came out, so I guess she was a little off in her estimation of their demise, huh?
NoESRE comes over and does some poorly-acted stuttering about "What's going on?"
So now MacGyver and CB are going to suit up in Radiation Suits to try to find the missing Uranium. NoESRE is going to go call the NRC (that's Nuclear Regulatory Commission to you and me) and get some authorities down to the plant.
CB gives MacGyver a film badge to test for radiation. Now, when I was in school (and also later, at my job), our film badges measured the dosage of radiation we'd encountered over the course of the year. You sent them to be tested and that was it. Here's CB explaining this slightly different film badge:
CB: Mac, this film badge reacts to radiation. When you're near anything hot it starts to turn black.
MacGyver: When it's all black, do they give you a new one?
CB: When it's all black, they give you a coffin.
MacGyver: Oh. Good....
Now it could be that they have these badges in places where the potential to encounter acute, lethal amounts of radiation is high. Because you want to know right away if you're in that kind of trouble. So it's not completely farfetched, but it DOES feel a little TV-friendly, you know?
So now they're in the storage room. Their radiation suits don't have opaque black respirator masks like the radiation suit that RS wears. That's because it's ok if we know who they are. This is how you build suspense, you know? And intrigue.
CB tells Mac that she and her boss checked through all these containers and didn't find the Uranium anywhere. They know it has to be in this room, because the alarms would go off if that level of radiation was present anywhere else in the plant.
Mac's Geiger counter starts going crazy near a sign that is being held in place by one of those concrete bases. CB tells him that there's no way the Uranium is in there, but then Mac tips over the base and shows her that it's hollow and contains the Uranium. This is actually pretty ingenious because concrete would emit a low radioactive baseline and would be good to conceal something like that. Good job again, writers!
So now they have some evidence.
They go into the decontamination chamber and there is NoESRE pointing a gun at them. MacGyver is not surprised (is "nonplussed" the right word here?). CB asks why NoESRE did all this to her when they had grown up together and everything. He says he never intended for it to go this far. However, when Mac asks him to put the gun down, he refuses, saying that it's too late now. He's in too deep now to get out.
MacGyver guides CB away from NoESRE, even though he's pointing a gun at them. Mac basically says that he doesn't believe NoESRE will shoot them. That he's not a killer. And NoESRE doesn't shoot them. It was pretty tense there for a moment.
So MacGyver and CB run into the control room and tell C-CSG to call Washington and alert the authorities, but he just sits there, stonefaced. All of a sudden, there's the Sheriff holding a gun on them. He's selling the Uranium to a buyer in Canada, but that shouldn't concern them because they won't live to worry about where the Uranium goes.
NoESRE runs in and tells him not to shoot them. There's been enough killing. But the Sheriff is going to shoot them anyway. NoESRE lunges for the gun and gets shot in the struggle. The Sheriff also shoots the control panel and the control panel starts talking about a pressure overload. Sending the reactor out of control into a meltdown situation.
So, C-CSG has a bullet wound in the arm and NoESRE has been shot in the gut. The reactor is heating up and when it gets to critical temperature, it will explode and meltdown. Or maybe just meltdown? I don't know how these things work exactly. They have about 12 minutes.
Basically, if MacGyver can open this one valve manually, then this other coolant injection system can get in there and fix everything.
CB: Mac, no! It'll kill you!
MacGyver: No way! I haven't paid my taxes, yet.
--MacGyver: Badass. Responsible citizen.
The Sheriff is carting the Uranium off and MacGyver is running to the valve. CB and NoESRE are sitting at the control station trying to get that injection system to do the whole "stopping the meltdown" thing from happening.
MacGyver happens upon the Sheriff who, of course, shoots at him. MacGyver runs off and the Sheriff takes chase.
Here's something that bothers me about this episode: NoESRE is basically bleeding to death. I guess they don't call an ambulance because that would endanger more lives? I dunno. I recall there's an opportunity to do something later on. We'll see when we get there.
NoESRE tells CB to go help MacGyver. He can stay and regulate the flow (or whatever it is that makes the valve the only thing needed to fix this problem).
Sheriff and MacGyver are yelling back and forth about the Uranium and the money and all that. Then MacGyver swings around and knocks the Sheriff down. His gun fires and he's hit by a bunch of radioactive steam. His badge turns black. Suddenly afraid, he doesn't fight them as they carry him off to washdown, the only place where he has a hope for survival.
The core temperature continues to rise.
NoESRE sends C-CSG off to tend to his flesh wound. C-CSG doesn't really think twice about leaving. What a jerk.
So Mac and CB are at the valve. Mac gets the wrench and has CB shoot him with washdown water. It's kind of like in Hellfire, actually. The valve is stuck. Mac tries really hard to pry it loose, but the wrench slips out of his hand and goes down a grate. MacGyver asks for the Sheriff's gun. He takes the barrel off the gun and uses the gun as a wrench to successfully loosen the valve. It works!!! They celebrate.
Cut to NoESRE who is DYING in the control room. Um, Mac? CB? he could use a little help, you know? He sees the temperature fall back down and his hand goes limp.
I guess he died because now we've cut to MacGyver and CB later. She's walking him to his car.
They do a little bit of final reminiscing and he leaves. To a sexy saxophone version of the MacGyver theme.
So they really just left both bad guys to an unknown fate? I mean, I GUESS they could both be ok. But they are probably both very dead and it feels like maybe that should have been addressed, you know? Or at least the fate of NoESRE. He redeemed himself in the end! Shouldn't that mean that we get to find out if he lived or died?
Also? I'm not really sure why this episode is called "Flame's End". Ideas? Thoughts? Pop 'em in the comments section!
Thanks for reading! See you next week!
NEXT WEEK: THE EPISODE THAT WILL VERY LIKELY BREAK THE BANK ON YOUR PATIENCE FOR MY RAMBLING EPISODE COMMENTARY: COUNTDOWN
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Countdown #100. That's Right. 100.
So, this is the 100th podcast I've made that I've labeled a "Countdown". There are Flashback Countdowns and Off the Charts podcasts and stuff, but this is the 100th proper countdown of current chart hits.
It's chock full of bonus songs, movement and perhaps for the first time on ANY podcast...Counting to 100 by 6!
Enjoy this one! Tell your friends.
Countdown #100
***Featuring***
All-American Rejects
AWOLNATION
The Black Keys
Foster the People
Fun. featuring Janelle Monae
Gotye featuring Kimbra
Grouplove
Hoobastank
Keith Urban
M83
The Mars Volta
Neon Trees
Of Monsters and Men
It's chock full of bonus songs, movement and perhaps for the first time on ANY podcast...Counting to 100 by 6!
Enjoy this one! Tell your friends.
Countdown #100
***Featuring***
All-American Rejects
AWOLNATION
The Black Keys
Foster the People
Fun. featuring Janelle Monae
Gotye featuring Kimbra
Grouplove
Hoobastank
Keith Urban
M83
The Mars Volta
Neon Trees
Of Monsters and Men
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Top Ten Tuesday: fun. featuring Janelle Monae "We Are Young"
Here's a song that you should know very well from my podcast! The difference from the Alternative Songs chart to the Hot 100 chart is that this song has been ROCKING the #1 position on the Hot 100 chart for weeks and weeks.
This video is an odd one. Do not adjust your computers. That's how it's SUPPOSED to be. :)
You know the song, so sing along!
This video is an odd one. Do not adjust your computers. That's how it's SUPPOSED to be. :)
You know the song, so sing along!
Monday, April 16, 2012
MacGyver Mondays: "Deathlock" (Season 1, Episode 12)
Title: Deathlock
Airdate: 1/22/1986
My Age at Airdate: 2 years, 6 months, 6 days
Episode Type: Escape, Espionage
OPENING GAMBIT
East Berlin.
MacGyver is in a coffin. He is trying to get out of East Berlin. "Dying to leave".
The vehicle transporting "the body" is driving along. The "mourners" are standing at the border. The soldiers are checking the documents. And they're letting the transport through. Wait. They're stopping the car. They're pulling out the coffin and telling the "mourners" to come get it. Ok. They're walking, they're walking. There's a call at the guard station! The East Germans are running after them, the "mourners" are dumping the coffin over the edge of the bridge. MacGyver hits two switches and BOOM, parts of the coffin blow off and reveal a jet ski that he races away on. And he does a couple of cocky maneuvers to really stick it to them.
End of Gambit. Hm. There wasn't much to that, was there?
OPENING CREDITS
We open on a shipyard. The camera pans over to a building. A snooty fellow is in a spotlight being taken to task by 3 shadowy figures. Oh. This guy was the guy that lost track of MacGyver in East Berlin. So that's why the opening gambit.
I think this guy's name is Quail. I will be referring to him as Snooty, but I wanted to point out that his name is Quail.
The triumvirate is giving Snooty another chance to stop MacGyver from delivering the information he got out of East Germany to his bosses.
A helicopter is landing on a building and a bunch of suits are standing around on the ground looking nervous. MacGyver walks down the stairs and stands awkwardly among them. All of a sudden a flashy red sports car pulls up and a bleach-blond beauty comes over to MacGyver and greets him. She says he's from Pete Thornton. They're going to get away from the nervous guys/hit men.
Mac puts on his Southern twang and kisses her (kiss slut) and they get away.
They drive up to a mansion. An electric gate closes behind them. She tells him that Pete has set up a special safehouse.
MacGyver: Been at the company long?
BBB: Why?
MacGyver: I thought I knew all the pretty girls at the office
--Macgyver: Irrepressible flirt or sexual harassment suit waiting to happen? You be the judge.
In a telling bit of foreshadowing, he comments that safehouses aren't normally mansions. And sure enough, we see Quail (ok, I can't help it. His name is QUAIL. I don't need to call him something snarky. Quail will do just fine, thank you) watching them in some sort of control room.
Pete comes down the fancy staircase and greets MacGyver. They start sharing war stories for BBB. Men. Always showing off.
Small talk, small talk.
Quail watches, Quail watches.
MacGyver meets an old Asian cryptologist. She goes to put the camera or the film or the list or whatever into the computer to decode, when all of a sudden, the computer turns on and starts going haywire!
Suddenly Quail comes on an intercom, says "Trick or Treat, it's April Fool's" (ok......) and BLOWS UP the computer.
Then he bars all the windows and flips several switches. The door to the room starts to close. Asian Cryptologist runs for it and, even though Mac shouts for her not to, grabs the doorknob and is pricked with a pin and goes stiff. Quail tells the gang that she is merely sedated.
MacGyver recounts his previous encounter with Quail. And Quail lays out "his game" on literally the clearest black and white TV I've ever seen.
Pete, not understanding the technology in use, shouts at Quail, asking if this is all about the camera or film or list or whatever and Quail says that his instructions are to destroy it and take care of them.
BBB looks worried and Quail tells her it's all in a day's work.
Pete runs to the phone to call for help, but it CRUMBLES in his hand. CRUMBLES. And then it sparks once he's dropped it. How do you rig a phone to CRUMBLE? Quail is truly a diabolical genius.
Quail signs off by challenging theme to TRY to escape. To TRY to find him.
They leave the room and head for BBB's car. But it's gone!
Quail activates the motion-sensitive Machine Guns (like you do).
Mac tests the door to the outside. It's not electrified. He slowly opens it. Nothing. But it MUST be booby-trapped. They wheel a conveniently place suit of armor over and lean it out....where it is blasted by the machine guns. Quail laughs diabolically.
They gather the armor up into a nearby sheet and head for the kitchen.
Pete: Well, here it is
BBB: Why here?
MacGyver: You can find lots of handy stuff in a kitchen. Let's look around
--MacGyver, summed-up in three lines.
They keep Quail talking. Building up his ego. Meanwhile MacGyver goes around the kitchen plugging appliances in and stationing Pete and BBB by them.
MacGyver takes a metal bowl, pokes a hole in it and attaches it to an electric juicer axle.
They turn on all the appliances and jam Quail's radio signal, so he can't see or hear them.
Pete chooses NOW to mention that he has a radio phone in the room they just came from. I guess that would have been something handy to mention WHEN WE WERE IN THAT ROOM.
Pete leaves to go get it and Quail sees him go. Pete checks on Asian Cryptologist.
BBB starts talking to MacGyver about how she used to play International Spy as a kid. Meanwhile, MacGyver is working.
Pete goes to the closet and opens the case with his radio phone. He frantically talks into it when all of a sudden, Quail is on the screen. Quail flips a switch and the radio phone shocks Pete, knocking him out.
BBB nervously says that she guesses it's HER turn to distract Quail. MacGyver puts down what he's doing. A saxophone starts playing. He takes her by the shoulders, tells her it's going to be ok and kisses her (kiss slut).
She leaves and starts walking down the hall.
MacGyver attaches a bunch of batteries together, puts that onto a cart next to a hand mixer. He attaches the beater from the mixer to the wheel of the cart with a rubber band. Turning on the mixer now makes the wheel of the cart turn!
Quail is sitting in his control room when all of a sudden, there's a knock at the door. He grabs his gun and opens the door. IT'S BBB!!! She's working for Quail!
But she's having second thoughts. She's worried that they're going to find out what she's up to. And she's also scared of Quail.
Quail hints that she has someone close to her to worry about. I guess we'll find out what that's about soon enough. He sends her back to the kitchen to monitor MacGyver's movements.
MacGyver is attaching the top part of the armor to the cart.
BBB moves a bit of a painting outside the kitchen to reveal a peep hole. She tells Quail about the cart and replaces the bit of painting. Then she runs to a staircase, rests her chin on a newell post, and whispers "Help"
Mac has taken the hinges off the back door of the kitchen. He lets the cart go and draw the machine gun fire with the armor. Then he slowly crawls behind it below the sight of them (and Quail's cameras). He sends the cart rolling one direction and runs in the other direction while the guns are shooting at the cart. He leaps over several hedges and is making a run for it.
Quail comes on the loudspeaker and tells MacGyver that he has Pete and that MacGyver can come back and get him in the Trophy room (the room where Pete and Asian Cryptologist are passed out). He will turn off the guns so that MacGyver can come back.
Quail and BBB are having a bit of a tussle about orders. She just wants to retrieve the film (confirmed that it's film) and Quail wants to have his revenge. He tells her to go to the Trophy room to get the film from Pete. He says Pete won't stop her because he has given Pete "the shock of his life".
She walks into the Trophy room to get the film and sees Pete lying on the ground. She screams and MacGyver runs in. She tells MacGyver that Pete's dead by electrocution. He checks Pete's pulse and tells her that Pete's not dead.
So they leave the both of them and go back to the kitchen. MacGyver lays out his plan to go down to the basement and cut the main power supply. Meanwhile, he's gathering vinegar, baking soda, a pot, and a fire extinguisher.
She asks him what he's doing. MacGyver embraces her and pulls out the radio she's been using to communicate with Quail. She asks him how he knew and he tells her 2 reasons:
1. She was too quick and cool getting him away from those hitmen. And the hitmen didn't follow.
2. She assessed electrocution from across the room? I don't THINK so.
She tells him she didn't know Quail was psychopathic. He asks her how much she was paid and she reveals that her brother is being held hostage. And that, kids, is how you write a female character that is BOTH the double agent AND a sympathetic character. MacGyver doesn't have to do any Crying Game-esque shower crying for having kissed a double agent but we still get the reveal of her working for Quail. Genius.
MacGyver tells her that if they catch Quail, they can use him as a bargaining chip to get her brother. And if the bad guys don't go for that, MacGyver will go into Czechoslovakia and personally retrieve her brother.
So they're going ahead with the basement plan, but Quail activates machine guns in the house (this house is SUPER swanky, you guys. Armor, hidden peep holes, lots of machine guns....it must have a tremendous resale value). These guns, Quail explains, are attached to moving lights. Basically the guns shoot whatever is in the light. To me? It makes more sense to have hidden guns WITHOUT a visual indicator for where they're shooting, but I'm not a professional, so I could be wrong.
MacGyver quickly mixes the baking soda and vinegar into the pot that he has placed on a nearby pedestal. This creates a smoke screen and they get away. BBB leads MacGyver to a secret passageway that is apparently off the grid of Quail's cameras.
She tells MacGyver where Quail's control room is. He says that maybe it's time for Quail to come out and play.
They set up a bunch of metal piping to alert them when Quail starts heading to the power room after they cut the power. Then they go to the power room.
Mac has BBB stack a bunch of junk around the room. Casual clutter, he calls it. He basically wants to only give Quail one direction to walk when he comes in. Meanwhile MacGyver is attaching all the wires from the circuit breaker to what looks like a wheel like you would see on like a water main or something.
He sends BBB to go get a mirror. He sets the mirror up so that they can see Quail without him being able to see them. He has also set up a pressurized water cannon that he can control with a rope.
Then they cut the power. Quail happens to have a flashlight right there. So he starts to head for the power room.
In the power room, BBB kisses MacGyver "just in case". Man, the 80's were CRAZY for kissers, huh?
Quail knocks over the alarm barricade, so they know to hide. He shoots the door open and cautiously advances. He walks past the mirror that they have set up, so BBB adjusts it. Like an idiot. Quail sees her hand and shoots the mirror. But what's worse is that he knows where they are.
He tells them to get up. They do and BBB tells Quail that MacGyver is setting a trap. She goes to his side and Quail prepares to shoot MacGyver. But then BBB pushes Quail into the position that MacGyver told her they needed him in and MacGyver activates the water cannon, pushing Quail into the exposed wires and disarming him. MacGyver runs up and, right before he delivers the KO punch says:
"This one's free of charge"
Which sounds like a corny cliched line, but then you realize that it's an electricity pun. A BEAUTIFUL electricity pun!
Something that happens often on MacGyver is that Mac will punch someone and then shake his hand because of it hurting. I like this. I feel it offers a realism. I've never punched someone super hard, or at all in the face, but I would imagine that it would sting the puncher. And I like that MacGyver addresses that.
They go to check on everyone else.
EPILOGUE
Pete is on the phone with his people and MacGyver and BBB are telling a freshly woken Asian Cryptographer that, basically, they don't need her help anymore. Or something. Basically patting themselves on the back for defeating Quail. Smug non-cryptologist bastards.
Welp, that's it for Deathlock! See you next week!
NEXT WEEK: FLAME'S END
ALSO: In two weeks, I'll be doing a MacGyver Monday on my all-time favorite MacGyver episode, appropriately titled "Countdown". I don't know if I'll be doing something special with it, but I have watched it more than any other episode, so I have a LOT to say about it. Don't miss it!
OPENING GAMBIT
East Berlin.
MacGyver is in a coffin. He is trying to get out of East Berlin. "Dying to leave".
The vehicle transporting "the body" is driving along. The "mourners" are standing at the border. The soldiers are checking the documents. And they're letting the transport through. Wait. They're stopping the car. They're pulling out the coffin and telling the "mourners" to come get it. Ok. They're walking, they're walking. There's a call at the guard station! The East Germans are running after them, the "mourners" are dumping the coffin over the edge of the bridge. MacGyver hits two switches and BOOM, parts of the coffin blow off and reveal a jet ski that he races away on. And he does a couple of cocky maneuvers to really stick it to them.
End of Gambit. Hm. There wasn't much to that, was there?
OPENING CREDITS
We open on a shipyard. The camera pans over to a building. A snooty fellow is in a spotlight being taken to task by 3 shadowy figures. Oh. This guy was the guy that lost track of MacGyver in East Berlin. So that's why the opening gambit.
I think this guy's name is Quail. I will be referring to him as Snooty, but I wanted to point out that his name is Quail.
The triumvirate is giving Snooty another chance to stop MacGyver from delivering the information he got out of East Germany to his bosses.
A helicopter is landing on a building and a bunch of suits are standing around on the ground looking nervous. MacGyver walks down the stairs and stands awkwardly among them. All of a sudden a flashy red sports car pulls up and a bleach-blond beauty comes over to MacGyver and greets him. She says he's from Pete Thornton. They're going to get away from the nervous guys/hit men.
Mac puts on his Southern twang and kisses her (kiss slut) and they get away.
They drive up to a mansion. An electric gate closes behind them. She tells him that Pete has set up a special safehouse.
MacGyver: Been at the company long?
BBB: Why?
MacGyver: I thought I knew all the pretty girls at the office
--Macgyver: Irrepressible flirt or sexual harassment suit waiting to happen? You be the judge.
In a telling bit of foreshadowing, he comments that safehouses aren't normally mansions. And sure enough, we see Quail (ok, I can't help it. His name is QUAIL. I don't need to call him something snarky. Quail will do just fine, thank you) watching them in some sort of control room.
Pete comes down the fancy staircase and greets MacGyver. They start sharing war stories for BBB. Men. Always showing off.
Small talk, small talk.
Quail watches, Quail watches.
MacGyver meets an old Asian cryptologist. She goes to put the camera or the film or the list or whatever into the computer to decode, when all of a sudden, the computer turns on and starts going haywire!
Suddenly Quail comes on an intercom, says "Trick or Treat, it's April Fool's" (ok......) and BLOWS UP the computer.
Then he bars all the windows and flips several switches. The door to the room starts to close. Asian Cryptologist runs for it and, even though Mac shouts for her not to, grabs the doorknob and is pricked with a pin and goes stiff. Quail tells the gang that she is merely sedated.
MacGyver recounts his previous encounter with Quail. And Quail lays out "his game" on literally the clearest black and white TV I've ever seen.
Pete, not understanding the technology in use, shouts at Quail, asking if this is all about the camera or film or list or whatever and Quail says that his instructions are to destroy it and take care of them.
BBB looks worried and Quail tells her it's all in a day's work.
Pete runs to the phone to call for help, but it CRUMBLES in his hand. CRUMBLES. And then it sparks once he's dropped it. How do you rig a phone to CRUMBLE? Quail is truly a diabolical genius.
Quail signs off by challenging theme to TRY to escape. To TRY to find him.
They leave the room and head for BBB's car. But it's gone!
Quail activates the motion-sensitive Machine Guns (like you do).
Mac tests the door to the outside. It's not electrified. He slowly opens it. Nothing. But it MUST be booby-trapped. They wheel a conveniently place suit of armor over and lean it out....where it is blasted by the machine guns. Quail laughs diabolically.
They gather the armor up into a nearby sheet and head for the kitchen.
Pete: Well, here it is
BBB: Why here?
MacGyver: You can find lots of handy stuff in a kitchen. Let's look around
--MacGyver, summed-up in three lines.
They keep Quail talking. Building up his ego. Meanwhile MacGyver goes around the kitchen plugging appliances in and stationing Pete and BBB by them.
MacGyver takes a metal bowl, pokes a hole in it and attaches it to an electric juicer axle.
They turn on all the appliances and jam Quail's radio signal, so he can't see or hear them.
Pete chooses NOW to mention that he has a radio phone in the room they just came from. I guess that would have been something handy to mention WHEN WE WERE IN THAT ROOM.
Pete leaves to go get it and Quail sees him go. Pete checks on Asian Cryptologist.
BBB starts talking to MacGyver about how she used to play International Spy as a kid. Meanwhile, MacGyver is working.
Pete goes to the closet and opens the case with his radio phone. He frantically talks into it when all of a sudden, Quail is on the screen. Quail flips a switch and the radio phone shocks Pete, knocking him out.
BBB nervously says that she guesses it's HER turn to distract Quail. MacGyver puts down what he's doing. A saxophone starts playing. He takes her by the shoulders, tells her it's going to be ok and kisses her (kiss slut).
She leaves and starts walking down the hall.
MacGyver attaches a bunch of batteries together, puts that onto a cart next to a hand mixer. He attaches the beater from the mixer to the wheel of the cart with a rubber band. Turning on the mixer now makes the wheel of the cart turn!
Quail is sitting in his control room when all of a sudden, there's a knock at the door. He grabs his gun and opens the door. IT'S BBB!!! She's working for Quail!
But she's having second thoughts. She's worried that they're going to find out what she's up to. And she's also scared of Quail.
Quail hints that she has someone close to her to worry about. I guess we'll find out what that's about soon enough. He sends her back to the kitchen to monitor MacGyver's movements.
MacGyver is attaching the top part of the armor to the cart.
BBB moves a bit of a painting outside the kitchen to reveal a peep hole. She tells Quail about the cart and replaces the bit of painting. Then she runs to a staircase, rests her chin on a newell post, and whispers "Help"
Mac has taken the hinges off the back door of the kitchen. He lets the cart go and draw the machine gun fire with the armor. Then he slowly crawls behind it below the sight of them (and Quail's cameras). He sends the cart rolling one direction and runs in the other direction while the guns are shooting at the cart. He leaps over several hedges and is making a run for it.
Quail comes on the loudspeaker and tells MacGyver that he has Pete and that MacGyver can come back and get him in the Trophy room (the room where Pete and Asian Cryptologist are passed out). He will turn off the guns so that MacGyver can come back.
Quail and BBB are having a bit of a tussle about orders. She just wants to retrieve the film (confirmed that it's film) and Quail wants to have his revenge. He tells her to go to the Trophy room to get the film from Pete. He says Pete won't stop her because he has given Pete "the shock of his life".
She walks into the Trophy room to get the film and sees Pete lying on the ground. She screams and MacGyver runs in. She tells MacGyver that Pete's dead by electrocution. He checks Pete's pulse and tells her that Pete's not dead.
So they leave the both of them and go back to the kitchen. MacGyver lays out his plan to go down to the basement and cut the main power supply. Meanwhile, he's gathering vinegar, baking soda, a pot, and a fire extinguisher.
She asks him what he's doing. MacGyver embraces her and pulls out the radio she's been using to communicate with Quail. She asks him how he knew and he tells her 2 reasons:
1. She was too quick and cool getting him away from those hitmen. And the hitmen didn't follow.
2. She assessed electrocution from across the room? I don't THINK so.
She tells him she didn't know Quail was psychopathic. He asks her how much she was paid and she reveals that her brother is being held hostage. And that, kids, is how you write a female character that is BOTH the double agent AND a sympathetic character. MacGyver doesn't have to do any Crying Game-esque shower crying for having kissed a double agent but we still get the reveal of her working for Quail. Genius.
MacGyver tells her that if they catch Quail, they can use him as a bargaining chip to get her brother. And if the bad guys don't go for that, MacGyver will go into Czechoslovakia and personally retrieve her brother.
So they're going ahead with the basement plan, but Quail activates machine guns in the house (this house is SUPER swanky, you guys. Armor, hidden peep holes, lots of machine guns....it must have a tremendous resale value). These guns, Quail explains, are attached to moving lights. Basically the guns shoot whatever is in the light. To me? It makes more sense to have hidden guns WITHOUT a visual indicator for where they're shooting, but I'm not a professional, so I could be wrong.
MacGyver quickly mixes the baking soda and vinegar into the pot that he has placed on a nearby pedestal. This creates a smoke screen and they get away. BBB leads MacGyver to a secret passageway that is apparently off the grid of Quail's cameras.
She tells MacGyver where Quail's control room is. He says that maybe it's time for Quail to come out and play.
They set up a bunch of metal piping to alert them when Quail starts heading to the power room after they cut the power. Then they go to the power room.
Mac has BBB stack a bunch of junk around the room. Casual clutter, he calls it. He basically wants to only give Quail one direction to walk when he comes in. Meanwhile MacGyver is attaching all the wires from the circuit breaker to what looks like a wheel like you would see on like a water main or something.
He sends BBB to go get a mirror. He sets the mirror up so that they can see Quail without him being able to see them. He has also set up a pressurized water cannon that he can control with a rope.
Then they cut the power. Quail happens to have a flashlight right there. So he starts to head for the power room.
In the power room, BBB kisses MacGyver "just in case". Man, the 80's were CRAZY for kissers, huh?
Quail knocks over the alarm barricade, so they know to hide. He shoots the door open and cautiously advances. He walks past the mirror that they have set up, so BBB adjusts it. Like an idiot. Quail sees her hand and shoots the mirror. But what's worse is that he knows where they are.
He tells them to get up. They do and BBB tells Quail that MacGyver is setting a trap. She goes to his side and Quail prepares to shoot MacGyver. But then BBB pushes Quail into the position that MacGyver told her they needed him in and MacGyver activates the water cannon, pushing Quail into the exposed wires and disarming him. MacGyver runs up and, right before he delivers the KO punch says:
"This one's free of charge"
Which sounds like a corny cliched line, but then you realize that it's an electricity pun. A BEAUTIFUL electricity pun!
Something that happens often on MacGyver is that Mac will punch someone and then shake his hand because of it hurting. I like this. I feel it offers a realism. I've never punched someone super hard, or at all in the face, but I would imagine that it would sting the puncher. And I like that MacGyver addresses that.
They go to check on everyone else.
EPILOGUE
Pete is on the phone with his people and MacGyver and BBB are telling a freshly woken Asian Cryptographer that, basically, they don't need her help anymore. Or something. Basically patting themselves on the back for defeating Quail. Smug non-cryptologist bastards.
Welp, that's it for Deathlock! See you next week!
NEXT WEEK: FLAME'S END
ALSO: In two weeks, I'll be doing a MacGyver Monday on my all-time favorite MacGyver episode, appropriately titled "Countdown". I don't know if I'll be doing something special with it, but I have watched it more than any other episode, so I have a LOT to say about it. Don't miss it!
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Radiohead: Coachella 2012 Set
Here's the almost 2 HOUR Radiohead Coachella Set. I haven't watched it yet. But Radiohead is one of the couple of bands that I don't need to hear a single from a new album in order to buy the album. Similarly, I don't need to see any of this to know it's great and post it. They played "Myxomatosis" and that's basically my favorite Radiohead song so enjoy this
Set list:
1. Bloom (1:05)
2. 15 Step (7:30)
3. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (11:40)
4. Morning Mr Magpie (17:25)
5. Staircase (22:40)
6. The Gloaming (27:20)
7. Pyramid Song (31:10)
8. Daily Mail (36:30)
9. Myxomatosis (40:15)
10. Karma Police (45:15)
11. Identikit (50:30)
12. Lotus Flower (54:30)
13. There There (59:55)
14. Bodysnatchers (1:05:40)
15. Idioteque (1:10:00)
Encore 1
16. Lucky (1:17:20)
17. Reckoner (1:21:50)
18. After the Gold Rush intro, Everything In Its Right Place (1:27:25)
Encore 2
19. Give Up the Ghost (1:37:20)
20. Paranoid Android (1:43:04)
Set list:
1. Bloom (1:05)
2. 15 Step (7:30)
3. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (11:40)
4. Morning Mr Magpie (17:25)
5. Staircase (22:40)
6. The Gloaming (27:20)
7. Pyramid Song (31:10)
8. Daily Mail (36:30)
9. Myxomatosis (40:15)
10. Karma Police (45:15)
11. Identikit (50:30)
12. Lotus Flower (54:30)
13. There There (59:55)
14. Bodysnatchers (1:05:40)
15. Idioteque (1:10:00)
Encore 1
16. Lucky (1:17:20)
17. Reckoner (1:21:50)
18. After the Gold Rush intro, Everything In Its Right Place (1:27:25)
Encore 2
19. Give Up the Ghost (1:37:20)
20. Paranoid Android (1:43:04)
Mushmouth presents A New Countdown!
I felt like I was on a first date with this week's podcast. I was talking too loud sometimes, too quietly other times, I was nervous, forgetting the points of stories......
But the music is great! :) It always is.
Countdown #99
***Featuring***
AWOLNATION
The Black Keys
Foo Fighters
Foster the People
Fun. featuring Janelle Monae
Gotye featuring Kimbra
Grouplove
M83
Rise Against
Oh, also, in honor of #99....wasn't Barbara Feldon a knockout on Get Smart?
But the music is great! :) It always is.
Countdown #99
***Featuring***
AWOLNATION
The Black Keys
Foo Fighters
Foster the People
Fun. featuring Janelle Monae
Gotye featuring Kimbra
Grouplove
M83
Rise Against
Oh, also, in honor of #99....wasn't Barbara Feldon a knockout on Get Smart?
St. Vincent: Coachella 2012 Set
Man, oh, man. I watched the majority of this set on the live stream and let me tell you: Annie Clark can wail. And I mean both on vocals and on the guitar. I want you to especially rock out to the new song she plays near the end. It is apparently spelled "Krokodil" but no matter how you spell it, it has ROCK at the heart of it.
Stay tuned to Appetite For Distraction. I have a new countdown posting at 10 and I may be mining YouTube for more sets to post!
Setlist:
1. Northern Lights
2. Cheerleader
3. Chloe in the Afternoon
4. Actor Out of Work
5. Black Rainbow
6. Surgeon
7. Marrow
8. Cruel
9. Year of the Tiger
10. Krokodil
11. She Is Beyond Good and Evil (The Pop Group Cover)
Stay tuned to Appetite For Distraction. I have a new countdown posting at 10 and I may be mining YouTube for more sets to post!
Setlist:
1. Northern Lights
2. Cheerleader
3. Chloe in the Afternoon
4. Actor Out of Work
5. Black Rainbow
6. Surgeon
7. Marrow
8. Cruel
9. Year of the Tiger
10. Krokodil
11. She Is Beyond Good and Evil (The Pop Group Cover)
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Arctic Monkeys: Coachella 2012 Set
Hell, why don't I post another full Coachella Set? This is the opposite of that Frank Ocean Set I posted a bit ago. Not better, not worse. Just opposite.
Super high energy. Super cocky. Super great.
Love this.
April 13th, 2012. Setlist:
0:51 Brianstorm
4:02 This House Is a Circus
7:28 Still Take You Home
11:31 Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair
15:08 The View From the Afternoon
17:28 I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
22:36 Pretty Visitors
26:24 Evil Twin
29:56 Brick By Brick
33:37 Teddy Picker
36:14 Crying Lightning
40:10 Fluorescent Adolescent
43:44 R U Mine?
Super high energy. Super cocky. Super great.
Love this.
April 13th, 2012. Setlist:
0:51 Brianstorm
4:02 This House Is a Circus
7:28 Still Take You Home
11:31 Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair
15:08 The View From the Afternoon
17:28 I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
22:36 Pretty Visitors
26:24 Evil Twin
29:56 Brick By Brick
33:37 Teddy Picker
36:14 Crying Lightning
40:10 Fluorescent Adolescent
43:44 R U Mine?
Frank Ocean: Coachella 2012 Set
Oh, and here's the video of Frank Ocean's Coachella 2012 set. He starts off with a very obscure 1962-1963 Bob Dylan song. I have been listening to his Nostalgia, Ultra album in my car today and I'll say that it has made me give Odd Future a second look on YouTube. I think he'll be the lasting remnant of that group.
Here's the set and the approximate time of each song:
00:55 - "Long Time Coming" (Bob Dylan cover)
03:20 - "Thinking About You"
6:52 - "Strawberry Swing"
10:10 - "Swim Good"
15:12 - Analog 2 f. Tyler, the Creator
17:35 - "Whip Appeal"
21:05 - "Voodoo"
24:11 - "Love Crimes"
28:48 - "Novacane"
34:23 - "White"
Notorious B.I.G. - "Things Done Changed"
So, I watched the documentary Reason and Rhyme the other night and it got me in the mood for some hip-hop. I think I listened to Wu-Tang Enter the 36 Chambers that night, but then the next day I threw on Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die album because I'm not familiar with it and I sometimes find myself enjoying hip-hop that I'm not overly familiar with a little more.
Anyways, the first proper song on the album is one called "Things Done Changed" and it is mostly filled with the kind of gangsta-ish lyrics that Biggie was known for. It's a song about how things used to be a whole lot better but now everyone's violent and it's a kind of kill or be killed environment.
The song sports some great internal rhymes. I think the internal rhymes are my favorite part of Biggie's whole thing. So the song's going along and all of a sudden I hear the last 2 lines of the song and it's like everything else fell away. And I don't just mean the instrumentation. I mean all of Biggie's toughness and violence and confidence and everything! The lines are:
Shit, my momma got cancer in her breast
Don't ask me why I'm motherfucking stressed, things done changed
It's a very sobering ending. This whole album is pretty great and this is how it kicks off. Here's the video:
Anyways, the first proper song on the album is one called "Things Done Changed" and it is mostly filled with the kind of gangsta-ish lyrics that Biggie was known for. It's a song about how things used to be a whole lot better but now everyone's violent and it's a kind of kill or be killed environment.
The song sports some great internal rhymes. I think the internal rhymes are my favorite part of Biggie's whole thing. So the song's going along and all of a sudden I hear the last 2 lines of the song and it's like everything else fell away. And I don't just mean the instrumentation. I mean all of Biggie's toughness and violence and confidence and everything! The lines are:
Shit, my momma got cancer in her breast
Don't ask me why I'm motherfucking stressed, things done changed
It's a very sobering ending. This whole album is pretty great and this is how it kicks off. Here's the video:
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Tift Merritt "Mixtape"
So I was listening to my iPod on shuffle while cleaning up a little bit today and this song came on and it's pretty perfect, you guys. I had it on Paste Magazine Sample #63, but it's more handy to tell you about the album it's ACTUALLY from!
This is what Tift Merrit has to say about the album from which this song is taken:
"I put a note on the wall beside the desk where I was writing this record. Direct, is what it read. This album is a parcel of letters stowed in my pocket all along. Ghosts came to visit this record like compasses we were unaware of pointing us in the right direction. We wanted to make something elemental: open space, grit, real strength. Direct. Two people talking honestly. We kept to ourselves in the studio like this was what we had been practicing for all along, loosely, inevitably, a wide net of openness, a pencil shaved with focus. We drank some beers. We made soup. We wore roller skates. We told the truth. We didn’t want to talk about this record. We just wanted to play it."
I love finding musicians like this. I love knowing that musicians like this are out there. Please enjoy the song and buy her album.
Tift Merritt - Mixtape from See You On The Moon (Amazon) (iTunes) (Direct)
Here's a link to her website, too. You can find lyrics, photos, videos and lots of information about Ms. Merritt. This song is from her latest album, but she has FIVE other albums you could buy, too.
This is what Tift Merrit has to say about the album from which this song is taken:
"I put a note on the wall beside the desk where I was writing this record. Direct, is what it read. This album is a parcel of letters stowed in my pocket all along. Ghosts came to visit this record like compasses we were unaware of pointing us in the right direction. We wanted to make something elemental: open space, grit, real strength. Direct. Two people talking honestly. We kept to ourselves in the studio like this was what we had been practicing for all along, loosely, inevitably, a wide net of openness, a pencil shaved with focus. We drank some beers. We made soup. We wore roller skates. We told the truth. We didn’t want to talk about this record. We just wanted to play it."
I love finding musicians like this. I love knowing that musicians like this are out there. Please enjoy the song and buy her album.
Tift Merritt - Mixtape from See You On The Moon (Amazon) (iTunes) (Direct)
Here's a link to her website, too. You can find lyrics, photos, videos and lots of information about Ms. Merritt. This song is from her latest album, but she has FIVE other albums you could buy, too.
Top Ten Tuesday: Carly Rae Jepsen "Call Me Maybe"
So this is going to be a new feature on my blog. You might hate it. But you might not.
Every Tuesday, I'm going to talk a little about a song that is in the Top Ten of this week's Hot 100. And then I'll post the video if I can find it. Something from YouTube, in any case
Just so we're clear on continuity, this will be for the issue of Billboard in which NEXT Sunday's countdown chart appears.
This week, I want to share with you some really sugary sweet poppy goodness. It's such an addictive song. I've been really into it for the past two or so weeks (I'm blushing a little as I type that because it's VERY teeny-bopper music, but I'm working to accept my poppier leanings) and I was happy to see it make the Top 10 this week. It moves up from #18 to #10.
I guess her story is that she placed like 3rd on a recent season of Canadian Idol? Or Canada's Got Talent or something. I could look it up......but I probably won't.
This video ALSO makes me blush, as I'm not generally drawn to videos of cute girls lusting after ab-y boys, but if you watch to the end, I think you'll find, as I did, that it has a cute little twist.
(I just realized, the first episode is debuting on the 10th. So of course, I'll post it at 10 am. I love this kind of thing.)
Every Tuesday, I'm going to talk a little about a song that is in the Top Ten of this week's Hot 100. And then I'll post the video if I can find it. Something from YouTube, in any case
Just so we're clear on continuity, this will be for the issue of Billboard in which NEXT Sunday's countdown chart appears.
This week, I want to share with you some really sugary sweet poppy goodness. It's such an addictive song. I've been really into it for the past two or so weeks (I'm blushing a little as I type that because it's VERY teeny-bopper music, but I'm working to accept my poppier leanings) and I was happy to see it make the Top 10 this week. It moves up from #18 to #10.
I guess her story is that she placed like 3rd on a recent season of Canadian Idol? Or Canada's Got Talent or something. I could look it up......but I probably won't.
This video ALSO makes me blush, as I'm not generally drawn to videos of cute girls lusting after ab-y boys, but if you watch to the end, I think you'll find, as I did, that it has a cute little twist.
See you next week! If you dare.... :)
(I just realized, the first episode is debuting on the 10th. So of course, I'll post it at 10 am. I love this kind of thing.)
Monday, April 9, 2012
MacGyver Mondays: "Nightmares" (Season 1, Episode 11)
Title: Nightmares
Airdate: 1/15/1986
My Age at Airdate: 2 years, 5 months, 30 days
Episode Type: Espionage, MacGyver Impaired
So, I missed last week. I hope you'll forgive me. If everything goes to plan, I should be able to do 2 MacGyver Monday posts. I don't know if it'll be today or next week, though. Maybe I shouldn't, though. Maybe I'll just take the missed week. I know these posts are intense and I wouldn't want to burn anyone out. Ok. Decision made. 1 episode a week, no matter if I didn't post last week.
OPENING CREDITS
We open on a boat called Gemstone.
MacGyver starts talking about how sick he is of being at sea. So I guess he's been on that boat.
Hey look! It's Pete Thornton! In his first episode as Pete Thornton. You'll remember Dana Elcar was in the pilot as some other guy. This is so exciting. Remember this for trivia. Pete Thornton's first episode was "Nightmares".
Ok, so two guys with accents are watching Pete wait for MacGyver.
MacGyver stops to help a young girl who is having trouble fishing. She's trying to use seaweed. Idiot. He comes over and pops a foil gum wrapper on her line. She says she's fishing for food and that she can't pay him. He tells her to just catch something. And then she does. Awww. Heartwarming. :)
Pete greets Mac and Accent and Non-Accent (turns out the driver of the car doesn't have one) get out of their car and approach a guy eating a sandwich. They are paying him to do SOMETHING. And I guess we'll find out what that is in a second.
Pete and Mac are talking and Sandwich is walking behind them. Accent and Non-Accent approach Mac and Pete. Pete tells MacGyver to run while he takes care of them. Pete crouches behind a car and aims. Non-accent crouches behind a different car, aims, and HITS PETE IN THE ARM. See folks? We can't rely on Stormtrooper Aim to save us or our friends.
MacGyver is being chased by Sandwich. He ducks behind a car and when Sandwich runs by, hits him with his bag. Sandwich is out, but Accent is still coming.
MacGyver takes a second to open the concrete casing of a parking lot light and he put the list with "the names and plans of the terrorists" inside. I guess Accent and Co. are East German and affiliated with "the terrorists".
MacGyver runs off and immediately finds a cop writing a ticket. Thank goodness. He starts to tell the cop what's up and then the cop JUDO CHOPS him and knocks him out. Don't trust cops, kids.
Accent, Non-Accent, and Cop drag MacGyver off.
Pete is back at the office with his shot arm in a sling looking through pictures. He identifies Accent. Definitely East German. So they know who they're looking for.
Meanwhile, Accent and Co have MacGyver back at their lair (which has a bulletin board hung on what appears to be another, larger bulletin board, but might just be a brown wall) and are asking him where the list is. He refuses to tell.
They tie his arms down, rolling up one of his sleeves. They pull out a syringe. They tourniquet his arm. MacGyver tries to offer other methods of interrogation, but they aren't amused.
They inject him.
Accent tells MacGyver that the stuff was designed for him. He's going to hallucinate, then be in a lot of pain, then die. Unless he gets the antidote in 6 hours.
So here's our timeline: He's going to start seeing things immediately. Then in 3 hours, be in horrible pain. Then he has 3 more hours to get the antidote or else the effects are irreversible and he's going to die. Dastardly East Germans.
Accent throws Sandwich a watch to put on MacGyver's wrist that will count down the 6 hours. Which is very helpful. Then he shows MacGyver (and us, the audience) that the antidote is a small red pill.
Accent: It's your choice MacGyver. To live.......or to die.
--cut to commercial
Sandwich and Cop are leading MacGyver up some stairs. They push him into a room with a cot and nothing else. Man, how is he going to get out of this one.
Oh wait. There's a sink and a toilet.
And some power outlets.
MacGyver: One time when i was a kid, i built a slingshot out of a couple of broken hockey sticks and an old inner tube. And you know, no matter how hard I practiced, I just could never miss.....my neighbor's window.
--RDA displaying some actually delightful comic timing.
So he's taking a spring off the mattress of the cot, stretching it out and securing it around a pipe near the door. Basically, he's making a slingshot out of the....boxspring? The thing that holds the mattress. He has secured a spring to each corner of this thing.
And he just took a moment to have some sweat and double vision.
He's taking his belt off and using it to connect the sink to the power outlets. He turns on the sink, and the water goes along the belt to the outlets, and down the wires to the power box, which starts dripping.
Sandwich is eating a sandwich. He and Cop hear the dripping. They slowly walk over to the power box, stand there for a second...AND THEN THE POWER BOX SHOOTS OFF A BUNCH OF SPARKS AND STUFF.
They run upstairs, one of them saying that Accent had said MacGyver might try something like this. Haha, so why weren't you more diligently prepared?
MacGyver lets the Boxspring/Slingshot go and it bowls over Cop and Sandwich. MacGyver hightails it outside, but the hallucinations/double vision stuff has started, so he's kind of moving a little slower than usual.
He almost gets hit by a big truck. And he stumbles off.
He looks kind of like a zombie, actually. He's stumbling along a fence. He's having trouble and all of a sudden a couple of teenagers are walking past. One of them is Fisher-girl!
Her friends tell her not to help him because he's a drunk and she's a runaway, but she goes to help him anyway. Her friends leave. Because they're shitty friends.
She sees a cop and starts to go over to him, even though she's a runaway and "the last thing [she] needs is a cop], but he remembers Cop hitting him and tells her not to go over to the cop. And then he falls over. She helps him up and helps him walk off.
Fisher-girl helps MacGyver along while Accent narrates the plan for the serum. Fisher-girl helps MacGyver into the place where she's staying which is like an abandoned building. Not too safe looking.
Accent tells Non-accent to track down who has seen MacGyver stumbling along.
Fisher-girl's place is HUGE. It's like a warehouse or something. She leads him to I guess her main living area and fills a basin with some water. She gives him a cool washcloth for his neck. She shows him that she has hooked up an old car battery so that she can have lights on.
Then she tells him her name and he doesn't remember meeting her. She offers him some of the fish he helped her catch.
She has him debone the fish while she "starts the stove" which is essentially a candle or something.
She tells him about her abusive upbringing. Even drug-addled, he wants to help a kid in need. He is truly the Greatest American Hero.
She has some schoolbooks and plans to get her diploma and all that.
And then the excruciating pain starts in on MacGyver.
Cut to Non-Accent, Cop, and Sandwich (eating again) talking to Fisher-girl's shitty friends. They tell them they don't want to hassle her. They just want MacGyver.
MacGyver is having Nightmares (EPISODE TITLE). He's remembering some of the events leading up to the injection and then he has a hallucination of Accent coming in and trying to smother him with a pillow. He jerks upright in bed as Fisher-girl comes in. She asks him what the matter is.
He has some more memories of earlier that day and then looks down at the watch. There's only an hour and a half left. And he remembers basically everything now.
Unfortunately, Fisher-girl has come to tell MacGyver that Cop, Sandwich, and Non-Accent are snooping around outside.
MacGyver snaps into action. He puts two chairs in a row. He puts one of the car batteries on the back chair. He puts an old cathode ray tv screen on the front chair. He's setting it up so that when the bad guys come in the door, they force the chairs together and short the fuse and blow the tv screen.
Then he turns on a transistor radio to lure them into the trap. Fortunately, there's a rockin' guitar-heavy song playing, so they come right up.
Sandwich opens the door and the tv screen EXPLODES!
Meanwhile, MacGyver and Fisher-girl are upstairs. Mac sees a firehose and starts unwinding it. He goes to a room with a window and Fisher-girl starts to get a little nervous. She says she hopes MacGyver knows what he's doing and MacGyver says he hopes so too.
Non-accent sees the firehose, goes to the window and looks out. He doesn't see anybody either way. They must have escaped! He turns to leave the room with Cop and Sandwich, but Sandwich says WAIT. He goes over to a closet in the room and opens it. Nothing. Ok, so they must have escaped. The three of them run out of the room.
The camera goes to another boxspring (did this warehouse used to be a boxspring storage facility?) and MacGyver and Fisher-girl come out from under it, having successfully misdirected the bad guys.
Now they're walking down the sidewalk and MacGyver is asking Fisher-girl to call Pete and deliver him a message. She doesn't want to leave him. It's a SUPER windy day. I imagine they filmed this in like October or November 1985. It's that kind of wintery wind. Does California get that kind of wind?
So this is actually pretty good plotwork. MacGyver is looking worse and worse, but he's not hallucinating as much and his memory is getting clearer. Which, of course, means he's about to die. We should look at the watch again.
MacGyver is going to go to a warehouse. He sends her off. Sexy saxophone music plays.
1 hr, 7 minutes remaining.
Ok, so the warehouse he's going to is the one that Accent and Co took him to initially. Makes sense. That's where the little red pill is. Oh. Hey I forgot something kind of crucial in Accent's poison layout. The time? It's a general guide. He seriously said something like "if you haven't taken the antidote by then, give or take a couple of minutes...." haha so I'm thinking, the watch alarm is going to go off, the tension will be at an all-time high and THEN he'll get it. Let's watch and find out.
MacGyver is watching Sandwich lean against the car. Sandwich is not eating. He looks hungry, though. He's all antsy. There we go. Sandwich pulls the sandwich he had in his pocket out and starts to eat it. MacGyver uses this opportunity to run across the street and behind the car. He begins to let the air out of one of the car's tires. Sandwich notices immediately and, c'mon, we would have judged him even more harshly if he hadn't. He's leaning on the car while he eats.
Sandwich starts to circle the car to investigate. He sees the leaking tire, bends down to investigate...AND GETS A CAR DOOR TO THE NOGGIN.
Let's hang on a second. He noticed the tire leaking, but didn't notice the door opening and closing? Hmm. I think Sandwich deserves some pretty harsh judgement after all.
Also? LOCK YOUR CARS, BAD GUYS! Seriously, how many times does MacGyver take advantage of lazy villainy?
So Sandwich is out and MacGyver sneaks into the warehouse. He sees silhouettes in the office talking. Accent, Non-accent, and Cop. He looks at his watch: 22 minutes. There's a transition from his watch to the clock Accent set for himself so that they could both know how much time Mac has.
Non-accent is giving Accent grief about losing MacGyver. Accent makes the point that, if MacGyver is the only one who knows where the list is, and he dies, the list is as good as gone. Then he pays Non-Accent.
MacGyver is out in the warehouse, scoping out some rope, a smoke alarm, and some sheets of plywood. He has a plan (of COURSE he has a plan. do you think a little "fast approaching death" would stop him from coming up with a plan?).
We cut to Fisher-girl on the phone, getting hassled by the Feds because they think she's prank calling them. But she gets the message to the receptionist or whoever.
Mac has tied one thing of rope around the smoke detector and then used another thing of rope to bind two of those big jugs of water that you use for water coolers together. He throws the other end of that rope around the rafters and starts hoisting the water jugs into the air.
Meanwhile, Pete is FINALLY getting the message that Fisher-girl sent him. He snaps into action.
Ok, at some point, MacGyver lit the rope around the smoke alarm on fire. So that he had time to set up the jugs and get hidden. The smoke finally reaches the alarm and it starts to go off.
Accent sends Cop and Non-Accent to check it out. They walk closely together and MacGyver calls out to them. He's sitting on the steps up to the room he escaped from. They draw their guns. He tells them that he's giving himself up. We see that he has the rope to the jugs under his foot. THey tell him to come down and he does, releasing the rope, which drops the jugs onto the plywood and that knocks a bunch of barrels onto the bad guys.
Oh. I guess he put the plywood sheets up against the barrels. Probably around the same time he lit the rope.
So that's a neat way to take out your opponents without breaking their necks or skulls, which is what would have happened if Mac had dropped the jugs directly onto their heads, like I thought he was going to.
They're not quite down yet, so Mac jumps down and does one of those "hit you with a fist formed by me clasping my hands together" things on both of them.
He then gets out of sight. Accent comes out of his office, gun drawn. He sees Non-Accent out cold and goes to the front door to look out. MacGyver runs and TACKLES him. They go sailing over the trunk of the car.
Fisher-girl is running.
Mac and Accent are fighting, but Mac is kind of losing. Fisher-girl runs up just as Accent knocks MacGyver to the ground. Accent doesn't know Fisher-girl is there. The sound of sirens appears in the distance. Accent pulls the canister containing the antidote out of his pocket. He tosses it down a sewer grate where Mac can't get it. MacGyver tries to get it, then slowly and weakly approaches Accent. Accent says that MacGyver doesn't have the strength left to hit him. And for a moment, it looks like he's right, and then MacGyver SOCKS HIM IN THE FACE. Accent goes flying. Fisher-girl runs by Accent and asks MacGyver what he meant by "Antidote". MacGyver explains that he's been poisoned and needs to get that vial and fast.
MacGyver runs over and grabs a metal rod and starts slamming it against a fire hydrant. Fisher-girl plays the obligatory incredulous witness and MacGyver explains that the impact of metal on metal makes a temporary molecular realignment. Mac has made himself a temporary magnet. He runs back to the sewer grate.
He puts the rod through the grate and starts pulling up the antidote. But it falls back down.
You know what I would have done if I was Accent? Not have the antidote pill in that vial. That way, MacGyver uses his last minutes desperately trying to get the vial and then when he realizes it's empty it's too late.
MacGyver tries again. He's almost got it. Almost there....and he's got it! Accent didn't do what I would have done and the pill is there and MacGyver takes it and looks at his watch. He has nearly 2.5 minutes left. So, really he had a lot more time than the music would have had us believe, huh?
Fisher-girl holds him while he recovers.
You know, they could have called back to the beginning and had her use her fishing pole for something. Or her fishing skills. Maybe she could have used what MacGyver taught her that morning in some way.
Also, it's a good thing the vial that held the antidote was magnetic. It almost seems like plastic would have been a better choice. But who am I to judge?
EPILOGUE
MacGyver retrieves the list and goes to talk to Fisher-girl. He shows it to her, throws it around a bit, talks loudly about it. It's a good thing Fisher-girl isn't a secret East German spy. He tells her that it's a bargaining chip that she can use. He's going to talk to Pete about arranging a Government Scholarship! Aww. So heartwarming. :)
That's it for "Nightmares"! See you next week!
NEXT WEEK: DEATHLOCK
So, I missed last week. I hope you'll forgive me. If everything goes to plan, I should be able to do 2 MacGyver Monday posts. I don't know if it'll be today or next week, though. Maybe I shouldn't, though. Maybe I'll just take the missed week. I know these posts are intense and I wouldn't want to burn anyone out. Ok. Decision made. 1 episode a week, no matter if I didn't post last week.
OPENING CREDITS
We open on a boat called Gemstone.
MacGyver starts talking about how sick he is of being at sea. So I guess he's been on that boat.
Hey look! It's Pete Thornton! In his first episode as Pete Thornton. You'll remember Dana Elcar was in the pilot as some other guy. This is so exciting. Remember this for trivia. Pete Thornton's first episode was "Nightmares".
Ok, so two guys with accents are watching Pete wait for MacGyver.
MacGyver stops to help a young girl who is having trouble fishing. She's trying to use seaweed. Idiot. He comes over and pops a foil gum wrapper on her line. She says she's fishing for food and that she can't pay him. He tells her to just catch something. And then she does. Awww. Heartwarming. :)
Pete greets Mac and Accent and Non-Accent (turns out the driver of the car doesn't have one) get out of their car and approach a guy eating a sandwich. They are paying him to do SOMETHING. And I guess we'll find out what that is in a second.
Pete and Mac are talking and Sandwich is walking behind them. Accent and Non-Accent approach Mac and Pete. Pete tells MacGyver to run while he takes care of them. Pete crouches behind a car and aims. Non-accent crouches behind a different car, aims, and HITS PETE IN THE ARM. See folks? We can't rely on Stormtrooper Aim to save us or our friends.
MacGyver is being chased by Sandwich. He ducks behind a car and when Sandwich runs by, hits him with his bag. Sandwich is out, but Accent is still coming.
MacGyver takes a second to open the concrete casing of a parking lot light and he put the list with "the names and plans of the terrorists" inside. I guess Accent and Co. are East German and affiliated with "the terrorists".
MacGyver runs off and immediately finds a cop writing a ticket. Thank goodness. He starts to tell the cop what's up and then the cop JUDO CHOPS him and knocks him out. Don't trust cops, kids.
Accent, Non-Accent, and Cop drag MacGyver off.
Pete is back at the office with his shot arm in a sling looking through pictures. He identifies Accent. Definitely East German. So they know who they're looking for.
Meanwhile, Accent and Co have MacGyver back at their lair (which has a bulletin board hung on what appears to be another, larger bulletin board, but might just be a brown wall) and are asking him where the list is. He refuses to tell.
They tie his arms down, rolling up one of his sleeves. They pull out a syringe. They tourniquet his arm. MacGyver tries to offer other methods of interrogation, but they aren't amused.
They inject him.
Accent tells MacGyver that the stuff was designed for him. He's going to hallucinate, then be in a lot of pain, then die. Unless he gets the antidote in 6 hours.
So here's our timeline: He's going to start seeing things immediately. Then in 3 hours, be in horrible pain. Then he has 3 more hours to get the antidote or else the effects are irreversible and he's going to die. Dastardly East Germans.
Accent throws Sandwich a watch to put on MacGyver's wrist that will count down the 6 hours. Which is very helpful. Then he shows MacGyver (and us, the audience) that the antidote is a small red pill.
Accent: It's your choice MacGyver. To live.......or to die.
--cut to commercial
Sandwich and Cop are leading MacGyver up some stairs. They push him into a room with a cot and nothing else. Man, how is he going to get out of this one.
Oh wait. There's a sink and a toilet.
And some power outlets.
MacGyver: One time when i was a kid, i built a slingshot out of a couple of broken hockey sticks and an old inner tube. And you know, no matter how hard I practiced, I just could never miss.....my neighbor's window.
--RDA displaying some actually delightful comic timing.
So he's taking a spring off the mattress of the cot, stretching it out and securing it around a pipe near the door. Basically, he's making a slingshot out of the....boxspring? The thing that holds the mattress. He has secured a spring to each corner of this thing.
And he just took a moment to have some sweat and double vision.
He's taking his belt off and using it to connect the sink to the power outlets. He turns on the sink, and the water goes along the belt to the outlets, and down the wires to the power box, which starts dripping.
Sandwich is eating a sandwich. He and Cop hear the dripping. They slowly walk over to the power box, stand there for a second...AND THEN THE POWER BOX SHOOTS OFF A BUNCH OF SPARKS AND STUFF.
They run upstairs, one of them saying that Accent had said MacGyver might try something like this. Haha, so why weren't you more diligently prepared?
MacGyver lets the Boxspring/Slingshot go and it bowls over Cop and Sandwich. MacGyver hightails it outside, but the hallucinations/double vision stuff has started, so he's kind of moving a little slower than usual.
He almost gets hit by a big truck. And he stumbles off.
He looks kind of like a zombie, actually. He's stumbling along a fence. He's having trouble and all of a sudden a couple of teenagers are walking past. One of them is Fisher-girl!
Her friends tell her not to help him because he's a drunk and she's a runaway, but she goes to help him anyway. Her friends leave. Because they're shitty friends.
She sees a cop and starts to go over to him, even though she's a runaway and "the last thing [she] needs is a cop], but he remembers Cop hitting him and tells her not to go over to the cop. And then he falls over. She helps him up and helps him walk off.
Fisher-girl helps MacGyver along while Accent narrates the plan for the serum. Fisher-girl helps MacGyver into the place where she's staying which is like an abandoned building. Not too safe looking.
Accent tells Non-accent to track down who has seen MacGyver stumbling along.
Fisher-girl's place is HUGE. It's like a warehouse or something. She leads him to I guess her main living area and fills a basin with some water. She gives him a cool washcloth for his neck. She shows him that she has hooked up an old car battery so that she can have lights on.
Then she tells him her name and he doesn't remember meeting her. She offers him some of the fish he helped her catch.
She has him debone the fish while she "starts the stove" which is essentially a candle or something.
She tells him about her abusive upbringing. Even drug-addled, he wants to help a kid in need. He is truly the Greatest American Hero.
She has some schoolbooks and plans to get her diploma and all that.
And then the excruciating pain starts in on MacGyver.
Cut to Non-Accent, Cop, and Sandwich (eating again) talking to Fisher-girl's shitty friends. They tell them they don't want to hassle her. They just want MacGyver.
MacGyver is having Nightmares (EPISODE TITLE). He's remembering some of the events leading up to the injection and then he has a hallucination of Accent coming in and trying to smother him with a pillow. He jerks upright in bed as Fisher-girl comes in. She asks him what the matter is.
He has some more memories of earlier that day and then looks down at the watch. There's only an hour and a half left. And he remembers basically everything now.
Unfortunately, Fisher-girl has come to tell MacGyver that Cop, Sandwich, and Non-Accent are snooping around outside.
MacGyver snaps into action. He puts two chairs in a row. He puts one of the car batteries on the back chair. He puts an old cathode ray tv screen on the front chair. He's setting it up so that when the bad guys come in the door, they force the chairs together and short the fuse and blow the tv screen.
Then he turns on a transistor radio to lure them into the trap. Fortunately, there's a rockin' guitar-heavy song playing, so they come right up.
Sandwich opens the door and the tv screen EXPLODES!
Meanwhile, MacGyver and Fisher-girl are upstairs. Mac sees a firehose and starts unwinding it. He goes to a room with a window and Fisher-girl starts to get a little nervous. She says she hopes MacGyver knows what he's doing and MacGyver says he hopes so too.
Non-accent sees the firehose, goes to the window and looks out. He doesn't see anybody either way. They must have escaped! He turns to leave the room with Cop and Sandwich, but Sandwich says WAIT. He goes over to a closet in the room and opens it. Nothing. Ok, so they must have escaped. The three of them run out of the room.
The camera goes to another boxspring (did this warehouse used to be a boxspring storage facility?) and MacGyver and Fisher-girl come out from under it, having successfully misdirected the bad guys.
Now they're walking down the sidewalk and MacGyver is asking Fisher-girl to call Pete and deliver him a message. She doesn't want to leave him. It's a SUPER windy day. I imagine they filmed this in like October or November 1985. It's that kind of wintery wind. Does California get that kind of wind?
So this is actually pretty good plotwork. MacGyver is looking worse and worse, but he's not hallucinating as much and his memory is getting clearer. Which, of course, means he's about to die. We should look at the watch again.
MacGyver is going to go to a warehouse. He sends her off. Sexy saxophone music plays.
1 hr, 7 minutes remaining.
Ok, so the warehouse he's going to is the one that Accent and Co took him to initially. Makes sense. That's where the little red pill is. Oh. Hey I forgot something kind of crucial in Accent's poison layout. The time? It's a general guide. He seriously said something like "if you haven't taken the antidote by then, give or take a couple of minutes...." haha so I'm thinking, the watch alarm is going to go off, the tension will be at an all-time high and THEN he'll get it. Let's watch and find out.
MacGyver is watching Sandwich lean against the car. Sandwich is not eating. He looks hungry, though. He's all antsy. There we go. Sandwich pulls the sandwich he had in his pocket out and starts to eat it. MacGyver uses this opportunity to run across the street and behind the car. He begins to let the air out of one of the car's tires. Sandwich notices immediately and, c'mon, we would have judged him even more harshly if he hadn't. He's leaning on the car while he eats.
Sandwich starts to circle the car to investigate. He sees the leaking tire, bends down to investigate...AND GETS A CAR DOOR TO THE NOGGIN.
Let's hang on a second. He noticed the tire leaking, but didn't notice the door opening and closing? Hmm. I think Sandwich deserves some pretty harsh judgement after all.
Also? LOCK YOUR CARS, BAD GUYS! Seriously, how many times does MacGyver take advantage of lazy villainy?
So Sandwich is out and MacGyver sneaks into the warehouse. He sees silhouettes in the office talking. Accent, Non-accent, and Cop. He looks at his watch: 22 minutes. There's a transition from his watch to the clock Accent set for himself so that they could both know how much time Mac has.
Non-accent is giving Accent grief about losing MacGyver. Accent makes the point that, if MacGyver is the only one who knows where the list is, and he dies, the list is as good as gone. Then he pays Non-Accent.
MacGyver is out in the warehouse, scoping out some rope, a smoke alarm, and some sheets of plywood. He has a plan (of COURSE he has a plan. do you think a little "fast approaching death" would stop him from coming up with a plan?).
We cut to Fisher-girl on the phone, getting hassled by the Feds because they think she's prank calling them. But she gets the message to the receptionist or whoever.
Mac has tied one thing of rope around the smoke detector and then used another thing of rope to bind two of those big jugs of water that you use for water coolers together. He throws the other end of that rope around the rafters and starts hoisting the water jugs into the air.
Meanwhile, Pete is FINALLY getting the message that Fisher-girl sent him. He snaps into action.
Ok, at some point, MacGyver lit the rope around the smoke alarm on fire. So that he had time to set up the jugs and get hidden. The smoke finally reaches the alarm and it starts to go off.
Accent sends Cop and Non-Accent to check it out. They walk closely together and MacGyver calls out to them. He's sitting on the steps up to the room he escaped from. They draw their guns. He tells them that he's giving himself up. We see that he has the rope to the jugs under his foot. THey tell him to come down and he does, releasing the rope, which drops the jugs onto the plywood and that knocks a bunch of barrels onto the bad guys.
Oh. I guess he put the plywood sheets up against the barrels. Probably around the same time he lit the rope.
So that's a neat way to take out your opponents without breaking their necks or skulls, which is what would have happened if Mac had dropped the jugs directly onto their heads, like I thought he was going to.
They're not quite down yet, so Mac jumps down and does one of those "hit you with a fist formed by me clasping my hands together" things on both of them.
He then gets out of sight. Accent comes out of his office, gun drawn. He sees Non-Accent out cold and goes to the front door to look out. MacGyver runs and TACKLES him. They go sailing over the trunk of the car.
Fisher-girl is running.
Mac and Accent are fighting, but Mac is kind of losing. Fisher-girl runs up just as Accent knocks MacGyver to the ground. Accent doesn't know Fisher-girl is there. The sound of sirens appears in the distance. Accent pulls the canister containing the antidote out of his pocket. He tosses it down a sewer grate where Mac can't get it. MacGyver tries to get it, then slowly and weakly approaches Accent. Accent says that MacGyver doesn't have the strength left to hit him. And for a moment, it looks like he's right, and then MacGyver SOCKS HIM IN THE FACE. Accent goes flying. Fisher-girl runs by Accent and asks MacGyver what he meant by "Antidote". MacGyver explains that he's been poisoned and needs to get that vial and fast.
MacGyver runs over and grabs a metal rod and starts slamming it against a fire hydrant. Fisher-girl plays the obligatory incredulous witness and MacGyver explains that the impact of metal on metal makes a temporary molecular realignment. Mac has made himself a temporary magnet. He runs back to the sewer grate.
He puts the rod through the grate and starts pulling up the antidote. But it falls back down.
You know what I would have done if I was Accent? Not have the antidote pill in that vial. That way, MacGyver uses his last minutes desperately trying to get the vial and then when he realizes it's empty it's too late.
MacGyver tries again. He's almost got it. Almost there....and he's got it! Accent didn't do what I would have done and the pill is there and MacGyver takes it and looks at his watch. He has nearly 2.5 minutes left. So, really he had a lot more time than the music would have had us believe, huh?
Fisher-girl holds him while he recovers.
You know, they could have called back to the beginning and had her use her fishing pole for something. Or her fishing skills. Maybe she could have used what MacGyver taught her that morning in some way.
Also, it's a good thing the vial that held the antidote was magnetic. It almost seems like plastic would have been a better choice. But who am I to judge?
EPILOGUE
MacGyver retrieves the list and goes to talk to Fisher-girl. He shows it to her, throws it around a bit, talks loudly about it. It's a good thing Fisher-girl isn't a secret East German spy. He tells her that it's a bargaining chip that she can use. He's going to talk to Pete about arranging a Government Scholarship! Aww. So heartwarming. :)
That's it for "Nightmares"! See you next week!
NEXT WEEK: DEATHLOCK
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