MacGyver - Can Opener - Review

MacGyver’s job this week is to break El Noche, a cartel leader, out of a prison in Texas so he can lead them to his stronghold. While El Noche has been in prison, his lieutenants have been running buck wild. They have not only targeted law enforcement personnel, but their families as well. Once they find the El Noche stronghold, they’ll be able to arrest the lieutenants and return El Noche to prison.

Breaking into prison to free someone, rescue someone, get something…isn’t a new story, and unfortunately the writers didn’t make any effort to put a new twist on the story. It was paint by numbers. We got the ‘MacGyver makes a friend’ scene, the ‘MacGyver gets in a fight with another inmate’ scene, and the ‘MacGyver’s cover is blown’ scene.

There was plenty of fun to be had though. One of my favorite moments was Jack’s giddy computer hacking. His joy at a little cut-n-paste action was kind of sweet. He strikes me as the kind of guy whose most daring computer usage is taking a picture with his camera. (If you don’t count the hi-tech military weaponry in use today.)

I loved the escape itself with El Noche repeatedly commenting “Smart Guy.” The hydrogen bomb was a pretty sick gag, and the cryogenic fluid to break the bars on the window is something I don’t think I’ve seen before. My favorite, though, was using the nitrous container to take out five bad guys at once. It looked more CG than science, but I didn’t care. It looked cool.

The only thing that gave me pause was El Noche’s logic in determining that Mac was not Frank Morris. Looking at a lot of prison time doesn’t mean that you’re a killer. El Noche’s logic was extremely flawed. But given the character’s world view, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, in terms of the writing of the episode, but it did make Mac’s capture seem really easy.

For me what was most successful about the episode was what we got to learn about Riley. She’s at an exciting point in her life. She opens the episode looking for her first apartment. When everything that sounds good has already been rented, Wilt offers up the extra room that he and Mac have, but going solo is really important to her.

She went from her mother’s house to prison to a corporate apartment. She’s ready to put the past behind her and start the next phase of her new life.

Sending Mac into a maximum-security prison didn’t sit well with her. Her history meant that she understood the situation Mac was in much more intimately than she has his other OPs. This gave me a lot of insight into her character.

Riley has a strong protective instinct. When she lost her access to the prison’s security system, she wanted to pull him out right away. Jack and Thornton trusted Mac’s ability to do his job; she wanted to rescue and protect him. It illustrated, to me at least, that she was being honest when she said she was in prison for helping someone. She does care and saving the world with The Phoenix Foundation is important to her.

It was a fun episode. I thought the prison break plot could have been a little stronger, but it wasn’t bad. As I said, the most welcome aspect for me was finding out more about Riley. What about you? Did you enjoy the episode?