2.9 CD-Rom + Hoagie Foil

Airdate: 1 December 2017
Writers: Marqui Jackson and Nancy Kiu
Director: Bobby Roth
Guest Cast: Billy Baldwin (Elwood), Kate Bond (Jill), Louis Ozawa Changchien (Dev Singh), Domenick Lombardozzi (Gunman), Grant Springate (Little Mac), Ian Patrick Mendes (Blake), Reign Edwards (Leanne), Luna Lauren Velez (Cassandra Glover)

Mac and the team follow a group of Indonesian mercenaries who are transporting a lethal amount of stolen nerve gas in the hopes of tracking them to their dangerous leader. Also, Jack confronts Elwood about Riley, and Bozer is pushed to his limit in spy school.

Overall, I liked this Episode a lot better than the last. Have to think about it some more before writing, though. I'm wondering a bit about the storyline they're setting up with Mac's dad...

Looking at the preliminary ratings, they lost in ratings/numbers a bit (compared to Episode 2x08), but still won the 8pm time slot: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/the-...-12-1-2017.html

I'm wondering a bit if ratings would have been better if there had been more advertizing. They had Sneak Peek Clips, but the first Preview Trailer was very short and there were no Official Stills at all.

Attached Image

This was a pretty good one. I still wish they'd stop with the Bozer stuff because I just don't care about his story at all, and it takes time away from what could be more interesting stories. Aside from that, though, it was enjoyable.

Now I'm curious to know what's up with Mattie and Mac's father. Why was her face on the film? I feel as if I need to rewatch that, because I think I may have missed something.

Yes, I flipped over to the hockey game when Bozer's 'dramatics' lingered a bit too long, switched back in time to see Matty's mug on the 'Christmas Vacation' - esque movie film .... and Elwood's would-be assailant's encounter with Jack!

.... not saying (what I saw of) was all that bad .... but they didn't have to stoop nearly so low with all those shameless teasers to bait the viewer for 'next week's' episode in the TOS. The TOS episodes had individual legs of it's own. Absolutely no insecurities. It was that 'stand alone' strong. Just sayin.........

One thing about Bozer's side story that is interesting is his "gun" story, much like the story in Blood Brothers. Makes you wonder if maybe Bozer's incident had caused Mac to stay away from guns? Would like to find out Mac 2.0's reason for not using guns.

The Matty twist is interesting. Seeing as Cage was hesitant to disobey orders in an earlier episode... it makes you wonder if Matty and Cage are in on something together?? At this point, it kinda makes me hope Matty is a bad guy after all. PLEASE, let her be a bad guy...

And now it's tying in with the disappearance of Mac's father.... very interesting...

Though I have to agree with JoeSAKic... I somewhat prefer original Mac's stand alone episodes. Then again, I prefer a lot of things in the original that's not in the reboot.

Guess we just can't have our cake and eat it too, eh?

But... at least it's getting interesting. I'm curious about next week's episode.

Ok, sorry Bozer lost a brother through an unfortunate incident, but I thought the "code word" game they played on him was lame.

Maybe I'm cold... but showing a video of someone who is already dead, what threat is that? Ok, Bozer didn't reveal the code word. But still, the threat used was LAME! Just an excuse to add a backstory.

I gotta rewatch, too! I couldn't see the Face.

I so agree with the Bozer moments and honestly I don't care about Riley's dad. They have far more screen time and back story than Mac. BUT the only thing the writers see on Twitter and other social media when they are live tweeting is praise for Bozer and now they have even started praising CAGE-who I find has NOT been an even interesting addition at all. I sure wish more people would voice their opinions-politely and positively-of course, because I really think the writers believe we as a fandom embrace Bozer and Riley and now Cage and want more and more of them. As for Matty, I'm totally thrown by what they are doing. I truly hope Cage is a bad guy but with Matty, I feel that is so much like what we got with Thornton and Nikki and how it would just be so similar. I keep hoping that the writers are really doing something clever and weaving together something that might blow us away, but maybe that is giving a lot of credit when it seems they've just tossed a whole bunch of stuff together. Why couldn't this season just be about Mac's family-why did they have to throw in Riley's and now BOZERS story. It so dilutes the significance of Mac's quest, in my opinion.

Is it wrong that I want to blame the loss of ratings on the Riley and Bozer's three story arc episode?

My question is did Mac realize who it was? I couldn't really tell by his reaction?

I'm a bit undecided - on one hand, I think Justin did a good job with this scene. He showed he can be more than just the comedic sidekick. On the other hand, there are too many different storylines in every episode and because I care about Mac's storyline much more, I didn't really want to pay too much attention to the B-storylines with Bozer/Leanna and Riley/Elwood/Jack; I willed them to go over faster because I wanted to know what's going to happen with Mac and Mac/Jack/Cage and the nerve gas.

I think it's a bit unfair to Justin as well to give him so important scenes, but shove them in between the main storyline with the main hero. Also, I'm not that happy that they finally adressed the negative effects of guns only to make it a backstory of someone else than MacGyver. I'm fine with them not making a preachy message there, but it was still not satisfying to me.

(In general, I think this backstory wasn't planned in Season 1 yet and they decided to finally touch the subject in Season 2.)

He did; he says "Matty???" out loud when she shows up in the reflection.

Final ratings are in: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/show...-12-1-2017.html

Audience was adjusted down as expected, but it's still good. Didn't realize it was the Season Premiere of "Agents of Shield" - but as you can see, it's no competition, either.

Attached Image

I'm a bit undecided - on one hand, I think Justin did a good job with this scene. He showed he can be more than just the comedic sidekick. me.

He did a good job, I agree. But the situation was kind of silly. It wasn't a real interrogation and there was no danger, so it wasn't believable that he was getting SO stressed out and frightened by it. I don't blame Justin for that since I'm sure that's how the scene was written and directed, but it just wasn't believable to me. It would have been more believable if he just got angry and said something like, "You know what, I'm done with this game. It's over. I'm not talking about this, and the fact that you'd bring my brother into this makes me lose all respect for you, Leanna."

Regarding Matty-- I kind of hope she does turn out to be a villain, as that would justify why she's so incredibly rude to everyone all the time, but on the other hand, they already did that with Thornton. It would make the Phoenix Foundation look completely inept if it's revealed that they keep hiring villains to run the place!

I think the whole Spy-Camp thing is a bit silly, anyway. I mean, it's just a crash course over 3 or 4 weeks (if we assume the episodes are set in real time).

This doesn't make him a real spy; and why would he need to go there now after they had no problems sending him to Hawaii, Amsterdam and to the Bermuda Triangle for missions before... It's not like he's spending a year in Quantico for full training.

Unless it's more of a punishment for Episode 2x06 when he and Riley disobeyed orders? But Riley wasn't punished so far. And why didn't she have to go?

A medical review of the Episode: https://macgyvermedical.tumblr.com/post/168...-foil-a-medical

After the overly stuffed episode this one was again pretty good. Or maybe it seemed like that after I took a 4-day break. The waterplant reminded me of Mountain of Youth a bit and the hunt for the gas was nice.

I'm glad this episode took a more emotional tour as well and it made Bozer's storyline better. This was actually the best direction they could go in after shoving that whole training thing down our throats last time. Maybe somewhat unbelievable? Probably and I'm pretty sure interrogation trainings are done differently. Keeping a codeword for yourself for 24 hours in a simulation can't be that hard. I was like: try whatever you want, I won't say it. But I'm sure there are plenty of other different ways of making someone talk without torture, as long as you are persuasive. First question Bozer should've asked was: 'Where did you get this?' when they showed him that picture and brought in that soundfile. That's what I really want to know. Then again, they probably have access to everything. Bozer suddenly had a little less lip as well. He really think sometimes he is the man while he's not.

I do hope, you know that it didn't happen like that if you actually paid attention? It was a picture and a soundfile. And why not bring back a long forgotten memory of when you were a kid trying to help your brother who shot himself by call 911? How would you feel if you hear your own child voice in a panic calling 911?

I can agree on that. This could've also been a lot easier if Leanna simply brought in some food and started to eat herself and try to make him talk by making him hungry. It would've made it a lot more difficult on him. Isn't that like you know the basic of interrogation? A plate with donuts?

It would've made it funnier, I guess. Still, I'm glad they made it more emotional rather than amusing. It shows that Justin can handle heavier stuff as well and be convincing about it. Like I said actual interrogation trainings are probably a lot different and more difficult. I think it's more up to the interrogator on how he gets the info rather then to the ones who's being interrogated. It's like they switched that. Actually Leanna should've been the one who takes the credit for getting the intel while in my opinion Bozer had it easy. All he had to do was to stay quiet.

Also the more emotional side on Mac's storyline was a nice touch. You might wonder what happened. A burned out cabin? Was Murdoc there? But also finding that 8MM film was nice touch. That homemade projector was nice. And yes indeed why was Matty on the film? Does she know MacGyver from before and he doesn't know about it? What is her connection to his father? Is she maybe to him with Jack is to Riley? An interesting twist, that's for sure.

Blog post by Technical Advisor Rhett Allain about the MacGyverisms used in this episode: https://rhettallain.com/2019/06/08/macgyver...om-hoagie-foil/