3.13 - Wilderness + Training + Survival

Airdate: Jan 18, 2019
Writers: Joshua Brown and Andrew Klein
Director: Brad Turner

Guest Cast: Brendan Hines (Ethan Reigns) , Sissi Kal (Deena) , Mina Lukia (Mara) , Justin Welborn (Giovanni)
Vanessa Garcia (Emma) , Mike Hickman (Fred/Attendant) , Edward Gelhaus (Anton) , Alex Livinalli (Trevor)
David Chin (Cid)


When MacGyver takes Riley and Bozer into the wilderness for a weekend of survival training, things take a turn when they
run into a violent group of criminals who are searching the rugged backcountry for a lost crate of money.
Also, Jack and Matty go on a road trip to place Matty’s ex-husband and his family in witness protection.

I still don't like Ethan


When the one guy twisted his ankle, and the boss looked kinda concerned, I thought, "Aw, they do care about each other!" Then BANG, and I went, "Never mind "


I really hate the boss bad guy


But as soon as she said, "split four ways", I went, "Yep, he's gonna kill them." His insistence on Mac finding a fast way for one man to transport all that money confirmed it


Also, Mac's comment on the bag being, "for what we find along the way" was totally a reference to the original pilot


For a minute, I was so confused at Bozer and Riley climbing to the top of the rock with ease, after Mac had to improvise a whole technique to climbing it at all. Then I realized they climbed on the other side


Y'know, sort of off topic, but whenever I think abut those hostage situations, I always think I'd die instantly because I'd be like, "Please just hurry up and shoot me. It's quicker than being annoyed to death by you idiots."



As for the subplot, like I said, I still don't like Ethan


So... She had no idea Matty and Ethan were married?



Jack totally ruined the moment when he came out blathering about snacks


Jack actually thought playing the license plate game was a good idea


Matty's interactions with the little girl were cute


But when she showed her how to make purple, I thought, "That's not how my crayons worked...

Loved this episode. Mac's wilderness tips were great but I don't think I want to eat cattails

Loved the hacks and the science.

Riley was awesome and I even liked Bozer more in this episode.

Matty/Jack B story was needed for closure and I'm sure the guy in the photo will be connected to Jack leaving. Not like George gave them a lot of time to prepare.

I honestly enjoyed this episode really well done

It seems George has been unhappy since the show started as it was originally set to be filmed in LA when he signed on so he would be close to his kid still. Then they moved to the other side of the country and he had no way out of his contract with them.

So I think they have had plenty of time to prepare, they're just useless at planning anything. That's why we have so many unresolved plots and holes in the show.

Back to this episode....

It was probably the most MacGyver-esque episode we've had this season so far.

I'm really starting to hate how he has to over explain everything all the time. He's that annoying kid that has to prove he's smarter than everyone all the time... he's basically Sheldon Cooper.

I did notice some continuity issues in this episode. Not the least of which was they talked about rain, yet every scene was bone dry. Mac also talked about them having wet clothing (from the invisible rain) ... they looked pretty damn dry to me.

I would have liked to have had a closing scene instead of them cutting it off at the store, but other than that it was a 2 thumbs up episode.

I really enjoyed this episode !!!

Preliminary Ratings are in: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/the-...-1-18-2019.html

Looks pretty good. Even with some adjustment down, this should turn out as the best-rated episode this season.

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Here's Technical Advisor Rhett Allain's blog post about the MacHacks used and wisdom transferred in this episode: https://rhettallain.com/2019/01/19/macgyver...ining-survival/

Topics:
> Rock and steel to make a spark
> Other fire stuff
> Wet cotton clothes are bad
> Zipper for ice traction
> How to make drinkable water
> Making rope (string)
> Size and weight of 18 million dollars
> Surveying tools
> Float distance calculation
> Drag sled
> Grab hot coals

This was a really good episode. It was a lot like the way the old MacGyver series was. Keep up the suspenseful, exciting shows!

Anybody who thinks that cattails aren't delicious hasn't had them prepared properly.

On the other hand, this version of Mac canonically cannot cook, so...

They were eating them raw.... so not prepared at all.

Me neither

And while I think it's nice they tied up one of all the still unresolved side-storylines for once, that one is actually the one I was interested in the least...

I'd preferred to have Jack in the main storyline as well so they could dedicate the entire screen time to it. I haven't seen the entire episode yet but from what I've seen, I think this might be my favorite so far this season.

Here's a Science/Medicine Review of the episode - the post is a longer read, so go to the original source: https://macgyvermedical.tumblr.com/post/182...icine-review-of


Usually, the author is not so fond of the reboot, but states for this episode:

For those of you who’ve been following my thrilling MacGyver Reboot medical review series (...), you understand my expectations of accurate science and medicine in this series are not high.

You have to understand, I’m an RN, an EMT-B, and wilderness first aid instructor. Having seen the preview and title for this episode, I was ready for 43 minutes of abject hell. I was ready to tear the whole thing apart.

And you know what? I was wrong.

Okay, this definitely captured the "classic" MacGyver feel. And it did several things that I'd been asking this show to do for a while:

1. It broke away from the standard formula (no briefing scene at the foundation!!!)

2. It was an "accidental adventure" rather than a mission (and we had another "accidental adventure just a couple of weeks ago... definitely on the right track!)

3. The villain was given significant screen time

4. Mac drove himself, rather than being chauffeured (and he was driving the Jeep!)

5. Mac was separated from the team for most of the episode

6. Mattie was actually likeable, and didn't spend all of her time just telling the team to "Hurry up!!"

And even though this episode had a B story, it never felt like it got in the way of the main story.

So yeah, this one gets an "A" from me. Good stuff.

I agree with all of this. If you're gonna have a B-story, have it tie-in to furthering character development. Makes it that much more palatable.

Final Ratings are in: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/show...-1-18-2019.html

Almost no downward adjustment, so that's cool.

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Finally got to watch this episode. I really liked it. It has a serious OG vibe and isn't a typical mission for once. Mac in the forest always makes for good episodes

I didn't care much about the B-Story, although it was nice they bothered to finish at least one of their unresolved storylines for once. Yet I feel the episode would have been better with the A-mission only; maybe Jack joining them. The Ethan-Storyline could have been resolved later as well.

The ending felt a bit rushed, and I didn't like that they had the bad guy kill the others again. This seems to happen all the time this season. What's so wrong with knocking them unconscious and sending them to prison? It doesn't really matter if we never see them again, but maybe you have some villains at your disposal for another episode... when they want revenge.

Similar to the Deborah storyline in the OG.

A wilderness episode? Really? Are they finally getting the hang of things? Rolling into an adventure without it being a mission. And I think for the first time: no War Room.

This episode was like a mix of Ghost Ship (did you see the shelter they build that night?), The Survivors (training), Easy Target/Phoenix Under Siege (bad guy killing his or her own men) and the movie Cliffhanger (bad guys looking for money they dropped out of a plane) and of course a little nod to Deliverance.

Wow, well, this certainly take things a different turn. Also nice to see that for once it's Mac being held hostage instead of the other way around. In our version it was mostly Mac running after some hostaged woman: The Invisible Killer, anyone?

Anyway, this was a great and interesting episode but I don't know what Mac's intellectual talk was all about. Probably to stretch for time. If he talked difficult enough they would still need him but I don't think we need to know how intelligent he is because we know.

I sure like to see more of these episodes instead of the standard formula: briefing, mission, exquisitely fast travel, Matty barking in their ears to hurry up, save the day, debriefing at Phoenix, closing scene in Mac's place.

The B-storyline was alright and I like to see Matty more in the field actually, so this was fine. I also think it's interesting on how B-storylines are arranged with characters. This time it was Matty and Jack. Maybe a Matty and Riley thing can happen or Matty, Bozer. Like each character got to be coupled with another in any storyline as long as Mac is of course the main focus.

Don't you want to survive and "Mac" your way out of the situation?

Why not?

Think it was a matter of better that she didn't know.

Essentially nothing. Guess they want to keep their casualty rate up even with Jack leaving, they might as well kill themselves. I think however the villains dying with Jack leaving might also drop eventually but that don't mean they can't die. Look at how many died in our version while Mac never touched a gun.

Don't you want to survive and "Mac" your way out of the situation?

Only thing smart about me is my mouth

Why not?

Because I still think he's a jerk for doing what he did to Matty in the first place.

Think it was a matter of better that she didn't know.

Fair enough.

While it may have not been fair to Matty, I think Jack's explanation about going deep cover might affect your life so immensely that you no longer remember right from wrong or that something unexpectedly in the operation happens that it becomes your life whether you want it or not seems like a pretty likely consequence, especially when you go deep and for a very long time.

I can't help to think of Don Cheadle in Brooklyn's Finest: a cop in deep cover for so long, he's beginning to think like a criminal instead of a cop.

At least Ethan bothered to let her know he was going deep cover and had to take of his ring but probably didn't expect he would marry someone else. And maybe it was better for the sake of the operation that neither of them knew about one another.

Idk, maybe

This is exactly what happens.

I've watched a few documentaries over the years about undercover cops, and they talk about how on longer assignments the cover becomes your life. You don't knock off at 5 o'clock and go home to your family. It's 24/7 living as your assigned character, doing everything they are expected to do in that situation which sometimes means hurting innocent people, breaking laws, etc, in order to fit in and be accepted.

This is exactly what happens.

I've watched a few documentaries over the years about undercover cops, and they talk about how on longer assignments the cover becomes your life. You don't knock off at 5 o'clock and go home to your family. It's 24/7 living as your assigned character, doing everything they are expected to do in that situation which sometimes means hurting innocent people, breaking laws, etc, in order to fit in and be accepted.

Brutal work. Still a shame that it happened, though, his fault or not.