Partners

Episode:  040 (S2.E18)

Production  No.: 40192-040

Airdate: 02 March 1987

Writers: Bill Froehlich & Mark Lisson

Director: Cliff Bole

Nielsen Ratings:  15.1 rating / 22 share / 3rd (35th for the week)

PLOT

On the 7th anniversary of their mutual meeting, MacGyver and Thornton are lured into a trap by a master-of-disguise hitman they both thought long dead.

CAST

MACGYVERISMS

• Used shoestring and wrench attached to door handle and gas pedal to make the car move forward as Mac and Pete jumped out.
• Used oil can, pantyhose, battery and exhaust pipe to blow open trailer door.

TRIVIA

• This account of Mac & Pete’s first meeting conflicts with the story presented in Deathlock.
• This episode is the first appearance of Murdoc.
• This was the third appearance of Jack Dalton.
• The controlled explosive “implosion” footage was from the Henry Grady Hotel demolition in Atlanta,Georgia in 1972. The art of dropping tall buildings straight down in crowded areas has actually been around since 1910.
• The scenes with Mac and Pete in the Taxi cab with the bazooka’s pointed at them and the truck exploding are seen as flashback clips in The Widowmaker episode.

QUOTES

• In Memoriam. Three dear friends taken before their time. Peter Thornton. Jack Dalton. MacGyver.
• MacGyver: Your note said to meet you here at eight o’clock and bring a bar magnifier.
  Pete: My note? I’m here because of your note.
  MacGyver: I never sent you a note.
• MacGyver: Do you remember what happened seven years ago today?
  Pete: Yeah. You and I first met.
  MacGyver: Yeah. Chasing Murdoc.
• Murdoc: Do you remember what Mark Twain once said? The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
• Murdoc: I hope it’s not too uncomfortable for you back there, gentlemen.
  Pete: Not to worry. We’ll live.
  Murdoc: I seriously doubt that, Thornton.
• MacGyver: She’s a man.
  Pete: He’s a killer.
• Pete: Murdoc is an international terrorist. Specializes in disguises. He’s half-chameleon, half rattlesnake. When he makes a hit, he always takes a picture of his victim. Dying.
  MacGyver: Keeping an album, is he?
  Pete: No. One shot goes to whoever paid for the hit, as proof. And a copy to us, the DXS, just for fun.
  MacGyver: And this is who I chose to help?
• Pete: What’s that?
  MacGyver: Duct tape. Real handy stuff. Carry it with me all the time.
• MacGyver: Mr. Thornton and I were riding in your cab, chasing this woman who . . . was . . . actually a man who had a guy with a bazooka waiting, and he blew up your cab.
• MacGyver: I can explain.
  Jack: Bazookas? You can explain bazookas? YOU CANNOT EXPLAIN BAZOOKAS!
• Pete: Murdoc won’t be happy when he finds out he only blew up the bed.
  MacGyver: Neither will Jack.
• Pete: I’ve never been able to figure out how your mind works, but I know when it works.
• Pete: The old duct tape, huh.
  MacGyver: Never leave home without it.

NIT-PICKS

• MacGyver’s opening narration says it was a Saturday. At the end, as he pulls up, Jack Dalton says it’s a Sunday.
• When Murdoc runs out of the hospital, he runs by a man standing against a building after crossing the street. Seconds later MacGyver runs by the same spot and the man against the building is gone.
• When Murdoc is shown removing the dynamite from his satchel, it is not wired up yet; he connects all the wires up later. Yet in one of the close-up shots of him attaching the individual dynamite bundles to the truck’s undercarriage, the bundle clearly has the white/red twisted-pair blasting-wires already attached.
• In the obituary section of the newspaper clipping, the heading “In Memorium” should be “In Memoriam”.
• Pete says the semi trailer is sound proofed, yet we can hear the hum of the engine and outside noises.
• Mac and Pete go to Jack Dalton’s “apartment” where Mac is nearly blown up by a bomb under Jack’s bed. There is no logical reason why Murdoc would plant a bomb under Jack’s bed to kill MacGyver or even why he would even know where Jack lived.
• Murdoc tells MacGyver and Pete, trapped in the truck trailer, that the sticks of dynamite are enough to take down a building and more than enough for a semi trailer, yet when the dynamite goes off, only part of the trailer is destroyed, with the majority of it remaining, not even taking any of the undercarriage with it — where the explosives were placed. Also, the explosions obviously don’t occur under the trailer.
• When Murdoc disconnects the truck from the trailer, he doesn’t lower the dollies. Without them down the front of the trailer would have dropped to the ground throwing Pete and MacGyver around inside.

FILMING LOCATIONS

Wrecking Yard Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking 11590 Tuxford Street, Sun Valley, CA	Cab Explosion Indian Dunes Off Henry Mayo Drive, Castaic, CA
Memorial Hospital Entrance Corner Store Entrance 374 E 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA	Abandoned Building Buildings No Longer Exists 136 N Central Ave, Los Angeles, CA