5-04 Banh Bao + Sterno + Drill + Burner + Mason

Airdate: Jan. 8 2021
Written by: Justin Lisson and Sophia Lopez
Directed by: Peter Weller

Guest Cast:
Peter Weller (Mason)
Ben Wang (Eli Brown)
Corey Jung (Little Eli)
Dollar Tan (Eli’s Father)
Gloria Tsai (Eli’s Mother)
Paul Yen (Jason)
Michael Paul Chan (Dahn)
Page Leong (Mimi)
Bill Smitrovich (Joshua)
Grace Thomas (Recruiter)


Mac’s meeting with Desi’s parents goes sideways when her brother finds himself in trouble and desperately needs their help. Also, Russ and Matty must ask an old nemesis for assistance when their new recruitment candidate is kidnapped.

I loved this episode.

A frequent critique on here is Desi hasn't been humanized enough or not enough material has been given for fans to fall in love with her again. Anyone think that's been rectified?

Mason's return: Glad to see he doesn't have an axe to grind with the agency anymore. One less thing to worry about.

just realized they cut the scene shown in the BtS photo. now we'll never know why Mac made that face and who he talked to

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I think it was a good storyline for Desi. But it should have been shown a long time ago; maybe before the Codex storyline mid-season 4 gained speed and started taking off.

As for the hardcore Desi haters; I think it's too late now... And for the ones not hating, but already disliking her, it might depend on how they're going further with MacDesi. If Desi gets back at sniping at Mac and treating him badly, I think it's a lost cause, sadly.

Also, I'm a bit annoyed that she wanted him to meet her parents but still had ulterior motives. With all the time-jumps, they started dating like 2 or 3 years ago...

Preliminary Ratings: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/the-...d-1-8-2021.html

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Alright, squeezing this in to a busy weekend.

-OK, I seriously wanna know how they survived that jump. I know it's played for effect in these opening gambits...but come onnnnnn...

-Brother's name is Simon, but it's not listed that way in the credits above...

-Ahh, sibling rivalry. Classic "one's a homebody, the other's out trekking the world."

-Alright! MacGyver off on some mundane task and bam, a situation arises out of thin air! This doesn't happen as much as it should.

-And the B-Storyline also has a situation come up out of nowhere!

-Matty certainly surrendered her phone for a (Eli)Hack a lot easier than Jack ever would have!

-"Can Mac make a self driving car in under 2 minutes?" -"Definitely."

-I understand suppressed memories, but it seems a slight stretch that Eli/Chen wouldn't have some recollection of things that happened when he was 5.

-Re-enacting fight scenes. It's like we're back at the seed vault!

-Heckuva an assumption by Mason that Eli will get to "close the book" based off figuring out the place where he lived as a young boy. (Spoiler: naturally, the seemingly anachronistic burner phone is there).

-I love how everybody in her family is surprised that Desi has hand-to-hand combat skills as if she wasn't in the military.

-Did the Mason thread actually get wound up here? OK, cool, do Walsh next!

-Disappointed in the lack of denouement between Simon and Desi, and even Simon and Mac as fellow nerds/guy dating your sister.

-Pretty enjoyable episode overall. Not a ton to say as both storylines were tight and paced well. On to next week!

Pretty much. I mean this was nice and all, but it feels all a bit too late. Of course with Mason being involved in the episode it would have been tough to shoehorn this script in before the Codex resolution...although I guess that B-Story could have been in any episode.

Not to mention considering the trust issues Mac has when it comes to personal relationships, why would he put up with never being given the full truth from a girlfriend? It's still happening, and that's what's frustrating.

On the bright side, it was a standalone story that could have been plopped anywhere in early Season 5, for a Season 4 leftover, they kind of lucked out in that regard.

So much for all those #MacRiley shippers who were never tuning in again...

via Tech Consultant Rhett Allain:

So much for all those #MacRiley shippers who were never tuning in again...

It only matters if they are part of a Nielsen Ratings household anyway. Otherwise, the ratings won't care

I think I know what he's complaining about

Poor Mac. Another date that ended on an empty stomach .

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Here's the blog post by Tech Consultant Rhett Allain about the MacGyverisms in this episode: https://rjallain.medium.com/macgyver-scienc...on-ba6650be5366

Imo meet the parents was the B narrative. Mac had little screen time, and I dont appreciate the writers having him need Desi's help to take care of one guy. He's ex military and a trained spy for goodness sake. To build up Desi, Mac suffers. Also, she didnt tell him the truth. He would have helped her no matter what. This is a good relationship? And what's with the eww. I felt Mac was there for the necessary hacks and that's it. When barricading the door, he had to tell the parents his name! Very little interaction between Mac and the parents so to bill it as meeting the parents is misleading. Lastly, I really dont feel any differently about Desi. Her personality hasn't changed. I feel like the writers are promoting this one character to the detriment of all the others. Poor Mac.

As for the other storyline, it was ok. I like Mason, but they just let him go after all he did to destroy the Phoenix? Makes no sense. And a mini Mac? Sorry, but theres only one. And I truly dont get the obsession with Russ's hair lol.

It's been a while since we had 2 parallel storylines that didn't overlap at all, and they were both interesting - but I agree that the Eli-Storyline was the A-Storyline and could have been an entire episode itself.

Sure, the B-Storyline could also have made an episode with Mac sort of stumbling into trouble but it wasn't enough time to really "meet" Desi's family. I felt they didn't get enough screentime for us to really care about them (especially the brother who got a wrong name in the press release ), and Mac had not enough screentime at all.

It seems like they're going the CSI route again (where one or two actors don't have much screentime so they get a few days off, but will be heavily featured in the next one).

Final Ratings: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/show...s-1-8-2021.html

MacGyver adjusted up, yay!

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This episode sort of felt like The Wish Child to me. The main storyline about an Asian whizz kid and the bad guys are after him but unlike The Wish Child, it's not MacGyver going after him but Russ and Matty are. And I do have to say that Matty is so unlike her in this episode. She takes a liking to the kid in an almost maternal manner. A side we never saw of her before. However I do want to point out that after seeing the early episodes again, I've noticed something about her, I didn't before because she was so bossy and seemed to like it too. Somewhere near the end of the first season just says to the team that she also loves Jack like they do. Which makes me realize that Matty despite her tough attitude all the time (still something I don't like on my second run) she actually does care about the team, even in the beginning and after getting past her first dislike of MacGyver's way of doing things. Every now and than, it really shows, more than we care to see, know or admit because she is so bossy.

The B-story as some of us call it here was Mac who apparently was nearly forced to meet Desi's parents and seems nervous about it too in order not to fumble it up. And this also brings us back to an all to familiar and maybe not popular formula: squeezing two storylines into one episode and back when Bozer and Leanna were in training even three storylines in 45 minutes. I was hoping we were past that. For this episode it doesn't appear so. That is indeed a bit of a letdown but not entirely.

We also see a return of Peter Weller and Mason in an episode directed by himself. We get more insight in his past and maybe closure for his storyline. Though it is weird that he was on the loose after everything he did.

I think if they reversed the storylines, it would've worked out better. They should've had Bozer or Riley go along with Mac to Desi's parents and than Mac get's called away to go after the kid and Riley and Bozer are supposed to help Desi with her brother and parents.

Re-reading the post now, I remember that Peter Lenkov teased in an Instagram post (on January 21, 2022) that he would have brought Eli back for the Season 5 finale (set in the year 2035).

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