Episode Number: S2E20
Ranking: 135 of 138
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Quotable Moment:
MacGyver: Pete... for the past seven years I have done nothing but travel around the world getting shot up, locked up, blown up, and all I've got to show for it are a couple of empty rolls of duct tape.Best Part: Either the part where Mac tells Pete he wants to resign or the scene where Penny proves she's not as gullible regarding Jack's tall tales as he thought.
Worst Part: Just the general fact that it's out of character, and a clip show.
Opening Gambit: Something that you will discover about me early on is that I don't like clip shows, and I don't like dream episodes. Both, to me, are fairly pointless and don't contribute anything substantial to the overall arc of a show. The only exception to this is when the clips shown in an episode inspire new and emotionally-driven dialogue discussing something that was not addressed in the episode itself. For example, in "Hindsight," the conversation between Pete and MacGyver about the coma in "Passages" is a great moment for me, because we get to see Pete learn about Mac's near-death experience and discuss mortality.
But this episode, from what little I remember, does not really inspire introspective dialogue and doesn't really make a difference. Sure, you've got the whole thing about MacGyver wanting to quit, but that isn't the focus of the episode; instead, it's focused on past episodes, and mostly shows us things we've already seen. I do appreciate MacGyver's internal conflict about his job at the Phoenix Foundation, but I feel like that could have been much more effectively addressed with a full episode dedicated to this crossroads he has come to. The decision to keep going has less impact on me when it is buried beneath a pile of memories and clips I've already seen before.
I do remember, however, that the episode was dedicated to a co-worker (I think he was maybe a grip?) of the cast, and while that is very thoughtful and sweet, I think that it could have been even more touching if there had been a full new episode dedicated to him rather than one cobbled together with scenes from earlier episodes.
I don't foresee this episode climbing any on the list, mainly because of my distaste for clip shows, but maybe I'll find some nuggets of goodness buried beneath all the "been-there-done-that"s cluttering the episode.
