‘MacGyver’ episode 13 review: Mac and Jack’s survival story; meet Matty Webber

Last week, “MacGyver” delivered a jam-packed episode that was stuffed full of familiar faces. Over the course of it you saw Amy Acker’s Sarah, Mac’s hot-and-cold love interest Nikki, and the most infamous villain of the show to date in Murdoc. We also learned that Thornton was a traitor to the cause the whole time, and she was arrested as a result.

When you consider that so many stories were going on in “Screwdriver,” the show took a different approach in “Large Blade,” moving MacGyver and Jack away from home base and separating them from just about every resource they had — including most of the support of the team. They were in the process of bringing in a dangerous man guilty of war crimes when there helicopter was taken down, leaving them stuck with a dangerous man and a pilot who was gravely injured. This was almost a bottle episode at times … that is if you poured a bottle out into the middle of the wilderness while cutting back to Bozer and Riley back at the Phoenix Foundation.

How to survive – There’s really no formula as to how to make it work — you just do, and use the majority of the resources at your disposal. The good news is that (of course) the team did, and they were able to get out of the situation without any life-threatening injuries. Same goes for the pilot. There was an air of predictability about this given that there was no other way we could’ve envisioned the situation ending, but that was fine since the road to point A to point B was emotional. Plus, Jack was grumpy (for reasons we’ll explain in the next segment) and Mac’s equipment and resources were even more limited than usual.

The new boss – For those of you who love the Jack / Mac bromance, there was some good stuff that came out of the Jack realizing that he didn’t want to be cooped up in an office somewhere. Instead, he was happier being out in the field with Mac. He was initially peeved about the fact that he was passed over at the Phoenix Foundation after Thornton left, leaving him specifically with Matty Webber a.k.a. Matty the Hun. She was the reason that Jack left the CIA, and he was legitimately nervous to see him. Mac made him feel better! Plus, as Bozer noted, it may have helped that they had all of that alone time to bond in the woods while saving each other.

As for our take on Matty, she’s a hoot! Part of what we love about the way the show set this character up is that by the time you actually met her, she wasn’t necessarily what you expected. She was intimidating, but also sarcastic and with a taste for dry humor. Seeing her in charge of this group (and scaring the heck out of Jack) is going to be fun.

Overall – “Large Blade” was a nice switch-up following last week’s craziness. The bummer now comes in having to wait a while now to see what’s next. Grade: B+.

Next time – When is the show coming back? We’ll have some further news coming up for you later over at the link here. (Photo: CBS.)