MacGyver season 2 premiere review: The mystery of Mac’s watch

The MacGyver season 2 premiere is here, and basically it was every bit as fun as expected. The show continued its recent tradition of picking up precisely in the middle of the action, featuring a sequence in Cuba that had almost everything you could want: Characters getting themselves out of tight binds, Jack being over the top, and somehow the heroes getting out in one piece.

After Mac and Jack made it out of the island country, the two reunited with Bozer and Riley and we got (at least after a funny Bozer – wheelchair scene) into one of the big mythology sequences: The search for Mac’s father. He still doesn’t know precisely where he is, but he does have the watch that first inspired him to develop his unique brand of “skills.”

The team was called back following their Cuba mission to the Phoenix Foundation for their first briefing of the season, and there they met a new member of the team: Samantha Cage! Isabel Lucas is playing the character, who as it turns out is a master of interrogation. There as understandably some skepticism towards her getting on board, but let’s face it: The team is still pretty small! They could use the help, and she seems more than capable of getting the job done.

For the sake of this case, though, it actually seemed like she was the one coming to the team for help. She had a personal recovery mission overseas, which led to everyone getting out on a company plane and onto the other side of the country. (Luckily, it wasn’t Cairo.) They landed, and Cage immediately took the lead as she tried to figure out whether this whole rescue mission for her target Diaz was a hoax. We also learned that she can speak multiple languages and think rather quickly. She’s not a female MacGyver, but she clearly has the skill set to be an action hero in her own right.

So what was the rest of the mission like? Think in terms of a wild goose chase. Diaz wasn’t at the first location, and instead they got the equivalent of “I’m sorry, but your princess is in another castle” at the end. From there, MacGyver somehow managed to use a makeshift soccer ball (with Cage’s help) in order to get a camera into the next top-secret facility. They were able to find Diaz within this compound, but unfortunately the guy running it was the “Ten of Spades,” one of the last high-ranking officials of the Saddam Hussein regime. This was trouble, and it raised the stakes for the rescue mission 100%.

How do you rescue a man from a crowded palace with a top-ranked terrorist occupying it? This is where MacGyver does what does best: Coming up with some random combination of ingredients in order to infiltrate the facility and make the impossible possible. This time around, it involved MacGyver starting a flood, descending into the catacombs, and using some of that water to make a daring rescue while avoiding drowning in the process. As crazy as it seemed, much of the plan actually worked — at least at first before Jack found himself at the mercy of the Ten of Spades. Luckily, this was brief. Bozer saved the day! Also, he made a Clue reference along the way and we love him for that.

Somehow, someway, the team made it through this alive, and the show went from referencing one of our favorite movies in Clue to one of our favorite bands in Foo Fighters. “Home” played as Diaz met his family again and everything was right in the world.

Here’s the problem

Samantha broke the rules in doing the mission in the first place, which led to her being discharged by the CIA. The good news for her was that she was offered a job at the Phoenix Foundation immediately! That’s a good thing given that here, “official warnings” are really the only punishment you get.

If there’s one thing we were worried about with the premiere, it was whether or not Samantha had enough flaws since she was awesome at just about everything; yet, that changed by the end of the episode when we saw her dark side. She was ready to interrogate the Ten of Spades to get whatever she could in terms of valuable information. Apparently, she’s ready to do the dirty work nobody else will. (She’s probably awesome at interrogating, as well, but this makes her far from a goody-two-shoes.)

The end of the episode tonight reminded us of the larger mythology of the season once more — trying to find Murdoc (Cage could be valuable there) and the continued search for Mac’s father. There was a fun reveal at the end of the episode: There was a photo of Mac hidden within the watch, and he now has to figure out what this means and if there are clues as to his missing dad’s location somewhere in there.

Our CarterMatt Verdict

MacGyver remains a fun show, and one of the things that we did like about this premiere was that it did a good job introducing new viewers to a number of different things from season 1, whether it be Cairo or MacGyver’s father. Samantha had a worthy introduction, we had some great Bozer moments, and the episode was about more than just the case of the week. Save for maybe having Murdoc play a major role, this gave us everything we could have wanted.

What did you think about the MacGyver season 2 premiere?

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Also, click here to preview what’s on MacGyver next. (Photo: CBS.)