In Review: MacGyver (S5 – Ep2) Thief + Painting + Auction + Viro-486 + Justice

Synopsis: When Taylor’s former protégé is killed while preventing a bio-weapon from falling into the wrong hands, MacGyver and the team must find the weapon so Desi can pull off the ultimate heist before it’s sold to a terrorist cell.

The Story

When Taylor’s protege is killed while investigating a terrorist cell that is in possession of a bio-weapon. Tayor sets about getting some justice by enlisting the help of retired art thief Jess Miller. In order to pull off the ultimate heist. Miller with some help from MacGyver sets about training Desi to pull off the job. However, things get more complicated when the job goes south. Learning that the terrorist leader has come up with a scheme to hide the bio-weapon in the pigment of a Rembrandt painting. Desi, MacGyver, and his team have to pull off an art theft.

The Acting

We get some great performances this week. Particularly from guest star Aimee Mullins in her role as thief Jess Miller. I think the scenes where Jess is teaching Desi how to move like a thief were brilliant. It all had a mission impossible kind of vibe to it and Levy Tran did a wonderful job of conveying Desi’s frustration whenever she was struggling with the very physical gymnastics she was having to put her body through. The interplay between Jess as teacher and Desi as the student felt convincing.

Henry Ian Cusick also puts in a solid performance as a guilt-ridden Taylor who blames himself for the death of his protege. The scene at the very end of the episode where Taylor informs the woman’s parents were quite poignant.

Doing the villain of the week duties this week was the fantastic Sebastian Roché as German terrorist leader Hannibal. He gets a great opening scene that establishes him right away. Sadly after that, the actor felt very much underused. I can only hope that this is not his only episode because if that is the case. It would be a huge waste of Roche’s skillset of providing viewers with compelling bad guys.

Overall

This was a really enjoyable episode that blended elements of Mission Impossible into the story. Specifically, the scenes in which Desi takes on the thieving duties when trying to steal the bio-weapon. I really enjoyed the brief training sequences in which Desi is being taught a skill set that can take years to master.

My one major criticism is really to do with how underused Sebastian Roche was in his role as Hannibal. This was a pretty big letdown given how impactful his opening scene was. It also illustrates the pitfall of making MacGyver into more of a team-based series. As opposed to the lone agent type scenario that we had in the classic show. The original series would have allowed for more development of the villain. Whereas the team base scenario can be tricky with the number of moving parts you have to play with.

Overall. A pretty good episode and a great outing for Levy Tran to strut her stuff.

Why not check out our past MacGyver reviews right here!