Recap / Macgyver 2016 S 3 E 6 Murdoc Mac Gyver Murdoc

Murdoc: Do you ever consider, you know, switching sides, playing for the fun team?
Mac: Joining up with the man who murdered my friend and kidnapped my girlfriend? Hard pass.
Murdoc: Well, consider it an open invitation. You ever change your mind, just...
Mac: Let me guess, speak your name three times in a bathroom mirror, and you appear?
Murdoc: Or text. Either works.

It seems like Bizarro world as Mac is working with Murdoc. The assassin has Mac's girlfriend, and will kill her unless Mac helps find his missing son. While the unlikely duo try to locate the boy, Phoenix work to find Nasha.

Tropes:

• Admiring the Abomination: Riley is forced to admit that, especially given the time pressure he was working under, Murdoc's abduction of Nasha was pretty well conceived; cloning Mac's phone and sending her a text to meet him in LA as soon as possible, then posing as her driver and taking her straight from the airport.
• Call-Back:
  • Cassian is being held by Lui, a former member of Murdoc's organisation.
  • Mac is understandably angry with Murdoc for his murder of Jill.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: An obvious hallmark of Murdoc's.
  Murdoc: [Holding a gun on a bank teller while Mac checks security footage] So how's your day going so far? I mean, besides this part of it, of course.
  • Turns out he and Amber have this in common, when they run into each other and immediately start brawling.
  Amber: This reminds me of our first date!
  Murdoc: You wore that dress, the red one! I love that dress!
• Children Are Innocent: Working to save a child is the least irksome part of the whole thing for Mac.
• Custody Battle: Mac refers to the Murdoc family as "the most messed-up child custody battle ever."
  Mac: And you're certain that Amber won't call you and tell you everything's ok? Cassian's safe? He's with her? Where he is?
  Murdoc: We tried the whole co-parenting thing. Didn't really take.
  Mac: Can't imagine why.
• Determinator: Amber, Murdoc's wife and Cassian's mother, cutting through a lot of concrete using concentrated muriatic acid.
  Mac: You can eat your way through any amount of concrete, so long as you have lots of acid and lots of patience. It would have taken her hours to cut through this much concrete.
  Murdoc: Truth! I used to respect that about her. She could take hours to murder somebody.
• Distaff Counterpart: Amber, Murdoc's wife.
  Mac: You said you'd release Nasha after Cassian was safe. Well, problem solved. He's with his mom. He's safe. Now let her go!
  Murdoc: Safe? This woman is me, but with a temper!
• Guile Hero: Mac proves why Murdoc brought him along when Cassian apparently being rescued by his mother isn't good enough. Mac spots a security camera at a bank across the street, so he and Murdoc check the footage via Murdoc threatening the bank teller at gunpoint. On their way out, they get the teller to pull the silent alarm so they can steal a cop car and use the radio to run Amber's car and track her down. Murdoc is impressed, leading to the page quote.
• I Have Your Wife: Murdoc lures Mac's girlfriend Nasha to LA and takes her hostage to force Mac to help him find his son.
• I Lied:
  Murdoc: Five days ago, my darling wife Amber escaped from the Serbian prison she called home.
  Mac: Whatever happened to Cassian's mom being dead?
  Murdoc: I lied. Does that really surprise you?
• Omniglot: In addition to Italian and Mandarin, Mac speaks fluent Spanish.
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Mac is clearly shaken at Nasha's abduction, and it's implied that the experience leads to their breaking up as she's never seen again.
  Murdoc: Oh, Angus. Please tell the GF it was nothing personal. Even Lois Lane knew the dangers of dating Superman.
• Meet Cute: Murdoc considers his meeting of Amber to be this trope. Mac disagrees.
  Murdoc: I keep feeling like maybe this whole ordeal could be a second chance for me and Amber. You want to hear about how we first met?
  Mac: No.
  Murdoc: It was a chilly evening in Moscow. The sunset sparkled off the spires of Saint Basil's Cathedral. As I peered through the scope on my M40 sniper rifle, I spied a glint of gunmetal on the adjacent rooftop. And there she was, a vision in tactical body armor, aiming at my mark. She was trying to snake my hit! We both fired at the same time. Our slugs hit simultaneously. Afterward, we couldn't agree on whose kill it was, so, you know, we decided to split the money and a bottle of vodka.
• Papa Wolf: The whole episode is about Murdoc moving Heaven and earth to rescue his kidnapped son. In the end, it's only for Cassian's sake that he doesn't kill Amber when he finds out the whole thing was arranged by her to extort money from him, and he even submits to arrest in exchange for his son being placed with a good foster family.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: Lampshaded by Murdoc after Trespassing to Talk.
  Murdoc: I can't believe you still have this thing.^note  The mask from "Corkscrew". Frankly, I can't believe you're still living here.
• Shout-Out:
  • Jack compares Mac working with Murdoc to The Twilight Zone.
  • Mac calls Amber the Bride of Frankenstein.
  • Murdoc sarcastically suggests finding Amber by following her trail of Reece's Pieces.
  • Murdoc compares Mac and Nasha to Superman and Lois.
• Villainous Respect: Murdoc recruits Mac to help him because of his skills, and because however he feels about Murdoc he'll at least care about the kid.