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'MacGyver' Season 4 Episode 11 Review: James Callis dazzles as the Merchant and Mac's convictions are shaken

The episode itself was beautifully written with a lot of action, mind games, and juicy drama. The real star of the episode, however, was James Callis, who delivered a powerful performance as the weasely Merchant

BY REMUS NORONHA

PUBLISHED APR 25, 2020

This article contains spoilers for 'MacGyver' Season 4 Episode 11 'Psy-Op + Cell + Merchant + Birds'.

'MacGyver' Season 4's 11th episode finally gives Angus "Mac" MacGyver (Lucas Till) and the Phoenix Foundation an edge over the global terrorist organization Codex but it does come at a cost. While Mac and the team did manage to get some valuable intel out of top Codex operative Clive/the Merchant (guest star James Callis), the interaction does leave Mac questioning his loyalties.

Mac has been feeling a bit lost for a while now and in the last episode we found out that a part of him does believe that Codex's plan to kill a quarter of the Earth's population in order to save the rest might actually be the right way to go. The Merchant plays on those repressed feelings and sows the seeds of doubt that are probably going to manifest later on in the season.

The episode itself was beautifully written with a lot of action, mind games, and juicy drama. The real star of the episode, however, was certainly James Callis, who delivered a powerful performance as the weasely Merchant.

It takes a lot of skill to pull off a character who's so despicable and while Callis did bring out the suave side of the Merchant earlier in the season, here he portrays the defeated and desperate side of him equally well. 'MacGyver' has had a number of great guest stars, but Callis certainly ranks among the top ten.

The cast of 'MacGyver' Season 4 includes Lucas Till as Angus 'Mac' MacGyver, Tristin Mays as Riley Davis, Justin Hires as Wilt Bozer, Meredith Eaton as Matty Weber, Levy Tran as Desi Nguyen and Henry Ian Cusick as Russ Taylor. Guest stars for the episode include James Callis, Amber Skye Noyes, Ming Lo, and Adele Drahos.

The episode was directed by Ericson Core with a script penned by Cindy Appel and Andrew Karlsruher. Stephanie Hicks provided the story for the episode.

Here's the official synopsis for 'Psy-Op + Cell + Merchant + Birds': "Mac is placed inside a fake prison cell with a top Codex operative, The Merchant (guest star James Callis), in order to gain his trust and get intel on their next move."

'MacGyver' Season 4 airs new episodes every Friday at 8 pm ET on CBS.