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'MacGyver' Season 4 Ending Explained: What's next for Codex and the Phoenix Foundation?

The board's been reset and the players will be different but rest assured, Codex will be back with a vengeance

Spoilers for 'MacGyver' Season 4 Episode 13 'Save + The + Dam + World'

'MacGyver' Season 4 may have ended but the threat of Codex, the global eco-terrorist organization, which has hounded Angus "Mac" MacGyver (Lucas Till) and the Phoenix Foundation all season is far from over. The board's been reset and the players will be different but rest assured, Codex will be back with a vengeance.

The season finale, 'Save + The + Dam + World', brought the season's storyline to a fitting conclusion with the last-minute redemption and death of Mac's aunt and Codex leader Gwendolyn Hayes (Jeri Ryan). But as the last few episodes have revealed, Gwen was never the all-powerful head of Codex that we thought she was. 

Above her in the hierarchy at the organization are Leland (Tobin Bell) and the Codex council, a group that has apparently existed since the time of the Black Plague. While Codex's immediate plan to trigger the Yellowstone supervolcano and cause a global apocalypse may have been thwarted by the Phoenix Foundation, the leadership managed to go into hiding so the head of the proverbial snake is still intact. 

Though the initial plan was indeed to end the season with Episode 13 more scripts that allude to Codex were written after CBS extended the season to 22 episodes, as series regular Henry Ian Cusick, who plays Russ Taylor on the show, had previously revealed to MEA WorldWide (MEAWW). Though the coronavirus pandemic caused the season to get shortened again, we're hoping that those scripts will be put to use in the next season of the show, whenever the show comes back on air.

On the bright side, now that his aunt is no longer the face of the organization, Mac won't have any qualms about crushing Codex whenever they rear their heads again. Also as the finale revealed, the Phoenix Foundation is taking concrete steps to ensure that climate change is addressed as a pressing issue and given the proper importance it deserves, which could hopefully make Codex's mission obsolete. Whether that will stop them or not is a different matter altogether.

'MacGyver' Season 4 Episode 13, the season finale, aired on May 8 at 8 pm on CBS.