'MacGyver' Season 4 Episode 6 Review: Russ Taylor's past comes out in powerful and heartbreaking story
This article contains spoilers for 'MacGyver' Season 4 Episode 6 'Right + Wrong + Both + Neither'
'MacGyver' Season 4's last episode dropped quite a bomb with the reveal that Matty Webber (Meredith Eaton) might be Titan, the head of Codex, but Episode 6 'Right + Wrong + Both + Neither' quickly resolves that mystery within the first few minutes and moves on to deliver a powerful episode centered around Russ Taylor (Henry Ian Cusick). The character has been a bit of an enigma since he joined the show at the start of the season but Episode 6 finally sheds some light on his motivations.
Guest star Amanda Schull delivers a stellar performance in the episode as the feisty and idealistic doctor Emilia, Russ Taylor's former love interest whose kidnapping sets the episode's events in motion. Schull's chemistry with Cusick was absolutely delightful and the way the episode ends their story is frankly heartbreaking.
It's a pretty intense episode that involves global politics and a lot of gray morality, especially with Angus "Mac" MacGyver (Lucas Till) finally realizing just how much the Phoenix Foundation's world has changed in recent times. Even though they've always been covert operatives, Mac and his team have never had to make choices as hard as the ones they're being forced into this season and while they may be the right choices, that doesn't mean they don't weigh heavily on Mac's mind.
Perhaps the most important thing about the episode was that it finally gave us some hints as to why Russ chose to give up his life as a private military contractor and buy the Phoenix Foundation. So far, we've had this nagging suspicion that he might actually be a Codex operative but now it seems more likely that Emilia may have influenced Russ to become a better person, or at least try to be.
The final moments of the episode add yet another twist to the season's mystery with Matty saying "I think she's back" on an encrypted phone call. Does Matty have an evil twin we didn't know about? Or is this "she" something else altogether? We'll just have to wait and see.
'MacGyve' Season 4 airs new episodes every Friday at 8/7 c exclusively on CBS.