| “ | MACGYVER! | „ |
| ~ Murdoc before his supposed death in each episode. |
Murdoc is the primary antagonist in the American nostalgic action-adventure TV series MacGyver. He is the arch enemy and main opponent of the protagonist MacGyver.
He is seen at least once in every season except for season 1. Murdoc is a scheming assassin and a master of disguise who is working for the HIT organisation (Homicide International Trust). He is able to imitate nearly anyone with his voice, and is known for taking pictures of his victims right before they die.
In the 1985 original series, he was portrayed by Michael Des Barres. In the 2016 reboot, he was portrayed by David Dastmalchian, who also portrayed Dwight Pollard and Thomas Schiff.
Biography[]
Years prior to the show, Murdoc had made a killing on his targets while outwitting the DXS which Peter Thornton was a member of at the time. Fate would change him when he met MacGyver while disguised as a female taxi cab passenger named Sara. MacGyver unknowing saved "her" from being caught by Thornton and the two chase "her" down. In the plains, "Sara" arranged two bazooka-using henchmen to fire and a camera showing "herself" to actually be Murdoc in disguise. Should the two make any movements, the henchmen would fire their bazookas. However, MacGyver used a cord to fool the henchmen into blowing up only the cab and they captured them.
When MacGyver and Pete headed to Dalton's underground apartment, the former activated a bomb planted by Murdoc who added the hero to his hitlist. However, Pete got MacGyver off the bed just in time. Visiting Jack Dalton in the hospital the next day, a "nurse" showed up who was actually Murdoc and tried to shoot MacGyver by surprise. He fled out of the hospital into a condemned building to be demolished. Murdoc ignored the warnings and was assumed to have been killed in the demolition.
In the main story of the episode Partners, Murdoc lays a trap for the three men who first encountered him, MacGyver, Pete and Jack Dalton involving a forged obituary. He only captured MacGyver and Pete trapping them in a broken down car and locking them in a back of a trailer truck. He surprises the two Phoenix agents with a taunting intercom call intending a horrific fate for his two adversaries.
After MacGyver and Pete think back to their first meeting with Murdoc, they are parked in a plain side with Murdoc wiring the trailer container with twelve pounds of dynamite much like the demolition of the building he managed to survive and with a seven minute timer. He also sets up his camera to capture what he would consider the greatest photo of his career. However MacGyver and Pete are barely able to get out utilizing a bomb made from an oil can and his "Sara" pantyhose. Desperate Murdoc tries to run them down with dynamite to be doubly sure. But MacGyver chucks a rock at his windshield causing him to drop the dynamite and the truck to be blown up. While the camera snaps the photos, Pete thinks Murdoc was killed in the explosion but MacGyver sees the side doors open thinking he might have escaped yet again.
In his next appearance in The Widowmaker, Murdoc has somehow survived the truck explosion with burn scars and a couple of broken bones. One night, Murdoc breaks into MacGyver's houseboat to avenge his previous defeat. With MacGyver slumped over by the death of his friend Michelle "Mike" Forrester who was killed while climbing the titular mountain, Murdoc figures his nemesis was near the Widowmaker mountain depressed and leaves a warning. He tails Nikki Carpenter's jeep and "helps" her fix it hoping she will lead him to Thornton's nearby cabin.
Sure enough, Murdoc shows up and tries to burn MacGyver with a flamethrower thus forcing him back into action by using a mattress for a heat shield. When MacGyver and Nikki try to escape they find Murdoc has shorted out the former's tires and booby trapped Nikki's with dynamite and auto-lock mechanisms. Although the two barely manage to get out, Murdoc has laid landmines to prevent them from taking the scenic road to safety. MacGyver disable the assassin's flamethrower and flees into the woods with Nikki to find a hiding place while Murdoc safely makes his way across his mines to get more gear as well as a sniper rifle.
While MacGyver attempts to send a morse code message to shopkeeper Ellard, Murdoc surprises him forcing him and Nikki to flee to the Widowmaker. At first the two hide beneath Widow Ledge despite MacGyver's claustrophobia, but Murdoc follows after using climbing gear of his own. He knocks Nikki aside leaving her to hold on for dear life, and Murdoc has the upper hand when MacGyver momentarily disorients him with Mike's former chalk bag. But Murdoc slings back and prepares to finish him off when MacGyver moves the killer's guide line into the path of the knife; Murdoc cries out to his adversary as he falls over the cliff the same one that killed Mike.
In the episode Cleo Rocks, Murdoc has survived his fall and is seemingly confined to a wheelchair adopting the name Jacques Leroux lying about the supposed car accident he wound up in. He oversees Penny Parker's rehearsals as Cleopatra for the Cleo Rocks musical play. On one rehearsal "Jacques" comes out to admonish Penny's seemingly poor performance. The theatre's owner Wintergreen warns if the play fails, the theatre will close down. After off-camera incidents where he knocked a dancer down the stairs, injuring a janitor in the furnace, "Jacques" then arranges a sign to "accidentally" collapse onto Penny.
He also leaves a warning in the form of wilted roses, as well as note saying "Murder is in the air under the temple of Ra. Death awaits on the final curtain.".
Personality[]
Murdoc is an extremely calcualting, intense, relentless, ruthless, dark, cold, ruthless, violent and murderous megalomaniacal psychopathic terrorist. His own signature for each hit is to take photographs of his victims at the brief moment of their death. MacGyver first encountered Murdoc in 1980; Murdoc was being followed by Peter Thornton, the head of the Phoenix organisation and MacGyver comes to Pete's aid. Their interaction convinces Pete to hire MacGyver to work with him at the DXS. At the end of this encounter, Murdoc had apparently been killed.
Murdoc's next appearance is seven years later; he has resurfaced to take revenge on MacGyver for foiling his plans during their first encounter. Murdoc's revenge scheme not only fails, but once again results in his apparent death. This became a recurring theme with the character: resurfacing after an apparent death, only to fail and appear to die again. This "near death" cycle occurred a total of six times throughout the series. He has survived, among other things, falling down an abandoned mine shaft, driving off a cliff in a car that exploded upon impact, having a collapsing building fall on him, being electrocuted and falling into a pool of flaming water, and falling thousands of feet off the sheer face of a mountain. His body was never found.
Murdoc always screams "MACGYVER!" at the moment of his "death", except in episode "Halloween Knights", where he and MacGyver act as allies. When Murdoc tried to retire following his repeated failures to deal with MacGyver, HIT refused to let him go, instead putting a hit out on him and eventually holding his sister hostage in an attempt to bring him in. To rescue her, Murdoc is forced to seek MacGyver's help. In this episode, it is revealed that he's terrified of snakes. One signature giveaway is his wearing a death's head ring.
He has over-the-top disguises and weapons complemented by a maniacal-smile persona that offer a touch of comic relief to the series. He gets childlike joy from taunting his victims before he kills them using elaborate traps (which MacGyver can just manage to escape).
Deaths[]
Murdoc has supposedly died several times in the series, but always comes back with even more hate for MacGyver.
- Before the series, in a flashback, Murdoc, ran into a building that was being demolished while being pursued by MacGyver. Just as he enters the building, it collapses, leaving Mac to believe that he was dead.
- In season 2, it is revealed that Murdoc somehow survived the collapsing building, and is out for revenge against MacGyver and his best friend Peter Thorton. He traps them in a tractor trailer, then puts dynamite on the bottom. Just as the dynamite is about to go off, Mac and Pete escape. Furious, Murdoc attempts to get them with his last stick of dynamite, but he takes too long, and the truck explodes.
- In season 3, he tries to burn Mac to a crisp with a flame thrower. The fight eventually leads to a cliff on a mountain the same one where Mike Forrester, MacGyver's friend was killed in the accident that traumatized MacGyver for a time. Murdoc was about to impale Mac with his knife, but Mac grabs Murdoc's rope at the last second and Murdoc cuts that instead, making him fall 500 feet.
- In season 4, Murdoc returns yet again and kidnaps a woman named Penny Parker, whom Mac thinks of as his little sister. He traps Pete in a cage above a pool of flaming water, and Mac in a holding cell with the floor slowly moving up. Mac manages to escape, free Pete and Penny, and electrocute Murdoc with a loose wire. Murdoc then falls into the pool of flaming water.
- In season 6, Murdoc causes Mac to lose his memory. Murdoc convinces a widower and her daughter that he is Macgyver, then tries to kill Mac. Mac regains his memory, then saves the woman and her daughter from the clutches of the assassin. In the final fight, Murdoc is pulled into a mine shaft by a rope and falls. While law enforcement tries to find the body, one officer tells Mac that they'll keep looking, and that no one could survive a fall like that. Mac replies coldly, "You don't know Murdoc."
- In season 7, Murdoc portrays himself as a general and allies himself with a terrorist condemned to death. Murdoc convinces the government to let him go, but the terrorrist betrays Murdoc and orders one of his soldiers to kill him. Murdoc kills the guard, and when Mac escapes the terrorrist, Murdoc tries to run him over with a jeep. Mac jumps out of the way at the last second, and jeep and assassin tumble down a cliff. At the bottom, the jeep explodes. It has been thought that Murdoc actually did die here, but Mac recieves a phone call with a mysterious person laughing evilly on the other end.
Trivia[]
- Before Murdoc was introduced, there was a similiar, albeit more grounded master-of-disguise assassin antagonist in the season 1's final episode "The Assassin". However, the character died to his own weapon and thusly was never featured again.