Man From The Dead | Find The Lady | Brainwash | Essay In Evil
Variation on a Million Bucks | Random Pics | Fan Fiction Links

I think eventually McGill strikes me as terribly tragic, and of course that simultaneously makes me very happy and tears me apart. I watched all 30 episodes over the course of a week, and started off being completely turned off by the character and stories. McGill came across as impenetrable and cold, lifeless. But a few episodes on, and i was really starting to see what was inside. He is an odd conflict of greed and honour, having very strong personal moral codes, but a grasping desperate need to follow the money and get his pot of gold. When faced with a huge payoff, his normal sensibility can turn to rediculous risk-taking. His expulsion from the CIA (he was framed for treason, and he can't reveal the truth at risk of exposing an innocent agent in foreign climbs) seems to set off his life of betrayal. At every turn he is faced with distrustful figures, and as viewers we are often drawn in with him. In many situations i was gob-smacked to find the one character i would have had him trust was working with the enemy. In those situations, it's clear why he is so entirely impenetrable, and i wonder how on earth his heart has survived at all.

At the end of the day, all he has is his suitcase. When he loses track of it it's the first thing he thinks about, he touches it when it's returned to him - a representation of his safety and feeling of home, familiarity. It was also made clear, in one small moment, that he likes his life of running, he needs to feel free. When faced with so many potential betrayals, i suppose seeing unfamiliar faces each week is safer than seeing people you have befriended and who may turn on you at any second.

Also, he's incredibly gorgeous. C'mon, it had to come down to looks at some point, what do you expect? I'm damn surprised it took two paragraphs for me to get to it! There's not much skin-baring in the show, which isn't really important to me anyway so i don't mind, but i'm constantly aware of how incredibly pale his skin is! I want to see his shirt off just once out of mere idle curiosity. He's so white. Richard Bradford (oh, and an aside for those interested, the Texan's hair turned grey at the tender age of 16), who plays McGill, was also an apparant enthusiast of whumping and took great pains to ensure the injuries and beatings were as realistic as possible. McGill never gets up easily after being beaten over the head, there is wobbling and collapsing and very realistic recovery times and wounds. Quite often he looks like a baby deer trying to find it's feet, after being beaten. But i digress, i'm going into details, so i might as well go into specific episodes...

Man From The Dead

I was glad to be able to rewatch this, having seen the rest of the series and become thoroughly besotted with McGill's character. It is, afterall, the only episode that confronts head-on his framing by the CIA, and the reasons behind that whole charade.

He spends the episode pursuing someone (previously thought dead) that can potentially clear his name, and then at the end of the episode he is forced through circumstance to help that person escape instead. This involves a big chase through the a football stadium, and an excellent ending to the chase where McGill goes it head to head without 30 lackies. He dodges and ducks, and slowly they circle in, it's beautiful. The police come along and save his bacon, but not before he's thoroughly pummelled. There's a lovely glimpse at his spectacular whump acting, as he seems to sit up straight, and then slumps back down just as the police arrive to hoist him up. I made about ten million screen caps of that chase (no exaggeration, honestly, don't underestimate me, my PowerDVD is lying in a smoking pile in the corner of my desktop) and then realised it was almost impossible to follow him amongst all the similarly-suited figures if you hadn't watched it on video first. Ahwell. I'll just use a few then.

Looking back on the episode from the perspective of having seen the whole series and gotten a feel for the character, it's clear that is our McGill, and all the signs of his hidden traits are there... he's just on the defensive. Naturally so, as he's been banished from the CIA for six years, and only now has the whole thing come back to haunt him when a man supposed to be dead is seen alive. Faced with all his old colleagues and accusations, he's bound to be morose and protective. Also, setting the tone for the rest of the series, when he leaves the football pitch after being beaten, he tells the girl he has to go to Southampton to get his suitcase and car (the guy he helped escape has just used the car to drive there, while McGill got beaten for him). She asks if they're that important and he replies, "yes, they're all i own."

Find The Lady

And oh boy, do you ever wish he hadn't found the lady. The physical whump isn't much in this episode, but the mental anguish more than makes up for it. Firstly one of McGill's contacts (who he promised to protect) is killed after McGill fails to apprehend the bad guy. He actually cries a little at that point, in front of the french police no less.
Secondly, there's the lady. She turns up at odd times in the episode, always by chance, initially approached by McGill at the hotel bar (she said "like what you see?" which creeped me out entirely, but then turned out to not be creepy at all). After sharing a nice meal, McGill reveals his suspicions and throws her out of his room. Later apologising, he takes her into his confidence, and then risks his life to come to her rescue. To my surprise, and horror i might say, she turns on him. She ends up being the bad guys sister. At that point, when McGill tips his head with grief and turns away slightly in acknowledgment, i'm reeling as if someone's hit me. But he just carries on, and i think this is a very real reflection on how much this happens. He's been battered and betrayed so often that he's just given in to it entirely.

How he ever fully trusts anyone is beyond me, and perhaps he never really does. How on earth do you carry on when even the most convincing and warm characters turn out to be someone entirely different, someone who doesn't care shit about you and just shrugs and pulls out a pistol?

Police Inspector: "The trouble with you is, you do not trust anybody."
McGill: "And it'll be a long time until i do again."

Brainwash

Well, it seems every sixties tv series has one, and this series has one too. The obligatory brainwash episode, and of course one i was looking forward to terribly, especially considering McGill's whump-performance so far. He can rank right alongside Kelly Robinson, who also provided a great brainwashing episode in I Spy. This one takes the biscuit though, because the torture is throughout the entire episode, and is all shades of nasty. The only slight difference being that, despite bombarding him with physical torture, the baddies never break McGill. He stands sturdy through the whole thing, never bends or breaks. If anything, his moments of weakness are demonstrated through loss of control. The moments when he throws things, pounds on the wall, or tries (twice, with increasing ferocity) to strangle the girl that brings him food.

It's a great showcase for his brute animalistic strength too. When he first wakes up and finds himself in a room with barred window, an untalkative woman and a locked door, he literally throws himself at the door. Very purposefully and within two shoulder rams he has it open, and i was very convinced by the immense strength behind those rams. He's not the kind of guy you can keep caged up easily. His subsequent little joke with one of his captors is quite charming. The guy explains some small details, and asks if he needs the gun anymore. McGill says no (cap no.3 above), and then promptly whacks him and tries to escape. He doesn't make it, and gives the guy a charming guilty smile (cap no.4 above). The guy smiles back, and then punches McGill in the face. Cricking his neck and wiping his lip, McGill gives another little grin as he walks off behind the guy. Sweetheart!

The rather typical strap-him-on-a-table-and-electric-shock-him (or whatever they were doing) kinda bores me to be truthful, but there was some fantastic other whumps to substitute. For a start, the scene where they drug his food is excellent. He painstakingly has the girl test his meal before he swaps plates, puts salt all over his food and starts to eat. The second i saw him shake the salt i thought, "oh shit." It's just so beautifully unfair, and he spits it out, gets up angrily and then collapses to the floor in fine drugged-up style.
There are also some lovely moments where he nearly escapes, and one fantastic bit where races along the corridors trying all the doors with little success. The first door he tries actually has a mirror, so he is confronted by his own figure and he jumps a mile in the air - just exactly the way a cat takes off when startled. He then gives it this perfect cat look too, like 'what the hell??'. It's so supremely realistic, and something i've seen a few times with Richard Bradford, he's really great at whump and surprised reactions. Really great generally, i suppose, but those are the things you'll notice most in bad actors, so it's wonderful to see someone do them well.

One great example of the power of keeping someone in a tiny bare room, comes when they knock him out and remove the one small bed that was previously in the room for him to lie on. Somehow you'd think it wouldn't matter, but he fumes and roars "where's my bed?!" at the ceiling, enraged and upset. The one thing they had given him was taken away, and because he had so little it felt like a huge loss. It parallels his suitcase i guess, because he's so attached to it too. It's all he has, so to lose that one, old, ragged suitcase, would be to lose his entire life.

The ending makes me grin a little, as he bursts out of the building, slumps against a parked car and assures the girl he's fine, and will go get the police. So he staggers off and promptly collapses to the pavement a few metres away from a policeman. Lol, good technique. I do love the way he exits the building though, with a relief-filled gaze towards the sky.

In the end, it's fairly cool that the first thing McGill says when he meets his captor is "so, who do you want assasinated?" and despite their denials, it turns out at the end that they do actually want him to kill one of them. He got the situation bang on the money, right from the start. It's also an interesting point that throughout this episode, he smiles more than i think he has in all the other episodes combined. I say a little on it in my writing on the episode Essay In Evil, and i think this proves that it really is a front - designed to protect him and project that impression of control and superiority at a time when he is quite clearly helpless.

Variation on a Million Bucks

An interesting episode, dealing both with old friends and with a whole loada money. Somehow i feel it encompasses everything, and yet again comes across as a terribly tragic tale, especially the end. Quite apart from the angst of his friend copping it and leaving him the legacy to a million dollars (and they cast the friend really well, i was sad to see him go), McGill becomes the target of lots of others that want their greasy paws on the money. He has it hidden well, but it doesn't stop a raiding party ransacking his apartment and then catching McGill as he comes in. It's a great attack, because it's so realistically brutal. They whack him on the head, then again as he hits his knees on the floor. Once he's down they search him to make sure he doesn't have the key they need on him. I'm struck often in these scenes by how realism always gets priority over the star looking nice, and i think that's really valuable.

Once organised with a ship to Lisbon McGill finds he is surrounded by not-very-friendy sailors, and eventually gets cornered. He gives everything he gets, and the bastards don't show him actually being stabbed, it's just out of shot. He does however stagger and fall after knocking out the guy that stabbed him, and is later tended to in the Captains Office.

He's shipped off the boat in a crate, and attacked again (poor bastard, all alone and surrounded by nasty sailors determined to get anything he's got), subsequently managing to make his way to the safehouse that was organised for him. There he proceeds to stagger all over the poor womans living room until he finally collapses long enough for her to get her hands on him (no not like that, shaddup) and put him to bed (oh shaddup!). Bring on... the sweating! Hallucinations! Fevered mumblings! Right, now that's over, he can awake and don a far-too-big suit belonging to her uncle, and proceed to deposit box A to collect said million bucks. Queue more shooting, and then the cool ending.

I say cool because i love the absolutely insane desperation he shows - like he's fighting for his future, his life, his friend, his woman, for everything all at once. Having narrowly avoided being shot again, he literally races an agent (an american one, at least) to the postbox where he planned to mail the money to himself in London. The man tackles him, and they struggle for long seconds, McGill desperately trying to get the package in the postbox. It's so pointlessly desperate, the agents could easily search the postbox if McGill has managed to get it through the slot, so it was more a representational battle than anything else. And it makes sense that he fought that final battle out with a member of the agency that turned their backs on him, betrayed him.

In the end, the agency comes through and his former boss (who knows he's innocent) visits him in hospital, delivering his suitcase and also a reward he was previously offered for recovering the money.
So things went back to normal at the end, but during that terrible thrash i think McGill was playing his life out. That small fight represented the bigger one that he constantly wrestles with. Sad then, that he lost.

McGill: "You know, i killed a man."
Michaels: "Not officially."
McGill: "But he's dead anyway."

Essay In Evil

Easily my favourite episode, with a combination of excellent components. Those fantastic bug-sunglasses come out, which just look great on him, and he spends the majority of the episode tied up, pale, sweaty and being thrown around. What is there not to love?? Plus there's nothing to hate, with the angst at a minimum, so i don't get all upset for him. I just get to cackle evilly as he clocks up the whumps.

He's captured by the bad guys with a whap over the back of the head, and once he's in their hands he just keeps getting bashed around. Thrown across the floor, hands tied to his chest, jumping from the building window onto a parked car in an attempt to escape, dragged across the ground by one of his captors because he couldn't get up fast enough... it goes on and on until he's told to sit down and is left looking thoroughly bedraggled. Throughout the later scenes he's constantly blinking, clenching his eyes shut and trying to flex his neck, the bags under his eyes and pale sweat on his face all adding to the effect.

He's basically in the ideal situation, captured, completely vulnerable with his hands tied, and at their mercy. Rawr! The first cap in the top row of caps from this ep is also worth taking note of, as it's an unusual trait he shows in that scene. The guy behind him is speaking (he's flanked by two bad guys and has just motioned for them to keep their distance) and yet he turns to the guy we are behind and slowly smiles - an amused, somewhat cheeky, humorous smile. It's a strange impression... when feeling a little caged he's instinctually giving off waves and waves of bravado, communicating the impression that he's completely in control and knows he can handle whatever they can send his way. To give him credit, he has just beaten up the biggest henchmen i've ever seen, but taking on three baddies is a different thing altogether. It's just one of his fronts - a very relaxed and confident exterior, a mocking expression designed to humiliate those trying to intimidate him.

Random Pics

Hover your mouse over the image to see what episode the cap comes from.

Fan Fiction Links

I wish! I did find one chapter of a started fan fiction on fanfiction.net, which was written earlier this last year but never continued. I've contacted the author to see if any more will be forthcoming, as she writes well. If any of you know of any fic i can link to here, please get in touch. I might see about writing some missing scenes of my own too.