MacGyver (1985)

MacGyver was a 1985 - 1992 American action-adventure series that aired on the ABC television network. It starred Richard Dean Anderson as the title character, a resourceful secret agent with an uncanny ability to cobble together on-the-spot, improvised inventions using whatever parts and materials he has on hand. The series costarred Dana Elcar and Bruce McGill. A revival series, starring Lucas Till in the title role, aired on the CBS network from 2016 to 2021.

Brainwashed (Season 4, Episode 16)

A foreign president (Raymond St. Jacques) arrives in the United States to honor MacGyver and his friend Jack Dalton (McGill) with an award for their service to his country. MacGyver, however, notices that Jack is acting very strangely. Investigating further, the two find that Jack is experiencing a period of missing time, one in which he can remember being with two beautiful women but nothing else. This turns out to be a cover story meant to hide the fact that Jack had been kidnapped and brainwashed to kill the visiting president. The culprit is the country's vice president (Roger Aaron Brown), who has written Jack's trigger phrase into the text of the President's speech and who plans to take over the country in the wake of the assassination. The vice president tries to stop MacGyver by using the brainwashed Jack to kill him.

MacGyver manages to get Jack deprogrammed before the ceremony, but during the process, Jack's hazy meemories seem to indcate that he was not the only person being brainwashed that weekend. Mac then recalls an earlier conversation he had with his boss Pete (Elcar) in which the latter told him of a weekend spent all alone in the woods, fishing- some of the words Pete used to describe his vacation match the words Jack was programmed to remember as part of his cover story. Realizing that Pete is the other brainwashed assassin, Mac rushes off to save the lives of the President and his boss.

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  Jack falls into a hypnotic trance upon hearing the trigger words.

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  Jack is programmed to kill Macgyver.

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  Mesmerized, Jack points the gun at MacGyver.