Character
Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie is a fictional character and lead role in the American television series JAG, played by Catherine Bell. The character was created by Donald P. Bellisario, as…
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Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie is a fictional character and lead role in the American television series JAG, played by Catherine Bell. The character was created by Donald P. Bellisario, as a work for hire for Paramount Television, in the script for the first episode of the second season, which was filmed and then aired by CBS on January 3, 1997.
Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie is a fictional character and lead role in the American television series JAG, played by Catherine Bell. The character was created by Donald P. Bellisario, as a work for hire for Paramount Television, in the script for the first episode of the second season, which was filmed and then aired by CBS on January 3, 1997.
Mac is introduced as a Major in the United States Marine Corps designated as a judge advocate, assigned to the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Navy in Falls Church, Virginia, who has had to overcome many obstacles to get where she is career-wise. The viewer follows her professional career and personal life from that point as the series progresses. With the longevity of JAG, plenty of information on her past life and career is given at various points in the series. JAG ended its ten-year run on April 29, 2005.
After a nine season long will-they-won't-they relationship, Mac and the other main character, Harmon "Harm" Rabb (David James Elliott), become engaged during the show's final episode, flipping a coin to see who will resign their commission, but the outcome is not revealed at the end of the series.
A military brat born in the late 1960s, Sarah MacKenzie had a troubled childhood; her mother abandoned her and her alcoholic father on the night of Mac's 15th birthday. Her father, Joseph MacKenzie, a non-commissioned officer in the Marine Corps, was physically abusive towards her mother, and emotionally and verbally abusive to Mac. As a partial result of this, Mac became an alcoholic in her mid-to-late teens and had no contact with her mother Deanne (Conchata Ferrell) until she reappeared at her father's deathbed. She also learns at this time that her large white mutt, named Ruggles, was abandoned at a boarding house during her mother's travels after fleeing from her abusive father. She showed more sympathy for her father's efforts to be a good dad, pathetic as they were, and more anger at her mother for leaving them to fend for themselves.
Sarah MacKenzie ran away from home when she was 17 (her junior year of high school), and apparently married Christopher Ragle a year later. They were both drunk for much of their married life. He was later arrested and sent to prison for motor vehicle theft. At some point, Mac finished high school. On the night of her graduation, she was traveling in a car with her friend Eddie. They were both drunk, and were involved in a car accident that killed Eddie. Her uncle USMC Colonel Matthew O'Hara took her to Red Rock Mesa, Arizona, to dry out. Mac later repaid the debt owed to him by making sure he did not get killed during an incident where he and a group of rogue Marines hijacked a van transporting the Declaration of Independence.
After graduating from high school and then at some point earning a bachelor's degree, Sarah MacKenzie joined the Marine Corps and received her commission through Officer Candidate School.
The first known assignment for Mac in the canon was at the grade of first lieutenant at the Headquarters and Service Battalion in Okinawa, Japan, as an administrative officer under John Farrow. It was under his recommendation that Mac was sponsored by the Marine Corps to earn a law degree at Duke University School of Law.
While stationed in Okinawa, Mac engaged in an affair with her superior officer John Farrow. Unbeknownst to Mac, Christopher Ragle followed her to Okinawa and discovered the affair. She was stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina a year before the events in at the start of the second season, at some point with 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines ("Two Nine") for unknown duration, and given the time-line, was likely part of or associated with the Implementation Force (IFOR), following the 1995 Dayton Agreement.
Source: Sarah MacKenzie (CC BY-SA)
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When Christopher Ragle (Joe Lando) caught up to Mac at JAG headquarters in 1998, he attempted to use the information regarding her earlier affair with her former superior officer John Farrow (Ben Murphy) to blackmail her for money. Farrow paid Ragle the money he demanded, but Ragle threatened to kill him anyway. Mac tried to wrestle the gun out of Ragle's hand, but it accidentally went off and killed him instead.
Upon her return she was temporarily assigned many menial tasks as in the administrative law department, and was informed by Admiral Chegwidden that he had withdrawn his recommendation for an accelerated promotion. However, Mac was subsequently promoted to lieutenant colonel off-screen between the fourth and fifth seasons, after Admiral Chegwidden's renewal of his recommendation for her accelerated promotion.
Mac bears an uncanny resemblance to Lieutenant Diane Schonke, a United States Naval Academy classmate of Harm who he had been dating before she was murdered, which initially made Harm uneasy, though he soon got past it. However, Mac was unaware of the resemblance until the third season, when Harm had worked out who had really killed Schonke. Harm, Bud, and later, Sturgis Turner, who were aware of the resemblance, had never mentioned it to Mac, who only found out by finding a picture of Schonke in Harm's apartment, in an old shoebox; it was t
