Ellen "Mac" MacKenzie

Ellen “Mac” MacKenzie is one of the four deuteragonists (alongside Oscar Stone, Danni Mayo and Luke Harris) of Stingers.
She served as one of the main protagonists (alongside Peter Church and Angie Piper) from season one to season five, and a mentioned character in season six.
She is portrayed by Anita Hegh.
==Early History==
Mac was born as a result of a one-night-stand between her teenage mother Eve Reisner and another man while at a party. Her mother nearly aborted her when found out she was pregnant, but decided against it at the last minute, deciding to put her up for adoption instead. Mac was later raised by a family in Sydney, and had a good childhood. Desiring to become a cop due to her adopted uncle being a police officer at one point, Mac later moves to Melbourne, and later completes a B.A. Honours in Criminology, before joining the police force.
During one of her earlier cases in Undercover, Mac became acquainted with art thief Gene Rubin, when she and Brian Gray were involved in a sting operation against him around the time that he was planning the Schnieder’s jewels heist. She went undercover as one of Rubin’s security crew for the heist. However, she soon fell in love with Rubin, and she tipped him off about the arrest, allowing him to be the only one involved in the heist to get away while the rest of his team were arrested.
==Personality==
Early on, Mac is shown to be an effective and capable unit supervisor, often briefing the unit of their intended targets, and deciding who is going undercover to investigate them. She is also shown to be quite capable in field work, being able to infiltrate her way into criminal operations, especially related to white-collar crimes, which she is more effective of detecting.
For most of season one, Mac is in a romantic relationship with Peter Church, which causes several complications as they at times clashed with one another on a professional level over Church’s actions while on assignments, as well as trying to hide their relationship from their boss, Bernie Rocca. However, Rocca later finds out and gives Mac an ultimatum; transfer out of Undercover, or break up with Church, which Mac decides to choose the latter, breaking Church’s heart. Despite this, they both still care about each other quite strongly. When it seems that Mac would be transferred to Homicide at the end of season four, Mac suggests to Church that they rekindle their relationship. However, this is rendered moot when Mac remains in Undercover, and she later finds out that Church had gotten Danni Mayo pregnant. When Mac goes on long service leave at the end of season five, Church is the only one who realizes that Mac is leaving forever, and they part ways with a hug before she leaves.
Mac often got along with her predecessor Bernie Rocca when he was in charge of the unit. As they often worked together at choosing their targets and allocating who is sent undercover. However, they had clashed several times over the handling of some of the cases, especially when Church resigns from the unit while they’re investigating the Rossi crime family. Mac would also sometimes annoy Rocca inadvertently with mafia stereotypes when investigating family-run criminal operations or drug dealers. Despite this, Mac was also supportive of Rocca in season two, when he was going through marital problems at home as a result of his wife having an affair with their children’s school headmaster.
Mac often got along with Angie Piper on both a professional and personal level. Although occasionally she would have to reprimand Angie for not following orders or acting recklessly, quite similarly to Rocca's methods of reprimanding Church for the same reasons.
==Notable storylines==
In the season three premiere "Brilliant Lies", Mac has unofficially taken over as boss of the Undercover unit following Rocca's retirement from the force at the end of the previous season, with a promotion expected for her very soon, although she tries to change the topic when Angie, Church and Stone bring it up. She and her unit are soon tasked by Brian Gray, the head of the Armed Robbery unit, to entrap a group of teenage thieves, while also protecting a ministore owner named Mr. Rafferty, who earlier chased off the thieves, earning himself recognition on the news. Mac also has to deal with sassy new operative Danni Mayo, after she initally makes a blunder that almost jepodizes the operation, before letting the thieves steal her gun and kidnap Mr. Rafferty the following day. However, Mac becomes impressed when Danni reveals that she had a backup plan, by placing her phone into the theives' van, allowing them and Church to track down the thieves, who are at this point arguing amongst themselves, allowing Mac, Danni and Church to ambush them, with Mac shooting one of the thieves in the shoulder, while Danni knocks out the second thief, rescuing Mr. Rafferty, while losing the third thief. Mac and Danni then head to the bottle shop to get some celebratory drinks, but Mac notices the third thief waiting outside, and alerts Danni about this just as they leave, waiting until the thief confronts the bottle shop owner with a needle with her blood in it. Mac and Danni take the thief down, but Mac somehow gets stabbed in the arm with the needle, prompting her to be taken to a doctor to check if the blood in the needle is comtaminated with HIV, concerned for her life and how the rest of the unit will respond, Mac asks Danni to keep this a secret. They soon make it back to the seemingly empty unit headquarters, only for the unit to surprise her with a celebration, as it's confirmed that Mac has been promoted to Detective Senior Sergeant, effectively making her the official boss of the Undercover unit. As she and the rest of the unit celebrates, Danni tells her that Dr. Gresham wants to talk to her on the phone, who tells Mac that the blood in the needle belonging to the thief was HIV-positive, and that she would have to take a test in six weeks time to find out if she herself has the disease or not, leaving her secretly shocked and devastated, although she hides it from the rest of the unit, who are still celebrating her promotion.
In the following episode "Forced Perspective", Mac begins taking medication to potentally combat the symptoms of HIV, in case Mac does potentially test positive for the disease. Danni, being the only person in the unit who knows about Mac's situation, tries to convince her to let the rest of the unit know, but Mac is reluctant to do so, as she doesn't want the unit to be forced into worrying about her. However, Angie notices Mac acting strangely when talking to her, prompting her to ask Mac what is going on with her. Mac then confesses to Angie about the HIV needle incident, devastating Angie, who is upset that Mac never told her when it happened, as she could've been able to support her. In the following episode "Which Bank?", Church becomes suspicious about Mac's trips to the medical clinic, mistakenly believing that Mac is possibly dating Dr. Grisham, but becomes horrified when Mac tells him that she may be HIV-positive, before telling the rest of the unit shortly after. In the following episodes, Mac begins to suffer from side effects from the medication that she is taking, the worst being when Mac is struck with flu-like symptoms while investigating Danni's boyfriend Paul Brawn for horse doping and match fixing, prompting Church to force Mac to rest while he and the rest of the unit follow through with the investigation. However, Mac quickly recovers, and she is present when Braun is arrested by the Gaming Squad and Danni. Mac finally has the HIV test in the episode "No Way Out", and Church later finds her outside the clinic, expecting the worst when he sees her crying in her car. However, Mac tells him that the HIV test came back negative, and that she's been given the all-clear, finally putting an end to the dilemma that Mac was facing, Mac and Church hapilly embrace each other following the revelation.
Later on in the season, Mac becomes closer to the head of the Homicide unit, Detective Inspector Bill Hollister, after Mac helps protect him during an investigation against an illegal brothel where Angie's uncle was killed at the hands of the prostitiute whom Hollister was seeing, and the two later begin a romantic relationship in the season finale, which continues on in season four. However, Hollister is later killed outside of Police HQ by a car bomb on the day that he and Mac planned to go on a holiday together, and Church informs her of his death at the airport. Mac goes to such lengths to find the people involved in Hollister’s death, and eventually, with the help from the rest of the unit as well as journalist Sean Peck, she discovers that a former friend of Hollister’s, ex-cop turned security magnate Frank Landis, was responsible for Hollister’s murder and arrests him. Mac later finds out that she was adopted, and decides to search for her birth mother, a photographer named Eve Reisner. Eventually, she manages to track her down, but it becomes complicated as Eve is hired by a criminal turned author named Roody Green, who Church is investigating while undercover. Eventually, Mac rescues Eve when she shoots and kills Green after he almost kills her.
Towards the end of season four, Mac is being considered by the Chief Commissioner to take over the Homicide unit following Hollister’s death. However, this is sabotaged in the opening episode of season five, and she remains in Undercover.
In the final episode of season five, Mac’s personal life is starting to fall apart, as she is grieving over the recent death of Oscar Stone at the hands of Kieran Frances Conrad, when she is re-acquainted with thief Gene Rubin, who immediately recognizes her as “JJ” from when he organized the Schnieder’s jewel heist while she was undercover tailing him. Mac and her unit are soon tasked by Gray to investigate Rubin as he is suspected to be planning a heist sometime soon and she goes undercover to find out what Rubin’s real intentions are. Rubin later tells her that he’s planning to rob an exhibition from Gallery 101, and asks her to join him in the heist. Mac is later visited at her house by Church, where she confesses to him that she tipped Rubin off about the Schnieder’s jewel heist years prior, and that she is scared that she can’t trust herself with Rubin as she still likes him. On the day of the planned heist, Mac is driving the car with Rubin, while Angie and Church are tailing them, when Mac suddenly speeds away from them, shaking off the trail. Mac then tries to confess to Rubin that she’s actually a cop, only to be initially horrified when Rubin tells her he already knows, then left bewildered when he explains that he’s really back to win her over. Rubin then convinces Mac to continue with the heist, and they break their way into the gallery. However, just as soon as they find the loot, Mac points her gun at Rubin, thinking that he was using her from the start to make it easier for him to pull the job off. However, Rubin firmly tells Mac that he’s genuinely in love with her, and proves it to her by abandoning the heist altogether. Mac then tells Church that she plans to take long service leave, and later says her goodbyes to Angie, Danni, and especially Church, who she gives a final hug before thanking him for everything, causing Church to realize that Mac is not coming back. Mac then heads to the docklands, where she reunites with Rubin and they happily leave town together on boat, marking the last time Mac appears in the series.
Angie and Danni later find out from Mac’s successor Luke Harris that she had resigned from both the Undercover unit and the police force entirely. And the two of them, along with Church, dedicate one last drink at their old unit headquarters to both Mac and Stone before moving to Police HQ.
== Quotes==
==Trivia == 
*Mac appeared in 110 episodes of Stingers from 1998 to 2002, before leaving in the season five finale.
*Mac is the first cop on Stingers to move up the ranks (from Detective Sergeant to Detective Senior Sergeant) before Angie Piper and Christina Dichiera.
*Mac is the fourth main character of Stingers to depart from the series, after Kaye Kelso early in season one, Bernie Rocca in season two, and Oscar Stone in the episode prior to Mac's departure, and before Danni Mayo in season six.
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