Letizia Morelli

**Letizia “Letty” Giuseppina Giulia Morelli** is an agent of **The Phoenix Foundation** and is a part of MacGyver’s team as the expert in all things medical.

## Early Life

Letty was born on May 31, 1991. According to Letty, her mother died from Eclampsia while giving birth to her and her brother, leaving her and her brother to be raised by her Italian grandmother, Chiara.

Her grandfather died when she was seven and she absolutely adored him. Letty told MacGyver how her grandfather would sit her on his lap and tell her stories. They bonded over medical science questions and he always called her his *"passerotta" (little sparrow)*. She also told MacGyver that she decided to become a medic since he died from a heart attack and she couldn’t save him. Mac ends up gifting her a necklace with a sparrow charm on it which she continually wears from then on.

She started college at UCLA, but dropped out after a few months to join the military to help soldiers medically in the field. She was deployed to Afghanistan and served there for three years, during which time she met and befriended a brash Delta sniper named Jack Dalton and an EOD Tech named Angus MacGyver. Sometime during her deployment in Afghanistan, an IED went off next to her and destroyed some of the hearing in her ears.

When Letty was medically discharged she was soon recruited by the ultra-secret DXS. DXS soon partnered her with Angus MacGyver and Jack Dalton, the latter of whom had originally joined the CIA for a short stint before being transferred, and the three worked together for another three years before the events of *The Rising*.

## Personality

Out of the Morelli twins, Letty is shown to be the more serious one which often has people forgetting that she is the younger twin.

Her seriousness is usually swept away with people she considers friends and are comfortable around. She’s also shown to be quite intuitive as she deciphered Mac and Desi’s flirting for what it was.

Though known to have a temper, the team constantly marvels at the fact that she’s able to keep her emotions in check while in the field and even sometimes in her personal life such as everyone noting that she never let her feelings for Mac affect her performance in the field or affect Mac’s relationship with Desi.

Despite the obvious animosity towards her brother, she’s clearly shown that she cares about him. She tells Mac that their strained relationship stems from their grandmother comparing their accomplishments, their grandmother clearly favoring Lore over her.

In *Bravo Lead + Loyalty + Friendship*, after being confronted by Mac for being cold towards him, she admits that she was mad at Mac for leaving without saying anything and no intention of coming back. She tells him that for so long all she had was him and Jack and she hated the thought of missing him and *"being abandoned"* by him.

## Relationships

### Romance

#### **Angus MacGyver**

***Main article: Mac and Letty***
Letty met MacGyver when she was assigned to be a part of Jack and MacGyver’s team in Afghanistan. Later, it was revealed that their partnerships weren’t random and in fact was staged by James MacGyver to bring them all together. She has been in love with Mac since they were partnered in Afghanistan though he didn’t know it. She considers him and Jack to be her best friends and has admitted that she was never really good at making friends when she was growing up.

     MacGyver is the one person whom Letty ever seems comfortable enough to open up to as Mac was the first to hear more in-depth about her home life in *In-House Specialist + Nonna* and *Newport + Beach*. It's implied that MacGyver may have some unrecognized feelings for her. In *Newport + Beach*, Mac buys her a Sparrow necklace as a gift.

#### **Elliot Adams**

Letty had a brief relationship with Elliot all throughout season 3. The two seemingly met at a coffee shop and hit it off right away. They were seen out many times—a lot of those moments being interrupted with Letty being called away for a mission. He never finds out what Letty actually does but seems a little okay with her having to constantly be called away. They break up when Letty is unable to tell him that she doesn't have feelings for Mac. In season 5 it seems that they talk on occasion.

#### **Nico Esposito**

Nico Esposito is an old high school friend of Letty's. They reunite in *Newport + Beach* and they stay in contact with each other throughout the series. It is heavily implied that he has a crush on her and has had a crush on her for a long time.

### Friends

#### **Jack Dalton**

Letty had met Jack when she was assigned to be a part of Jack and MacGyver’s team in Afghanistan. Later, it was revealed that their partnerships weren’t random and in fact was staged by James MacGyver to bring them all together. She considers him and Mac to be her best friends and sees Jack as sort of a father figure that she never had growing up.

#### **Riley Davis**

Unlike most of the newer team members, Letty really hit it off with Riley right from the start. Both girls are seen as a safe haven to each other, among the testosterone of their team. The girls often hang out together, having "girl nights" that both Leanna and Desi have been a part of at one point or another.

#### **Desi Nguyen**

Letty was at first apprehensive to Desi "intruding" on her Phoenix Family, but she started treating her as if she was part of the team pretty early on. Things were strained between the two after Desi and MacGyver started dating, but Letty always shook off her jealousy about it and tried to be her friend.

### Family

#### **Lore Morelli**

Lore and Letty were said to be pretty close as kids, but as the two became adults there was some animosity towards each other which wasn’t helped by their grandmother comparing their accomplishments. However, Letty is one of the only people who knows Lore the best (as said by Lore himself). The twins more recently have been shown to grow closer, even going so far as having seemingly mental conversations with each other.

#### **Chiara Morelli**

Chiara is Letty's maternal grandmother who's originally from Italy. We learn that as of *Scissors*, she hadn't spoken to any family for almost six years since she joined the Army. When we meet her in *In-House Specialist + Nonna* we learn that the reason was because Letty felt resentful for the way her grandmother played favorites between her and her brother.

#### **Anthony Morelli**

Anthony is Letty's maternal grandfather who met her grandmother while stationed in Italy. He was Italian-American and moved to the US with his wife before his daughter, Mirabella, was born. According to Letty, her and her grandfather shared a love of medical science as her grandfather was a medical officer in the military. He died when she seven and she took it pretty hard. It was discovering him dead from a heart attack that eventually led to her trying to develop a way to help heart attack victims. This eventually led to Experiment Sparrow, the developmental drug she started in high school that she never finished.

## Skills

* **Expert Marksman:** Because of her time in the army, Letty is shown to have great aim with rifles and handguns.
* **Expert Hand-to-hand combatant:** After her training in the army, she became skilled at hand-to-hand combatant, able to hold her own against trained soldiers and use almost anything around her for defense.
* **Expert Medical Technician:** With her experience as a field medic, she is able to expertly analyze and treat any wounds using objects to her disposal. After *Bullet + Pen*, she carries a medical bag with her at all times.
* **Behavioral and Body Language Expert:** Because of her partial deafness, Letty is able to read and analyze body language, essentially reading other people’s behavior and having the ability to know people’s “tells” when they lie.
* **Multilingual:** Can understand and speak Italian, Spanish, Catalan, French and limited conversational Portuguese. She also is fluent in American Sign Language.

## Notes

* She and her brother are the fourth youngest members of The Team.
* She spent summers in Italy growing up.
* Both she and her brother's favorite dishes and drinks are Italian ones:
	+ Arancini is her favorite dish
	+ Bellini is her favorite drink
* She lost most of her hearing in an IED explosion in Afghanistan
* She is half Mexican.
* Her undercover identity is the Medical Science Expert at the Think Tank
* Before being gifted a portable medical kit by Mac, she carried an IV starter kit in her bag on missions
* She knows the blood type of every member of the team.
* Mac helped build her high tech hearing aids
* Her and her brother’s blood type is A Negative
* She and her brother sometimes go into fits of rages in Italian
* She was a softball player
* She has Moderate deafness or moderate hearing impairment which means that she can only detect sounds between 40 and 69 dB and following a conversation using hearing alone is very difficult for her without using a hearing aid.
* Jack is the only person who knows that Letty has had a thing for Mac since the army.
	+ Riley, Lore and Bozer find out about Letty’s crush later
* Her Phoenix code name is “68 Whiskey” which is what Jack and Mac used to call her when they all were in Afghanistan together
	+ 68 Whiskey is how many pronounce 68W (using the NATO phonetic alphabet) and they are the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) for the United States Army's healthcare specialist, also known as a combat medic.
* She is never referred to by anyone other than her grandmother by her whole first name but many members of the team have called her by different nicknames—most notably “Letty”
	+ Jack and Mac have been the only two to refer to her as Letts
	+ Lore and Emmy are the only two to refer to her as Zia
* As a combat medic, Letty held the rank of Specialist in the Army.
* She can drive a manual transmission car and is an expert at driving in Italy
	+ She mentioned that her grandmother wanted her to know how to drive on a manual transmission because it was the “proper way”
* Letty gave everyone a “name sign”
	+ Her own is the sign for medicine with an L
	+ Lore’s is the sign for learn with an L
	+ MacGyver is the sign for make with his initials AM
	+ Jack’s is the letter J then the sign for gun
	+ Matty’s is the sign for boss with the letter m
	+ Desi’s is the sign for brave with a d
	+ Riley’s is the sign for computer with the letter r
	+ Chiara’s is the sign for grandma with a c
	+ Emmy’s is art with an e
* Letty's astrological sign is Gemini

## Quotes

### Said by Letty

* "Yes I'm using a gun, Bozer! There's a man trying to kill us, so I'm using a gun!" - Letty to Bozer
* "I turned off my ears, because, frankly, I don't believe you're worth listening to."

### Said About Letty

* "Letty is a lot of things, but she would never wreck someone’s relationship for her own benefit. In fact, she can be the best friend and ally to you, if you gave her the chance. You’ll never meet anyone more loyal and caring as a friend than her.” - Emmy to Desi

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 In-House Specialist + Nonna
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Newport + Beach
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 The Rising
4. ↑ It’s implied this stems from the harshness of her childhood
5. ↑ *MacGyver + MacGyver*
6. ↑ However she is shown to have two friends she knew while growing up, Emmy Ricci and Nico Esposito
7. ↑ She even told Jack when he asked about it that "Mac can take care of himself" and that Mac didn't owe her anything just because she had loved him for a long time
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Duct Tape + Jack
9. ↑ Hole Puncher
10. ↑ Ruler
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Italy + Relationships + Lore + Letty
12. ↑ Mac + Jack
13. ↑ https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/zodiac-signs/gemini/
14. ↑ https://www.astrology-zodiac-signs.com/woman/gemini/
15. ↑ Corkscrew