In the fourteenth and penultimate episode of the second season of Leverage, the team tries to take down a corrupt mayor, but Nate’s ongoing problems may complicate matters. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Leverage.Â
Holy shit, this show.
Eliot
I have to start this review by talking about Eliot Spencer, the retrieval specialist who hates guns and is able to take down trained professional fighters in seconds, the man who spends most of “The Three Strikes Job†FALLING IN LOVE WITH BASEBALL AND ENJOYING THE EXPERIENCE OF BECOMING A SPORTS CELEBRITY. Look, I was already done once I saw the horribly-made energy drink commercial, but then, unsurprisingly, Eliot turns out to be really good at baseball. So good that he gets fans. So good that he discards his belief that baseball is a boring game. So good that I could not handle his excitement.
Bless this episode for that and that alone.
Hardison and Lucille
Does this mean that each season is going to end with the Leverage team destroying something that Hardison has built and come to love? Last season, it was the office. (A place I do miss.) Now? When the team is forced into a tough space (mostly because of Nate, which I’ll get to), they realize that the best possible distraction they have is Lucille, Hardison’s trusty van. I imagine that the ramifications of this will appear in the next episode because… shit, y’all, the van really was an important part of their operation. And for Hardison, it’s particularly upsetting. (Nice use of yet another reference to The Wrath of Khan, too. THEY SHALL ALWAYS AND FOREVER BE FRIENDS.)
Citywide corruption
One of the things that makes this episode feel so huge in scope is the decision to focus on a case that has huge implications for Leverage team – Lt. Bonnano is an ally to them, or a pawn, depending on how you look at it – and for the city at large. Brad Culpepper’s corruption nets him a profit, and in the long run, the city of Boston loses. The hit we witness at the opening of the episode also clues us in to the other ties that Culpepper has. In fact, that’s one of the biggest things left unresolved here. Who were those other men? Were they part of some other case that Culpepper was acting informant on? And hell, that explains the twist ending: Culpepper’s work was allowing weapons to be smuggled into the United States through the waterfront.
THIS IS BAD, VERY BAD.
Nate
But holy shit, Nate messed up. Badly. His exuberance here might be well-meaning – he clearly wants to do something good – but it causes him to rush into this con when he doesn’t have all the information he needs to make a good decision. It leaves the team open and vulnerable. But it’s not just the decision to go ahead with the meeting with Culpepper once he wants to pay cash. His drinking is back, and it’s distracting him. Actually, I don’t even know if that’s the correct way to read this. It’s more than just distraction. He sees Lt. Bonnano’s son in the ICU, and it triggers memories of the loss of his son. That, combined with the drinking, combined with his general emotional state, causes him to lash out at the team when they try to do their jobs. Look, these cons and heists work well because these people question their assumptions. They question each other. They refuse to accept easy answers. So when Nate snaps at them for picking apart this potential case, it’s disturbing.
We see the same thing in that moment when the team doesn’t want to go after Culpepper once he’s converted to cash. It really was a bad move, one that made the con a whole lot harder than it needed to be. Of course, it was easy for me to say that because the audience knew that there were other factors at play. Still, this is not what Nate is normally like. He runs this group because he’s supposed to be able to see the big picture. He’s the one who is supposed to be the least involved, the most detached, and the most in control. And none of that is present here by the time this episode ends. It’s just a mess, and a scary one. HAS THERE EVER BEEN A MOMENT MORE TERRIFYING (so far, oh god it’s gonna get worse isn’t it) THAN SEEING ALL THOSE LAW ENFORCEMENT DOTS ON HARDISON’S MAP HEAD STRAIGHT FOR THAT WAREHOUSE? How the hell were they going to con possibly hundreds of federal and state and local agents?
Of course, this is the Leverage team, and they come up with shit on the fly all the time. But it’s about risk. These cons have to have an exit so that the team comes out unscathed. How? How do they do that now that Culpepper has not only seen Tara and Nate’s faces, but he’s actually an informant? Oh, right, AND STERLING IS INVOLVED. This is a disaster, and I’m scared for the next episode.
The video for “The Three Strikes Job†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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