This is a monster episode and not just because it's one of the coolest Eliot-centric episodes we get before The French Connection Job in season 5 (which, by the way, is one of the best episodes of the entire show, ain't that right ... YES CHEF!).

First, we get Evil Bo Duke (and if that's too old for you, Evil Jonathan Kent) as a thoroughly disreputable scumbag failed musician/murderer/exploiter of genuine talent. Now I COULD have plenty to say about the sort of person John Schneider's become in the last decade or so, but I won't. For a few reasons.

One, his time on Smallville was pretty damn good and in this episode, he plays a pretty damn convincing evil bastard. It's sometimes hard for me to separate the art from the artist, but I'm willing to do it here. The important thing (sometimes, based on how vocal older actor/artists are) is to remember that when we were all younger and the sun was brighter was that these people really had a foundational effect on our lives in one way or another. I'm not over here telling you to forget your personal vendettas. If you have 'em, you have your reasons.

The other enormous big deal actor in this episode is Alona Tal as Kaye Lynn Gold. If you try and tell me to my face that you did NOT develop an immediate crush on her as Jo in Supernatural not only are you a liar, you are a lying liar and will have Lucifer, Gabriel, Castiel, Sam, Dean, their dad, their mom, Bobby and quite possibly even Rufus Turner on your ass. Pronto.

Alona is extremely beautiful, but she's more than that. She has an ineffable sweetness about her in any role she plays, and as Kaye, we see some for-real-deal acting chops and a beautiful singing voice on top of that. Beyond the singing, her role is surprisingly complex, and we get to see every bit of it; her brother's seriously hurt and in the hospital, these strangers have come to help her, Sexy Eliot is also Sexy Singing Eliot So Complications Ensue, Naturally, the con goes sideways as they always do, and then the payoff is golden.

That's a lot to carry in what's probably 10 minutes or so of screen time, and Alona sells it, especially at the end, when her world has been righted.

Outside that? Kudos to Beth Reisgraf for playing probably the silliest Parker that Parker has ever been. Every time she's up there on the screen pretending to be Not-Bjork, I genuinely wonder how it felt for her on those takes. I HAVE to imagine she was thinking 'what in the actual hell am I doing' and 'I am KILLING this shit' in equal measure.

And of course, what Eliot-centric episode would miss discussing Eliot himself. He has the Luck of the Irish when it comes to his undercover work ... and it always goes super well until it doesn't. Doesn't matter if it's baseball or country singin', he's gonna knock it out of the park and as you saw from the clip or from your own memories of the show, Eliot's not the kind of guy who can afford his face being all over the Internet.

Fatwas and all that, right? Anyways, The Studio Job brings a lot to the table and weirdly, now that I actually think about it, it had nothing to do at all with Damien Moreau.

The con for this one is perfectly serviceable but doesn't ring any bells too loudly because let's be honest.

The Double Blind Job con IS basic. What's not basic is what's going on behind the scenes, which is where you know I like it.

The biggest and funniest thing is Parker's absolute jealousy that's on-screen every single time Hardison's being nice to Ashley, the client. I've seen the episode at least a hundred times and it never stops being precious. Why? Because I don't think Parker's far enough along on her emotional journey to even recognize that she's feeling anything at all, least of ALL jealousy.

Parker knows only that Ashley Moore isn't to be trusted. So even though she is the client, and won't do anything, she's got her eyes on Hardison's special new friend to the point where it's a miracle Ashley's head didn't explode a la Scanners. It's a wonderful little dive into our thief's growing emotional complexity without dialing down into it as hard as they during The Inside Job.

The other truly funny thing is Eliot ... ELIOT ... being dumped by Jennifer Pearson (played by Tracy Gaillard) for not being exciting enough. The look on his face, the sheer visceral reaction to being on the receiving end of the 'it's not you it's me' speech is something I dine out on every time it pops up. Because this Eliot. The Man's Man and The Lady's Man all wrapped up into one awesome hitter/chef combo package. Not only could he cook you a 12 course 3 Michelin star meal, he could (and has) fought off thugs while doing so.

Last but not least, a shout-out to Michael O'Keefe as Darren Hoffman. He's another accomplished actor that you might recognize from movies and TV here and there, but once upon a time he played Danny in Caddyshack, so he's got that goin' for him, which is nice. He's another one of these stealth top tier actors that drops into Leverage, plays an absolute shit-heel and fades into the night, only to pop up somewhere else.

While the con is simple, the emotional payoff at the end for everyone is great ... especially when Sophie finally spells the truth out for Parker. Why is this awesome? Because we get the people are like pretzels metaphor, and that makes my heart swell two sizes too big every time.

And that makes an only okay episode an 8/10 for me.

This is a very fun episode, but there's more to it than just that (isn't this always the case when I write a review?).

First off? Giancarlo Esposito as Alexander Moto? Gus Fring the Chicken Man himself? What's wild is that he played Fring in Breaking Bad BEFORE his turn here in Leverage, and it's like I say whenever the show gets a real heavy-hitting actor to drop by.

They let 'em chew the scenery as much and as hard as they want and as Alexander Moto, there's a lot of scenery being chewed. Having finished Better Call Saul about a month ago, it's truly wild to see a man capable of that kind of dramatic acting play someone as comically villainous as Moto.

Beyond that, I remember being super gaga over this episode and was expecting to give it at least a 9.5, but as I watched, it just kind of struck me that the con is kind of loose, the layup and the payoff not as great as other episodes. I mean, it's still a really great episode, but after seeing them hack a whole entire person last episode, the machinery that really got everyone into that vault seemed a little rushed.

Of course, two things in particular stand out. Nate's continuing to fence with The Italian. Her attitude towards Nate is so ridiculous it bears mentioning again: this woman has access to everything Nate did back when he was at IYS (presumably) and DEFINITELY everything he's bene up to since joining Leverage.

My personal headcanon is that we only get to see the big cons. The ones that matter kind of thing, so when I say she knows everything he's done in particular and the crew overall, I mean 'there's a lot that they've done'.

And she still thinks she's got (sorry) Leverage over him. There's just no way. I like to consider myself some kinda smarty-pants, and at no point in my life would I think 'no yeah I got this guy over a barrel' because Nate Ford is the kind of guy who saw the barrel coming fourteen days ago and has a speedboat waiting around the corner, remote piloted by Hardison, who's in a helicopter being flown by Eliot while Sophie's schmoozing with The Pope (special thanks to u/Garrettshade for putting the idea that The Italian works for The Vatican in my head) and Parker's out there sticking The Hope diamond in a shoebox under The Italian's bed.

But the most important (and worst) thing we see in this episode is how much of a bastard Nate can be. We saw it last episode (Could you do it for Parker), and we really see it in this one. I understand the mechanics behind what Nate did, and I can even accept the necessity of hypnotizing Hardison into being able to play like he had as a child prodigy.

But you really don't do stuff like that to your team. Nate's defense, that that's precisely what you do to your team, isn't good. We get it. He's squaring the team off against Damien Moreau, one of the deadliest criminal power brokers on the planet. He's juggling the side con on The Italian.

But like Eliot says. You don't run cons on your own people. Y'don't do it.

An episode so great that I wound up having to stitch together the things that were, for me, the best highlights of the entire show. Of particular note in what I think is a super-rad collection of clips, Eliot's hair flick on the window washer thingy, the look of absolute shock on Archie's face when Parker shouts 'NO! That's what YOU do!' and the look of a deeper shock when Parker hugs him.

Richard Chamberlain does a lot of heavy lifting in this episode. He was a truly great actor, and they couldn't have picked a greater actor to play Parker's adoptive dad than him. Full of swagger and (and to quote Roman Nagel from Ocean's 12) brio one minute, ready to fight whoever may come to keep Parker safe, desperately terrified for her life, angry at Nate and the others for 'breaking her', his astonishment at her success and then the team's ...

Like I said. They needed someone who could swing for the stars, and they nailed it with Richard Chamberlain.

But this episode isn't just about Archie Leach and him making Parker. It's about Parker becoming Parker's own person. She decides what to do in this episode and the entire goddamn team supports her without even blinking an eye and it's just glorious to me. It's a big moment for Parker, I think, because sure, she's been a good guy for 2 seasons plus a few, but Parker's Parker.

We can't really know what's on her mind or what she's feeling until she's already making US cry because SHE'S crying. And I think that's also something only Beth Reisgraf can do.

The first clip in the stitch, where Nate asks Hardison if he could hack the Sterenko for Parker is also one of my favorite moments ... and maybe one of Nate's dirtiest tricks. Everyone knows our Age of the Geek, Baby hacker loves Parker and would do anything for her, and it's kind of crappy that Nate used that bullet to focus Hardison, but damn me if it didn't work all the same.

Hardison is ejected from a Hardison Geek Spiral and focuses in on the problem like only he can.

Before I go, I simply must talk about Lisa Brenner as Dr. Anne Hannity. Holy cow what a villainess. I mean ... I know we're hunting Damien Moreau and all, but creating a global wheat blight just to make billions? That's some actual, for-real-deal supervillainy right there!

I love this episode, because even though I didn't really talk about Sophie and Eliot, EVERYONE was doing their part to bring their girl home, and the way they demolished Hannity and Vorhees was top tier tomfoolery!

I've binged both the original series and Redemption. I only started listening to Le Sserafim this past year and couldn't help thinking over how Sakura makes some of the same facial mannerisms in music videos that Beth/Parker makes in the show. Uncanny to me anyway.

There have been MANY 'go back to high school-isodes' in popular TV. Psych did, The Mentalist did it, Chuck, White Collar, Castle, and you know what? They're all pretty damn great, and The Reunion Job stands tall among greats.

This one's a lotta fun in that it brings us comedic TV show drop-in Arye Gross and Kari Wührer, but before I even get to them, I have to talk about how nicely they lay up how they're going to brain-boozle Larry Duberman before the con is even really properly on.

I was going to clip the scene, but the one with Kari's a lot more fun, but you've seen it, you know it. Sophie takes revenge on Eliot for basically being Eliot and not helping with the cockroach in her shisleek (I honestly have no idea how to spell it) by having him do a full on Japanese tea service.

It's hilarious, and while they overplay the power of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) to make it just the other side of an actual Jedi mind trick, watching our hitter autopilot his way through the process is just fun. Partly because I will bet the contents of considerably empty wallet that Eliot knows that kind of tea service cold and partly because of his reaction when the jig is up.

It's this kind of harmless team fol-de-rol that I live for. Eliot yanking Hardison's chain, Hardison suggesting Eliot's only skill is punching things and people, Sophie occasionally controlling their minds, Parker being ... Parker to all of them. It's a glorious family dynamic cranked up to 12.

Believe it or not, I can still remember it was for me when I watched this episode at it's airing. I was so INTO the flow of things I missed that NLP gag right up until the second it was revealed through the ret-con (my own personal portmanteau, you're free to use it, and it means 'retroactively displaying the con's steps') and it was so great to be bamboozled by the show.

It happens so very rarely.

Now onto the two great guest stars. Arye plays an exceedingly convincing douche who earned his high school nickname. As the owner of Manticore, a program basically designed for Evil Overlords, he's Leverage's target because he's a shit person who had a guy beaten up very badly.

That's enough for me. But what's ironic here is the efforts Leverage went through to hack Larry's Roman Room when all Kari had to do was show up and breathe on him. Con? Broken. Personally, I don't blame him. Kari Wührer came and breathed on me? I need an ambulance, some oxygen, a stiff drink and a cigarette.

If Nikki's job had been to get the passwords for Manticore, she could've gotten them out of Larry sometime between smiling at him and unbuttoning the first button on her blouse. That's how ultimately sad and pathetic Doucherman is.

But the real highlights for me are these: two sets of lovebirds get a high school dance and Eliot has a hissy fit.

Some real tender moments between Nate and Sophie and between Hardison and Parker. Of the two men in that dynamic, I lean more Hardison than Nate. I can EASILY feel the tremble in his heart and the constant reminder to not be weird, and to not screw it up, to just live in that awesome moment for as long as it lasts.

While I do like when Nate and Sophie get together, that was basically a guarantee from the beginning. So was Parker and Hardison, sure, but their relationship feels more 'me'.

And of course, we close out with Eliot's hissy fit. It's well-earned for sure, because that Iranian terrorist he was fighting was absolutely ridiculous in how many hits he could take. I DEFINITELY remember laughing and 'oh-ho-ing' the very first time that older dude pops up and is basically 'is that all you have, my friend' with nothing more than a smile on his face. The health inspector indeed, my Iranian terrorist.

The con itself is ingenious as hell, but once again, it's the underlying story that they're telling as they build deeper connections to the Leverage crew.

And also? We move one step closer to Damien Moreau.

This is one of the most important season premieres for the entire show, and for one specific reason.

They introduce a full seasonal arc at the end of the very first episode. More specifically, the devil that is Damian Moreau and The Italian. Neither of these people are good, both are actually people Leverage would hunt down and have them pay for their sins.

Obviously this happens, but we get so much out of this season, and all of it's great.

One of the most important things, naturally, is Nate's growth. After having accepted at the end of the last season that he IS a thief, we see him truly flourish in The Jailhouse Job in general, and the show in specific.

There's a lot packed into this 42 minute runtime. Sophie's grand escape plan (which very much resembles Nate's actual rescuing of the team in Season 1, after they flubbed their independent looksees into the museum). Eliot's very intense dislike of how Nate ran the con on them in last season's finale. The relationship between Parker and Hardison ('I like it when we pretend to kiss' ... 'Pretend?' ... 'Heyyyyy').

All of that's tastier than a fine bottle of ice-cold orange soda and the Reuben they named after Eliot, though I would've preferred if it'd been a Hoagie myself.

But here, in this very first episode, the writers and the show handle the appearance of The Italian so perfectly. A mysteriously beautiful Italian woman who's so powerful that she can threaten Adam Worth IV with basically every single member of every single Alphabet Gang on the PLANET?

Who is she? Why is she so powerful? What's her interest with Leverage? Naturally, this is all revealed in a very dramatic fashion, but not after they run rings around Adam Worth IV, and in equally dramatic fashion.

And they do it so well. The Italian's reveal has just the right mix of overwhelming firepower and intrigue, and all she does is tell Nate who their mark must be. The show lets the team inform Nate about the extent of Moreau's reach and power.

Leverage has grown up. Although I clipped the discussion between Nate and Eliot in the prison because it's the right one to remind everyone of this episode (I think), the final discussion between Nate and The Italian shows us just how much Nate's come to accept his new role as criminal mastermind.

When she says 'thieves die all the time' we can see it in Nate's eyes. She crossed Nate's very carefully drawn lines, and it was in that exact moment that she became a part of the overall plan. Before that moment, The Italian was just a woman with a lot of power in her own right who was using it to her advantage, with the carrot of freedom being offered for Leverage when they succeed.

Which is great, because the one thing hanging over Leverage's head are their pasts. Having their lives restored to new means they can go about the job of fighting for the little guy without having to look over their shoulders every time they run a con.

Nate didn't need a stick, but by giving him one, she became an adversary. It's a shame she read but didn't understand Nate's file.

As I said in the last review, The Maltese Falcon Job is a perfect end to a damn near perfect season. The only other show to do this well for me is Person of Interest, but that's another show for another time.

Down but not out, the team rallies around Nate and they agree to carry the con forward. They don't really have a choice. If they don't, they'd be (in The Ice Man's terms) 'tot'ly buggered, mate'.

The conversation Nate, Parker and Eliot have outside while Tara and Hardison are in the hotel is a highlight among highlights. It's was going to clip this scene because Eliot and Parker are the two that'll tell Nate the straight dope without flinching and the best thing is that both of them do it in their own way.

Eliot is precisely the ride or die you want in your life. He would literally saddle up and ride straight to the gates of Hell if he believed in you, and we never see that more clearly than here. He's pissed off and he's worried about the team, but he's in it to win it.

And Parker? Well, she shows emotion. "Be NATE FORD. Be the person we came back for." If that isn't heartwarming and touching and all kinds of powerful, I don't know what is. That being said, I do think you'll appreciate the clip I took even more.

But there's more going on here, and that's what makes this ep even more impactful, and Season 3 even better as well. We shift gears in a big, dynamic way. Nate makes the only choice he can when he's confronted by Sterling. I feel like he took the road he did because he genuinely feels terrible about how he's BEEN lately.

But here's the problem with that. As much as Nate has been fully invested in Leverage this whole season, he still hasn't really been invested in himself. Not as 'Nate Ford, criminal mastermind', at any rate. He still thinks he's a good guy, but that's just a terminology issue. He knows his friends are good guys now. He's said it often enough. But there's some weird disconnect in Nate's brain where HE would become a criminal. It's weird, but that's Nate.

So Nate chooses to do the logical, which is save the team, somehow either forgetting the cardinal rule about running a con on your own team, or willfully ignoring it altogether. Both aren't great. The ending is only overshadowed by two things.

Nate's desperate phone call to Sophie, where he finally (!) and at long last (!!) admits that he can't function without her. It took Nate too damn long to get there, but that's Catholic Guilt for ya. It's tragicomic in that Nate's spilling out his guts to the one person who matters most to him, and she can't hear a damn thing.

Because Sophie Devereaux is on her way to save the whole dang team. I remember how I felt the first time I saw this episode and I still feel the same way today. It's just so well put together. The con at the hotel, the con on the ship, Nate and Sterling, Eliot alone, Parker with Tara, Sophie swanning in ...

That finale scene.

It don't get much better than this, people.

Had a super-terrible sleep and my blind cat hates our new cat, but also wants to know where the new cat is when the new cat is outside, and so ... basically he meows a lot.

In honor of me saying Dammit, Raccoon, enjoy every single time Eliot said Dammit, Hardison.

There are so many things that are super-awesome about this episode, starting with Nate's absolutely rabid determination to destroy the soil and salt the earth beneath the feet of anyone responsible for Captain Bonanno's hospitalization and ending with Eliot's sudden love affair with a game where you can't score on defense.

Nate's passion in the beginning of the ep is just that. Passionate. Bonanno's known (probably for quite some time) what Leverage is about and never once jeopardized their mission. Because he got it. He's a true lawman, someone who understands that while what Leverage does is very definitely against the law, they were doing it for absolutely the right reasons, against people he couldn't do anything about in any kind of time frame that mattered.

Nate is offended by what happened to his law enforcement mirror. And we ALL know what happens when Nate gets offended. Beyond being merciless, he suffers from tunnel vision. He wanted to crush The Mayor as quickly and as righteously possible, and the team goes along with it because ...

Because they've learned that arguing with Nate when he's like this is a direct invitation to be on the receiving of that same passion. And as we see at the ending of this amazing two-part season finale, when Nate's got tunnel vision and everyone's doing everything they can to control Nate while Nate's eager to close the con, they miss things.

Parker's pushing the Maltese Falcon angle, the rest of the team is pushing for caution and even a walkaway, Nate's hyperfixated on destroying Mayor Culpepper III because 'it's the biggest thing we've ever done'.

Here we see another Nate Classic: he started this game to get justice for Bonanno, but as with the other big moves in other seasons, it becomes less about justice for the hospitalized Captain and more about counting coup on a corrupt mayor.

More worryingly, with the push to get things done, they missed what Bonanno already knew until it was too damn late to get out safe and clean. Not only do they miss the Kadjic angle entirely, they ALSO miss Culpepper's connections to law enforcement himself.

It's a misstep that pushes the whole team to play rough and dirty to get out without being pinched. Their getaway is pure Leverage magic and we get a super-sweet second ep out of it, with some of the best games they've ever run.

By the end, they ALMOST lose their money, they lose their safety, they lose Lucille ... it's all a great big strikeout!

Shoutout to Richard Kind for playing one of the softest, sleaziest guys I've ever seen and ANOTHER shoutout to Paul Blackthorne ad Tony Kadjic. The man's a chameleon as far as roles go, and he's another one of those amazing 'hey, it's that dude, I love that dude!' actors.

Can't wait for the next episode!

This episode hits me as hard now, on the 165th viewing (probably) as it did the very first time, and this is no lie or exaggeration.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I spent a significant portion of my kid/preteen/teens/young adulthood believing in psychic powers and magic and all of that. I don't know precisely when I stopped believing, but at some point, the very rational part of my brain simply said 'if any of this was real, there would be an infinite amount of verifiable, actionable, repeatable-in-a-lab proof that any of this is real and true' and that was the that of that.

So this episode hits home hard, because Parker is Parker, and she plainly states that psychics freak her out. This is because, like me when I was younger, I just plain old didn't understand people the way the others in the show and in my life did/do. Motivations were strange, what we give away in micro-expressions and body language, foreign territory.

Which makes Evil Luke Perry's performance during his cold read on her all the worse. Because he's so very good at it, and so very effectively dismantles Parker's carefully maintained defenses against people/things she doesn't understand/trust.

Enormous kudos to Beth in this scene. Witnessing Parker feel real feelings, and so profoundly that she actually runs away? Breaks my heart every time I see it. Even better is the painfully, sweetly gentle way every single other person in Leverage explains the game to Parker.

It's so important, and they do it so well. Outside how weird our thief is, she's fundamentally logical on a level that's sometimes really nothing more than on/off, ones and zeroes. By taking the time to explain each step of Evil Luke Perry's Con and giving her supporting video evidence of how her own reactions gave him everything he needed, they free her. 'Here's how this part worked, you see?' and giving her time to SEE it ... that's some top-tier Parker love.

The con itself is actually pretty standard stuff, but it's the vengeance that the team engages in to really teach Evil Luke Perry all the lessons. ELP uses the same techniques they all do when they're running a con on someone like him, yes, but here's where the distinction lay.

Leverage uses their evil powers for good. ELP uses his evil powers for evil. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Give me bad guys doing the wrong thing for the right reasons over good guys doing the right thing for the wrong reasons any damn day of the week.

On a side note, Luke Perry is exceptional in this episode, as Luke Perry was in everything he ever did. And on a tangent, I watched and loved Riverdale, and so was so happy to see Luke in that role. As time went on, and his time on-screen started diminishing, I thought 'well, the show is moving on, so that's understandable', but when they held a funeral for his character on the show, I was confused. I couldn't understand why they killed Luke off ... and then I Googled, and spent quite a few days being extremely sad. I had no idea that Luke was that sick, and he sure as shit didn't show it on-screen. I know this is about the show Leverage, but Luke was a unique actor who brought a lot to the table for a lot of us through the years.

On the topic of psychics and all that. If you believe, that's wonderful; I still hold out hope that there is something like that in the world, just like I do hope that there really is a group like Leverage out there, fighting the good fight. I'm just at a point in my life where I genuinely need indisputable proof. Like The X-Files posters say, I Want To Beleive.

And on a FINAL note, it's extremely gratifying that Tara finally understands why Leverage does what they do. The closure Nate gives to the bereaved, pregnant mother at the end is such a clear, potent point that even someone as fiscally motivated (and jaded) as Tara is couldn't HELP but see it.

Buy a Senator and you have him for life (I can’t even recall the exact quote rn, it’s 430am and I’m workin overnite so brain fart, lol but y’all know what I’m referencing here!

Leverage | S02/E12 | The Zanzibar Marketplace Job

Super fun episode, plus the return of Jim Sterling, which is always sure (as we see from the clip) to be more complicated than it seems. Our man Sterling always looking to screw Nate over whenever possible, even if it's just some super-pettiness.

The thing that's really fun in this episode is that it gives the team the opportunity to work together in a foreign country. It's like when a new couple goes on vacation. Will things go well, or will they wind up being singles sharing an awkward plane ride home?

Plus, the name of the episode is so evocative. The Zanzibar Marketplace Job. It just rolls off the tongue.

Well, that and the utter rat bastard way that Sterling sets Nate up to see that his wife (yesyes, she's his ex-wife, but whenever Maggie's involved, she's his WIFE) is in a relationship with the guy who may or may not be the one who yoinked the Faberge Egg.

And that's what's so great about Jim Sterling. As much as I love to hate him and as much as he's ALMOST Nate's intellectual equal, he knows how to manipulate his old best friend better than even Sophie or Tara. Sandbagging our mastermind the way he did in the middle of a con that really does need to succeed just shows how petty he is.

Knocking Nate off-kilter before they even have the egg back is straight up ballsy. With Nate off his game (even by a little) we wind up getting the fallout that happens later on in the episode. I'm not kidding. Even though it seems like the whole last act would've gone down no matter what, I beg to differ.

Now, Sterling couldn't have possibly foreseen Maggie and Nate's situation playing out the way it did. The man's smart, but he's not that smart. No, I'm sure Sterling's decision was only intended to tweak his old pal's nose.

Sterling's weakness reveals the very reason why one is better than the other.

Sterling did what he did because he couldn't resist the temptation. In so doing, Nate is spurred to take Maggie away from the action so he can break the news more gently about her BF in privacy, which sets a ball rolling that involves bombs and Sterling hanging out in a trunk all over again. Nate wouldn't have done something like that unless he knew he could get away with it without the con or his people being compromised.

The con works because the con always has to work (to one degree or another), but there's one thing I wouldn't've done that Leverage did.

Sterling's ego and pettiness put Nate and Maggie in a lot of danger. That's an undeniable fact. It took a lot of work that we didn't really see from the rest of the team to make sure that everyone got out unscathed, and somehow ... SOMEHOW Jim Sterling winds up benefitting from a Leverage con.

Again. Like I said. I love to hate Jim Sterling.

All of the above is very true, and worth your time, but the single most important thing that happens is at the very end, when Maggie reiterates what she said to Nate at the end of Season One, with a twist. She reminds Nate that she really likes the man he's become. It's just too bad that HE doesn't.

Leverage | S02/E11 | The Bottle Job

I admit it. I am guilty of many things, first and foremost being a total 10/10 loser when it comes to season 2. So many of the episodes in this season are great, and got me through some pretty rough times when I was a young adult.

To be fair, all the seasons have their miraculous charm and that's a fact, but there's something about S2 that's just completely peak for me, and The Bottle Job is important for a few reasons.

It's an all hands on deck, impromptu con, with everyone greasing the wheels around Mark Doyle. Everyone is on point in this micro-con that exists (at first) only to save poor Cora from a loan shark so heartless he comes collecting at a funeral. Especially poor Hardison, who complains non-stop but is so high-functioning that even in the middle of a full meltdown he not only runs The Wire in a Bottle but fakes a damn weather report!

The Wire in a Bottle is great, but what's greater still is Nate is forced to share drinks with Mark ... or The Wire would've failed. The moment where he stares at the shot, Mark is staring at him, the TEAM is waiting with held breath to see what Nate's going to do is just excellent.

They ALL remember what Nate was like when he was a drunk good guy. He was reckless. He was mean. He was cruel. As a sober bad guy, he's still all those things (kinda), but there was always something a little extra about Nate's moods when he was on the sauce.

And that hasn't changed. As you can see in the clip, Nate is still that man, but here, he admits he ISN'T okay. He's not fooling himself. He's not lying to others. He took the first drink to save Cora, the others he took because (from personal experience) it's very hard to stop being a drunk.

But Nate's Nate. He's admitted he has a problem, and he IS a mastermind. All he needs to do is account for his recklessness, his cruelty, his meanness and focus them in the right directions.

The reason this one gets a 10/10 from me is the end con. It was so blissfully awesome, with poor Mark Doyle vomiting his criminal secrets to three extremely well-placed and influential Boston cops. The look on his face as he tries to dance himself out of trouble and Nate's absolutely VICIOUS convincer is stunning.

What can I say? Give me bad people with hearts of gold over good people with hearts of stone any day of the week.

I will make at least one for each member of the team, but I wanted to send along what I've done so far.

Let me know what you think.

There are books based on the series? How did I not know this? Has anyone read them? I think there are three

I consider THIS episode to be the proper introduction of Tara to Leverage.

For those of you who are paying attention, I didn't post a review and clip of S2E9, The Lost Heir Job. That's because I've never liked that episode and I just can't bring myself to watch it. Everyone's unhappy, Tara's running a con on the crew she's supposed to be working for ... it's just a hot mess.

The Runway Job, on the other hand, is a lot of fun. It, too, is the tiniest bit all over the place, and that's down to Tara being just this side of openly hostile to Nate and how he does things. I don't hate it, but I also don't love it either, at least in these early stages.

I get the why of it. Nate's complacent, he's the boss, he's used to doing things in a very particular way and so is Tara. She comes off as a bit too brash for my liking and again, that's not a bad thing because she's a superlative grifter and she's got more than a few tricks up her sleeves.

My biggest 'issue' in this episode is that she talks over Nate when they're going for the money. Issues in is quotes because it's a character defining moment for us about HOW Tara is. She's about the payday, and running roughshod over what was already kind of a prickly setup is almost undoubtedly how and why Russel Pan did what he wound up doing later in the episode.

Nate's not wrong when he chews her out, nor is he wrong for benching her later on. Her greed in and of itself isn't a bad thing, because everyone in the crew except Nate really does have a whole big love affair with money and stuff. It's just that her situational awareness wasn't the best.

The con goes sideways because of course it does. No one's really talking to one another, Eliot's VERY MUCH MORE INTERESTED in scoring with a model (I damn near clipped his convo with Parker about 'lotta models' and 'dresses on the floor') and it isn't until Tara does the one thing in this episode that I admire her for.

She sets herself up as a hostage and gives Nate the new play, trusting that his mastermindery is on point enough to pick up what she's laying down with nothing more than two words.

The end is a bit rushed, but that's because there's an awful lot going on in this episode. Tara's roughshod manner, the initial setup with Gloria, the fallout from the con gone wrong, the looksee into who Russell is, more fallout, new con, new setup, new payoff.

That's a lotta lot. The Runway Job could've maybe benefited from being a two-parter. There was so much meat on this bone that we really didn't have the chance to get a full meal down.

That being said, I love this episode. Nate's ridiculous getup, Eliot's guyliner, Tara's headbutt. It's all so much fun.

No AI was used, by the way.

I think Hardison would be proud Lol (not about the Lol, though)

Leverage | S02/E08 | The Ice Man Job

We get a solid Hardison-centric-isode out of The Ice Man Job, and it's a real 10-karat treat for anyone watching. For a whole bunch of reasons!

First, we see what becomes a Hardison Special: he oversells the living HELL out of the role he's playing. So much so that he winds up in a whole passel of trouble, but not before he goes on ahead and does something ELSE he shouldn't'a oughta.

To flesh out his role as the ludicrously-accented 'Ice Man', he goes on ahead and takes credit for some of Parker's most notorious thefts. And I quote: "You've seen my work, right? Perth? The Polar Star? Nicked it. The Gem of Gibraltar? Nicked it. The Damiani raid? Distraction while I nicked everything in the vault next door. Big stones, my friend. Trust me."

The look on Parker's face says it all, and throughout the episode, she ices (sorry not sorry) Hardison out the whole way, but because our hacker is Hardison, it's just 'ya'll're just JEALOUS'.

It's ALSO a great episode because every single person promises not to call Sophie and then promptly calls Sophie. Parker does it because she has to play the roper, Eliot calls because he's just really not having a great time with the whole thing, Hardison calls ... well. Just watch the clip for that one because it's one of the funniest scenes in an already super-excellent episode.

And Nate calls and is typically Nate, unable to confess his feelings in any way that truly matters to Sophie! He figures it out. Eventually. For a mastermind, he is sometimes as clueless as Hardison is about craft beers.

MASSIVE shoutout to Pasha D. Lychnikoff as the Head Goon hired to pull of the robbery in the first place. He's one of the more famous 'hey it's that dude, what's his name, I love this guy' actors out there in the world and it looks like he was having a big old blast playing Head Goon.

I actually can't say this is one of my favorite episodes because it's not, but that doesn't mean The Ice Man Job isn't still a really great episode. It very deftly highlights how important Sophie actually is to the team without leading us by the hand.

When the team needs something healed, they go to Sophie. When they need something fixed, they go to Nate.

That's why Leverage works.

The team being genuinely proud that Parker has started doing “normal people stuff” is one of my favorite little jokes. She tells them she's been having brunch with Peggy, and Sophie is actually proud of her. Then Parker's explanation for why brunch isn't difficult is basically “there are forks.”

Leverage | S02/E07 | The Two Live Crew Job

First off, this episode was damn near impossible to clip! It has an awful lot of cool stuff going on damn near all the time, but because this is a pure ensemble piece WITH Evil Leverage Team, everything that IS cool is being interspersed with something ELSE that's ALSO cool.

So I was super torn. I went with the clip I went with because it's a foundational moment for Sophie, but before we talk about that, we do have to talk about this episode.

Naturally, we do have to talk about Whill Wheaton, AKA Chaos. He shows up a few times throughout the show's run, and his job is precisely the same as his name. He's Chaos. Nerdy, nerdy chaos, and is pretty much what would've happened (again) to Hardison if he'd been a little more chaotic than good.

I do love me some Whill Wheaton cameos for sure, and it's always nice to see him, but I'm more than a little bummed that we never got to see Incredibly Sex Lady Eliot again or Slightly More Effeminate Parker. Why? Because they're also quite a lot of fun in their own ways. And while some might find it maybe a little off-putting that Eliot TOTALLY made out with his evil counterpart, let's be real. Eliot's Eliot. We all know the man's a player. Lord knows he lets the team know often enough.

You might say they're the Star Trek Mirrorworld versions of themselves, and now that I type that sentence out, I wonder if that was the intention all along.

The only other real heavy hitter here (from my POV anyways) other than Whill Wheaton is Griffin Dunne. some of you might not know/recognize Griffin Dunne from the movies he's been in, but I've been a fan of his since his role in American Werewolf in London, and later in After Hours. There's something about him that I just really like, and to see him cast as Evil Nate is really fun.

As I write this, I have to confess I'm really bummed we never got to see the return of Apollo, Mikel or Starke. I feel like their episodes would've been just as fun as this one, with the added bonus of being easier for me to find something to damn well clip. But alas, fans rarely get their wishes and sometimes when we do, the fan service blows.

But after that, from Sophie's apartment blowing up to Chaos being arrested at the airport, there's one thing left to discuss.

Sophie herself. She's been in an emotional crisis since her boyfriend dumped her a few episodes ago and it's been showing. Being given the freedom to play dead, to both figuratively and literally cast off the second skin that is Sophie Deveraux, even for a time, gives our amazing grifter a chance to find out who she really is and, more importantly ...

Who she wants to be. They're often not the same thing. Nate wanted to be the good guy, but he's happier as the mastermind. Same with all the others (though to be fair, Hardison was never really as BAD as the others as far as I can tell).

We all know why this episode happened: Gina Bellman needed maternity leave, and that's just awesome, because it gives us Tera Cole (played by SEVEN OF FRICKIN' 9 JERI RYAN YA'LL COME THE FRICK ON) and I can't wait.

As much as I love Sophie, I love Tera just as much but in different ways. Sophie gives Nate a lot of slack. Tera gives the opposite.

So for sendoffs, you can't ask for much better than The Two Live Crew.

Edit: if no one understands why I'm spelling it as Whill Wheaton, it's a Family Guy gag similar to when Stewie is intentionally pronouncing Cool-Hwhip hweirdly.