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The Morning After Job
A former hockey player, Mark Vector, is running a hedge fund that he uses to launder money for the mob and steal the life savings of his fans who invest with him. He is also involved with Damien Moreau's accounts giving the Leverage crew added incentive to take him down.
In order to get Vector to give the information on Moreau and return the client's money, the team sets it up to look like he killed Parker after spending the night with her. Nate will be his lawyer, Sophie is the prosecutor who will cut him a new deal to cover the dead Parker and get Moreau and Hardison and Eliot are cops to get the plea agreement to sell the con. Hardison takes the aliases too far as usual and they end up answering a domestic disturbance call and transporting a prisoner back to jail in addition to getting Sophie the agreement.
Vector is happy to give up Moreau if it will keep him out of jail. Moreau has Vector bugged and sends in assassins to take him out. Vector changes his mind after the assassination attempt and runs to testify at the grand jury. Parker shows up during his testimony, sending him off on a rant about killing people and people killing him.
Nate figures out how Vector is hiding Moreau's banking information and uses that information to tell the Italian that he's going after Moreau without her which was apparently her plan all along.
Favorite Quote:
Eliot – I've got some tape on this guy. He can fight.
Sophie – You watch hockey fights. Alone at night. In your room.
Eliot – Yeah. You never know if you're gonna have to fight a guy on ice.
Rating: ★★★★★
The Boiler Room Job
You can't con a con man and you can't see a moonwalking bear.
This episodes mark, Greg "The Mako" Sherman, is a third generation con artist who's running a boiler room con that has left a school for special needs kids on the verge of closing. Since a con won't work, Nate decides to go for a straight heist.
Hardison goes inside the boiler room, but gets busted and spins a yarn about using Sherman's accounts to hide cocoa commodities, but he wasn't stealing from Sherman. Nate gets drafted to play "Count Chocula", the commodities mogul who hired Hardison and Sophie becomes Clarissa Dubois, the Chocolate Whisperer who's appearing at a local chocolate festival. Their job is to convince Sherman that Nate knows something about the cocoa growing in Ecuador that will leave the market hurting and is working with Sophie to put that knowledge to use to launch chocolate cafes in China that will be the "Starbucks of chocolate." They even send him to Ecuador where Eliot goes all "Heart of Darkness" on him while showing him the government run timber camps that are replacing the cocoa fields. Sherman is in and Nate arranges for him to hand over $10 million in cash in person at Nate's trading room. Sherman shows up to hand over an empty briefcase. He was on to the con the whole time just as Nate knew he would be. Sherman invested $30 million of his own money in cocoa futures which Hardison immediately liberates and returns to Sherman's victims who are "staffing" the trading room.
During the con, Sherman outs Nate and Sophie's sexual relationship to the rest of the team. Hardison identifies Jack Latimer as the man who bugged the Leverage offices.
The Renaming of Greg "The Mako" Sherman – Craig, Mr. Sherlock, the Blowfish, the Limpet and the Gefilte Fish.
Favorite Quote: Thanks man. That's awesome. I haven't hit anybody in two weeks.
Rating: ★★★★★
The Lonely Hearts Job
A rich man walks into a bar. Not the start of a joke, just the start of the episode's job. Walt Whitman Wellesley IV enters McRory's asking for Nate's help in finding his missing wife, Lacey. They met at a charity bachelor auction and were married within a month. She disappeared four days earlier. He thinks she's been kidnapped, but the authorities and Nate think she's merely left him. Nate does take the job for a favor to be named later.
Hardison's research turns up a string of wealthy men participating in charity bachelor auctions who've all married with a month of the auction and some have died mysteriously. Infiltrating an auction in the Hamptons, the crew discovers a sweetheart scam ring and go after the ring leader, Meredith, and her files. Nate must seduce Sophie as part of his "audition" to be Meredith's new partner in crime.
On finding Lacey, Sophie and Eliot learn she fell in love with Walt and left to keep him safe from Meredith. During this meeting, Meredith takes Nate to her boat that belonged to one of her late husbands. A mayday signal is sent when Nate's comms, which were off for the meeting, come on and immediately go off. The team make it to the boat in time to hear Meredith tell Nate he isn't ruthless enough to run a con, that he's vulnerable to the very tricks he's using and half-way in love with Sophie already. While she's gloating, Parker lifts her file filled smart phone. Hardison emails the files to former victims and the authorities, making it safe for Lacey to return to Walt.
The episode closes with a phone call from Latimer offering Nate a deal which sounds very much like a con to Nate and which Nate refuses. Latimer makes another call, telling someone of Nate's refusal that results in a declaration of war.
Favorite Quote: Listen, I picked you. I didn't pick the others. Hardison, Parker, Eliot. I picked you, alright?
Rating: ★★★★★
