Leverage“The First David Job”
Original Air Date: Feb 17, 2009
Brittany Wells – TwoCents Associate Staff Writer
brittanyw@thetwocentscorp.com
Here it is: the first part of the end of the first season of the best new show of the summer. Rogers, Downey, Devlin & Co. swing for the fences in this episode, which involves the team trying to rip off Nate’s former boss – and running smack into his ex-wife. In other words, this is the episode this whole show has been built on.
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[photo: TNT]
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Leverage
ReplyDelete“The First David Job”
Original Air Date: Feb 17, 2009
Brittany Wells – TwoCents Associate Staff Writer
brittanyw@thetwocentscorp.com
Here it is: the first part of the end of the first season of the best new show of the summer. Rogers, Downey, Devlin & Co. swing for the fences in this episode, which involves the team trying to rip off Nate’s former boss – and running smack into his ex-wife. In other words, this is the episode this whole show has been built on.
It all begins with the team confronting Nate over his status as a functioning alcoholic in what may be the worst intervention ever staged. He accuses them of wanting to send him to rehab, but Sophie says that he doesn’t need rehab: he needs revenge. His alcoholism is a symptom of his unresolved feelings over his son’s death. To that end, the team has come up with a plan to rip off Nate’s former boss, Ian, the head of IYS. He’s an avid art collector, and they’ll sell him a fake Second David statue, which he’ll insure with IYS of course – then once it’s exposed as a fake, his own company will turn on him and ruin him. This seems like a good enough plan, until when at the party when they start the con, they run straight into Nate’s ex-wife Maggie – who just so happens to be an art expert. Oops. Since Maggie has to verify the statue’s authenticity, they steal the real First David in order to pass it off as the fake Second David.
But of course meeting Maggie brings more emotional baggage. Nate reveals to Sophie that he never told his ex-wife about the company’s complicity in Sam’s death, and how she still pities him. Maggie, for her part, is worried about Nate, not to mention accidentally getting hit on by Eliot. Sophie is unmistakably jealous. Everyone seems to have an opinion, and Nate of course doesn’t want to hear any of it. In fact, in a heated conversation with Sophie over her zeal for this particular con, he informs her that he never told Maggie that IYS caused their son’s death, and that he knows his ex-wife pities him for what she thinks he’s become: an obsessed drunk.
The con, however, goes on as planned. Just as Maggie authenticates the statue and everyone seems to get away clean, money in hand, things take a sharp turn. Nate and Sophie are surveilled by a photographer, who is then jumped by Eliot, who proceeds to beat the daylights out of Eliot a little too easily. (This is the guy who took on how many guys in the pilot and one guy gives him trouble?) Eliot survives, however, to tell Nate the con is blown – which Nate finds out, along with the fact that none other than Jim Sterling has captured Parker trying to switch the statues, and the offices have been stormed by a bunch of his goons – including the guy who plays Jason Bly on Burn Notice, and just appeared last week in an episode where Mark Sheppard played the would-be bank robber – who have taken Hardison hostage.
Meeting with Sterling, Nate finds out that Sterling wants the real First David…something Nate doesn’t have but Sophie does. It’s from Sterling that Nate finds out she’s been conning him all along, using the plan not only to hurt IYS but also to steal both statues for herself. He manages to agree to trade the statue for his teammates, before giving Sophie the evil eye anyway.
Talking to her as they go to fetch the statue from her hiding place, things come to a head. He goes after her for selling out him and the team; she says that even after everything, he still sees the team as criminals and always thinks he will be better than them. In fact, she says, he wants his old life back, including Maggie. Sophie appears to have become the show’s mouthpiece over the last couple of episodes, enjoying hitting Nate – and the audience – over the head with monologues that are just a little too obvious. Regardless, she points out that Sterling knows how they think. Nate tells her they’ll have to start thinking like someone else.
Sophie goes to exchange the statue for Parker, but surprises Sterling when she asks herself “What would Parker do?” and takes Parker flying off the roof via harness. While Sterling gets the statue, the girls get away clean. Meanwhile, Nate, who has gone to turn himself in for Hardison, and Eliot confront the mob of goons at the Leverage offices. Eliot has asked himself “What would Hardison do?” and uses his phone to jam the frequencies of the goons’ earpieces, driving them nuts with the feedback. Once they’re all subdued, the trio escape – but not before Alec insists on stealing the fake!Nate painting, and once Sterling arrives, quite literally blowing up the Leverage offices to keep anything from falling into the wrong hands. Complete with smoking chair on the sidewalk.
Sterling, however, is still a cocky bastard. The team may be on the run, he says, but they’re all known now, to him and to several police agencies (since when?). They have no HQ, and they have no money. The last shot we see is that now infamous moment from the pilot – where once again, our five heroes all turn and scatter in other directions, falling apart. But we all know that can’t last forever – we do have another episode after all!
All in all, I was extremely satisfied with the episode, which was as big a payoff as I was expecting. I always knew this episode would come to pass, and putting it at the end of the first season was a big gamble for the Leverage creative team. On one hand, if they got cancelled, the audience got all their storylines wrapped up by the end of the season. But with the show’s success, now one has to wonder what will happen if the good guys win next week. With Nate’s quest for revenge over, will he change? What will be the driving conflict for his character and therefore the show? The recurring plot was always that he would eventually go after IYS; if he succeeds, what next?
It was, however, gratifying, from the unexpected twist of Sophie betraying Nate to the comic scenes such as Parker and Hardison continuing their flirtation with each other. I’ve never liked Kari Matchett in anything, but I have to say even she didn’t bother me that much. Now, if they’d cut out the Sophie monologues, I’d be a happy camper. As it is, I’m already demanding to know what happens next week, which is all you can ask out of a two-parter.
What did you think? How is the team going to get out of this one? Sound off below.