Sophie tries to set up Dr. Jameson with Nate
Episode: Leverage 2.06 – “The Top Hat Job”
Original Air Date: August 19, 2009
In this episode, the team is hired by a whistleblower from a food company. She discovered that a shipment of frozen dinners was shipped out with salmonella. The VP, Erik Casten (“Eric with a ‘C,’ nice and friendly. Erik with a ‘K,’ evil,” Parker says sagely. “I didn’t know that,” Sophie replies. “Everybody knows that.”), allowed the shipment because it would cost less to pay out on lawsuits than to recall the entire shipment. Nice guy. She just needs the Leverage team to get the evidence and give her a chance to talk to the CEO, who has no knowledge of the contamination and would not agree with evil Erik.
Nate decides to infiltrate the company by posing as an illusionist with Parker as his assistant. The plan is that they won’t even need to go on because the VP’s speech is supposed to last an hour so the rest of the team will get the data they need. Unfortunately, the VP cuts his speech short meaning Nate and Parker actually have to perform in order to stall for time. And the VP is also planning to use the time to erase the data, which means it’s now become a race.
Nate the illusionist introduces his entourage
Hardison is forced to try to get the data from a secondary server, but he is discovered and locked in the server room. When the guards come to get him, he gives up the rest of the team. Or so it seems. It turns out Hardison has sent company secrets to Casten’s phone, making it look like Casten was trying to steal them. Nate was misdirecting Casten, and even sending the secrets was exactly that — the client managed to get the information to the CEO. He’ll stop the shipment, and he fires Casten.
This was a decent episode, but not all that good. The scenes of Nate and Parker performing illusions were fun. Probably the best part was towards the beginning of the episode when Hardison was attempting surveillance of Lillian Foods. While Parker is sitting outside casing possible entrances, a homeless man tells her she has pretty hair. “You don’t,” she replies.
Not a homeless man without pretty hair (or maybe not)
Meanwhile, Eliot attempts to sneak in a camera in a pizza box. The guards (ex-CIA; they have a very distinctive stance, according to Eliot) figure out his plan and he has to fight his way out. While he’s fighting his way out, the homeless man reveals himself to be a guard as well, and he’s identified Parker as an accomplice. Before he grabs for her, he tells her, “Ya know when I said you had pretty hair. I was lyin’.” To which Parker replies, “Yeah, well, so was I when I said you didn’t… Wait… Dammit!” Ah, lovable, socially inept Parker.
Beyond that, there’s really not much more to say. There were some hints that Sophie was going to leave when she tries to set up Nate with the client. She apparently wants to make sure he’s taken care of. She was certainly prescient since Nate does go downhill after she leaves, so the writers did a good job of foreshadowing without being too obvious. But that’s about it for this episode.
Rating: 3 / 5 Stars
