Leverage [TNT, Wednesday, 9/8C] started out as a lighter than air caper series fuelled by a bit of darkness – Nate Ford [Timothy Hutton] assembling a team of the four best criminals to take vengeance against the insurance company that denied the claim that resulted in his son’s death. Early eps were, as mentioned, lighter than air but smart, witty and very entertaining. Then Ford fell off the wagon and things got rally interesting.
As The Beantown Bailout begins, Nate is being welcomed to a position with Boston Assurance, where he is already so bored to tears that he walks out. At the same time, banker Matt Kerrigan [Robert Blanche] is driving his daughter Zoe [Madeline Rogers] to school when he discovers his breaks don’t work. As fate would have it, Kerrigan’s car crashes right in front of Nate, who saves them – though another man steals Kerrigan’s briefcase. When the same man tries to kill Nate, his former team appears to save him. It seems that he has ruined them for crime and gotten them hooked on helping people and they’ve decided to help Kerrigan and his daughter – dragging a protesting Nate back into the leverage game.
Their investigation of Kerrigan’s situation reveals a clever plan for a bank to write off extensive high-risk loans and receive a government bailout, while the loans are written off, laundering millions of dollars in mob money. It’s a clever plan and Nate’s team – hitter Eliot Spencer [Christian Kane], grafter Sophie Deveraux [Gina Bellman], hacker Alec Hardison [Aldis Hodge] and thief Parker [Beth Riesgraf] – comes up with an equally clever one to save the Kerrigans. The problem? They’ve tuned the caper to the wrong person and have to fall into total improvisation mode.
The second season premiere of Leverage is one of the show’s smartest episodes so far. We really get the feeling that Nate is dealing with his drinking problem – especially after the bar scene that follows Nate walking away from the Boston assurance gig. The reason for the team’s regrouping feels right, too – especially after they helped Nate gain revenge on the man whose inaction doomed Nate’s son. We really believe that they’ve gotten helping people under their skin – and that they are both puzzled and pleased by this.
The script, by series co-creator John Rogers, is filled with the kind of details that make Leverage so delightful – the repartee between Nate and his team; the St. Bridget’s medal; the sly use of cell phones; the classic plan that goes wrong and the genuinely improvised feel of everything thereafter. Dean Devlin’s direction is, as usual, as crisp as a good caper requires. The intricacies of action and character balanced to a fare-thee-well.
Final Grade: A
i love this show! it's one of my favorites, and since i don't have cable (yes, there are a few of us who still don't), i'm so thankful that TNT shows it online so i can watch it. i went to the screening here where we had a Q&A with Devlin and one of the cast members, and afterwards they took photos with us and signed autographs.