Leverage "The Runway Job"

For Leverage, a truly awesome show, which I adore watching, reviews won't be done by me.  Instead, they will be done by Reema, a good friend who also adores Leverage, and can write more accurately about the awesomeness that makes up this show.  We differ on opinions sometimes about the show and the characters, but overall we do tend to agree, and well, differences are good.  So, onto Leverage, and a Guest Review by Reema.

For those unfamiliar with the show, Leverage is about a group of thieves who essentially play Robin Hood by going around and helping those who would otherwise go without help. As the show starts up again for season 2.5, the episode is about a Chinese sweatshop.

We learn, as the show goes on, that there is a huge industry when it comes to runway knock-offs and that advocacy groups are really quite helpless. [We learn far more than that, but I don’t want to spoil the big surprise, but you should sort of see it coming]. The episode starts off like most, Nate [the mastermind] meets the client at the bar he lives above. We learn that there are a Chinese couple, the Pans, running a sweatshop that sells runway knock-offs. As Sophie is still in abroad [really, the actress who played her just had a baby girl and is being mommy], we have her grifter replacement, Tara who conveniently shows up in the bar. Nate and she do not get along as he is very much entranced by Sophie and Tara is not Sophie so there is a lot of snipping in the episode between the two. Some people like Tara, others don’t; I like her, but to each their own and she does get better as the show goes on. For those who do not like her, Sophie does have little cameos. They are fun little bits, and in the first one, we get a classic Parker.

The con, and there is one in each episode, is to convince Gloria Pan, that she has a shot at becoming a real designer, which is her big dream. What ensues is a great deal of silliness as everyone gets to dress up as fashionistas [Nate + eyeliner= hot]; it is all quite fun. We also learn that Parker is a decent photographer and that Elliot dates models; granted, the actress who plays Parker really is a photographer

As part of the con, Tara pretends to be a big fashion designer, named Caprina, who is working with Nate, who pretends to be a designer as well who discovers new talent. Through the magic of Hardison and Parker, they plant a magazine and a tv show at the Pan’s with Caprina inserted into it. It works, of course.

The next step, of course is to steal a fashion show as a con usually leads to the team having to steal something. This is fairly easily accomplished by name-dropping and hacking into the com-system. You almost feel bad for them, how easily a bunch of thieves are able to get into the show, but it is so much fun to watch. At the stolen runway walk-through, they convince Gloria that they can make her a star and that they can get her a show. They also get her to give them money and to use her sweatshop to make the clothes. Take care to note Gloria’s husband, Russell, in the background and the mention of the “partners.”

We get the next Sophie bit and learn that she is traveling around the world. It is nice to get little Sophie clips and we also learn a little more about Tara. Following this, Nate and Parker  go to meet Gloria at her house, which gets blown to bits. Hardison pulls of amazing in order to find out that Gloria was not injured in the accident and that the Triad planted the bomb; we also learn that Parker is very good at math. It turns out the Pan’s “business partners” were the Chinese Triad and that Russell Pan is a member; the global counterfeit market is apparently worth billions and makes the Triad more money then drugs.

Elliot and Tara go back to the sweatshop and run into the Triad. Russell is not dead, obviously, and gets the team to steal the designs from a show before it hits the runway; Tara is held as collateral, by her own volition. Elliot and Parker go to the fashion show to steal the designs. As the fashion show finally learned what security was, Parker has to sneak in as a model and Elliot by hiding in a rack of clothing. Parker was so good at pretending to be a model that she ends up on the runway after being all done up. To serve as a distraction, or because she isn’t quite good at walking in heels, she trips, giving Eliot the time to steal the designs that Parker put onto a flash drive.

While all of this is going on, Tara spills the fact that this is all one big con to Russell, including Nathan Ford’s identity. If you do not realize that this is part of the con, I will remind you that “5-0” is short for police; Tara finally got Nate’s shorthand and used some of her own. Nate manages to get back to the factory where Tara is being held with the flash drive. Pan calls the cops to the factory, as apparently he did not know “5-0” is short for the police. Of course, Nate pulls a quick switch-ero and Pan ends up in jail as Nate switches the flash drive with the designs on it with one with incriminating evidence. Nate gets away scot free by pretending to be federal agent.

In the end, Gloria ends up working in a sweatshop while Russell ends up in jail. The poor sweatshop worker we met in the beginning gets money to bring her parents over and the sweatshop gets new management, who treat people much better and make the place a normal factory. Tara gets paid, as she didn’t get the initial huge payout everyone  else did and that was the deal she made with Sophie. We also get one last Sophie bit, this time with Nate; of course, he screws it up by yelling, but then he is Nate.

All in all, a good episode with fun Sophie bits, a bit of Parker development, and funny costumes.