Leverage

We open inside the home of Ernesto and Gloria Vargas.  Three years ago.  Gloria fusses at Ernesto, who is burning the midnight oil over books and papers.  Ernesto says he’s almost finished studying and pops some energy pills.  She says she’s going to time him and leaves.  Ernesto puts the kettle on, but stumbles and grabs his left arm in the sudden throes of a heart attack.  He collapses and calls for Gloria.  She rushes in and instead of calling 911, screams his name and a dramatic “Nooooo!” to rival any in my favorite Novella.  (Yes, I have one.)  The piercing whistle of the teapot joins her scream of despair.

Leverage HQ.
The team comes back into the office from a job, all arguing and talking at once.  Nate barks at Parker for not following the plan.  She doesn’t see what the big deal is, nobody got decapitated by the elevator.  Hardison points out on the video feed that decapitation was a  pretty close possibility.
Sophie tries to talk to her and recites what’s kind of become the team creed; if Parker wants to pull her crazy stunts on her own time, then fine.  But she can’t put everyone else in danger.  Parker ignores the lecture and slaps some mail in front of Hardison.  It’s not for her, somebody named Alice White.  “You are Alice White.”, Hardison explains.  “It’s one of the aliases I made for you.”  She’s a vegetarian, has a personality, a history, and even a Facebook page.  She’s also got Jury Duty.  “Damn, I am good”, Hardison gloats.  Parker thanks him on Alice’s behalf on getting her out of it.
Patriarch Nathan speaks up for the first time in a while.  Jury Duty sounds like a good idea to him.  A place where you have to follow instructions and consider other people’s point of view.  Eliot growls that there’s going to be “normal” people there.  Not the place for Parker, but Nate puts his foot down.

Interior of a courtroom:  Parker sits uncomfortably on the panel.  A lawyer representing Gloria Vargas gives us the rundown on Ernesto.  He was a husband, father, hard worker, and enrolled in night school.  He needed more energy and looked to an all natural energy supplement, Fastlife.  The producer of the product is William Quint, aka Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek; Next Generation.  I’m no trekkie, but for some reason I know these things.  He sits with his own lawyer wearing tinted glasses and sporting a novelty cane.   Gloria’s lawyer sets out to prove that this product was what set off Ernesto’s heart attack and that Quint knew the risks when he put it on the market.
A young woman sitting next to Parker mutters her hopes that the rest of the case is this good.  Parker asks what she had for breakfast because she smells like gravy.  Social skills: Parker does not have them.  As Quint’s lawyer makes his opening statement, Parker eagle-eyes the tiny communicator in his ear.  The scene changes from the courtroom to the close up of a chess set sitting on the desk in a warehouse.  A Big Operation is going down.  There‘s video and audio of the courtroom, computers set up, and workers buzzing around the place.
“Just like we rehearsed, Henry.  It‘s been tailor made for this jury”, says a woman.  The woman’s voice reminds him to make eye contact and points out jurors he’s losing.  Parker now spots a camera fastened to the corner of lawyer Henry’s briefcase.  She stares at it long enough for the woman to get curious.  Some techie describes the innocuous Alice White and that she’s been zoning in and out, probably confused about the case.  “Nothing’s more dangerous than the confused when they think they know something”, says the woman, (who we now see is Lauren Holly of NCIS).  Maybe in her world, but it’s kind of a weird line.  Car wrecks, excessive drug use, and tanks of hungry sharks seem a lot more dangerous to me.

Back at the Leverage HQ:  Nathan and Hardison are geeking out about the NHL Hardison can screen on his video wall in HD.  Sophie wanders in and thinks American football is cute compared to rugby where they don’t wear padding.  The comment isn’t appreciated.  Parker joins them and Nate politely asks how Juror Number 6 is today.  Parker voices her suspicions of the trial's dirty dealings.  She thinks they should get involved.  Nate half listens around the excitement of football.  She tells him about the hidden cameras and comms that are just like theirs.  Hardison tells her to move out the way and then gets on the defensive that nobody has their comms.  Nathan assures her that there’s not a conspiracy behind every routine civic duty while Hardison petulantly goes on how he made their comms, nobody has comms like them, nobody can do what he does.  Hee.  Nate patronizingly tells her she’s making things up because she’s bored.  He really just wants her out of the way.  She storms off.  Being the baby sister of my family, I sympathize.
Sophie points out how Parker’s never asked for their help like that before.  Hardison gets over himself and the football and shoots Nate some puppy eyes.  “There’s a reason we put her on the jury trial”, Nathan reminds.  Hardison mutes the televisions and tells a story about one of his foster mothers.  She dressed him up and took him to all kinds of neighborhoods, ringing doorbells and spreading the word about the Jehovah’s Witnesses.   That’s how he learned to talk to people.  Parker, also a foster kid, never had that kind of thing.  She can jump off buildings just fine but to her, small talk is the real scary stuff.  He turns the sound back on and Eliot joins them excitedly with a six pack.  I love that they all just hang out together when there’s nothing to do.  Right after settling down Nathan tells him to go check something with Parker.  Now.  In the middle of the game.  Eliot smacks the table, pouts, and hoards his beer for another day.

We’re now outside of some warehousy looking buildings, probably where the earlier operations was set up.  Quint strolls around the corner and goes inside.  Parker and Eliot are watching.
Inside now, we see information on all of the jurors tacked to bulletin boards.   The chessboard is unmoved.  NCIS chick tells Quint he’s late and he whines about being stuck in the courtroom.  She tells the hippie to suck back some incense to which Quint tells “Ms. Earnshaw” that it’s always a pleasure.  Eliot snags a picture of her on his phone and  Hardison’s on it at the HQ.   Quint wants to settle the case and be done with it.  Earnshaw tells him it’s not up to him anymore.  He tells her that if she wants the company, then buy it.  If she doesn’t, then don’t.  But his “tookus” is on the line with this case.  She tells him that while his company is on the line, she could lose everything.  If he tries to settle, she’ll bury him.  What a healthy business partnership.   Eliot points out that this kind of jury profiling must cost a fortune and Parker says how Quint’s company is tiny, so what’s really going on here?
Parker hooks some wires up to a control box of sorts.  Now Hardison sees what The Operation sees in the courtroom.  Hardison and Nate are impressed with the hacking and planting of equipment.  They watch as Earnshaw makes a move on the chessboard.  Nice visual metaphor.

Back at HQ Nate presents the new client.  Turns out there is an evil conspiracy lurking behind the curtain of every routine civic duty.  Parker is pleased.  We already know Gloria Vargas’s story but now we learn about Quint’s helping hand in Earnshaw.  Her father is the CEO of Earnshaw Pharmaceuticals.  Sophie asks why a drug heiress cares about the lawsuit of Quint’s tiny supplements company.  “Because without telling Daddy or the executive board, Earnshaw sank twenty million into R&D for Fastlife in anticipation of buying the company.”
If they lose the trial then thousands of other lawsuits will fall out of the sky.  If the buyout falls through then Earnshaw is broke.  To protect something she knows kills people, Earnshaw will destroy Gloria Vargas.  I’m going to fess up that I don’t really know what any of this means.  I like when shit blows up.   They can’t win the court case, it’s too far along now.  Nate proposes that they con Quint into a settlement.  Parker and Eliot heard Earnshaw take settlement off the table, so Nate says they force it back on.  Some beeping on Hardison’s screens indicate that Earnshaw ran a credit check on Alice White.  “Who is Alice White?” Parker asks.  “You are!” everyone stresses. Hah.      “She’s gonna buy the jury”, Eliot concludes. “Not if we steal it first”, Nate proposes.  The team is good at stealing stuff.

The next day at the HQ and the team settles in for another meeting.  Eliot’s been wearing a beanie for the majority of this episode. Being from a hot climate I don’t really understand the wearing cold weather hats inside thing, but whatever, he’s really darn cute in it.  Anyway.
“Who plays chess?” Nathan asks.  Eliot raises his hand.  Always full of surprises this one.  Nate describes how a chess game has three stages; the open, the middle, and the end game.  You want control in the beginning, line up your strategy, and protect the weakest of players, the king.
“Earnshaw has already overpowered the Vargas defense.  And she’s buying a juror.”  They have to break her momentum.  Parker has to stall the trial by getting everyone else on the jury to trust her.  She has no idea how.
This is proven when one of the elderly jurors in a teddy bear sweater shows off pictures of her grandchildren.  Parker openly mocks their looks.  Back to Nate who tells them to figure out Earnshaw’s pawn on the jury is.  Hardison has financial traces on all of them but Nate says to go digging.  Literally.
The boys (are back!), dig through one of the juror’s garbage.  Eliot’s hauling stuff out of the dumpster while Hardison daintily digs through the bags.  Eliot is sick of it and tells him it’s time to switch.  Hardison tells him he has a peanut allergy. What if somebody threw out a jar of extra crunchy Skippy?  Neither one of them want Eliot doing mouth-to-mouth.  Hee.  But seriously, people with deadly allergies are annoying sometimes.  My big brother is always whining about bees.  Eliot chucks the next trash bag at Hardison’s head, sending him into a fence.
Back to Nate who tells Sophie to go after the king.  The camera settles on Quint’s image on the screens.

Sophie is now in her role of the week as Oliva, chief marketing officer of Mumbai International Limited.  She says she’s half Indian, half British.  Quint is impressed and sits at his desk with her across from it to hear her proposal.
Her company wants to branch out into the herbal supplement market.  Quint tells her he already has an offer to buy the company.  She calls it a joke and gives him a contract.  Now he has an offer.  She tells him that all of the CEO’s of companies Earnshaw has bought go into early retirement.  Mumbai offers to keep him as the head of the company.  He asks how much money they’re offering and she shows him what she’s really been doodling in his miniature zen rock garden.  One billion.

Back at HQ, Hardison says Quint is on the hook; he looked up Mumbai International’s website.  Hardison made Sophie’s role at the real company legit with his hacker-fu.  He also shows Nate what they found in Juror #1’s trash.  Passport envelope, a receipt for two tickets to Figi, and wrappers for wads of cash.  Somebody’s been paid off.

Still in her Indian garb Sophie juggles an apple and an orange in front of her acting student.  She tells Parker that today didn’t go so well but it’s alright, they’re going to work on persuasion techniques through role playing.  Eliot obviously had nothing better to do and has been recruited to help.   Sophie gives Eliot the apple and Parker the orange.   Parker has to convince Eliot, who loves apples, that he wants the orange instead.
“I put a razor blade in that apple!” Parker growls.  Eliot spits out the big bite he took.  She cracks up, tells him there’s no razor blade in the orange, hits him with it in the chest, and is out of there.  Sophie leaves too, not believing Eliot fell for that.  Eliot finishes his apple.

Back in the courtroom where Parker inches her way to her seat at the panel.  She comms to Nate confirming that the foreman is the pawn.  Her job is to make him go away.  She bumps into a bald guy, pats the grandma on the back, and slides by gravy girl to her seat.  At their lunch break Parker sits and asks gravy girl for the time but her watch is missing.  Grandma’s locket is gone.  Parker squirts mustard all over the foreman and when he stands everyone’s possessions fall to the table.  For some reason we get a desaturated flashback showing how she snagged everything.  I kind of figured it out all by myself, but whatever.
“He stole all of our stuff!” Parker yells over everyone else’s angry yelling.  Foreman’s gone and after Parker kindly hands back someone else’s watch she’s immediately nominated the new foreman.   They toast her and she’s tentatively pleased.

Earnshaw is watching the footage from the warehouse and talking on the phone with Mr. Quint who is in the courtroom.  He’s angry that their foreman’s been offed.  She assures him that she’s gotten where she is today by making every failure into a success.  She hangs up and suddenly the Vargas’ Lawyer’s phone rings.  Earnshaw wants to talk to him about some exciting retirement opportunities.  The other team can take players off the board too.

The next day Vargas‘s lawyer is a no-show.  Sophie walks with Nate out of the HQ.  She asks what happens now since Gloria Vargas will have to start from scratch and can’t afford another lawyer.  “We take a pawn, Earnshaw takes a knight, and lucky for us we have more than one.” Nate explains.
Back in court.  Gloria is hopelessly lawyerless.  Right when the judge tells her she’ll have to claim a mistrial, Sir Hardison enters the court.  Instead of shining armor he’s in a very nice suit.  He pardons his tardiness and explains that he‘ll be taking over as her attorney.  Nathan and Sophie sneak in the back while Hardison introduces himself to Gloria as Joseph Miller, her court appointed attorney.  Sophie says he’ll never win the case and Nathan says he just needs to stall for enough time for Quint to take Mumbai‘s offer.  Hardison approaches the bench with some of Ernesto’s yearbooks, hoping that the people in it can testify that Ernesto led an active healthy life.  Denied.  He has photos from the opposing lawyer’s summer vacation.  He objects.  Parker, Sophie, and Nate are all amused.  The judge asks if he has anything else and Hardison sets a stack of files on the bench before cutely resting his chin on it. In the juror’s quarters Parker and Gravy Girl bond over unhealthy eating habits.  Parker spots that she’s just been confided in by another person.  She’s made a friend!

In the Operations Warehouse, Earnshaw isn’t happy with the addition of Hardison.  They’ve looked up “Joseph Miller” and Hardison hasn’t pulled any stops.  Gloria Vargas can’t afford a guy like him but Techie tells Earnshaw that the info checks out.  “Unless Vargas found this guy who created a CIA level cover story and fake identity.”
Quint wants to talk about his future in the company.  She rudely assures him he’ll have the money to do whatever he wants but will have no hand in what she’s earned.  He’s getting tired of being treated this way.

Back in the courtroom Quint stops Sophie and they talk business.  Earnshaw isn’t happy with what she sees on the video feed.  She wants Techie to raid Quint’s computer and phone to find out who Sophie is.   Back to Sophie who is telling Quint how exciting India is right now.  Millions of natives working outsourced American jobs on the graveyard shift.  People who need energy; Fastlife would be a sensation over there.  She just needs Quint to settle his current legal issues.  India’s government won’t crack down on any lawsuits that might crop up over there.  He wants to see their operations and she says she can arrange a video conference call with the home office.  It’s twelve hours ahead of their time so she’ll send a car to pick him up around midnight.  Hardison and Nathan come back in the courtroom; Hardison telling Nate he  can’t stall any longer.  Nathan says that this is the middle game, they need to get Sophie a little more time to maneuver.   Hardison literally can’t make this any slower, but Nate has confidence in his ability to be boring.
Hardison slaps a transparency of slide #162 down and asks for a doctor on the witness stand’s professional explanation.  Even the judge is bored to tears and asks for relevance. He assures her that the next one hundred slides are essential.

Leverage HQ:  Sophie and Quint consult via Hardison’s screen room with the Mumbai International home base.  An Indian man expresses his excitement to work with somebody so enlightened.  Quint is impressed with the operations.  He tells Sophie he’ll still need to sleep on it but she tells him she can’t wait long, he’ll need to settle this little lawsuit.
Zip through the HQ where the Indian guy we just saw, supposedly in India, stands in front of a green screen.  Eliot turns off the camera that was on him and tells a very impressed Nathan “What’d I tell you?” while giving him a big hug.  He thanks his buddy for coming in on such short notice and with a thick Scottish brogue “Donny” says that’s what friends are for.  Awesome.

Next morning at HQ and Parker nervously asks Hardison if her sweet little outfit fits Alice’s personality.  Hardison tells her to relax, Quint will call and settle before they even make it to the court.  Nathan calls them to order in the screen room.  He reveals that Earnshaw has bought out Mumbai before Quint can.  She just spent millions of dollars on a company Sophie doesn’t even represent.  Flash to the real Mumbai International where two Indian men don’t really know what’s going but happily sign off the company.  Back to Eliot who asks how Earnshaw even knew they were talking to Quint.  They now know she’s been keeping tabs on his e-mails and phone records.  Parker asks what they do now.  “We win the trial.” says Nate.  I think of everyone on the team, our leader Nate is the real wild-card.

Hardison isn’t happy.  He’s not a real lawyer, all he had to do was stall.  Nate has confidence in him considering the other lawyer is having his lines fed to him from a warehouse.   He tells him that the jury is just twelve people.  All Hardison has to do is ring the doorbell and talk to them.  Meanwhile, Parker tells her acting coach she can’t do this.  She’s not a normal person.  Sophie reads people and assures her that nobody on the jury is normal.  Grandma hasn’t actually seen her grandkids in years, Charlie with five kids is bulimic, and Trevor the frat boy is gay.  Parker’s friend, Peggy, is pretty normal but the rest have their own Alice Whites too. Everybody does.

This next bit is so freaking cute;  Proud Mama Sophie and Daddy Nathan stand by the door as the kids head to court.  Nathan hands Hardison his suitcase and gives him a firm handshake and pat on the back.  Sophie hands Parker her lunch before she gets her own high five from Nate.  I never want anything to split up this team!   Eliot comes up behind them and Nathan says they don’t have court but they still have work.  Eliot isn’t going to like the first part of it.

Cut to Quint headed to court himself.  Two shady figures announce via comm that they’re following him now.  As they pull out Eliot steps in front of the car, rolling up the hood and back onto the asphalt as they stop.  They get out to help but Eliot gets to the part he does like by throwing down.  They’re loaded in the trunk in a matter of seconds.  He informs Nate that he planted a device on Quint’s engine earlier and that he’ll have him in three, two, one.  Quint pulls his electrical car over somewhere in a neighborhood, it’s smoking steam or something.  He looks under the hood as somebody in baggy clothes and Chuck Taylors bike pedals up asking to help.

Back at court, Quint’s lawyer gets a call as Hardison stresses out.  It’s Quint on the phone, now under the hood with Nathan being the geeky bicyclist.  He talks and talks about electric cars and using bodily waste as fuel.  Quint just wants to call AAA but Nate points out the problem, lifting Quint’s phone as he leans over to look.  He smoothly tosses it to Sophie who drives by and catches it from the sunroof.  This show is full of unbelievable stunts like this, but it’s so damn fun I don’t care.

Back in court and Evil Principal Snyder from Buffy is testifying as a doctor.  His medical opinion is that Ernesto had an enlarged aorta and Fastlife had no role in his death.  Hardison is up but he’s still stressing.  He apologizes to Gloria but she just thanks him for his involvement.  Encouraged, he approaches the stand and points out that the doctor has testified in court before.  Typically all over the states, but this past year he’s only gone to courts in California.  Due to a hilarious list of twenty two lewd incidents on airlines he’s been on the US government’s no fly list.  AKA, the terrorist watch list.   Despite not being a terrorist, he’s still on the same list as people like Osama Bin Laden.  Hardison asks if the US government has declared that this man isn’t safe enough to fly on an airplane, how can this jury trust him to deliver a sound medical opinion.  Parker looks very amused and proud.

Leverage HQ:  Nate sips a drink and asks Sophie for an update.  She’s hit three out of five companies that are possible competition for Earnshaw’s Operation.  They show up on the screen room’s GPS which Earnshaw will soon see as well.

Hardison prepares to give his final statement.  He gives a funny and touching wrap up of the juror’s experience getting called in for Jury Duty and having to work together.  After a week of listening to lawyers and having lunch with each other, they’re not just random people but friends.  “Not as bad as you thought, right?” he directly asks Parker.  But then the judge asks that they deliver.  They’ve been entrusted with the most important obligation of citizenship to deliver the truth.  He has faith that their decision will be just.  Damn, he makes me want to get Jury Duty.

Back at HQ and Nate hands Hardison a glass of what he’s having.  They clink glasses and share a sip.  They watch how Parker’s doing with the other on the big screens.  The end game is all on her now.  Zoom in on Parker looking absolutely mortified.  Aw.

Eliot and Sophie have joined the other two in the AV room.  A nice little zoom in and out on the screen takes us back into the Warehouse Operation where Earnshaw watches the same feed with Quint‘s lawyer.  She fiddles with a chess piece and muses on the oddity of how they take a juror who gets removed, they take a lawyer who gets replaced, and how when a company tries to take Quint she takes the company.  She almost catches onto the game but blows off the ridiculousness.  Back on the screens, Parker asks who votes in favor of the defendant.  Everyone raises their hands and the Warehouse Operation cheers.  Earnshaw is pleased.  “It’s ours.” she states.  Quint’s lawyer says Quint is on his way and they can tell him the good news.  She says they’re not telling him anything.  He didn’t show up for court because he was visiting all of those other competing offices.  Looking for a better offer.  “Time to teach Mr. Quint about Karma.”
Quint shows up and she tells him there’s no news, but they can talk business.  She tells him his company doesn’t have one price, but three.  If they win the trial, the company is worth “this much”, she points to a big number on a legal document.  It’s a lot of money assuming somebody buys it.  And it’s not going to be Mumbai International Limited.  He’s shocked that she knows anything about his dealings with Mumbai.  If he loses the trial the company is worth “this much”, she opens an empty folder.  But if Quint sells to Earnshaw right there then it’s worth folder number three.  Option one and two are chance, but three is a certainty for him.  She asks how much his spiritual nature trusts fate and he takes folder number three.

Quint’s lawyer gets a call that the jury is back in court.  Everyone is present for the verdict.   Parker states that the jury finds in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of five million.  Gloria is overwhelmed, Earnshaw is shocked, and Quint looks smug.  Quint’s lawyer asks what the hell just happened and we see a desaturated flashback where Hardison splices together two different video clips.  One where Parker asks for the vote where nobody actually raised their hands, and another where Parker asks who wants pizza for lunch, and everybody does.  Who doesn’t want pizza for lunch?  And we all know what Earnshaw saw.

Back in court and Earnshaw blames Quint for this.  She accuses him of looking around town for a better offer.  He tells her he hasn’t been anywhere, and he sure as hell doesn’t have “men” he’s been working with, he wears sandals for goodness sakes.  Nathan, Eliot, and Sophie wait outside the courtroom for the two.  Sophie, in her normal clothes and accent asks Quint if he remember her and tells him he should have settled. Eliot just walks off, guess he just wanted to witness the burn.  And Nathan approaches Earnshaw, drops a chess piece into her hand, and walks off without a word.  So damn cool.

Back at Leverage HQ:  Parker sinks her teeth into a cheeseburger the size of her head.
Nathan and Hardison come in with Nate singing Hardison’s praises for winning the trial without cheating.  He thinks Hardison can do anything he wants with his life if he applies himself.  Hardison agrees.  Next week he’s going to be an astronaut.  Then a surgeon.  Nathan waves him off.  Hee!   They all settle down in the AV room for some television watching.  I’m guessing more football since Eliot has his beer out.  Parker gets a text from Peggy who wants to grab some coffee.  “Alice made a friend!” she says.  Eliot reminds her again that she’s the one that made a friend. “Cool.  Think she’ll want to steal a painting with me?” she asks.  Oh, I do!  I do!  Sophie tells her to start with coffee.

Only two more episodes of the season left, Leverage fans!   Tune in to see our players possibly get themselves played.  Don’t forget to visit the forums!