June 20 Leverage Season Premiere-- the fan girl review by Alexis-Rueal

Tonight Robin Hood and his merry... wait a sec... wrong team... Tonight, the Leverage team returned to TNT for its summer season, and was I ever happy to see them.

Led by Timothy Hutton (I've been fan-girly for him for AGES), as Nathan Ford, this team of grifters, cons and thieves perform a wide variety of cons and capers to take down the rich bastards that run this earth and give a little something back to the little guys that take their shit every day. (I should write the overviews and summaries for TNT...)

At the end of last season, Nathan was wounded AND arrested while the team was escaping from Jim Sterling and a boatload of trouble. The Jailhouse Job premiere finds Nathan in a private prison and his team in a minor case of turmoil.

Nathan and the team find themselves working from without and within to 1. try to break Nathan out of prison and 2. help take down a corrupt warden who pays off judges to give stiff sentences to regular people who can't afford lawyers. The client in this episode is an accountant doing an 8 month stint for transporting liquor across state lines. As if that isn't bad enough, he is getting framed for a jailhouse murder committed by prison guards.(talk about epically shitty luck)



This episode was really good about how they were able to work from the inside and outside to help bring these corrupt prison employees down and break Nate out of jail. There was a nice mix of high and low tech cons and the dialog was its usual sparkling self. There was some drama in this episode, too, as Nathan had to work to regain the trust of his fellow team members. The funniest part of this involved Sophie going back to her real name and refusing to tell Nathan. As Parker said "he hasn't earned the right" to learn it, yet. Needless to say, Nathan is NOT happy about that.

We also got to learn about story arc for this season: a mystery woman interested in "hiring" (blackmailing) the team into taking out a MAJOR worldwide crime figure. As if escaping from prison wasn't bad enough for Nathan and the gang.... this job is going to take them straight down the rabbit hole. I can't wait to see where it takes them this season.

There was a second hour to this season premiere. The Reunion Job really gave a focus on the funny side of the series as the team plotted and conned to stop a head of a software company from selling sensitive computer programs to terrorist nations-- the team describes him as being the "IT department of the axis of evil." (major snicker)

What was so funny about this is that the bad guy (the WONDERFUL character actor Arye Gross)uses his dorky, tragic high school existence as the fodder for all of his passwords and for the equipment he uses for his criminal activity. Seeing how the team is able to use these unresolved issues against him is both INGENIOUS and HELLA FUNNY. I will put it this way... after watching this episode, you might just think twice before going to your high school reunion.

*SPOILER ALERT* There is an absolutely adorable scene where Parker, who had never went to high school, got to experience a high school dance with Hardison. Seriously, there is some major 'shipping with these two. They make an absolutely ADORABLE couple... we'll see where it goes from here.

So, in all... two worthy and tasty good hours of summer TV. Can't wait to see what happens this season.

As always,
Alexis-Rueal
(Fan-Girl confessor)