A soldier, Robert Perry, is taping a message for home when someone opens fire. At a hospital, the Perry tells Nate that it was private contractors from a company called Castleman that shot him and now the company won’t pay for his rehab, since the official story is that it was insurgents.
Nate calls Hardison and tells him to call the team. He brings them to the offices of Leverage Consulting and Associates, their new cover.
Nate shows them Perry’s video and Eliot confirms that it was the contractors, and Nate sets them after the documentation needed to keep a big lie going.
While Parker and Hardison break into Castleman’s office, Sophie mingles with Castleman CEO Charles Dufort and his contact in Congress at a social gathering, presenting herself as a representative from an overseas company. They were discussing Appropriations Bill 718, something Dufort has a keen interest in. Nate distracts him while Sophie lifts the security card from his wallet.
With that Hardison is able to get into Dufort’s computer, while Parker needs a pass phrase in his voice to get into his safe. Eliot tricks him into saying the syllables she needs with a couple of exceptions…’f’, ‘u’, and ‘kah’.
Inside the safe, they find photos of Perry, and Nate realizes the cover up isn’t about the shooting, it’s about what was being transported. Perry is a witness, and Castleman will be coming after him.
At the hospital, Nate and Sophie get Perry out while Eliot realizes a couple of doctors are wearing the wrong kind of shoes and must be the hitmen and moves to intercept them.
After Perry is secured, they go through the hitmen’s stuff. They were going to kill Perry and make it look like a suicide.
They decide to go after Congressman Jenkins and turn him and Dufort against each other. Sophie goes after Jenkins, while Nate talks to Dufort. Hardison checks on the Congressman’s finances and while there are no actual bribes, he’s been getting sweetheart deals to renovate his house. Eliot decides to have some fun and cancel one of his orders for building materials. Meanwhile Parker is putting a modified Bill 718 into the congressional box.
After the bill is submitted, Jenkins is not happy and calls Dufort to let him know. Listening to their phone calls, they find out there’s a shipment sitting in a shipyard in Los Angeles, the cause of the whole incident. Whatever they’re covering up, it’s in that shipping container.
Eliot, Hardison and Parker make their way to the container and find a stack of money inside.
Nate knows where it came from; the government sent it to Iraq for “reconstruction”…$9 billion went missing. They are willing to kill for it because it’s cash, untraceable, able to be used for anything.
Back at the shipyard Nate and Sophie distract the Castleman guards, Hardison and Parker go after the container, while Jenkins arrives to look for his missing shipment. Moments later an explosion goes off. The guards race to the container to find it empty.
Meanwhile, Jenkins and Dufort run into each other. They exchange angry words when suddenly a posse of reporters approaches. Apparently the “congressman” called them, but the empty container isn't the right one. It’s the one next to it and he happens to have the key, which Eliot gave him earlier. They open the container revealing the money and begin to spin a tale of uncovering corruption in Iraq. As they do, everyone’s cell phones go off, and a recording of their conversation earlier is played. The reporters start asking questions, but Jenkins can only say, “Oh, Crap!.”
Back at the hospital, the team presents the money to Perry and the rest of the veterans there.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- The Alcoholic: While the previous episode showed that Nate had descended into drinking, this episode makes clear that finding a new family and doing good schemes won't be enough to keep Nate away from it. Sophie grabs a bottle away from him to stop him drinking straight from it, following which he smugly drinks out of a tumbler.
- All Men Are Perverts: How Sophie figured out the Congressman was lying about not knowing about the shooting.Sophie: Congressman Jenkins, he's our in. He looked me straight in the eye and told me he'd never even heard of the shooting.
Parker: So?
Sophie: 'Looked me in the eye'? When men are telling the truth they're not looking me in the eye. A man only ever looks a woman in the eye when he's making the effort to lie to her.
Eliot: Well, you can't argue with that.
Hardison: Noted and filed. - Awesome by Analysis: Eliot finds out the two doctors are hitmen by looking at the shoes they wear. He also identifies them as ex-marines by their knife-fighting style. He also identifies the kind of rifle being fired by the sound of the gunshot.Eliot: It's a very distinctive gunshot.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Sophie's doing it again at an audition...for a soap commercial.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Perry's friend jokes that Perry cheated on his fiancee with a camel. A drunk, slutty camel.
- Brick Joke: "I bought a plant."
- Caught on Tape:
- Which is what caused the mercs to go trigger-happy on Perry's platoon.
- Dufort and the Congressman are caught on their own security webcam talking about the container of money.
- Chekhov's Gun: Midway through the episode Elliot cancels an order of mahogany panels for the Congressman's house just to mess with him, however the team later uses this to lure him into position for his Engineered Public Confession.
- Cool Car: Nate treats himself to a new electric car before financing the Leverage Inc. headquarters and giving the rest of his take from The Nigerian Job away. The team teases him about it, until they find it's a very sleek, gorgeous Tesla racer.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Villain of the Week, with his pet Congressman.
- Corrupt Politician: Congressman Jenkins.
- Curse Cut Short: The last few sounds Parker needs to fake a pass phrase.
- Cutting the Knot:
- As Hardison starts planning a hack of a webcam, Eliot just hits it with a rock.
Hardison: Oh, I'm sorry, it was too far away for you to punch, must be really frustrating for you.- Finding a changed lock on the container they plan to heist, Parker pulls out a block of plastic explosives rather than pick it.
- Discriminate and Switch: Inverted. Hardison needs to distract some security guards, so when they pull him over to search his truck, he starts ranting about how they're prejudiced against him... because he's Jewish.Hardison: Can't a brotha like matzo ball soup?
- Hilariously? This was adlibbed.
- Driven to Suicide: Castleman intends to make it look like Perry killed himself.
- Endearingly Dorky: Corporal Perry, to the point his doctor even noogies him in the ending because he wants to "keep half".
- Engineered Public Confession: The final step of the plan is to lure Dufort and Jenkins out to where their money is stored, make them believe that it's been stolen, and then record the ensuing incriminating argument so their crimes are exposed.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: When Elliot has a gun pointed at him in the beginning and his phone rings, he gets the gunman distracted for a second by claiming it isn't him and asking if the guy's mom has his number. The gunman hesitates and Elliot takes him out in a few swift hits.
- Even Evil Has Standards: After hearing Dufort talking about buying a congressman, Hardison comments, "I'm a professional criminal and I think that's disturbing."
- Failed a Spot Check: When Parker blows open the container, she doesn't blow up the one with the money, but the one next to it. The guards, and later Dufort, only notice the closeness to where the money container is and assume the worst.
- Fake a Fight: Nate & Sophie wander around a shipping yard dressed as tourists just off a cruise ship arguing about where they parked their car in order to distract the guards so that the rest of the team can sneak in and set up the con.
- Forged Message: The hitmen after Perry had a suicide note to make it look like he'd killed himself.
- Good Feels Good: Team Leverage realizes this in the aftermath of the job, when they present the injured reservists and their doctor with the money the hospital needs to pay for their rehabilitation.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: It makes Hardison nervous about jumping off the side of a building with Parker.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Nate's and Sophie's disguise to distract the mercs complete with Awful Wedded Life.
- He Knows Too Much: Why Castleman tries to make a hit on Perry. Thing is - he doesn't know anything, but they don't know that.
- Hidden Depths: This is the first time Hardison shows that despite being the Black and Nerdy Hollywood Hacker, he is also a very accomplished artist. It won't be the last.
- Ignore the Fanservice: Sophie is in a very nice dress for the fundraiser, capturing her body well. When she gently brings up the shooting of the soldiers, Congressman Jenkins does this when he denies any knowledge of it, looking her right in the eyes instead. Sophie explains when she is dressed like that and the guy isn't checking her out when he answers a question, it is most certainly because he is lying.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: Eliot IDs the hitmen because they're wearing the wrong kind of shoes.
- A Macguffin Full Of Money: The shipping container full of the stolen cash.
- Not What I Signed Up For: The group is initially very shaken after their encounter with the marine black ops in the hospital, with only Nathan not fearing for their safety afterward. However, they ultimately resolve their worries by the end of the episode.
- Oh, Crap!: As Jenkins puts it when the reporters hear the recording of Dufort and the congressman.
- Once More, with Clarity: Eliot walks past a pair of doctors in the hospital, and while we get the sense that something might be off, the other shoenote doesn't drop until a few moments later when he sees another doctor wearing Crocs. When he looks back at the two men, we see they're wearing boots.
- Offscreen Breakup: Perry's fiancee leaves him. He's accepted it for what it is.
- Precision F-Strike: Of minor plot significance. Parker needs Dufort to say the sounds "eff" "uh" and "kuh." Say those together and one gets that special word.
- Private Military Contractors: Castleman.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Nate spends a little of his astronomical take from the Nigerian Job on a Cool Car and on buying and furnishing Leverage Inc. Headquarters. He gives all the rest to a children's hospital, implied to be the same one where Sam died.
- Vehicle Vanish: Sophie and Nate's way of escape. They leave their luggage, though.
