Eliot: You need revenge.
Nate is drunk and angry as he barges his way into a party for his old boss, Ian Blackpoole, knocks out the guard, and takes his gun and points it at Blackpoole’s head.
- Blackpoole: You here to kill me Nate?
Nate: Not tonight.
Blackpoole: Well, in that case come in. There’s shrimp.
Nate: I do love shrimp.
He then tells Blackpoole he has something to sell him which he whispers to him. Blackpoole thinks he’s lying then calls Portia (Sophie).
Three weeks ago, the team, unable to watch Nate destroy himself, decided he needed to settle his demons once and for all. Sophie begins telling them of Michelangelo’s David, the famous sculpture, but particularly the two small copies that have been bought, sold, lost and found, stolen and recovered time and time again over the centuries.
Blackpoole currently has one, they intend to sell him a second, let him insure it with IYS, and then expose it as a fake, causing his own company to accuse him of fraud, ruin his reputation and leave him penniless. The problem is he won’t buy it until he has it verified by an expert. They just have to arrange for it to be one of them.
Eliot is the one to do it, and Nate calls him in, but he’s working on a blonde he met but Nate just tells him to bring her over. It turns out to be Maggie, Nate’s ex-wife. She and Nate start talking as the others go to examine the pictures of the statue, but when Maggie hears of it, she wants to take a look herself. Blackpoole insists that she be the one to verify or he walks and Nate agrees. Now they have to steal the first David so they can show it to Maggie as the second David, otherwise she’ll see right through them. Nate calls Parker to get the statue.
- Parker: You want me to break into a secure storage facility with whatever I can scrounge up at a buffet table?
Nate: Yep, pretty much.
Parker: ...cool.
She and Hardison enter the scene, as she collects the stuff she needs, then she starts making out with him as she bumps the secured door, setting the silent alarm off. The guards come to investigate, then roll their eyes and tell them to watch the door in the future. Parker is able to get the vault open, while Eliot asks Sophie which one of them Parker kissed.
They get the statue and put the fake in its place, but Sophie has an idea, what if both statues turned out to be fakes? Every sale Blackpoole’s made for ten years would have to be audited. Nate is hesitant, because he think Sophie is trying to pull one over on everyone, but she thinks he’s getting cold feet because of Maggie. He admits she still works for IYS because she doesn’t know they denied their son’s treatment.
The next day, Hardison goes to the airport and starts bullying some pilots in the guise of an FAA inspector, and uses that to create the impression he just arrived as the plane pulls up. Maggie looks at the statue and declares it genuine. Blackpoole is delighted.
As he takes the statue to an armored truck, Sophie comes in and tells him the deal with the Vatican is on. Then Nate comes out and socks him in the jaw. He feels better afterward. Neither of them notice someone taking pictures of them after Blackpoole leaves.
Eliot, Parker and Hardison are intercepted and, while Eliot manages to stay loose, Parker and Hardison are apprehended, and Sterling was behind it. He wants something, the second David. Nate protests that they don’t have it, but Sterling knows who stole it: Sophie, who it now becomes clear was looking to make a matching set. Nate is not pleased that she didn't tell him. Sterling offers an exchange: the statue for Parker.
Sophie takes Nate to a storage unit where she has all these treasures she’s been keeping for years. They try to come up with something Sterling won’t think of.
When Sophie shows up for the exchange and Nate turns himself in, Sterling goes back on his word, but he didn’t seem to count on Sophie asking herself, “What would Parker do”, or Nate asking, “What would Hardison do?” Sophie and Parker jump off the side of the building while Nate sets off a tone that disables the guards at the Leverage office.
Having made their escape, Sterling goes to the office wanting to have it completely investigated, but Hardison gives them just enough time to get out before blowing it up. Sterling decides to leave it at that.
- Sterling: We’ve taken their money, their base of operations, and now Nate Ford will never, ever get his revenge. They will do the only smart thing to do. They’ll scatter. They’re professionals; they know when the game’s up.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- Artistic License – History: More specifically, art history. The plot centers around the First David and Second David, a pair of miniature statues created by Michelangelo Buonarroti in preparation for his famous life-size David. The larger sculpture is real, but the smaller twin statues are fictional, invented for the show.
- As You Know. Lampshaded. Nate asks Sophie to cut the art history exposition, but Hardison says that some people need to hear it.
- Badass Boast: Eliot walks into the Leverage offices at the end. "Four guys?" Two more walk up behind him. "Six guys?"
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Ian Blackpoole.
- Downer Ending: The team gets away, but they have to go their separate ways, having lost the second David to Blackpoole.
- Exact Words: Nate agrees that Eliot probably can't take out six guys. However, with a little help from Nate and Hardison (and Nate thinking like Hardison)...
- Fake-Out Make-Out: Parker pulls Hardison into one to open the alarm-wired door.
- Fakin Macguffin: That was the original plan, but when Blackpoole insisted on having Maggie verify it they needed a real David to show her.
- Freudian Slip: Arguably, Sophie's unusually loud "GREAT!" when Nate starts reconnecting with Maggie. Maggie's presence is obviously a complication in their plan, but the fact that it happens when Maggie is talking about still caring for Nate makes it a little suspicious that the heist isn't the only thing Sophie feels is being threatened...
- Functional Addict: Nate (again) claims to be one in order to brush off the team's concerns. Subverted when they aren't convinced and point out that he's been getting steadily worse.
- Get Out!: Hardison giving Sterling time to exit before the explosion.Hardison on screens: Hey Sterling! GET OUT MY HOUSE. (cue countdown of 30 seconds)
- Girl on Girl Is Hot: Eliot seems interested in knowing if Parker was kissing Hardison, or Sophie.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: They come to check on the silent alarm Parker sets off during the Fake-Out Make-Out, but then leave without securing the door again. It might have helped that Hardison was dressed as a waiter and thus less suspicious.
- Laser Hallway: In the vault where the First David is kept.
- MacGuffin: The First David statue, a miniature replica of Michelangelo's famous David. The team must steal it—on very short notice—in order to pass it off as its identical twin, the Second David, so that they can sell it back to Blackpoole.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Nate trying to talk to the team while talking to Maggie.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Nate gets out of a cab and staggers into a fundraiser, drunk. So far so normal. Headbutts the security guard at the gate. Whoa.
- The fact that someone nearly took Eliot down in a fight is a sign to the viewers that the Leverage team are in serious trouble.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Happens to Sophie a couple times, notably her Freudian slip (a loud "GREAT!" when she overhears Maggie tell Nate she still cares about him), indicating how much Maggie's presence has shaken her.
- Silent Whisper: What Nate says he wants to sell to Blackpoole.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Hardison promises Parker that if she sets off the alarm, he's running.
- Staging an Intervention: The team confronts Nate about his habits. He thinks they're pulling an intervention and are going to drag him off to rehab (for real this time), but they have other ideas. They're going to help him get revenge on those responsible for his son's death.
- Tempting Fate: Hardison's comment on seeing the vault is, "Man, am I glad I don't have to break in there. That is one sick security system."
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Nate gets one from Sophie, calling him out for using the team for his own personal revenge mission while insisting that he is morally superior to the very people he can't pull it off without (even though he himself is a reckless, abrasive drunk who's now just as much of a criminal as the rest of them).
- Time Bomb: Hardison has one set in the Leverage office.
- Toplessness from the Back: When Parker is changing for the party. As in the pilot, Hardison averts his eyes, this time also turning the statue to face away from her.
- Trash the Set: Hardison's bomb destroys the Leverage offices, although we don't get to see the explosion from the inside.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Sophie is very dismayed to learn that Maggie doesn't know about Blackpoole's involvement in her son's death, because Nate never told her.
- What Would X Do?: Sophie and Nate get out of their predicaments by thinking like Parker and Hardison respectively.
- Where's the Kaboom?: After Sterling and the others reach the street, they look up... and nothing happens. One of the men has time to wonder if the countdown timer was a bluff before the building's whole top floor explodes.
