Nathan Ford is out job hunting, now that he's an honest man again. He's got a decent offer from Boston Assurance, but seeing how bored and unhappy the employees are, he walks out.
In the street outside, Matt Kerrigan and his daughter Zoe are driving, Zoe encouraging him to go to the police with something, implied to be in his briefcase on the back seat. Without warning, the car starts speeding up, the brakes stop responding, and they crash, flipping the car. Luckily, Nate is there and manages to pull Zoe from the car. Another man appears to go help Matt, but instead steals his briefcase and runs. Nate gets Matt out just before the car explodes.
At the hospital, Nate meets Glenn Leary, the head of the bank that Matt works at, and Lieutenant Bonanno of the State Police. Nate notes that the State Police would not have jurisdiction on the car crash, but apparently Matt had called them before the crash wanting to talk about something. Bonnanno leaves, and Leary tells Nate that Matt had been drinking as the bank is going to be closed. Nate comforts Zoe, still in shock from the accident, and leaves.
That night the Leverage team run into each other at the theater where Sophie is starring in the lead role in The Sound of Music, the first time any of them have seen each other since the The Second David Job. Afterwards in McRory's Pub (the bar below Nate's condo), the crew begs Nate to put the team back together since they're all bored and miserable, but Nate refuses. However, when he returns home, the same thug who stole the briefcase tries to kill him. Sophie helps drive him off, but unintentionally knocks Nate out.
The next morning, he awakes to the smacking of Parker in a nun outfit, eating cereal, and finds the whole team is there, making a plan to help the Kerrigans. They track down the hitman who seems to be working with Leary and an unidentified man. Parker and Hardison crack Leary's safety deposit box and find a bunch of files.
Later, Nate is upset to find Hardison still set up in his living room, going through the documents. Nate tries again to kick him out, but recognizes Brandon O'Hare, the Boston mobster they saw with Leary and the hitman. Turns out, O'Hare owns all the businesses that the bank has been working with, all of whom have been taking out high-interest loans the bank is about to write off. Eliot is at one of the mob's "offices", which turns out to be little more than a warehouse full of junk from the 80s. He runs into some thugs, including the hit man, but after beating them all, he leaves in one piece.
Nate is still unhappy that the crew have taken over his living room, but can't help being drawn into the case. He deduces that the fake businesses have been used for money laundering, now taking advantage of the bank bailout with all the recent bad loans. Nate finally agrees to do this one final job.
Dressed as state police, Hardison and Parker talk to Leary about Matt Kerrigan's "car accident." Eliot lets Leary see him pass menacingly, then plants a few small detonators on a nearby wall. Hardison gives Leary his number and tells him to call if anything happens.
Nate goes to O'Hare (who knows Nate's family) and introduces Sophie as a money launderer from London looking for a stateside partner. O'Hare seems interested, but needs to talk to some people first.
Back at the bank, Eliot detonates the charges as Leary walks out, making him think someone's shooting at him, and prompting him to call Hardison. Meanwhile, Nate visits Zoe in the hospital. She quotes Matt, "Be careful, Zoe. There are wolves in the world." Nate tells her he's not wrong.
The next day, Hardison calls Leary and tries to convince him to go to the State Police because O'Hare is trying to kill him, but instead, Leary heads straight for the warehouse where Nate is meeting O'Hare with a briefcase full of money. It immediately becomes clear that Leary is the mastermind of the money laundering, not O'Hare. Leary recognizes Nate, who manages to stall, when Eliot is captured outside by the mobsters, and Nate "finds" a state trooper badge on him.
O'Hare refuses to kill Eliot as he doesn't want to be a Cop Killer. While they argue, Sophie appears and shoots Eliot herself, apparently killing him. Nate checks his cellphone, and when Leary re-dials the last number it called, O'Hare's phone rings (because it's actually Nate's phone, and he called O'Hare earlier). Flustered, O'Hare runs, and is saved from the mobsters by Hardison and Parker in their police guises. They get him to agree to a deal and record his confession, after which they taser him unconscious.
Leary recognizes them as the police he met, but he knows they don't have evidence against him to really be a problem, even if O'Hare testifies. Nate reminds him about Matt, so Leary goes to take care of Matt personally. After he leaves, Eliot gets up, having used the detonators and some ketchup under his shirt.
Leary arrives at the hospital, but when he pulls back the curtain, he finds Lieutenant Bonanno. Bonanno checks Leary's briefcase (the one with the money), which turns out to have been stolen from Leary's bank safe deposit boxes (by Hardison and Parker). The detective tells Leary that he found O'Hare duct taped to his steering wheel and he has been very cooperative. Furthermore, the briefcase also contains the files from Leary's box, and it turns out to actually be Matt's stolen briefcase. Leary pleads that he's being set up, but Bonnanno doubts anyone is smart enough to frame somebody so completely.
Back at McRory's Pub, The Kerrigans thank Nate for helping them out as Nate gives them the check from the IRS as Matt was the first to figure out the tax fraud. Zoe gives Nate a hug before they leave.
Nate jokes to them that until he finds a job he will continue pulling working with the team. He asks Sophie out to dinner, but she politely tells him that she has a date. Nate orders a drink, but chooses not to drink it. Back in his apartment, Nate is shocked to see Hardison setting up monitors on the wall, while Parker brings in the painting of Old Nate, and Eliot breaks down the wall to the next unit. Nate is horrified to learn that Hardison bought the whole building, making him Nate's landlord, and he's planning some renovations.
Tropes stolen in this episode:
- Air Quotes: When posing as cops, Parker uses finger quotes when she tells Glenn Leary that she and Hardison are investigating Kerrigan's "car accident." Leary doesn't get it, leaving Parker worriedly asking Hardison if she did it right.
- Addiction Displacement: Nate quit drinking alcohol, but he now has an entire cabinet dedicated to coffee.
- Apologetic Attacker: Eliot apologizes to one of the mob thugs for hitting him in his already broken nose.
- Briefcase Full of Money: Nate brings one to his meeting with O'Hare. Which turns out to be stolen from Leary's bank. And also contain Leary's files confirming his guilt. Oh, and it's Matt Kerrigan's stolen briefcase. Meaning that any person caught with it is in big trouble.
- Caustic Critic: "Never before has a production of The Sound of Music made me root for the Nazis."
- Chekhov's Gun: The gun-imitating explosives enabled Eliot to make it look like Sophie had shot him.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Over a season in advance. O'Hare recognizes Nate as "Jimmy Ford's kid". This is the first mention of Nate's father, and the first hint that he and the criminal underworld are not... unacquainted.
- Cop Killer: O'Hare is leery of becoming one.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Leary.
- Enhance Button: Averted! Hardison's security footage is "not clear enough for facial recognition." Luckily Nate knows the guy personally.
- Even Evil Has Standards / Pragmatic Villainy: O'Hare has no problem with indirectly killing people, but he really doesn't want to shoot a cop.
- Foreshadowing: At first, it may seem like just a Contrived Coincidence that Nate and O'Hare know each other, with Nate recognizing him by sight and O'Hare recognizing Nate as "Jimmy Ford's kid". But when we learn more about Jimmy Ford, it becomes clear why Nate might be familiar with the criminal underworld here...
- Good Feels Good: The reason the team is finding it hard to go back to their thieving ways. They're less than happy about this.
- Groin Attack: Subverted. Hardison admits that he hasn't worked out all the kinks in the explosive squibs Eliot is planting and that things like a garage door opener or a car alarm could possibly set them off. Eliot happens to have them in his pants pocket at the time. Cue a woman walking up and accidentally triggering her car's alarm.Parker: What are the odds that Eliot's crotch will actually explode?
Eliot: Damnit, Hardison! - Her Boyfriend's Jacket: Sophie comes down the stairs from Nate's bedroom wearing his shirt. It's not a Sexy Shirt Switch since he was unconscious and on the couch (after she knocked him out), but the Ship Tease is still there.
- Impersonating an Officer: Parker and Hardison while questioning Leary.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: Lieutenant Bonnano says this, but one gets the feeling he knows someone is Framing the Guilty Party.Somebody tricked you into bringing a briefcase full of evidence of your own crimes straight to the police?
- Man Behind the Man: Leary is the one pulling the strings.
- Metaphorgotten: Looks like it's going to happen with Parker's "people are like locks" speech, but the simile more or less holds up.Parker: I think people are like locks. Really complicated and frustrating, but you can't force them. You have to take time and be fiddly.Hardison: Fiddly?Parker: You learn to be patient and just wait until you hear the... [lock clicks open]
- No Social Skills: Parker really didn't need to read Sophie's terrible review (which Sophie was already freaking out over) aloud. Hardison gives her a look.
- Only One Name: Parker, when she tries to pick up her tickets to Sophie's show:
- "Name, please?"
Parker: "Parker."
"First name or last name?"
Parker: "No. Just one name."
- Porn Stash: Subverted. Sophie reassures Nate that she didn't look under his bed, because she knows "that's where boys keep weird...kinky stuff." Nate insists he doesn't have anything under there, but later on Sophie mentions to Eliot that it's "icky" under there.
- Recovered Addict: Nate quit drinking since we saw him last, suggesting that the team's theory that getting revenge for his son's death would help him was correct. However, he does almost relapse twice in the episode, at the start when leaving the insurance company and at the end when he finds out that Sophie's dating someone else. He ultimately doesn't take the drink, though.
- Ship Tease: Parker and Hardison. When he tells her that he looked for her (as promised in the Season One finale), her response is the "people are like locks" speech, which is surprisingly socially aware for Parker, possibly highlighting how he brings out that side of her.
- Take That!: Leary points out how ridiculous it is that the Feds are obsessed with O'Hare's mobsters while someone like him - a proud instigator of the 2008 financial crisis
- gets massive amounts of money from the government.What do you think these guys clear in a year? Stealing cigarettes, selling drugs, a couple hundred thousand, all in? And for that, the government hunts them down like dogs. People like me, we took billions from the banks. Billions. And what did the government do when they finally caught us? They wrote us a giant check and begged us to make it all better. - Tap on the Head: Sophie accidentally clocks Nate with a metal tray when she thinks he's an attacker and knocks him out overnight.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Nate repeatedly tries to hustle the crew out of his apartment because he doesn't want to be part of another crime. They ignore him. Sophie looks under his bed, Hardison checks out his shower and fills his fridge with orange soda, Parker roots around in his cabinets, and they all leave a mess.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: The team, to themselves. They're all grumpy that they can't go back to stealing stuff because Nate taught them to help people.
