The team aim at a corrupt mine boss and the crooked state attorney general on his payroll.
The boss ran an unsafe mine, resulting in an explosion two years before the events of the episode. Although he received money from the government to improve safety, he spent it instead on buying the state attorney general who keeps the complaints against the mine tied up in red tape.
Sophie and Hardison pose as (intentionally suspicious) "mine inspectors" while Nate poses as "Gibson", a businessman who offers to buy the mine. When the owner becomes suspicious, Sophie "admits" that they actually work for Gibson and were checking the mine for coltan, a rare mineral which Gibson is planning to mine out of the surrounding properties using her company's process.
The owner uses his connection with the attorney general, and then agrees to buy the process himself (just as the team had planned). However, the team was setting him up to illegally use the money he'd put in the AG's campaign fund, but he is ultimately persuaded to shut down the mine instead, instructing his assistant to send everyone home and plant a bomb in the mine, giving him an excuse to restructure operations.
Thinking fast, Nate calls the owner to the mine, while Sophie and Parker trick the Attorney General into believing that the mine owner (with whom she is also having an affair) is both cheating on her with Sophie and planning to take the money out of the PAC instead of the mine.
At the mine, Nate explains to the owner the first part of the con, implying that Sophie's character had conned them both with a worthless process for mining nonexistent coltan. At that moment, an explosion causes a rockslide that locks the two of them into the mine with only a few hours of oxygen.
Underground, Nate grills Blackwell on why the intercoms and other safety features which should be installed in the mine aren't working, and Blackwell admits to having faked the improvements, then knocks Nate out to conserve oxygen for himself. When the owner gets outside, he is greeted by the Attorney General and the Sheriff, who were there to bust him for moving the money, but the Sheriff arrests them both when the owner's confession is broadcast over the mine speakers.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- Callback: To the "Fiddle Game" con from "The Studio Job". Parker even asks if Elliot is the fiddle again.
- Corrupt Politician: Attorney General Debra Pierce, whose entire campaign was funded by Blackwell expressly for the purpose of getting someone in office who could make his regulatory problems disappear.
- Engineered Public Confession: When Nate and Blackwell get trapped in the mine, Nate repairs the intercom in time for Blackwell's confession of faking the safety improvements and bribing the DA to be heard by the sheriff... and the DA he's standing next to.
- Establishing Character Moment: Blackwell gets two in rapid succession: first, he yells at two crew foremen who are small-talking during the shift change for "lollygagging." Then, when the mine explosion happens, his first impulse is not to check the damage or to see to the injured miners, but to call his lawyer.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Invoked by Sophie to get the Attorney General to illegally transfer money out of her PAC.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: Hardison's disgusted response to the sex recording of Blackwell and Pierce.
