" I don't care what anybody else says, next time I'm taking the train."
—Hardison
The team return from an out of state job in the Caribbean where Nate notices a woman making a drop with a cooler containing a human heart at the airport. He finds out the woman is actually a transplant nurse being blackmailed to deliver the heart to someone other than the original recipient as her daughter is being held hostage. With none of their gear, the Leverage crew are forced to do a job on the fly within a strict time limit.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Nate is in the middle of saying something to the group when he... suddenly... slows down... and then... stops... Because he's noticed multiple people acting oddly and has deduced that a woman has been coerced into making a hand-off with a criminal and now he needs to save her.
- Badass Boast: Nate's exchange with Chesney:Chesney: God helps those who help themselves.Nate: And I help the ones who can't.
- Brick Joke: The episode opens with Sophie complaining about having gotten horrible sunburn from the topless beach. At the end of the episode Hardison gives her a comradely slap on the arm and she gasps in pain.
- Brought Down to Badass: On their way home from a job that went sideways, the team doesn't have any of their usual equipment, handicapping them. This hits Hardison the hardest, naturally. Doesn't stop them, though.
- Call-Back: Eliot relays a coded message to Hardison on the intercom using a Star Trek reference. Hardison did the same thing to Eliot in "The Order 23 Job".
- Crazy-Prepared: Chesney claims to have eight contingencies in place to make sure the heart reaches him. One of those is having one of his men pose as an ambulance paramedic to collect the heart. Nate deduces this and punches the man out. (See Pants-Positive Safety.)
- Dark Lord on Life Support: Nate had his eye on Dean Chesney for some time but didn't make him a priority because the man was at death's door.
- Evil Old Folks: Dean Chesney is an old man who is willing to steal a heart that was intended to save a 15-year-old boy's life in order to prolong his own.
- I Have Your Wife: Chesney forces the nurse to steal the heart for him by holding her daughter hostage.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Invoked. Hardison has to help a plane running out of fuel land and laments that he didn't play more flight simulators. He is able to land the plane with the help of a Microsoft flight simulator program.
- It's Personal: Nate makes it personal when he finds out that Chesney was willing to sacrifice a boy's life to save his own.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: At least implied. Nate can't report Chesney's crimes without exposing those of his team. When Chesney smugly brags that he can try again, Nate reveals that he has him under surveillance and is ready to take him down the second he sees him doing something shady. Chesney can only resign himself to fate at the end of the episode and it is implied he will die without a heart transplant.
- Most of Chesney's team also get paid out on the warranty... with the exception of the random thug (no connection to Chesney) who kidnapped the nurse's daughter. The police find him zip-tied and duct-taped in a duffle bag.
- Literal-Minded: Parker thinks the Emerald of the Caribbean is an actual emerald when it's an island. As has happened before with this sort of misunderstanding. Multiple corrections and explanations fail to shift Parker's interpretation.
- Lost Property Live Drop: An organ transplant nurse whose daughter has been kidnapped is blackmailed into turning over a donor heart. She does so by surreptitiously swapping coolers with a man standing beside her in an airport terminal. Nate witnesses the man pick up the cooler she set down, sees how distressed she is, and determines to find out what's going on.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Everything about Dean Chesney — his name, his appearance, his job as an arms manufacturer, his status as an old man dying from heart disease — evokes Dick Cheney.
- No-Gear Level: The team has no access to their equipment, so are forced to make do with whatever they could swipe from the airport.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever they were doing in the Caribbean. Also,Hardison: Hey, this is like the stone age, here. No one's asking Eliot to fight someone with a nerf sword!
Eliot: Damascus, 2002. - O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Sophie approaches Nate when he approaches the bar at the shitty seafood restaurant in the airport. He thinks he knows what she's about to say. She tells him to take a drink. The whole team knows that this job, a rich man trying to kill a sick child, could push Nate over the edge, and they're worried. She wants him on the even keel that he can only have if he's on a certain level of alcohol. The end of the episode... Nate is damn scary when he successfully threatens a rich man, one with literally nothing to lose, so forcefully that said rich man gives up his attempts to prolong his life.
- Pants-Positive Safety: How do we know Nate didn't just clock a random ambulance driver? He had a pistol in his waistband.
- Race Against the Clock: The team has 108 minutes to save the nurse's daughter and secure the heart transplant to deliver to the intended patient, without any gear.
- Shout-Out: At least three to Star Trek.
- Eliot pages "Kirk Picard" to send a coded message to Hardison when the radio tower interferes with comms.
- In a more subtle example, Hardison complains about the decades-old computer he's forced to work with by comparing it to "stone knives and bearskins", a quote from "The City on the Edge of Forever".
- Hardison refers to Nate on his walkie-talkie as Leverage Flight 1701.
- Talk to the Fist: A fake paramedic hired by Chesny starts yelling at Nate and Linda as soon as they emerge from the airport. Nate sees through him and punches him out.
- Trauma Button: Nate takes this case very personally due to it bringing to mind memories of his son's death. He outright threatens to kill Chesney if the boy dies because of Chesney's actions.
- Would Hurt a Child: Chesney isn't concerned that the heart he is stealing was supposed to save a teenage boy. He also has a nurse's daughter kidnapped to blackmail her into helping him steal the heart.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Chesney has had years to plan for this and has built in 8 contingency plans, each of which forces Nate to adjust The Plan on the fly as he discovers them.Nate: [walks out airport front door] [knocks out ambulance driver] Chesney said he had eight contingencies in place. By my count, that's seven. [Eliot retrieves and disables driver's gun]
