Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Leverage - The Cross My Heart Job


Season Four is likely to be remembered as the season the writers shook things up by putting the team in unusual situations. Already this season we've seen the actors play characters in 70 year-old flashbacks, get caught in a murder mystery, have one of the team (Aldis Hodge) get buried alive, and now this week the Leverage team tries to steal back a stolen heart with no prep time or any of their regular tools.

The situation begins with the team in an airport coming off a semi-botched mission when Nate (Timothy Hutton) catches sight of a troubled woman (Tina Holmes) who has just made a drop. She reveals that her daughter (Madeleine Young) was kidnapped. The men responsible demanded the heart which she was carrying to its intended recipient, a dying 15 year-old boy, in her job as an organ transporter. With less than two hours the team must find a way to save her daughter, recover the heart, and get it back to the hospital.


The story lends itself to some fun antics as the team, deprived of their usual hardware, has to make do with what they can piece together. The episode also turns dark as Nate lets his own personal experience and the death of his son cloud his judgement and even go so far as to declare war on the dying corrupt businessman (James Tolkan) who needs the heart for his own.

Although it doesn't have the big heist or complicated switcheroo the show is known for, from beginning to end the episode is one of the season's strongest, and most personal for the team's leader. It also opens a possible door of a future enemy coming after the team. And things don't look quiet down for the team as next week's episode is the show's mid-season finale which returns Sterling (Mark Sheppard) to the mix. Sounds like fun.

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