Leverage: Redemption - The Shakedown in Clone-Town Job

Usually the Leverage team picks their marks carefully and makes plans to take them down. However, every so often, the stumble upon a situation that needs resolving. This is the case in the awkwardly-titled "The Shakedown in the Clone-Town Job" in which Eliot (Christian Kane),  Sophie (Gina Bellman), and Parker (Beth Riesgraf) target a small-town mayor (Cedric Yarbrough) whose grift is destroying the town. When the con on the fly fails, the group resorts to turning the mayor's allies against him and opening a window for the people of the town to step-in and fight for their homes.

The title of the episode comes from Parker's misunderstanding of how the mayor can be both the mayor and the judge (allowing him to keep his coffers flush with money collected from anyone coming through his courts) and the the renaissance man (John Charles Meyer) Sophie falls for who seems to have his thumb in every pie in the town including town council, tow-truck driver, and town vet. While mentioned, Harry (Noah Wyle) isn't involved in the case limiting the team's potential legal maneuverings and leading them to simply cause a bit of chaos and see what happens next. 

While not as successful as pulling off a heart transplant or running multiple cons all one night out of the bar, the episode does provide each character to show off some skills. Eliot's election of temporary mayor provides a bit of wacky fun (why couldn't it have been Sophie's beau?), but certainly would seem to raise flags and potentially draw the group's enemies to the town (which is always a bit of a sticking point on any job where mass media coverage is involved). Also, given the tease at the end of the last episode, the pivot away from Sophie/Harry yet again feels a bit like a missed opportunity.

• Title: Leverage: Redemption - The Shakedown in Clone-Town Job
• IMDb: link