Leverage: The Wedding Job

We start off this week at one of my favorite types of places in the world, an Italian restaurant.  The owner, Ray Palermo, closes up, though two men remain at their table and show no signs of leaving.  His wife Teresa doesn’t like that one of the men, Mickey Mosconi, always brings his business to the restaurant, and is hesitant to leave her husband alone with the pair.  He assures her that everything will be fine, and the second she leaves Mickey shoots his dinner date dead.  Gotta love that female intuition.  Ray freaks out, asking Mickey what he did, but Mickey shoves the gun into his hand and tells him to take the fall for the murder.  Since Ray paid for the restaurant with his money, Mickey figures that he owes him, and he promises that his people will take care of Ray’s family.  Ray doesn’t have time to think about the situation, since the local police have the fastest response time EVER, so he takes the gun and lets Mickey leave through the back door.

Cut over to Leverage Headquarters, where Teresa has just finished recounting the shooting to Sophie.  It took place five years ago, and her husband has spent all the time since in prison.  He still has ten more years on his sentence, so it doesn’t look like the self-defense plea ray suggested went over big.  Nate walks by and notices the interview.  He looks pretty ticked that Sophie is seeing a client, since he’s supposed to pick them, and isn’t at all assuaged when Hardison tells him that she’s Sophie’s friend.  He barges into the interview and listens while Teresa continues her story.  She says that she wanted Ray to tell the truth and enter the Witness Protection Program, but he refused.  He thought that mob would make good on his promise to take care of his family, but Teresa says that they never got a cent.  She even had to sell their house and the restaurant.  To make matters worse, Teresa recently found out that Mickey is throwing a big wedding for his daughter.  “My daughter only knows her father from the other side of bullet proof glass,” she says.  “It’s not right.”  Since there’s really nothing the team can do to get her husband out of jail, she just wants the $765,000 needed to get the restaurant back.  Nate, who’s still pissed that his hierarchy was disturbed, dismisses her fairly rudely.  Teresa realizes that her daughter is missing, and we find the young girl with Parker, who has trained her to pick a padlock in six seconds.  In case you were wondering, yes, it is adorable.

Since Nate is having some sort of alpha male crisis, he doesn’t want to take on Teresa’s case.  He thinks Ray invited trouble when he took money from Mickey, which is kind of true, but Nate doesn’t have to be such an asshat about it.  Hardison suggests that they take the mob out of the equation and think about the situation as a breach of contract.  When they look at it that way, the case is exactly the kind that they always take on.  Nate’s still not convinced, so Sophie tries to get him to sympathize with Teresa.  “Her man’s gone to jail for fifteen years,” she says.  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to wait for someone?”  Nate realizes that she’s really talking about their relationship, and agrees to take on the case.

The team scope out Mickey’s mansion, which looks more like a palace than a house.  Hardison says it’s got so much security that even he can’t hack into it.  I find that sort of hard to believe, since he doesn’t seem to have any problem hacking into the FBI database and all sorts of other government things, but whatever.  Speaking of the FBI, they’re parked on the street next to the mansion, using a plumber van as their cover.  “That is so cute!” Sophie says.  “It’s like it’s 1978 all over again.”  Heh.  They decide that they’ll have to steal the FBI’s surveillance, so Hardison and Parker pose as agents to gain access to the van.  To very earnest and bumbling FBI officers are inside, and are thrilled that the bureau hasn’t forgotten about them.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it had, because these guys aren’t exactly top notch agents; they’ve only planted one bug in the Mosconi house and they spend their time playing with inflated rubber gloves.  Cute, but not very productive.  Hardison and Parker easily steal an ID badge to make a fake ID for Eliot and plant something in their computer.  Later, Eliot uses the fake badge he made to get inside the FBI headquarters.  He’s supposed to copy the Mosconi surveillance files onto a flashdrive, but he’s a bit computer illiterate and is nervous that he’ll have to do something really challenging like type.  Wow, Eliot’s almost as bad as my dad.  The FBI throws them a curveball, though, as all of the surveillance is stored on cassette tapes.  Yes, cassette tapes. I don’t even remember the last time I saw one of those.  Eliot freaks out a little, since he doesn’t know how to inconspicuously get out of the office with a box full of tapes.  “Punch somebody!” Hardison suggests.  “Oh, I’m gonna punch somebody,” Eliot says.  Hee!  Hardison quickly sets off the fire alarm and Eliot grabs the tapes, grumbling all the way.

After listening to the tapes for 74 hours, Hardison briefs the team on what he’s learned.  Mickey keeps most of his money in offshore accounts under his wife Heather’s name.  Since he frequently changes the password code, Hardison cannot hack into the account and get the money they need.  However, Hardison thinks he has at least $2 million in cash at his house.  Nate thinks their ticket in is the daughter’s wedding, since Heather and Mickey are already fighting furiously about it, ensuring enough miscommunication that no one will question who hired them.  Cut to the Mosconi house, where Heather and Mickey’s daughter Maria are having a very one-sided discussion about the wedding.  And oh my God, you guys, it’s Nicole Sullivan!  She’s one of those people who pops up in every show you’ve ever watched and is ridiculously fabulous every time.  This is no exception, because she’s got the shrill and domineering wife thing down pat.  Sophie comes to the door and says that Mickey hired her as a wedding planner, and the rest of the team poses as various other service providers.  Heather is skeptical, but she lets them in.

Once inside, Nate (WHO IS DRESSED AS A PRIEST!  HALLELUJAH!) asks Sophie where they are.  She misinterprets the question and launches into a discussion about their confusing relationship until he says that he meant where they are in terms of the con.  Oh god you two, just have sex and get it over with!  Nate moves to the kitchen, where Eliot (WHO IS IN A BANDANA!  YEE-HAH!) is chopping onions rather than looking for the money.  He’s really into the whole cooking thing, which is both adorable and scorching hot.   “What, you think the only thing I know how to do is bust heads?” Eliot asks, and Nate admits he does.  Be patient with him, Eliot.  He doesn’t know that transgenics have enhanced mental acuity in addition to their physical abilities.  Heather comes in an Eliot gives her an h'ordeurve to try, looking very proud of himself and his creation.  She promptly spits out and tells him it tastes like something from a food court, and Nate has too keep Eliot from going after her with his knife.  Meanwhile, Hardison is planting bugs throughout the house.  Sophie finds Parker altering the maid of honor’s dress, which is perhaps the most heinous, cruel dress in the history of bridesmaids’ dresses and yet somehow I kind of love it.  It’s also not the most figure-flattering dress, which Parker lets the maid of honor know in very blunt terms.  She bursts into tears, Sophie is horrified, and Parker doesn’t seem to notice that she’s done anything wrong.  I love how she completely doesn’t get normal social interactions.

Nate bumps into Mickey, who’s having a drink with the groom, Adam.  Adam is a timid Kansas boy, and could not be more out of place in this family if he tried.  Mickey seems kind of discussed by him, especially when Adam mentions that his bachelor party was a whale watching expedition.  Yeah, that is kind of lame, but I can see how it would be really exciting to someone from Kansas.  Once Adam leaves, Mickey admits that he just offered the kid 200 grand to disappear.  He refused, and Nate suggests that he really loves Maria.  Mickey doesn’t agree, saying that “if there’s a man without a price, I haven’t met him yet.”  As Nate leaves Mickey takes a call, which Hardison taps.   By listening in they find out that Mickey is planning to make a money exchange at the wedding reception.  So they’re going to have to find the money, get it out without any of the 200 guests noticing, and run the wedding.  Nate starts going off about how ridiculous these big weddings are and how marriage is basically just a contract and Sophie gets more and more pissed as he talks.  The whole team giggles at Nate’s predicament.  A bit later, Hardison and Eliot talk in the kitchen.  Eliot admits that he was once close to marrying someone, but that they didn’t work out because he was off “liberat[ing] Croatia.”  The woman in question here is Aimee from “The Two Horse Job,” since that episode was originally supposed to air after this one.  TNT has been running a lot of episodes out of order, but I think this is the first time it’s been really apparent.

It’s the wedding day!  Hardison walks by a room and catches Parker changing into a bridesmaid dress.  He gets all flustered at seeing her back, but she says it’s fine and asks him to zip her up.  She’s wearing that god-awful but illogically fabulous creation that I want to own because “a bridesmaid’s dress is like an all access pass at a wedding.”  These are trufax.  Sophie also suggested that she try to make up for hurting the maid of honor’s feelings.  Hardison doesn’t see how “looking much much better in the same” dress will help mend things with the maid of honor, and Parker asks if he really thinks she looks good.  “Right now, you’re perfect,” he says, and I’ve officially reached my adorable quotient for the rest of my life.  These two are that cute.

Heather is still being a massive pill.  Nate tries to talk to her, but she’s too busy yelling into her phone that something is in the screening room.  What the hell is a screening room?  All I can think is that it’s a place where people watch movies, but that seems wrong.  Hardison, who is posing as the DJ, adds a few last-minute bugs, and then the guests start arriving.  Nicole—who has the nerve to wear white, the bitch—greets someone named Sergei with a hug and a kiss.  Nate sees this and calls an emergency gathering, but Sophie gets distracted by a sobbing Maria.  The bride is upset because she and Adam wanted a small wedding, but Heather made the entire affair about her.  Did she also force her to get that hairdo, because no.  Just, no.  At first Sophie seems comforting, but then she launches into a rant about how you can never trust men, which Nate hears over his earpiece.  She leaves Maria even more upset than when she found her and goes to meet with the rest of the team.  One of the men who arrived with Sergei is the Butcher of Kiev.  He and Eliot have met before, which we learn in a hilariously fake flashback that shows Eliot and the butcher fighting in front of an enormous fire.  Nate gets upset with Hardison for not knowing that the Butcher was coming, but Hardison says that the Feds didn’t see anything suspicious on the guest list.  Hardison, since I’m guessing those guys were playing rubber glove volleyball while they were checking the guest list, that’s really not your best argument.  Nate wants to pull the plug on the operation, but Sophie refuses to leave.  Hardison tries to explain just how dangerous the Butcher is, saying that “the cake maker of Kiev would whoop all our asses.”  Ha!  Sophie isn’t budging on this one, so Nate is forced to keep up the con.

Parker has looked everywhere for the money, meaning that the only place it can be is in the screening room.  She wants Eliot to get it, but he’s busy cooking.  She calls him “Emeril” and storms off, and he gives a little “Bam!” when he throws some spice into a pot.  I love these guys so much it hurts sometimes.  Parker quickly picks the lock to the screening room, though she doesn’t seem very happy with her time.  While she’s searching the room for the money, Nate is giving a really, really long sermon to stall for time.  It’s not exactly romantic, since he starts talking about how marriage is “pushing a cart at the home depot” and such.  It becomes clear that he’s really talking to Sophie, since he starts saying that “some people” just need a little time before they start a new relationship.  He then switches gears, pretending to talk about how much the bride and groom love each other but still talking about him and Sophie.  “When Adam looks at you, Maria,” he says, staring straight at Sophie, “he knows that you’ve made him a better man…And now that he’s known you he could never go back.”  Sophie tears up, and it looks like Nate might be out of the doghouse at last.

The second the bride and groom are married, Sergei and his people get up to make the deal with Mickey.  Parker doesn’t have time to get out of the screening room, so she hides behind a curtain when Mickey and Sergei enter. When Mickey goes to get the money from a suitcase, he finds that it’s missing. Sergei, who is not happy about this, holds a gun on Mickey and tells him to get the money or he’ll kill him.  Mickey can’t call in his people because Sergei threatens to have his people shoot Maria if he does.  When Mickey promises to get more money, Sergei refuses to wait.  It seems that the man Mickey killed at the beginning of the episode was Sergei’s brother, and Sergei’s been waiting for an opportunity to kill Mickey.  Parker relays this info to Nate, who remembers Heather’s phone conversation about the screening room and the friendly way in which she greeted Sergei.  He steals and checks her phone, finding that Sergei was the last person she called.  Nate deduces that Heather set the whole thing up to get her husband killed so she would get all the money in the offshore accounts under her name.  Sergei was more than willing to go along with the plane because, you know, Mickey killed his brother.  If I’ve learned anything from my years of watching the mafia on General Hospital, it’s that you don’t fuck with the family.  Clearly Mickey should have been watching more daytime television.

Nate tells Eliot to go to the screening room, but Eliot is cut off by…Liam Neeson?  It’s the Butcher, but he looks so much like Liam Neeson that it’s kind of crazy. We get another flashback in which Eliot sets Liam’s the Butcher’s face on fire, resulting in ugly scarring that has in the present.  The Butcher has two thugs get behind Eliot while he advances with a huge knife, trapping Eliot in the kitchen.  Eliot takes all of 2.5 seconds to take down the thugs before starting his fight with the Butcher.  He uses a pan to deflect the Butcher’s knives.  He knocks one knife away and grabs the other.  They struggle with it until the Butcher manages to get it back, and Eliot uses a whisk to defend himself.  Somehow this actually works, as Eliot disarms the Butcher once more, and they just start beating the crap out of each other the good old fashioned way.  The Butcher lifts Eliot onto the table and it looks like Eliot might be done for until he uses a rolling pin to push his h’ordeurves within his reach, grabs a couple of them, and shoves them into the Butcher’s eyes.  While the Butcher writhing in pain Eliot smashes a tray over his head, ending the fight.  Why he didn’t just beat him with the rolling pin is beyond me, but whatever, it worked.  Nate walks in and asks if Eliot “just kill[ed] a guy with an appetizer.”  There are no words for how much I love this show.

 Meanwhile, the rest of the team is trying to keep Mickey from getting killed.  Just as Sergei is about to blow the gangster away, Parker stumbles out from behind the curtain, pretending to be drunk.  She says that she was supposed to meet the DJ in here, and then drags Mickey out to the reception.  Sergei tries to get Mickey away from the party, but Hardison stops him by saying that it’s time for the father-daughter dance.  Parker tells Hardison that the newlyweds’ ride finally arrived, and he asks how she got out of the screening room.  “I pretended I was drunk and that we were meeting there to have sex,” she says with a smile, and the look of shock on Hardison’s face is PRICELESS.  Nate tells Hardison to get the couple out immediately, and gives Eliot the missing cash to put in the truck of a car.  Hardison pretends that there’s a hailstorm brewing and that the newlyweds have to leave immediately if they want to get to Kansas.  They’re going to Kansas for their honeymoon?  I sincerely hope that they’re just visiting Adam’s family and then going somewhere else, because that’s just sad. 

Since Eliot already took care of Sergei’s people in the kitchen battle, the man doesn’t pose too much of a threat anymore.  Nate tells him that he’s a dead man and then has Mickey’s people escort him from the property.  Sophie manages to track down Heather, who’s got her suitcases and is making a break for it.  When Sophie tries to stop her from getting away, Heather slams her suitcase into Sophie’s face and runs for her car.  Oh, she fights dirty.  The whole team meets in the kitchen, where they listen into Mickey’s phone call to his bank.  Since he discovered that his wife tried to have him killed, he’s changing all the passwords to his accounts, and now they know what they are.  As for the cash, Nate had Eliot put it in Adam and Maria’s trunk.  Sophie’s pleased that Nate does seem to have a soft spot for marriage, and Eliot is pleased that Hardison likes his appetizers.  I wonder where he learned how to cook.  Fic please?  Before they leave, Nate has a little chat with Mickey about how breaking promises always catches up with you.  Mickey thanks him, since he thinks he’s talking about Heather, but I’m guessing he’s going to be a little less thankful when he realizes he only has five dollars to his name.

Sometime later, Teresa brings Sophie by the restaurant.  The team has gotten it ready for opening and they hand her the keys.  But that’s not the only surprise that they have for her; Hardison shows her a news video that says new evidence suggests that Mickey killed the man Ray is in jail for murdering.   We get a flashback that shows that Parker was bugged while she was in screening room, and Hardison sent Mickey’s confession to the FBI agents in the van.  It’s now only a matter of time before Ray comes home, and Teresa and her daughter are ecstatic.  They celebrate with a spaghetti dinner cooked by Eliot, and CHRIST ALMIGHT, ELIOT IS IN A TANK TOP.  THEY GUNS, YOU GUYS!  THE GUNS ARE OUT OF CONTROL!  I just…wow.  It’s a good thing it’s the end of the episode, because that?  Killed me dead.

And now for some SRS BZNS.  As many of you may know, Buzznet has decided not to pay the recappers on this site anymore.  While I’ve loved working here and recapping this show, it’s really too much work to continue without getting paid.  So this is going to be my final Leverage recap.  I hope you all have enjoyed reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.  And thank you all so much for your lovely feedback, both here and on Livejournal.  Y’all have made working here a really great experience.