The third episode of Leverage begins with a simple con. After a Wall Street investor named Alan Foss burns down his stable of underperforming horses for the insurance money, his trainer Willie Martin enlists the team's help to gain ownership of the last surviving horse and to get Foss out of the horse racing business. The con is a rigged card game in which the team succeeds in getting Foss to sign over the horse. Their success is soon blunted, though, by the appearance of Jim Sterling, Nate Ford's old partner at the insurance company where he used to work and someone who is every bit as clever and calculating. With Sterling seeking to blame the trainer for the fire, the team has to devise a new plan to shut down Foss permanently while ensuring that Martin doesn't take the fall for his actions.
This episode is notable for a couple of reasons. The first of these is its incorporation of Eliot Spencer's past into the plot. This is the first appearance of a device that the show's writers would use over the course of the series, as doing so became an effective way of both adding to the emotional stakes while simultaneously supplying a little backstory about the central characters. This comes across most effectively in Eliot's interaction with Aimee Martin, Willie's daughter and Eliot's former sweetheart. It helps that Jamie Ray Newman is good in her role, as she demonstrates that for all of the ability of the show's main cast an episode needed good actors against whom to play off for best effect.
And whereas the previous episode "The Homecoming Job" demonstrated this in the negative by having less-than-commanding actors playing the antagonists, it more than makes up for this not just with Newman but with two other excellent guest stars. As the obnoxious Foss, Rick Hoffman foreshadows his brilliant performance as Louis Litt in Suits, making his character one whose comeuppance is so richly desirable that it's even better for coming twice in the episode. Yet it's Sterling who's the episode's true antagonist, and Mark Sheppard nails the scheming arrogance that made his character so plausible as a perennial foil for the team. Taken together, it makes for the sort of enjoyable and suspenseful caper that would soon become standard for the series.
This episode is notable for a couple of reasons. The first of these is its incorporation of Eliot Spencer's past into the plot. This is the first appearance of a device that the show's writers would use over the course of the series, as doing so became an effective way of both adding to the emotional stakes while simultaneously supplying a little backstory about the central characters. This comes across most effectively in Eliot's interaction with Aimee Martin, Willie's daughter and Eliot's former sweetheart. It helps that Jamie Ray Newman is good in her role, as she demonstrates that for all of the ability of the show's main cast an episode needed good actors against whom to play off for best effect.
And whereas the previous episode "The Homecoming Job" demonstrated this in the negative by having less-than-commanding actors playing the antagonists, it more than makes up for this not just with Newman but with two other excellent guest stars. As the obnoxious Foss, Rick Hoffman foreshadows his brilliant performance as Louis Litt in Suits, making his character one whose comeuppance is so richly desirable that it's even better for coming twice in the episode. Yet it's Sterling who's the episode's true antagonist, and Mark Sheppard nails the scheming arrogance that made his character so plausible as a perennial foil for the team. Taken together, it makes for the sort of enjoyable and suspenseful caper that would soon become standard for the series.
