- The team must shut down the scams of a phony psychic.
- The brother of gullible, pregnant widow Jodie McManus asks Nate to prevent her from selling her home after spending all her late husband Mike's inheritance on clever TV "psychic" Dalton Rand. The team elaborately convinces Rand that Tara is a real clairvoyant, so he'll engage her as his assistant, instead of loyal researcher Wilson Perry. Then criminal Nickolas Kusen is convinced of the psychics' abilities and kidnaps them, so the team has to expose both crooks.—KGF Vissers
- Tara shines as Bethany Noble, a woman with "psychic" abilities, borne out of the removal of a brain tumor. Tara is front line in the team's quest to take down an evil psychic grifter, Dalton Rand. After Rand wounds the fragile sensibilities of Parker with a cold reading, she wants his head; Eliot is willing to deliver. Nate suggests they give Dalton Rand what he wants: to be the world's greatest psychic. Hardison demands gummy frogs to go with his 3-liter of orange soda: there is critical work to do. Nicholas Kusen, ex-con, adds a scavenger hunt quality to an ever-evolving con. Tara does not lie to Rand when he asks her how Bethany "does it." She does admit she has a lot of help.—LA-Lawyer
- A psychic (Luke Perry) gives a reading for a pregnant woman. He offers up a "B" name, which leads her to her dog, Brutus. She wants to know what her late husband Mike wanted to name their baby. But, alas, the psychic says the energy is gone, they'll have to try again next week.
After the woman leaves, the psychic drops the act and commends his assistant for coming up with Brutus from the woman's Facebook page. He reports she's got $8,000 in her savings account.
In Nate's HQ bar, Jodi's brother despairs about how she's being taken in and is about to sell her house to keep visiting the psychic. Nate promises to help.
Nate and Parker wait in line for the psychic's cable access show. Hardison reports there's going to be a network scout in the audience. Eliot goes in search of the control room.
The show starts and Dalton Rand (Perry) takes the stage to applause. He says he's feeling an energy and in soon claiming to be locking into a woman's grandmother.
Eliot plants a webcam bug in the control room, where the assistant is checking up on audience members.
Rand starts up again and Nate heckles, so Rand turns to Parker and claims to be hearing from her brother, guessing that he died at a young age. Parker is seriously freaked out and starts crying. She bolts, Nate follows.
Back at the condo, the team checks on a shaken Parker. She says she's never told anyone about her brother. She thinks Rand's really psychic. They tell her how he did a cold read on her and watched her reactions to guide him.
They explain how he bugs the people waiting in line and has someone feeding him info through an earbud.
Parker's ready to kill him. Instead, Nate wants to set him up for failure on a large scale. They just have to go and steal the future.
Rand meets with a network rep, who tells him psychics are kind of over. He proposes a special reading in which he'll go "deeper into the void."
Rand talks to his assistant, demanding better intel. He learns there have been several reading cancellations recently and they all gave the same reason.
Rand follows up, visiting Tara posing as a psychic just finishing up with Nate outside a coffee shop. She introduces herself as Bethany and she's going for a vaguely hippy dippy vibe. She claims she had a brain tumor two years ago and when they removed it she developed her "gift." She even has him feel a scar.
Rand asks for proof, asking her to tell him how his dad died. Nearby, Hardison feeds her info through her earpiece, that his dad is still alive. Then Rand gets a tingle from the table. Nate explains he wired it with a mild electrical charge to sell the bit. Parker approves.
Rand asks for his future. She rattles off a lot of gibberish,"they're calling you by a different name," "you know the way Jose," "a day late a dollar short," "you're the life of the party."
Finally, Rand compliments her act and warns her off his turf.
Inside the coffee shop the barista messes up Rand's name, putting Jose on his cup. ("They're calling you by a different name."
Outside Rand sees his car being towed (Flash to: "Jose doesn't pay all his tickets.")
Later, Rand meets with a new client, a non-Leveragite. (Flash to: "Don't ask the officer for help, he has his own problems.") He correctly guesses the man's a police officer.
Then later in a restaurant he gets a fortune Tara predicted and, as she predicted, doesn't have enough cash to pay the bill. Then he nearly gets hit by a car, her closing warning.
The next day, "Bethany" meets with Rand outside the coffee shop. He waited for her all night. He wants her to go into business with him. She calls him a charlatan, but he pulls the credit report the Leveragites created for her and notes she needs the money.
She agrees on a temporary basis.
He wants to know how she does it. Flash to the Leveragites rigging everything: switching in the Jose coffee, lifting his wallet, towing his car, nearly running him over....
Rand brings "Bethany" back into his control room, booting his assistant Wilson out to work the line. He tells her to feed him info. It's a trial run and if it goes well, they'll do it live for the network.
Back in the condo, Hardison preps to do some serious background research. In the auditorium Parker lifts and replaces people's wallets, scanning their info.
The show starts. Eliot sees a breast cancer ribbon on a woman's car and Hardison pulls her credit report so Tara creates a story about her mom dying and her salon going out of business.
They do another one, and Rand nails it.
They find a woman who recently hired a PI and he tells her her husband is hiding something.
After the show, Rand raves to Bethany in the parking lot. Suddenly a black van pulls up and three goons grab Rand. Tara and Eliot fight them, but they get away.
Back in the condo they try to figure out why he was snatched. They home in on the woman who hired a PI and run facial recognition of the man she came with. He's her husband, a former convict, Nicholas Kusen. Eliot recalls a prison tat on one of the guys who grabbed Rand.
They realize they did such a good job of convincing people Rand was a psychic that they got him kidnapped. First they plan to rescue him, then take him down.
They dig through Kusen's records and find an address. Eliot waits outside while "Bethany" goes in to find Rand tied up by several dudes with guns.
Kusen explains the situation obliquely. Tara translates: he robbed a bank with a partner a few years back and went to prison, but his partner died before telling him where the money is.
The Leveragites pull up records of a body shop and deduce a car is involved. Tara claims to know where it is. They go to a lot and Tara sees Parker fiddling with a car. They jimmy it open and find registration in Kusen's ex-partner's name (created by Hardison) and a key to a storage unit.
Flash to Nate renting a storage unit. Tara, Rand and the thugs head there but Hardison reports via earbud that they need to stall for time.
Nate comes out as the storage manager and is greeted by Kusen sticking a gun in his face.
He and Kusen go to check the records as the rest of the Leveragites stock a storage unit.
Finally Kusen and the goons head to the unit and dig through stuff, but don't immediately find cash. Kusen gets angry and sticks his gun in Rand's face, prompting him to confess he's not psychic and it's all a scam.
Then Tara slams shut the storage unit door and they're in the dark for a moment. A charge on the wall goes off, blowing a neat square hole into the adjoining building -- the TV studio, where an audience has just been watching Rand's confession broadcast.
Rand's confession plays on a loop in the studio as audience members find microphones under their seats. The cop who visited Rand earlier comes in to personally arrest him.
The Leveragites wait smugly outside and watch Kusen and Rand hauled away.
Jodi and her brother meet with Nate and Tara in the bar. Jodi's really embarrassed, but says she just missed her husband. Nate assures her she'll see him again, maybe in a small gesture from their kid.
Parker stops them on the way out and hands them a wad of cash.
Eliot wants to know where the money came from. Parker's not saying, but it does help to have a thief on your side when you're looking for stolen money.
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