Line #25 Recap/LeverageS02E14TheThreeStrikesJob


1	Lieutenant Bonanno meets with a pair of FBI agents underneath a bridge, giving them a file for a suspect who has influence among the police. He senses something is off about the two just before the guns come out. A firefight ensues, and Bonanno is hit before they drive away. In the hospital, Nathan approaches Bonanno's wife and offers his help, learning from her that he'd gone on a mysterious errand on his day off. After she leaves, Nate has a brief flashback to the death of his son, prompting a series of calls to Sophie, asking her to come back. Tara summons him upstairs to meet with the team. They're reluctant to take on this job, but give in after Nate starts yelling at them. From Bonanno's case files, Nate deduces that a public corruption case was the reason for the shooting.
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3	Back in Massachusetts, Mayor Bradford Culpepper III is running for reelection. Tara and Nate attend his fundraiser as high-paying donors, Parker sweeps Culpepper's office, and Eliot and Hardison investigate Bonanno's house posing as crime lab specialists. Eliot and Parker uncover a money laundering scheme through a company called Kirsch Industries to buy up waterfront property and sell it to the city. Nate ends the conversation with Culpepper abruptly and summons the team to a baseball stadium, PGE Park. He informs them that [[OncePerEpisode they're going to steal the team and the stadium]].
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5	Culpepper gets a tipoff that Nate, who has been posing as a real estate developer, is taking photos on the waterfront. Nate, meanwhile, is discussing the plan with Tara: sell a baseball park (and a cut of its action) to Culpepper for a bribe, which he would take from his reelection funds. At PGE Park, Eliot infiltrates local team the Beavers as a catcher/spy working for the team's owner. Eliot's not happy about the assignment, as it turns out baseball is the one sport he doesn't like. The rest of the team starts calling sports radio stations, starting a rumor that the Beavers are leaving town. Culpepper has one of his people swipe a set of fake plans for the ballpark from Nate, to Culpepper's excitement. A baseball park in his name would be both a legacy and a massive paycheck.
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7	At the Beavers game, Eliot "confirms" the rumor while the owner assures Nate and Tara that it's fake. Culpepper joins the meeting to pull Nate aside and offers $250,000 to bring the ballpark to his town. Nate is satisfied, but a short while later Culpepper calls to change the deal from a check to cash--to be delivered in an hour. He hangs up, and the men in his office inform him that he's made the right choice.
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9	Nate and the team recognize the trap and scramble for a new plan. Everyone else is getting more and more worried, knowing that they're now dealing with killers, but Nate insists this job is worth the risk. Eliot and Hardison sneak into waterfront security, which is suspiciously lacking. Beneath the docks, Parker discovers a gun smuggling operation. Nate and Tara meet with Culpepper in a warehouse, where his antsy behavior and a burst of feedback reveal that he's wearing a wire. The FBI, led by Special Agent Amy Nevins, closes in around the building, but before they can come in, Hardison calls and informs them that they have hostages. Inside the warehouse, Culpepper starts making excuses about Bonanno's shooting, and Nate loses his temper. Recovering, he lays out a new plan for the team, one that Hardison in particular is reluctant to do because of what will happen to Lucille.
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11	Nate calls Nevins and offers to release a single hostage, sending Culpepper out. Tearfully, Hardison blows up Lucille, covering up the team's getaway. It's revealed that each of the three FBI teams got a "hostage", with Nate and Tara being whisked away in Nevins's stolen car. As they drive off, Nevins confronts Culpepper about lying about his captors. They are interrupted by the arrival of Sterling, who announces himself as an agent of Interpol. ToBeContinued...
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13	!!Tropes stolen in this job:
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15	* BecomingTheMask: A humorous non-evil version of the trope. Eliot has to play the part of a baseball player as part of a con, but as he tells Hardison before the con, he doesn't like baseball. However, as the con goes on, it turns out that not only is Eliot really good at baseball, but he starts to enjoy it too. He even gets a sandwich named after him. It leads to the following exchange:
16	-->'''Nate:''' All right, Good News, Bad News.
17	-->'''Tara:''' Good news?
18	-->'''Nate:''' The mayor's hooked. We're in the pinch.
19	-->'''Tara:''' Bad news?
20	-->'''Nate:''' I think we lost Eliot until the playoffs.
21	* TheCon: Nate poses as a real estate developer planning to build a baseball stadium to con a corrupt mayor. This requires him to make it look like an actual team was planning to move to the stadium.
22	* FakePregnancy: Used very briefly by Parker to convince the Mayor's secretary to let her stay in Culpepper's office, out of sight.
23	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Eliot discovers a paper among Bonanno's files that mentions a [[Recap/LeverageS02E15TheMalteseFalconJob Maltese Falcon]].
24	* InsistentTerminology: Nate Ford is '''not''' a thief.
25	* ItsPersonal: Their man on the inside, their honest cop, Bonanno gets shot investigating political corruption. On top of that, he has a son, and spotting him at the hospital sends Nate into the red zone.
26	* {{Japandering}}: Part of Eliot's baseball player cover is a (fake) Japanese energy drink commercial that Hardison whipped together. Usually, Eliot is not fond of Hardison's hijinks, but he actually loves the commercial.
27	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Part of the plot is that the local baseball team might be moving. At the time, there was discussion in Portland (where the series is filmed and where the stadium used was located) over the future of that city's baseball team, as their field was going to become unusable after extensive renovations to make the then-PGE Park into a venue suited for a Major League Soccer team. Unlike in the show, however, the Portland Beavers later did end up moving away after plans to build a new baseball stadium fell through.
28	* SnipeHunt: Hardison makes the cop guarding Bonanno's house search the carpet for "suspicious fibers."

Context Recap / LeverageS02E14TheThreeStrikesJob