With a new team member on board plus the arrival of Hardison’s genius foster sister, the team heads to Panama to pull an elaborate heist before an evil billionaire can get his money and flee to a non-extradition country.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- Amoral Attorney: Harry's former boss John Safer is frustratingly smug about how his firm has helped so many rotten people get away with breaking the law.Harry: I remember when you wanted to change the world.
Safer: World did change. We just went along for the ride. - Bavarian Fire Drill: To gain access to the necessary office space, Harry, Parker, and Eliot march in and start burning documents while claiming that the authorities are on their way. The employees immediately evacuate, as they know they work for a corrupt firm and that this day would come eventually.
- But Now I Must Go: At the end, Hardison temporarily leaves the main team to work with another Leverage team by preventing an economic crisis in Sri Lanka. Overlaps with Real Life Writes the Plot, because Aldis Hodge's career took off after the first Leverage series and he became too busy to commit to every episode of this one.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: When Harry's old boss John Safer brings up his possible involvement with the fake painting, Harry uses this to brush it off.Safer: [Maxwell] said you were involved in that painting affair too.
Harry: When did I, a corporate lawyer with 15 years of experience with this firm, suddenly become a jaunty cat burglar stealing from the rich?
Lola (Harry's receptionist): That would be cool!
Harry: That would be cool. Thank you, Lola. But that didn't happen. - Call-Back:
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Ryan Corbett confronts Breanna about the COM4R4T concert, Sophie takes advantage of this common flaw among criminals to give her advice that gets her off the hook.Sophie (over the earbuds, to Breanna): Breanna, I'm giving you a general play and trusting you, okay? People like Ryan who... who are greedy and-and use people, they have a blind spot. They can't imagine anyone who's not like them. Do you understand?
- Fake Charity: In this case, the charity is fake on two levels. The organization to save the Panamanian spider monkeys was always a front for the concert; when Corbett confronts Breanna about the event, she takes Sophie's advice (see Evil Cannot Comprehend Good) and "admits" the whole affair is a scam and she'll be pocketing all the profits.
- Faux Affably Evil: Corbett (who safeguards valuables for dictators, mobsters, and corrupt corporate executives) goes into an excited speech about how much he likes COM4R4T, the DJ at the "save the monkeys" event Breanna is hosting. He then cheerfully tells Breanna he'll shoot her in the face if she's lying to him. He also compliments her for supposedly running a Fake Charity in that scene with genuine amusement.
- Foreshadowing: When Harry's talking to his former boss and listing their corrupt clients, he mentions the building developer who cut corners and killed his construction crew.
- Hollywood Density: Harry has a pallet full of boxes of gold bars. He mentions it's "100 kilos of gold". In reality, each individual box would weigh at least that much. (Played with: The gold bars are fake, but the security guys who are moving them really ought to notice that they weigh significantly less than real gold!)
- Hypocrite: Corbett argues that dictators would normally feel compelled to commit whatever massacres they felt were necessary to stay in power forever, and that his 'bank' allows those same dictators to escape into luxurious retirements without committing those atrocities, so his bank is really a good thing on the whole. The Leverage crew doesn’t buy this rationalization, even though it’s exactly how they resolved the conflict in "The San Lorenzo Job". Downplayed since, in addition to dictators, Corbett also stores illegal money for dirtbags like Maxwell who don’t have the power to commit massacres and are just using Corbett’s bank to avoid justice.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: The previous episode ended with Maxwell escaping to Panama before he could be sent to prison. Here, Team Leverage engineers an even worse fate for both him and the equally evil Corbett: they'll spend the rest of their lives as fugitives, running from both the law (who will catch them if they're lucky) and Corbett's bloodthirsty clients (who will catch them if they're not lucky).
- The Knights Who Say "Squee!": A villainous example. Corbett is a professional killer, who operates a bank for criminals and dictators, and is a huge fan of COM4R4T.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: COM4R4T, the DJ who performs in a rat mask, is an obvious Expy of Deadmau5.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Corbett sees his bank as allowing dictators to retire comfortably instead of clinging to power violently. Also, because his clients are all criminals he is very conscientious about following local laws.Corbett: I did not go to all the trouble of creating the only place in the world where it is perfectly legal to store illegal goods just so that you could cut corners.
- Run or Die: After the crew tricks Maxwell into setting off a bomb that destroys half of the valuables that Corbett has taken responsibility for, Corbett tells Maxwell that staying in Panama will be fatal for them.Corbett: Everything belonging to my clients in that vault is destroyed. My clients are the most powerful psychopaths on the planet. Three of them have actual armies. One of them has nukes. And you... blew up... their safety net!Maxwell: What do we do?Corbett: We run. For the rest of our lives.There's a brief Beat and then they sprint out of the room.
- Shout-Out: An unusually subtle one. Harry says that Maxwell is hiding his $20 million in "vault two, tray 5150" of Corbett's facility in Panama. 5150 is the name of a Van Halen album, although not the one that includes their song "Panama" (that's MCMLXXXIV).
