Nate and Sophie are about to have a romantic evening when Sterling shows up, asking for help. Nate asks what’s in it for him, and Sterling says he’ll owe him a favor.
A rogue nation is trying to get some uranium refinery centrifuges up and running, and they need a very specific part to calibrate them.
What’s needed to calibrate the centrifuges is a weight with such a specific atomic mass there’s only one of its kind in the world. It’s owned by a man named Livingston who keeps it in his skyscraper in Dubai. Sterling needs Nate to steal it before Livingston can sell it. Livingston is hosting a Chess tournament there, and Nate is going to enter it as a contestant.
Livingston introduces the tournament, and his step-daughter Olivia, who’s a chess prodigy and the favorite to win. Nate figures while the tournament’s going on, Livingstone will be focused on her, and not on the weight. There’s a problem though; the terrorist buyers are already there. Eliot and Sterling waylay them while Hardison, posing as a Sheik’s son, asks to speak to Livingston and gets him to show off his security.
The team discusses the security in the vault and for the weight’s container. The weight is so specifically calibrated that so much as a grain of sand could throw it off. The container it's in is pressurized and alarmed. Further complicating things are the vault's security — the floor is rigged to register weight and walking gait, keyed to Livingston exactly. In order to get in, they have to mimic his walking style, and his very particular limp.
As the tournament begins, the team makes preparations for breaking into the vault. Things start to go awry when Livingstone is informed the delegation has arrived and the buyers get instructions to take the weight immediately.
Nate works his way through the contestants, with Sophie helping to sabotage, and makes it to the final round against Olivia. Sterling and Eliot keep the terrorist buyers under surveillance, argue conspiracy theories, and Eliot bitches about the coffee. Meanwhile, Parker puts on weighted boots and plays a rigged up DanceDanceRevolution game to teach her how to mimic Livingston's walk. Parker is freaking out — the shoes are so heavy she can't run in them. She can't escape if she gets into trouble. Hardison comforts her by saying if she gets in trouble, she has him to back her up and save her.
Eliot and Sterling move to head off the terrorists, but Eliot collapses. Sterling did something to his coffee.
As the final round begins, Nate says he can guarantee Parker at least five minutes as she breaks in. Meanwhile, Eliot begins to come to and he is not happy. Parker is almost to the weight when one of her boots breaks, scattering ball bearings on the floor.
In the tournament room, Sterling tips off one of the contestants that Sophie sabotaged him earlier, and security hauls her off. Sterling heads up to the vault while Parker is trying to get the weight and sets off the alarm. Nate tries to delay the terrorists but nearly gets his head blown off. Eliot arrives in time to save his skin and tells him what Sterling was up to. Parker escapes through the elevator shaft and makes it to the roof.
Nate orders everyone out while he goes after Sterling. Hardison, Eliot, and Sophie meet up while Nate heads Sterling off. Parker gets trapped on the roof, but is able to escape with the chute Hardison packed for her. The others collect her and go off to meet Nate.
Nate confronts Sterling about the lies, which Sterling insists were to protect Olivia, his informant, but that’s not what Nate’s talking about.
- Nate: I knew she was your informant before the first match. Did you really think I wouldn’t figure out she was your daughter?
As the alarms went off, Livingstone’s men were escorting Olivia to safety, but he ordered them to secure the weight so they locked her in a closet. Sterling was waiting for her to take her home. Nate asks why Sterling didn’t tell him about Olivia, back when they were friends.
- Sterling: Because it was my fault that they left, and I knew it.
Olivia loudly protests that her father did what he had to to protect her, but Nate has one more question:
- Nate: Why’d you come to me?
Sterling: Because you’re the best thief I’ve ever seen, and I couldn’t risk anything less.
Nate gives Sterling a name, asking for everything he has on it. In return, he’ll make sure Eliot doesn’t know where Sterling is. Back in Livingstone’s tower, the terrorists take the weight and pay millions in cash. Unfortunately for them, Nate put salt in the gas Parker was going to use to trick the pressure sensors, so when she injected it into the container, the weight was contaminated, and the terrorists are in for a big surprise.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- A Million Is a Statistic: De-emphasized, but...HOW many people did blowing up an illegal nuclear manufacturing plant kill?
- Could be seen as Hoist by Their Own Petard.
- Also, given they were starting up an illegal plant after one delay already, they were probably running on a skeleton crew until they were sure it was going to work.
- Artifact Title: In the final, Olivia, playing White, opens with 1. e4 - making it impossible for a Queen's Gambit (which begins 1. d4) to be played.
- Nate does, however, use the Queen's Gambit Accepted in his semi-final.
- In his match with Olivia, Nate deliberately sacrifices his Queen. Olivia spends at least a minute trying to figure out the trap, because Nate wouldn't sacrifice his Queen for no reason. The reason, however, is to extend the match and give Parker more time in the vault. The match may not use the 'official' Queen's Gambit; but Nate does make a successful gambit using the Queen.
- Batman Gambit: Sterling accurately predicts not only the team's actions, but Livingstone's as well. When Livingstone directs his security team to stash Olivia and protect the weight, Sterling is waiting for her in the exact room they put her in.
- Big Damn Heroes / The Cavalry: Eliot arrives just as it looks like Nate's going to get plugged by angry terrorists.
- Character Development: Parker's always been 20 pounds of crazy in a 10 pound bag, the one who would jump (or push someone) off a building without warning. This episode sees her confronting the fact that she's part of a team, a crew she loves, and is no longer taking jobs where she can bounce on a moment's notice.
- Chess Motifs: The entire episode is about a chess tournament.
- Someone at TNT must have really liked this episode, because the cover of the original season 4 boxset has a chessboard background with the tagline 'Their move'.
- Nate, christened the black king back when the show began, plays black in every game.
- The Chessmaster: Both Nate and Sterling. Fittingly, their game at the beginning ends in a draw. Sterling never loses. You know what? Neither does Nate. They just have different standards when it comes to losing.
- Crazy-Prepared: Hardison packs a chute for Parker just in case she has to jump off the building. He even planned for the weighted shoes she was wearing to compensate against the wind.
- Foreshadowing: Sterling and Nate's chess match at the beginning of the episode ends in a draw, with only two pieces left on the board: the black and white kings. Also, there's a focused shot of Sterling holding a black piece he's taken from Nate, tapping it. Olivia does exactly the same thing in her match with Nate, with the same black piece.
- Hero Stole My Bike: Nate steals a guy's car to chase after Sterling.
- Honey Trap: Sophie neutralizes Nate's first opponent in the chess tournament this way.
- The Mole: Olivia became an informant on her stepfather's criminal activities after a car bomb meant for him killed her mother.
- Outside-Context Problem: Nate's gambit is this for Olivia; he sacrifices his Queen for no reason other than to buy time for the team, but she has no way of knowing that, so she thinks that he has to be setting up some kind of trap in-game and begins examining the chessboard, looking for whatever it is she missed.
- Pet the Dog: Sterling gently quiets Olivia the moment she brings up Nate's son, knowing that it's a sore topic for him.
- Product Placement: Sterling drives a Lincoln Navigator, which at one point is bearing down Nate until the only thing that can be seen is the Lincoln logo.
- Reading Lips: Sterling does this on Livingstone's clients while watching them through binoculars. While they're speaking in Arabic!
- Shared Family Quirks: How Nathan realized Olivia was Sterling's daughter: they tap their chess pieces in the same way. Plus, they are both insistent that Olivia is a step-daughter with a real father.
- Show Some Leg: Sophie distracts Nate's first opponent by lingering around the table with a short dress and giving him her phone number. Well, a phone number at least.
- Smart People Play Chess: The episode opens with a chess match between Nate and Sterling that ends in a kings-only draw. Plus, the episode is centered on a chess tournament.
- Stage Parent: Livingstone has been obsessed with Olivia's chess career since he taught her how to play, though how much he taught her vs. Sterling is difficult to judge, the way she picked up his chess tell. It's implied that he started the chess tournament at the center of the episode simply to further her career, as evidenced by his actions at the opening party.
- The Stakeout: Eliot and Sterling watching the buyers for the weight.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Sterling puts something in Eliot’s coffee to knock him out.
- Theme Song Reveal: When Olivia says the page quote talking about her real father, Sterling's leitmotif plays as the soundtrack.
- Training from Hell: Parker's DDR routine with weighted shoes drives her to tears.
- We Used to Be Friends: When Nate questions why Sterling didn't mention Olivia before, Sterling asks if Nate would have come to Dubai if he'd been honest. Nate then clarifies that he wants to know why Sterling didn't tell him about Olivia back when they were actually friends.
- Who Shot JFK?: In a throwaway gag, Eliot and Sterling are heard arguing fiercely over the classic conspiracy theory.Sterling: If there was a second bullet, that means there was a second shooter. Otherwise, he fired a Carcano bolt-action twice in less than two seconds, which simply cannot be done. You do realize that, on a topic where nobody agrees on anything, you picked the one thing, the only thing which is not up for debate! Simply humanly impossible!
Eliot: ...I did it. - Worthy Opponent:
- Sterling is the only rival Nate can't defeat... at both their work and at chess (when their game ends in a kings-only draw). At the end, Sterling openly calls Nate the best thief he's ever seen.
- This runs in the family as Nate is unable to beat Sterling's daughter Olivia in the final chess match. In fact, she's even better than him. Nate, stymied, decides to throw the game using a gambit intended only to confuse and stall her.
- You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Nate calls Sterling "Jim" when asking why he didn't mention Olivia earlier.
