History Leverage / TropesNToS

* NiceHat: Nate really likes hats.
** This actually creates a bit of an unreveal at the beginning of "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job," when a man addresses a shadowy man about a murder. The second man steps out to reveal that it's Nate, but anybody familiar with the show has already figured it out since he's wearing one of his trademark fedoras.

** "The Rashomon Job" shows [[CharacterDevelopment how far she's come]] in two years from [[KnifeNut gleefully handing a giant knife]] so someone can do an impromptu tracheotomy to [[spoiler: actually feeling sorry the head guard, who isn't a hardass tactical genius but a wuss who had feelings for Sophie's "character".]]

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** "[[RashomonStyle The Rashomon Job]]" doesn't feature a client or case, but rather the crew reminiscing about an old job before they met and determining what actually happened; arguably the most light-hearted episode in the series, since there's no victim to help or BigBad to take down ([[AndTheAdventureContinues until the end]]).
** "The Van Gogh Job" has a client but no mark, instead Team Leverage is competing against a series of recovery specialists in a treasure hunt. More than half the episode is actually flashbacks to Charlie Lawson's (the guy who stole the painting) history in and around World War II.
** "The Carnival Job" starts out like a usual job but then completely inverts the formula. The mark isn't really a bad guy and becomes the client. The plan gets scrapped for real. Eliot loses the initial fight and actually gets knocked unconscious.
** Season 5 adds quite a few of these (likely since the show was ending and the writers wanted to try some ideas out before it sailed off). "The D.B. Cooper Job" isn't a con at all but rather a favor to the son of one of the investigators on the D.B. Cooper skyjacking case from 1971. Most of the story is told in flashbacks and it's a cold-case mystery story. "The Frame-Up Job" is a murder mystery and "The Rundown Job" is like something out of ''Series/TwentyFour''.

* RealityEnsues: Actually invoked in-universe to make one of their scams more plausible. In "The Order 23 Job", Ford is pretending to be a doctor. Parker is freaked out by this, and has clearly been watching too much TV:
--> ''Parker:'' What if someone asks you to deliver a baby?!?
--> ''Ford:'' I'll just tell them I'm not an obstetrician.
** In [[Recap/LeverageS02E02TheTapOutJob "The Tap-Out Job"]], Hardison fakes Nate's cover online, like usual. [[spoiler:One of the mark's men talks to his cousin Jimmy, who knows "everyone" involved in boxing in South Dakota, but he's never heard of the cover. Hardison says "I can't hack a hick."]]

* OfCorpseHesAlive: In "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job", TheMark is killed during his own murder mystery-themed dinner party. Nate, realizing that he would be the prime suspect, tries to pretend that the really obvious corpse on the ground is a lifelike dummy, and that the whole thing is actually [[AllPartOfTheShow all part of the game]], while figuring out who actually did it.

** In "The Ten L'il Grifters Job," the detective calls Sophie out on this after she tells him that she works for the murder mystery company, rather than a client of TheMark. She tells him she finds it's adorable that he thinks that's her real accent.

* ThePerfectCrime: The team's cons get close to this at times, such as during "The Beantown Bailout Job," when [[EnsembleDarkhorse Detective Bonanno]] comments to TheMark:

* SlowClap: Eliot manufactures one for TheMark in "The 15 Minutes Job." Hardison promptly [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] it.

* {{Squee}}: Parker actually uses the phrase as part of her HoneyTrap for TheMark in "The 15 Minutes Job."

** TheMark's over-the-top clichéd country music video in "The Studio Job".

* RealEstateScam: One example that stands out is "The Miracle Job" -- a priest is assaulted by gang members, who were paid by a real estate mogul trying to buy up the land his church (which is in danger of closing) is on. The gang tries to prevent the church's closing by faking a miracle... which backfires, as the mogul's now going to build around the "crying statue" and turn the place into a faith-based moneymaker.
** Also used in "The Snow Job", by way of CrookedContractor.

* NotSoDifferent: Nate and Sterling. Nate and Rockwell in "The 15 Minutes Job."

* TheShill: As a show focusing on cons, this is a frequent part of the plot.

* SpanishPrisoner: Name-checked in "The Stork Job." TheMark is in with the Russian Mafia, and runs a version using Serbian war orphans where the prospective parents have to keep paying "overhead" costs. Sophie explicitly makes the comparison.

* NerdsSpeakKlingon: In "The Nigerian Job", Eliot is posing as a geeky IT technician. When the secretary he is distracting comments on how strong he is, he says he works out because he likes to go to conventions as a Klingon. He then says something to her in Klingon, which she replies to. [[note]]The word Eliot says is not actually Klingon, but Philipino 'Bakla', and is used to denote a particularly effeminate man who may or may not be gay.[[/note]]

* NewOldFlame: Aimee for Eliot in "The Two-Horse Job".

* TheRoper: Sophie, usually.

* NerdsSpeakKlingon: In "The Nigerian Job", Eliot is posing as a geeky IT technician. When the secretary he is distracting comments on how strong he is, he says he works out because he likes to go to conventions as a Klingon. He then says something to her in Klingon, which she replies to.
** Depending on how you take his offense, Hardison can be reinforcing this or denying it.

* OnceMoreWithClarity: A common device used to show the inner workings of the con. Usually the scene is replayed but more is shown before or after to show the deception taking place. Sometimes they even replay a scene more than once and show other sides of the same scene to show everything that happened when more than one misdirection took place.

** In "The San Lorenzo Job", Eliot and Parker plan on rescuing a general being held political prisoner, but -- only for him to decline the offer because he refuses to leave his men in prison. The general then asks Eliot whether he'd leave any of his team. Cue Eliot looking into Parker's adorable "I did good?" face.

** In the Rashamon Job, Eliot tells Abernathy that he can spend the night locked in the trunk of his car, which he considers to be nicer than most. This is the better of the two options.