Recap / Leverage: Redemption S 1 E 16 "The Harry Wilson Job"

The team has to infiltrate the shadowy RIZ to stop it from unleashing a worm that can take down the entire electrical grid, and they must use Harry to do it.

Tropes stolen in this job:

• Affectionate Pickpocket: After Maria walks away, we see that Eliot has the thumb drive she refused to give him. Looks like he took advantage of that Almost Kiss...
• Almost Kiss: Maria loves Eliot, but she can't accept his line of work.
• The Atoner: Harry's guilt got ramped up by the fact that, by misjudging how bad a person Ethan was, put the team in serious danger on the oil rig.
• Back for the Finale: Hardison returns after being absent for most of the season.
• Bait-and-Switch: The climax has Elliot walk toward Hate Sink Ethan, with an ominous buildup as if he’s about to punch him. Then Elliot walks past Ethan, and Harry (who has a much more personal reason to hate Ethan) hits the guy.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Ethan was revealed to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive in the previous episode. This episode dials up on that by showing that he'd been planning to blow up the oil rig since long before Harry ruined the trial.
• But Now I Must Go: This time it's Harry's turn, as he ends the episode by announcing he's leaving the team to go back to being a lawyer — specifically, the idealistic kind that he wanted to be when he first started.
• Call-Back: After 6 seasons, Sophie realizes her calling mirroring Nate's words in the pilot of the original show
  Nate: This is her stage. Sophie Devereaux is the finest actress you’ve ever seen… when she’s breaking the law.
  Sophie: I love a full house and the applause, but this, holding one person's attention, improvising every second with everything on the line, I think... This is my stage. Nothing's ever gonna come close to this.
• Chekhov's Gun: Harry's desk. Custom made in Canada. He hides stolen documents in it.
• Darkest Hour: The episode's Downer Beginning, continuing from the end of "The Muddy Waters Job". RIZ has blown up the oil rig (murdering several employees in the process, including some Eliot and Parker had befriended) to cover their tracks, Harry has seemingly gone through the Face–Heel Revolving Door and become a Sixth Ranger Traitor, and the rest of Team Leverage must fight a powerful enemy who knows their identities and is prepared for them.
• Due to the Dead: The episode opens with Eliot and Parker wearing black, as this is the day of the funerals for the murdered rig workers.
• Dueling Hackers: Breanna quickly realizes that someone else is in the computer system, interfering with her hack. It turns out to be Hardison, who was presumably attempting to hack it himself at the same time.
• Engineered Public Confession: A spectacular variation. Hardison doesn't have time to stop the blackout, but he does have time to make sure the world knows who's responsible by having the windows of every affected skyscraper spell out "RIZ" with their lights, causing the villains to do a Mass "Oh, Crap!" when they see it.
• Evil Gloating: Smug Snake Alexandra does plenty of it to Sophie when she thinks she has the upper hand. However, she underestimates how clever and resourceful the Leverage crew really is.
• Fake Defector: At first, both Team Leverage and the audience suspect that Harry has gone back to his corrupt ways by joining RIZ. However, it turns out he's just trying to take them down from the inside, and he didn't want to involve the others because RIZ knows who they are.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: As Elliot and Parker are about to beat up Harry, Breanna suddenly intones "I recognize this code." At which point, Hardison suddenly shows up to help the team and reveal Harry is working with him.
• Foreshadowing: Harry busts Sophie in the RIZ offices and clearly recognizes her, but acts like he didn't see anything, letting her walk out. This hints that he is a Fake Defector.
• Heartbroken Badass: Eliot opens up and makes himself vulnerable, but Maria can't accept his criminal ways.
• I Lied: Breanna blackmails several Corrupt Corporate Executives into spending millions on helping the victims of the oil rig disaster in exchange for her not exposing their involvement with RIZ to the public. Once they transfer the money, she exposes them anyway. Hardison has a So Proud of You reaction.
• It's Personal: Eliot and Parker spent time on the oil rig and they are very unhappy with Ethan and RIZ for murdering the workers they'd made friends with.
• I Read It for the Articles: One of the pet magazine subscriptions Hardison got for Harry was... different.
  Eliot: Pony Fans?
  Harry: That one was not what we thought it was.
• Loved I Not Honor More: Maria thought Eliot was black ops of some kind. When she learns he's a criminal... she has to walk away.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": When the bad guys see RIZ spelled out in lights.
• The Mole: Not only was Harry a mole in RIZ, but Ethan was one for RIZ. Turns out they've been planting people in corporations to install back doors in major places so they can be vile international badguys.
• Mundane Solution: RIZ thinks they'll get away with this as they've scrubbed clean all computer databases showing their link to the oil rig explosion. Too bad they never considered Harry kept paper copies of the files in his office.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: What happens when two factions of Leverage (Harry/Hardison and Sophie's team) make separate attempts to take down RIZ, with each group unaware of the other? A Gambit Pileup that winds up ruining both plans and forcing everyone to restart from scratch.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Turns out that McSweeten has been promoted to head of the FBI's anti-terrorism division.
  • And then there's the end of Sophie's conversation with Smug Snake Alexandra.
    Alexandra: No, I don't believe you managed any of that. Besides, you still haven't explained how you plan to get out of here.
    Sophie: Did you really think it was a good idea to give Eliot 60 seconds of darkness?
    Eliot: [bursts through door with unconscious guard]
• ...Or So I Heard: Subverted.
  Eliot: You can't just hack into the US grid. It's broken into six different grids, all with their own vulnerabilities... some guy told me... while I was kicking him in the head.
• Poor Communication Kills: If only Harry and Hardison had talked to our team they wouldn't have tripped over each other, however they argue that Harry couldn't contact them in RIZ was monitoring him. Presumably Hardison didn't contact them for the same reason.
• Serial Escalation: Turns out Radford was a plant by RIZ so they could prove their ability to shut down the US power grid. They're escalating to terror for hire.
• Shout-Out: Nice and subtle one to Trading Places (which the show referenced in an earlier episode through Harry) when Hardison responds to Breanna with an "aha" like Eddie Murphy's Jewish character in The Stinger of that movie.
  • Less subtle are Hardison's first words when he returns: "Come with me if you want to live"
• Smug Snake: Alexandra really dials it up for this one. She thinks she has the team figured out... and she kind of does. She just forgot that all the measures she put in place to stop the team will be shut down by her blackout.
• Spanner in the Works: Harry admits his key mistake was assuming the team would go underground for a while, freeing him and Hardison up to take down RIZ themselves. That the team would instantly go after both him and RIZ for a takedown at the same time Hardison and Harry were trying their plan was something they should have accounted for.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Eliot wants his revenge. He tells Breanna to take her time, do it right so they can be sure they get RIZ. Cut to two months later. This is a team that comes up with their plans on the fly. Two months?
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Eliot and Parker are so outraged by Ethan's actions that they both consider killing him. Sophie has to talk them out of this by pointing out that if Ethan dies without any proof of his crimes, his victims get nothing.
• Villain Respect: Alexandra admits a small amount of admiration for Sophie.
• Western Terrorists: A variation. RIZ is ready to transform from Private Military Contractors into this trope, but their only ideology is their willingness to sell their skills to the highest bidder. The blackout is meant to show off their abilities to potential clients.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The whole team wants to tear into Harry for turning into The Mole without telling them. Sophie's the one who gets to do it.

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