A priest, Father Paul, is going to speak to the city council to try and keep them from selling his church to a developer when a bunch of thugs jump and beat him up. At the Leverage office, Nate gets a call from his ex-wife and goes to see Father Paul. Neither of them thinks the attack is a coincidence. Paul seems resigned to the sale, but Nate has other ideas. At the church, Hardison identifies the company that bought it while Nate finds himself reminiscing about happier times.
Eliot and Hardison go looking for the thugs but the leader of the gang they run into isn’t willing to help, until Hardison points out that one of them has a dislocated shoulder which Paul gave him. The leader isn’t happy and demands the guy answer Eliot’s question. The guy doesn’t know much, just the number he had to call. That’s all Hardison needs. He manages to figure out who paid them, a developer named Andrew Grant. He goes through publicists like crazy so Nate figures that’s their in.
Grant is at a construction site, where Sophie approaches him as a reporter. Parker bumps into him and slips him some new anxiety pills. Then he and Sophie get trapped in an elevator where he starts panicking and freaking out. He takes some of the pills, which are caffeine…and speed. Before long he’s pounding on the walls and wailing down the shaft. Once he realizes the press is still there, he gets worried. Sophie tells them to start it back up and has Grant pick her up. At the bottom, he carries her out like he caught her after she fainted, making him look like a hero.
He grants her an interview, which he cancels and makes her his new publicist. He takes her to show her his project, a lifestyle center. They have almost no time, and nothing really to work with. They need a miracle, so Nate decides to steal one.
They need three things: a miracle, publicity and keeping Paul out of the way.
Parker goes to the hospital to keep Paul there, while Sophie leaks Grant’s plans for a mall. He’ll be rattled, perfect for Sophie. She also takes the opportunity to talk to his assistant, Tomas, who it turns out grew up there. When she speaks to Grant she convinces him to do a press conference at the church to give his side.
Meanwhile, Hardison has been making copies of the statue of St. Nicholas…with some technical problems.
As Grant gives his speech, someone rushes out calling everyone to come inside. The statue is crying! As the team comes to see their handiwork, they notice a lot of people. It might be working too well. Paul comes up to Nate and demands to know what he did. Nate tries to brush it off, but Nate insists he can’t tell him anything.
Sophie is with Grant, but he’s not reacting as expected. He’s come up with a new idea: Bibletopia! “Come to pray, stay to shop.”
Nate is trying to figure out what to do, when a black SUV pulls up. Apostolic visitation, the Vatican’s team to investigate possible miracles. Paul is furious, so Nate him pulls him into the confession booth to talk (but sits at the Priest side much to Paul's displeasure). Paul tries to dissuade him from this course, but Nate is adamant. Grant is pleased with the situation, figuring he can’t lose now. Tomas, however, is feeling a heavy conscience and goes to the confession booth, with Hardison intending to do the same.
That night, they go over where they are. As soon as the forensic equipment arrives, the fraud will be exposed, but if they steal the statue, Paul will be blamed for a coverup. Nate decides they won’t do either of those. Instead, the statue will miraculously "vanish" in the middle of Mass.
The next day, as Paul gives his sermon, the team goes into action. Parker comes down from the ceiling and takes the statue, actually a fake that they switched for the real one the night before. As Paul leads the congregation in prayer, he pauses as he notices the statue missing. He sees Parker outside near a black van and rushes out, saying he knows who stole it.
Just then, Hardison comes out and names Andrew Grant as the owner of the van. Pretending to be a bystander, Eliot shouts that he’s the guy that bought the church while Hardison calls him a monster for faking a miracle for profit. While Eliot tries to persuades everyone not to believe Grant, Grant tries to allay accusations by saying it was Paul's fault and even brings Tomas to back his claim that he plans to fix the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Tomas finally spills the beans about how Grant gained his properties through bribery, intimidation and violence, even adding he's the one who hired a group of thugs to beat up Father Paul. Turns out that during his confession after Father Paul left the booth, Nate was still inside. Tomas's fears were allayed of going to jail thanks to the encouragement by Nate; Nate tells Tomas to do the right thing. As Grant is arrested, he looks at Sophie and ask her to save him but Sophie drops the act and he realizes she's part of the set-up.
- Grant: Are you even British?
Back inside, Paul and Nate talk about what happened. He decides to simply accept his miracle.
- Nate: Ah, but there was no miracle.
Paul: Nate, five thieves saved my church.
As Paul leaves, Nate and the team go pay their respects to St. Nicholas, the patron saint of thieves.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- Badass Preacher: Father Paul manages to dish out a few punches against several younger thugs and even dislocates one's shoulder before getting hospitalized.
- Blatant Lies: After the statue "miracle"...Paul: Tell me you had nothing to do with this.
Nate: I had nothing to do with this.
Paul: You're lying to me. You're lying to my face. In a church! - Batman Gambit: During the disappearing statue miracle, Nate is counting on Paul's honesty to set up Grant for the fall.
- Confess in Confidence: Paul and Nate have a conversation in the church's confession booth. Paul even notes that Nate is invoking this to prevent him from going to the police.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Grant, a standard for Leverage.
- Didn't See That Coming: The team expect that the "miracle" will cause Grant to back down from buying the church, either because of a genuine crisis of conscience or because persisting would paint him as a villain in the eyes of the public. Instead, he begins planning to turn the site into a theme park centered around the miraculous statue in order to turn an even bigger profit. In addition, Nate managed to forget that the Vatican would send priests to investigate the miracle's authenticity.
- The Dog Bites Back: Grant's comeuppance eventually occurs because his long-suffering assistant Tomas, who Grant has been treating badly throughout the episode and clearly hates everything his boss is doing, finally has enough of him and calls Grant out in front of the crowd at the church. The real reason was due to Nate (who was still inside the confession booth after Father Paul left) allaying Tomas' fear of going to jail.
- Establishing Character Moment: Nate walks into Paul's hospital room. The latter tries to keep the conversation focused on Nate's relationship with his ex-wife. Nate keeps it focused on the Monster of the Week.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The gang leader is affronted by the suggestion that he or his followers would attack a priest. When he learns that one of them really was responsible, he informs the young man that he's got some penance coming.
- A Friend in Need: Nate and Paul have known each other for years. When Maggie calls him about the attack, Nate rushes over to do his best to help Paul.
- Gone Horribly Right: The team's attempt to scam Grant only make him more determined to purchase the land, not less (figuring that having a bonafide miracle as the centerpoint of his mall will make it a tourist magnet), plus attracts the attention of the Vatican.
- Groin Attack: What Eliot threatens to do to the head thug since the guns were placed at a very convenient positions.
- Hidden Depths: Nate went to seminary. Why'd he leave? Maybe because he met his future wife.
- In Mysterious Ways: In the end, Father Paul is grateful to Nate and his crew saving his church and considers himself blessed by God's miracle. When Nate tries to counter that they did fake the crying statue, Father Paul retorts that "Five thieves saved [his] church." Considering St. Nicholas is the Patron Saint of Repentant Thieves, a good category for the main team using their thieving skills to help people, his faith in this miracle might have some good basis.
- Insistent Terminology: Not a mall, a Lifestyle Center.
- Ironic Echo: When Sophie is steering Grant in the episode about the controversy of closing the church for a lifestyle center, he explains to her "When you say 'controversy', all I hear is 'attention'." At the end as he is being taken away in cuffs, Grant asks Sophie to spin his situation to something less controversial. She smugly replies with his own words, which cause a Villainous Breakdown.
- It's Personal: Father Paul is a childhood friend of Nate's. Nate's son was baptized in this church.
- Mistaken for Santa: The team fake making a statue of Saint Nicholas, the man, cry in their effort to save a struggling church from a greedy developer. When Parker, who's remarkably childlike for a seasoned cat burglar, hears the name, she immediately assumes the statue is of Santa Claus and refuses to let go of the idea throughout the episode. The others keep repeating with more and more frustration, "It's NOT Santa!"
- Morton's Fork: See Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. If the Vatican investigators approve the miracle, Grant makes a killing building Bibletopia around a bona fide holy site. If they reveal the hoax, Father Paul will be disgraced and will cease to be an obstacle to Grant's acquisition of the church. The team opts to Take a Third Option: steal their fake miracle statue during mass, and have Paul catch them in the act, which they will then play off to frame Grant as the faker.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Not only did the team's fake miracle end up inspiring Grant instead of discouraging him, it also attracted the attention of the Vatican, resulting in an apostolic visitation to verify the miracle. Since Hardison's hastily-assembled efforts can hardly stand up to the expert investigation, Father Paul is now in danger of being publicly discredited and possibly even defrocked. Whoops.
- Noodle Incident: Nate never cheated on his wife with Sophie. He was tempted. She was into it.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: They both still want it... but they have to figure it out.
- Non-Action Guy: Hardison is not the punch guy. But he gets into the fray, noticing the gang member favoring his shoulder and punching him there, prompting the gang to get them the information they need.
- No-Sell: More literally than usual. Nate walks into the church and immediately starts trying to sell the team on taking the case. They interrupt him hard to say they're taking the case.
- Oh, Crap!: Nate gets a call from his ex-wife in the cold open. Half the team freezes, and Parker hangs a lampshade on it.
- Once an Episode: This is the first use of the "Let's go steal ourselves a [blank]." In this case, they're stealing a miracle.
- Pants-Positive Safety: How the thugs carry their guns when they meet Eliot and Hardison. Elliot simply grabs the gun and keeps it there while cocking it.
- Preacher Man: Father Paul.
- Share the Male Pain: Hardison really looks uncomfortable with Eliot's threat.
- Tears from a Stone: Invoked and exploited. Hardison creates a statue that can cry so that the team can save a church from being demolished. Though with the first attempt, the statue was bleeding ears. Bleeding from the ears. Not blood that is ears.
- Villainous Breakdown: Grant is keeping it to a gentle panic as Tomas has come out against him publicly and he's being taken away by the cops. It is when Sophie repeats his own words back to him about his situation does he realize that she has been playing him as part of some con and freaks out. He ends up screaming, "Are you even British?!"
