The team was going to con Judge Roy, a crooked small-town politician who's been taking bribes from meth dealers and smugglers, by a "Rip Deal" scam for the Delgado family when suddenly the bank that Nate and Sophie are in is being robbed. Hardison and Parker have no choice but to leave the bank temporarily as they don't want to be suspected. The two robbers realize they don't have enough money (and no way to get into the vault) and start to panic. Meanwhile Judge Roy hides his briefcase full of money for Nate under a nearby desk. The team realizes that the robbers are amateurs and quite desperate and panic-stricken about getting the money by 5:00. Judge Roy tries to persuade them to leave as he can clear their name since he owns the law and even knows Officer Bill who's outside, but the move fails. Soon, Hardison and Parker come to the scene as FBI agents, confronting Bill and his men on the situation.
The team figure out that the robbers are Derrick Clark and his son Michael. It turns out that Michael has been involved with the meth dealers. The week before, someone ripped them off, and the gang blames Michael, who is innocent. They kidnapped his mom and demanded for a ransom of a hundred grand by 5 o'clock, or his mother dies. Nate and Sophie talk with the Clarks and gain their trust. The crew successfully takes Judge Roy's bag out of the bank and into Parker's hands, who passes it to Eliot at the meeting point. Judge Roy notices his briefcase has gone missing and begins to freak out. He attacks Michael, and in the attempt to disarm him accidentally shoots Nate in the shoulder. In a panic, Sophie cries out Nate's real name, and Roy realizes he's been conned. He refuses to believe that their con has nothing to do with the Clark's robbery, and takes everyone hostage until he gets his money back. The bank employers tells him to let Nate go as he's bleeding, but Roy refuses to listen to reason. He discovers that both Sophie and Nate use earpieces. He takes them long enough to threaten their accomplices outside, demanding his money back, before destroying both earpieces and cutting the team off from their mastermind.
Meanwhile, as the meth dealers arrive at the meeting spot, they are surprised to find Roy's bag contains more money than they asked for. Michael's mom tries to escape, but is stopped by the meth dealers. Eliot appears and beats up all of the dealers. Soon, Hardison knocks on the door to deliver some 'pizzas'. Judge Roy assumes it's from Nate's crew who delivers it and allows Hardison and the paramedics in. As Hardison opens up one of the pizza boxes, Roy is delighted to see that it does contain a pile of money. Suddenly, Hardison accuses Roy and acts like Roy's the robber. Roy realizes that he's one of Nate's crew as Hardison signals Bill and his men charge into the bank to arrest him.
Judge Roy tries to explain to Bill the truth when he realizes that the pizza boxes are missing. Hardison plays dumb about it (although no one knows how the pizza boxes disappeared) while Roy, in anger, yells that they stole his money again, which was originally from his briefcase. Bill looks down and found his briefcase only to find crystal meth inside. Roy denies it but Hardison claims that Roy's 'out-of-control' behavior was the cause of the drugs he's taking. Roy tries to prove that the Clarks are involved but to his surprise, he reveals the 'Clarks' to be Eliot and Parker. Turns out that both Eliot and Parker disguise themselves as paramedics and switch shirts with the Clarks during Hardison's confrontation. As the Clarks safely place Nate into the ambulance and drives off, the ambulance stop someway as Mrs. Clark greets them as the driver. The Clarks are happy of her safety while Nate weakly requests that they save the heartwarming reunion until after Nate has been hooked up to a morphine drop.
Back at the bank, Eliot and Sophie testify that Roy is trying to rob the bank and their stories been backed up by the bank employees after what he did. Dumbfounded, Roy claims that everyone's lying and ask the police to look at the footage — in which Hardison agrees. It seems before entering the bank, Hardison has already doctored the footage where Roy's the gunner and has no traces of the Clarks being involved. This causes Bill to believe the 'proof' and arrest Roy while Roy furiously denies it while being drag away.
- Roy: Come on Bill, you know me!Bill: Yeah I do, Roy. That's kinda the problem.Roy: (being dragged off-screen) Whoa! Hey, Bill! Listen to me! These people, they're trying to set me up. They had this planned from the start! THEY'RE TRYING TO DESTROY ME!
As Hardison and Parker leave, the real FBI agents arrive. The bewildered agents are congratulated by Bill and his officers for taking down the meth dealers bound and gagged in a van outside the bank. As the team leaves by the ambulance, Nate congratulates Hardison for the 'pizza boxes' idea while heading to the Delgado family's place.
Tropes stolen in this job:
- Bank Robbery: Throws the team's con off the rails, but it turns out there's more to it than meets the eye.
- Briefcase Full of Money: The judge puts a bunch of cash in one.
- By-the-Book Cop: The sheriff's deputy, since he was the last one to take...an online seminar. Last year. He got a certificate.
- Chekhov's Gun: Hardison convinces the police that the bank robbers want 25 boxes of pizza in order to distract them early on. Later, when the team is returning the money from con that they were using to lure in the drug dealers, they use the pizza boxes to smuggle it in, and they use the pizza order as "evidence" that Judge Roy was on meth.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Eliot vs. the drug dealers.
- Dirty Coward: The branch manager is more than happy to let Sophie take his place to go talk to the robbers.
- Dirty Old Man: Judge Roy slaps a female bank employee on the rear, and when he finds out she's nineteen, he asks if she has a younger sister. He means it to sound like a joke, but he's not very convincing.
- Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: One of the first things we see Judge Roy do, the target being a 19-year-old girl.
- Framing the Guilty Party: In the end, the judge is framed for the robbery under the influence of meth thanks to sleight of hand and some doctored security footage. Everyone else, already not happy with his treatment of them even before held the bank hostage, supports the blatantly false story.
- Friendly Sniper: the sheriffs departments “sniper” is just a local hunter dressed for the part who cheerfully waves at the “FBI agents” from the window.
- From Camouflage to Criminal: Clark, Sr. is actually former military, although he didn't want to be in this situation.
- The Ghost: The Delgado family, the team's clients for this episode, never appear in person.
- Impersonating FBI Agents: How Parker and Hardison take control of the situation outside the bank.
- In Medias Res: The episode starts with the team just about to complete their money laundering scam on the judge. We don't learn why they're targeting him until later.
- It's All My Fault: Michael is well aware of how his involvement with the meth dealers could get his mother killed and is forcing his dad to help him rob a bank.
- Hostage Situation: The whole thing turns out to be one. Drug dealers took Michael's mom and want $100,000 for her.
- Ms. Fanservice: The young banker who garners the judges attention is wearing a figure-flattering outfit and there are a couple of gratuitous shots down her blouse.
- Hypocritical Humor: "Illegal downloading's wrong!"
- Multitasked Conversation: Nate has one with the judge while giving Eliot instructions on how to deal with the situation.
- Noodle Incident: Invoked by Hardison, "The book got a good man killed!"Parker: Better not mention the book again...or propellers.
- Police Are Useless: The local police are very inexperienced in this sort of thing, and the FBI doesn't even show up until it's all over.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The local sheriff works diligently to resolve the hostage crisis while listening to the supposed FBI experts when they sound sensible. After the bank robbery is broken up he does bother to hear out Judge Roy but is quick to believe that he’s a criminal due to the fake evidence.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: The judge has this attitude. "The truth is whatever I say it is."
- Stupid Crooks: More inexperienced, but they clearly didn't plan this out very well.
- Villainous Breakdown: Judge Roy has one after discovering his money's gone, and again as Bill carts him off.
