Leverage: Season 5 Premiere

Every so often, a series will reboot its story line. Things get too messy to mesh well with the standard weekly events that the audience has come to expect, and so there’s a “switch-o-change-o” reboot so that the characters can get back to normal. And this is exactly what the writers have done with the season five premiere of Leverage. The lovable band of Robin Hood criminals attempted last season an immense con that pushed them to their limits. The adversary was possibly unbeatable, the plots were thicker than sun hardened molasses, and the stakes were real and everyone was playing for keeps. The second to last episode even had a nail biting cliffhanger. But for some reason, the finale tied up that oh-so-delicious suspense and left us all wondering, “what now?” Based on this season’s premiere, I imagine the writers were asking themselves that very same question as they wandered around the writer’s room like a bunch of drunken ants trying to unravel the webby corner they had just woven themselves into.

And so, blam, reboot. If you’ve never seen it before you could start watching Leverage from this point since this episode basically summarizes the entire series. The episode opens with Nate (Timothy Hutton) sailing into Portland. Sophie (Gina Bellman) meets him at the dock and through flashback clips we learn what each character did on their time off from each other during their lavish separate vacations. Of course, the actual events depicted—which epitomize the essence of each character—have nothing in common with the descriptions they give each other. This continues as a running gag as each of the regular characters trickle into Portland from their luxurious vacations. It’s definitely a cute convention but with the amount of clip shows and tongue in cheek explanations of what they were up to, the cuteness becomes trite and false. This is especially true when this episode is held up against last season’s “serious-fest” where everything was life and death. And in addition to this, there’s that troublesome reboot—all of it is just too easy, and leaves you wanting.

Once all the reunions are done, we learn that Hardison (Aldis Hodge) has built a new state-of-the-art and full-of-swank base of operations for the team, and he’s even managed to line up a client. A poor wife and daughter are distraught at the fact that the CEO of an international airline company (Cary Elwes) has just gotten away with the murder of their beloved husband/father. They hold that the airline company knew that the plane was defective, but the judge ruled in the company’s favor. Strange tough guys in black SUVs follow the family, and there is just something overall fishy about this deal and so the Leverage team goes to work. Hardison hacks, Eliot (Christian Kane) kicks butt, Sophie deceives, Nate concocts the hairbrained master plan, and Parker (Beth Riesgraf) is Parker. Together they dupe yet another elitist a-hole and bring a smile to the underdogs that deserve it.

But all of this has ignored the interlude between seasons. Hardison mentions in the beginning of this episode that all of their old identities, places, contacts, etc. are useless. They’ll have to start fresh. Good thing they have boatloads of cash to throw around to make it all happen so easily. Where the hell is the freaking conflict? I would have much rather had this first episode be the one and only time they fail so that they have to go and find a way to start fresh. Then at least it would all feel earned. But instead we get this, which was fine…it was watchable. But what really sealed the nail in the coffin for me was at the very end of the episode. ::Spoilers:: After everything has been settled—mother and daughter got closure, bad guy got served, etc.—Nate and Hardison share a drink together alone at the new place. It is at this point that Hardison looks at Nate and explains how he doesn’t like lying to the team. Nate understands but explains that it’s necessary. Great. So now we have a completely bland manufactured tension that follows this tepid episode, and I don’t know about you, but that just pisses me off.

Of course, if you are a fan of this show, like myself, you’re going to watch anyway, but it would be nice if we could be treated to a slightly better grade of plotting next time, don’t you think? Please Leverage writers…for me, for us!

But then again, all that being said, sometimes great seasons have crap starts where it takes a little bit for the writers to find the new season’s groove. Let’s hope that this is the case. And if you are an aspiring TV writer, can you please remember all those classes where you learned about outlining and creating hooks? Hopefully you, the future generation, can succeed where this tepid episode (and all episodes like it) has fallen flat.