This Friday, July 9, the con is back on with the new IMDb TV original series Leverage: Redemption. The original Leverage series aired for 5 seasons on TNT, from 2008 to 2012, and followed a group of ex-cons recruited by former insurance fraud investigator Nate Ford. The team utilized their unique skills to help find justice for those who were taken advantage of by greedy corporations, crooks and thieves. The team consisted of “The Grifter”, Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman), a master art thief and actress; “The Hacker”, Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge) who was the geek and tech expert of the group; “The Hitter”, Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), who was skilled in weapons, martial arts and all kinds of hand to hand combat; and “The Thief”, Parker (Beth Riesgraf), a slightly insane and unstable master safe-cracker and pickpocket. The new series picks up nearly a decade later, on the one-year anniversary of Nate’s death. Most of the team has still been working in the business, growing Leverage International to 12 teams across the globe, while also each having their own good will side projects.
Sophie is still in mourning over Nate, and hasn’t been in the game for a while. She has been ignoring the phone calls from her friends, so they show up uninvited to be there for her. They encourage her to go on a heist for old times sake, to help take her mind off things. However, while casing a Rembrandt at the Boston Museum of Art, the team notices that someone else is already plotting the same heist—a corporate lawyer named Harry Wilson (Noah Wyle). Wilson has spent his career helping the worst of the worst get away with literal murder. His latest client is a greedy opioid manufacturer who knowingly produced and pushed highly-addictive drugs to veterans. Harry has had a change of conscience and wants to get back at those whom he’s helped wrong others, and so he wants to steal the painting the ruthless drug manufacturer has on display at the museum. The Leverage team decides to assist Harry in his effort to take down his former client. I
Invigorated by this first mission by their newly-reunited team, the group decides to continue on their venture, setting up a new base of operations in New Orleans, and asking Harry to join them as their new man in the inside. He will assist them in identifying his former clients, so they can find justice for the victims. Harry hopes that through this new partnership he can achieve some sort of redemption for those he helped to wrong over the past 15 years.
It only took a few minutes into the first episode before I was reminded of why I loved the original Leverage series. The dynamic between this group is so much fun. Crazy Parker was always my favorite on the original series, and she’s back in full form. The series starts off with a 2-parter and then gets back to a con-of-the-week. Unfortunately, Hardison is only around for the 2-hour premiere before his character makes an excuse to leave (likely due to the fact that Aldis Hodge is also starring in Showtime’s City on the Hill), and then his role as hacker on the team is taken over by his young foster sister, Breanna Casey (Aleyse Shannon), who’s also a bit of a nerd and a computer whiz. Sophie and Parker serve as Breanna’s mentors, helping to teach her the ropes, and to grow into a more well-rounded member of the team.
Breanna is a fun addition to the team, bringing some youth and naivety, but I can’t say that I didn’t miss Hardison. I’m really glad they at least found a way to include him in the premiere to kick off the reboot. And who’s to say he won’t pop back up again at some point—the other characters continue to mention him throughout the season, keeping him part of the team at least in spirit, or assisting them remotely from the shadows. On the other hand, I can’t say that I really thought about Nate much after the fist episode, or really missed his character. Noah Wyle does a nice job of filling in Nate’s role on the team, while also serving the new viewers as the rest of the team needs to initially explain their purpose and roles to him. Just as Nate had this moral dilemma he was trying to fix by finding justice for victims, Harry is in a similar situation, and also serves as the source or inside connection for many of their cases.
It’s always fun to see these characters play out their con, with elaborate undercover costumes, accents, identities and plans. There’s always some nice misdirection both for the viewer and the target of the con. It often looks like things are not going according to plan, and their mission is going to fail, but in actuality things are happening just as expected. At the end of each episode, there’s usually a flashback to show the viewer what really went down, what the group was secretly up to the whole time, and how the con was actually successfully carried out. It always reminds me of the classic Mission: Impossible series, but with a lot more humor, and a lot less deadly situations. This show is a blast and I never realized just how much I missed it. I had a great time binging through these first 8 episodes and look forward to seeing what other cons await this new Leverage team.
The first 8 episodes of the first season of Leverage: Redemption will be available in the U.S. for free (with ads) on IMDb TV Friday July 9, with the second half of the season to follow in the Fall. IMDb TV programming is accessible wherever you normally watch Prime Video programming, though an Amazon Prime subscription is not required.
