The Leverage team returns for a fifth and final season of 15 more crazy capers where they try to level the playing field for victims who have been taken advantage of by the rich and powerful. This year the team moves to Portland, OR where they establish their new headquarters above a Brewpub. The fifth season jumps right into the action, with the season opener quickly reintroducing the characters and their roles on the Leverage team, bringing new viewers up to speed.

What I really enjoy about the series is that while the team is working on their takedown of the week, we get some really fun character moments and interactions as well as a lot of character development. Over the course of the five seasons, we have really seen these characters grow, and this season is no different. The fifth season opens with Nathan (Timothy Hutton) and Sophie (Gina Bellman) acting like an old married couple, Parker (Beth Riesgraf) and Hardison (Aldis Hodge) dating, and we get a glimpse of Eliot’s (Christian Kane) military background.

I found that in its fifth season, Leverage was just as enjoyable as ever. The series has found the perfect balance between humor, action, drama and interesting cases of the week. This season finds the Leverage team stealing the Spruce Goose, playing Hockey, staging a fake alien encounter, and going undercover at a culinary school and a cheerleading competition. They also invesitgate the disappearance of D.B. Cooper, find a rare car, get incorrectly accused of stealing a rare painting, infiltrate a target’s dreams, discredit a greedy winery owner, and create a fake new toy sensation. There is also a play off of Rear Window, an action-packed job that involves national security, and a plot to stop a big-box store that threatens a local small business.

The season culminates in an amazing finale that turns the con back on the audience. What I really appreciated about this season was that the writers wrote the final episode such that it gave the series the ending they had planned on from the beginning. This provides great closure to things that were raised as far back to the pilot, but also left things flexible enough such that had the series been renewed for a sixth season, they would be able to continue. The season finale also provides lots of references back to previous episodes giving longtime fans something extra special.

This final season features some great guest stars, including Cary Elwes, Matthew Lillard, Adam Baldwin, Mark Sheppard, Treat Williams, Steve Valentine, Fred Ward, Ronny Cox, Gregg Henry and Catherine Dent.

Even though the series was originally aired on TNT in HD, like prior seasons, it only gets a DVD release. However, the DVD looks and sounds great. In one aspect, this DVD set provides minimal bonus features—only 5 minutes of deleted scenes from four of the episodes and an almost 8-minute gag reel (which is a lot of fun). However, it makes up for this by giving viewers an audio commentary on every one of the fifteen episodes! The episode commentaries are provided by the show’s producers, some of the episode writers and directors, and two of the cast members. These give a nice glimpse behind-the-scenes at the making of the series.

Fans will definitely want to add this final season to their collection, and new viewers should still check out this fun caper-of-the-week show as you don’t need to have seen the previous seasons to fully enjoy the show’s unique blend of action, comedy, mystery and drama.

What’s Included on the DVD:

Episodes: (635 min)

• All 15 episodes of Season 5
  Disc 1: “The (Very) Big Bird Job”, “The Blue Line Job”, “The First Contact Job”, “The French Connection Job”
  Disc 2: “The Gimme a K Street Job”, “The D.B. Cooper Job”, “The Real Fake Car Job”, “The Broken Wing Job”
  Disc 3: “The Rundown Job”, “The Frame-Up Job”, “The Low Low Price Job”, “The White Rabbit Job”
  Disc 4: “The Corkscrew Job”, “The Toy Job”, “The Long Goodbye Job”
• Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
• Closed Captions

Extras:

• Audio Commentary on all Episodes
  Executive Producers John Rogers and Chris Downey are joined by others to provide commentary on every episode of the fifth season! They start off each commentary telling viewers who wrote/directed the episode and how the idea for the episode came about. They then provide a fun, spirited look behind the scenes into the making of the episode, sharing some interesting facts and tidbits. They have a lot of fun in these&mdashand even compete to see who can do the best Mark Sheppard impression. Warning, they do get a bit inebriated in the process, and the language is very colorful.
  

  • “The (Very) Big Bird Job” — John Rogers is also writer/director of the episode
  • “The Blue Line Job” — Joined by Director Marc Roskin
  • “The First Contact Job” — Joined by Writer Aaron Denius Garcia and star Aldis Hodge (“Alec Hardison”)
  • “The French Connection Job” — Joined by Director Tawnia McKiernan and star Aldis Hodge (“Alec Hardison”)
  • “The Gimme a K Street Job” — Joined by Writer Jeremy Bernstein
  • “The D.B. Cooper Job” — Joined by Director Marc Roskin; Chris Downey is also the writer of the episode
  • “The Real Fake Car Job” — Joined by Director John Harrison and star Aldis Hodge (“Alec Hardison”)
  • “The Broken Wing Job” — Joined by Director John Harrison
  • “The Rundown Job” — Joined by Director Dean Devlin and stars Christian Kane (“Eliot Spencer”) & Aldis Hodge (“Alec Hardison”)
  • “The Frame-Up Job” — Joined by Writers Geoffrey Thorne & Jeremy Bernstein, and Director Marc Roskin
  • “The Low Low Price Job” — Joined by Director Tawnia McKiernan & Aldis Hodge (“Alec Hardison”)
  • “The White Rabbit Job” — Joined by Director P.J. Pesce and Writer Geoffrey Thorne
  • “The Corkscrew Job” — Joined by Writer Jenn Kao and Director Marc Roskin
  • “The Toy Job” — Joined by P.J. Pesce
  • “The Long Goodbye Job” — Joined by Director Dean Devlin and stars Christian Kane (“Eliot Spencer”) & Aldis Hodge (“Alec Hardison”)
    

• Deleted Scenes (5:10)
  Deleted scenes appear on the discs with the corresponding episodes. Play All on each disc, or select from: “The First Contact Job” (2 scenes, 1:00), “The French Connection Job” (2 scenes, 1:18), “The Low Low Price Job” (3 scenes, 1:22) and “The White Rabbit Job” (3 scenes, 1:30).
• Gag Reel (7:49)
  Hilarious compilation of flubbed and forgotten lines, prop malfunctions and the cast goofing off on set. I especially enjoyed all of the great stuff with Beth Riesgraf rapid firing alternate lines and just having fun in character as the camera rolled.

Final Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching the final season of Leverage on this DVD set. The episodes look and sound great, and were just as much fun the second time around. While the special features are a bit minimal, there are audio commentaries for every episode, and these provide an interesting glimpse behind-the-scenes of each of the season’s 15 episodes. (I just wish my favorite Beth Riesgraf had participated in these.).