by Demi Moumas, Guest Reporter

Bigger marks mean crazier cons. This time the Leverage team is not going against a corrupt politician or stopping a crime. They are asked to make a businessman return to how he was before he started to dismantle his company. Not sure how to take on such a man, the team argues about how to handle this until their illustrious leader and mastermind states they will be doing a White Rabbit con on their target: Charles Dodgson. The team isn’t sure because that particular con has never been successfully pulled off. Nate assures them that it has and by one of their own, Sophie.

Now I’m sure you all are wondering what a White Rabbit con is. Sophie explained that the grifters who attempt use it have to get inside the mark’s head and guide them through certain actions that will change them as a person. Like Alice going down the rabbit hole in Wonderland, hence the White Rabbit name. She says that with use of some sedatives that Eliot has they will make the mark think he is having a lucid dream. This is used as a form of therapy for Dodgson who is having constant panic attacks.

Let the con begin! While Hardison sets up (what he calls the imaginarium) they switch out Dodgson’s normal driver with Eliot. Nate has the role of what I call the pusher, pushing everyone to complete this con even when they think it’s falling apart. Sophie takes lead as the therapist for their mark and guiding everyone through the con. And Parker, our lovely thief takes a few roles in this and ends up doing what the others can’t.

Between knocking out and drugging Dodgson multiple loopy blue or unconscious red patches (Yes, we have now entered the matrix or in this case Wonderland) then dragging him to Hardison’s virtual world in a warehouse, things get a bit more tense then even Nate thought it would. The crew is not trying to take a man down; they are trying to change him back to his old self. Unfortunately, their mark is a hard nut to crack (doesn’t help they are making him think he’s dreaming when he’s actually awake). The team then finds out that Sophie never successfully finished the White Rabbit. It is only when Parker is in her role, that they get a clue that unravels why. Taking that, Nate and the team find out what happened to a promising businessman realizing its guilt that is setting off the panic attacks. And it is Parker who, while breaking her cover and revealing a little more about her past, knocks some sense into Dodgson while saving him from taking a deadly leap of faith. The episode ends happily with Sophie explaining that Parker was the key to pulling this whole con out of the spiral it started to go in.

Leverage doesn’t have a format that allows much for looking into the past for a character. Lately though, they have been slipping little clues, for example in ‘The Low Low Price Job’ Eliot revealed some of his relationship he had with his father to Hardison.

‘The White Rabbit Con’ is the episode that shows that Leverage is not just about going after bad guys. It is about helping people. The special FX and camera style they use for the lucid dream sequences were more than expected.

Rating:
ComicOnline gives Leverage – “The White Rabbit Con” 5 crazy rabbit trips out of 5.

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