by Demi Moumas, Reporter

This week’s Leverage is back to the old fashioned mind games. Very apt too considering they are out to con a winery owner. Nothing tastes better than conning a man trying to cover up the death of his workers. Well…maybe a very good aged wine.

A young woman, Kristin Knox, comes to the team after her dad, Sam, died at the winery. She didn’t think anything of it until someone came knocking at her door and giving her a million dollar check if she signed a non-disclosure agreement. She was smart enough to figure out that no one gives out a million dollar check unless they had something to hide, something that had to do with her father’s death. Fortunately, Nate believes her and tells her that they will find out the secret behind her father’s death.

Eliot is sent in as a worker and tries to get knowledge from the other workers about what happened. He learns that the workers are spooked about what happened. Nate tells him to find out more about the working condition while Hardison fills them in about the non-disclosure agreement. He states that the agreement is longer than the one for the C.I.A (I, like Sophie, want to know how you got this Hardison!), telling the crew that the winery just wants her to be silenced. They agree that Sam Knox is mostly likely not the first victim either, because really what kind of company tries cover up a death on their watch? A very bad company with many secrets that’s who!

Parker, with training from Sophie, gets in as an intern for the winery. There she meets the owner, Frank Madigan, who is more about productivity than showing the interns how to make wine for college credit. College credit equals no pay which makes intern Parker very angry. I would be angry too, but I can’t my internship paid me. Hardison brings up the background on Madigan and it isn’t a pretty thing. He basically tried to pay for people’s silence in his last company too. Well, that’s not very sneaky of him to have that on paper.

Time for the plan. They find out that Madigan has loan in which he put up his wine collection as collateral. The crown jewel of the collection is a bottle that was owned by Thomas Jefferson. Instead of stealing the bottle, which is insured, Nate decides to do something else. In goes Hardison as a vintner, a merchant of wine. While they are doing that, Sophie is sent in as a pourer. Really, that is the job description. It is someone who pours wine, but more so someone who sells certain tastes in this case. Now, time to go fake a bottle.

As Eliot and Parker look for ways that the labor could kill the workers, Sophie is trying to charm Madigan. In the grifter’s interview, she sells Madigan the same bottle of wine with a story and an illusion. It’s a neat trick that I wish I had the charm and accent to pull off. Back with Eliot and Parker, after successfully clearing out the workers, they move on to the equipment used. The fertilizer actually a chemical called SN-12. There are hundreds of gallons of this stuff, which means a paper trail. Nate has Parker take a sample to Hardison while Eliot takes care of the batch being used by the workers.

Meanwhile, Sophie is making a big impression on the mark by selling out of two specific kinds of wine. So much so, that he takes her to the tower for a drink. There Sophie begins to weave her make in order to get to see the Jefferson bottle. In truth she has a fake bottle in her purse and a button camera linked to Hardison on her. Unfortunately for her, Madigan has tagged his wine bottle with an electric plate. Nate suggests they make the real bottle look fake. When I heard that I was like, seriously how the hell are they going to do that? How do you make something he obviously knows is real, look fake? You go with something called a whisper campaign. Sophie shows Madigan she’s not impressed by the bottle because her former employer swore he had the bottle. She makes him doubt the bottle and a bonus, his manhood. That made me laugh.

Back inside the winery, Hardison is figuring out what SN-12 is. He learns the chemical compound is highly toxic to humans. Parker is in the office finding the paper trail that belongs to the substance. Hardison tries to walk her through a hack in geek talk, which is not thief friendly. As he does that, he is making Nate out to be Mike Biltz, the owner of the ‘real Jefferson bottle’. They do have a scare when the computer Parker is trying to hack starts to do an automatic system wipe. He runs all the way to her and with three seconds left stops the wipe. They learn that someone else has the data they need. Surprise ally! Betty Carter, a field worker was trying to shut Madigan down too! Eliot to the rescue.

Sophie, Parker and Hardison are in the room while Madigan has the bottle inspected to see if it’s genuine. First test is looking for materials on the outside that are not authentic. Our favorite grifter was able to put an invisible film with a letter print on it with the wrong font. Second test is of the glass. Parker is able to special another lens into the laser device. The last test is a radiation test. A bottle after 1947 have trace amounts of radiation. Hardison, apparently, stole some radiation in order to put it on the bottle. Oh the things these people do for cons. And voila faked bottle! Or so you think. Madigan paid off the inspector to declare the bottle real. During these tests, Leonard is searching the field for Betty. Eliot was able to track her, but she was already taken. No better way to retrieve someone then to send a retrieval specialist for them.

Trying to figure out what Madigan is up to Sophie goes to congratulate Madigan only to be told to take the day off. Finding that suspicious, Nate doesn’t understand why he would do that until Parker and Hardison tell him all the CO2 monitors have been tampered with. Madigan is trying to frame Betty and get an insurance payout. That’s pretty devious and very predictable. So while our favorite thief and hacker try to fix the oxygen problem, Eliot goes to the fermentation room to duke it out in the thinning out. Don’t piss off Eliot, even when he has the disadvantage. He is able to kick ass even when his opponent has an oxygen tank, saving Betty. Over at the tower, Parker shows up some fantastic parkour and climbing skills. They are able open one of the doors to the tower, venting the oxygen in.

Nate figures that Madigan doubts the bottle and it’s a ticking time bomb in his collection that he needs to get rid of. So Nate sets it up that when Madigan sells him, Mike Biltz the bottle, the authority is there to catch him. He also subtly lets it known to the man that the bottle is the real one. After saving the winery, the employees are able to buy back the winery. The end of the episode give Sophie a surprise when Nate gives her a glass of wine after telling her he sold the Jefferson Bottle…not the Jefferson wine.

I liked this episode because it brought in an element that other people can do the things that the Leverage team does. The added element of Betty stealing the info and getting the authority on Madigan’s tail was surprise. Not only that, but having to switch up acts in the middle of the con showed how smoothly the team knows how to work with each other. I mourn the fact that Eliot didn’t have a more epic fight in the thinning atmosphere though. Another thing that I didn’t like about this episode is that they put Nate behind the scenes again, where lately he had been helping the team. It was like a through back to the first season.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Leverage – “The Corkscrew Job” 3 extremely priceless bottles of wine out of 5.

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