by Demi Moumas, Reporter

Welcome again to the Christmas themed episode of Leverage. In other words a Parker gets to shine episode. This year, our favorite team goes after a toy company who is letting a malfunctioning toy on the shelves. In comes our team of Robin Hoods to save Christmas!

One thing I have to say I have in common with Eliot is that I hate arms dealers, even former ones such as the CEO of the toy company Poggio and mark, Trent Hazalet. The first plan is to steal safety reports again the stuff dog. That’s right a stuff dog is the key to this whole episode. The hazard is the nose that if the kids eat is apparently a safety hazard. When the client gets upset about the doctored up safety study, Nate promises that the toy won’t hit the shelf. So off we go to corrupt…I mean save Christmas!

So the new plan is to sell Trent a bad toy. Hardison works his magic and finds some failed toys that are being shipped to Bolivia and Sudan. Nate picks a toy that is supposed to do figure eights as their treasure. On the second run of the fun warehouse Parker decides that she rather a freaky two headed doll would be better than the whirlie glee-glee device. The toy, Baby Joy Rage has a happy face then when you spin it around an angry face….with a facial scar. An ugly creepy angry face. Not one to be put down by a minor technical detail, Nate figures out ways to get around it. As long as the toy has enough good marketing, anything can be sold. Our favorite grifter becomes the new toy representative.

Well, anything can be sold right? Many of you are probably asking how. One way is the drug dealer approach in the weekly farmers market. This con is not how it sounds. The thought behind it is first taste, or this case toy, is free then when they come back for more you pay. Next approach is getting a famous person to endorse it. They are able to sneak a Baby Joy Rage doll into her tote allowing Hardison to take a picture and spam it across the internet (and if you look closely, one website is tumblr!). Pretty ingenious if you ask me…wonder if I would be able to actually pull that off. Nate then gets Sophie to use her theater students to call in to the companies to create a bigger gossip field for it. Got to love the connections these guys use, even if people don’t understand why they are doing things.

It works wonders and gets into Trent’s field of vision. The I-want-to-destroy-you vision. Can I hide now?

But the crew still needs to create more media saturation for the toy. Eliot and Parker actually get into a fight about the doll. Surprise, Surprise…but if last year’s episode taught me anything it’s never mess with Parker on Christmas. Parker tells them about how dolls are the key, such as the doll her social worker use to do exercises with. Emotional identification exercises. That inspires Nate to not con the kids, but the parents’ of the kids! Hardison becomes an emotional lecturer about the toy, while Eliot goes to talk to the moms about it and learns some blogger moms are hot. All of this causes the media to spike interest in the doll.

Meanwhile Sophie stirs the pot interfering in Trent’s affairs at a toy expo. She grabs the attention of the man that the mark was going to talk to for shelf space. Again we have the angry, red faced Trent being all growly and generally a pain in the ass. Sophie then comes back when the man is about to leave and tries to rub it in his face that she ringed in his buyer. He shows Sophie that he has blackmail on his buyer, Barton. When Nate is informed of this, he tells them that they need to up baby Feels-A-Lot’s online sales. Impossible right? Be ready to be proven wrong! Nate steps into the con as the owner of Lucky Beans Toys. Haridson then brings up the fact that he and Parker are ruining the holiday. Nate then proceeds to tell the hacker the truth about Christmas’s pagan history. Way to cheer him up Nate, just continue to tell him about the sacrificing of pagan children.

Trent then grabs the statistics about this new toy and demands a meeting with Sophie. I must commend this mark for trying to change with the new info he gathers, but it’s too late sucker! Sophie takes Trent to Nate, who is in his role. The acting as an emotional parent of a son who is in prison is brilliant. Sophie continues lead Trent further into the con causing her to hand over the doll. That lets him mess with the specs so he can sell a knock off. At the toy expo, he readies to announce his two new toys, only to find out that the government did a safety test on his dog toy. Unfortunately for him the Leverage team ensnared him in their trap. With these studies out in the public his buyer leaves him with lawsuit in front of the cameras. Juicy breaking story for them no doubt!

Back at the brewery, the client thanked the team for stopping the tycoon and wished them a Merry Christmas. Sophie decides for Christmas they should give each other trust and swap a personal story about themselves. Nate volunteers his own story about his father getting him a trumpet for the holiday when he was younger. We learn that Nate gives his son the trumpet and the first lesson was the day Sam went into the hospital. This is a very touching way to end the holiday episode because we learn that Nate is opening up to his team more and learning to trust them as a family. I also find it a bit sad that is one of the stories that Nate gives on the holiday episode.

Despite all of the hilarious lines and amusing Parker comments, I found that this story was lacking a bit. Sure we got to see everyone in their roles, but I felt as though something was missing. That certain spark in an episode that leaves you wanting more. It sort of redeemed itself with keeping it consistent with making it a Parker Christmas. I don’t think we see enough of season 5 though. This season has been about seeing the little bits of info that allowed the viewers glimpses of the team’s past. It felt like an episode that should have been at the beginning of the season, but it was still decent episode.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Leverage – “The Toy Job” 4 disguised pagan holidays out of 5.

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