| “ | How random is that? | ” |
The team reluctantly enlists the help of a naïve but ambitious assistant to take down a predatory music producer, in an episode told entirely from the POV of a regular person.
Client[]
- Unnamed client
- Jenna Monroe
The Mark[]
Hank Hogan
Summary[]
April gets fired from her job after filing complaints against her boss for sexual harassment.
Sometime later, Jenna Monroe attends the interview for the newly opened assistant position at the music production company. She barges into the boss, Hank Hogan’s office, to secure her interview as she really wants the position and is afraid of being looked over. Hogan likes her enthusiasm and hires her. As the other interviewees are turned away, Breanna is among them and says, “Guys, we have a problem”.
On Jenna’s first day at her new job, she sees Eliot at the front desk working security. Carol, a company worker, tells Jenna what she will be doing for her new job. Carol tells Jenna to refuse calls from Hogan’s ex-wife Sylvia and to not go into Hogan’s office. The company’s head of security, Brimley, then forces Jenna to sign an NDA.
Later, Jenna tries to open a file on the laptop she was given, only to find that she’s unable. Jenna then gets a notification on her calendar for Hogan’s upcoming meeting. She recognizes the name Lethbridge Stewart as a character from Doctor Who and goes to notify Hogan. When she calls Hogan, he tells her to come into his office. In Hogan’s office, he turns his cameras off. Jenna tells him of the suspicious meeting, and he congratulates her for her attentiveness. Hogan then leaves his office to tell Carol to cancel the meeting, and Sophie is shown retreating.
Jenna goes to the I.T. department to see about the file she can’t open on her computer. She bumps into Parker, dressed as a mechanic, in the hallway, fiddling with the electric box. When Jenna looks away for a second, Parker disappears. Jenna finds the I.T. room and meets Keith inside. She tells Keith that the last assistant owned her laptop. Keith explains that Brimley wipes the company laptops for every new hire. Keith is able to open the file, and even though it’s corrupted, they can still make out some of the document and find sexual assault accusations against Hogan. Jenna then asks Keith for the last assistant’s address.
Jenna goes to April’s address and offers her help. April tells Jenna she had been collecting information from past employees at the company with similar accounts. April explains that one of the past employees had reached out to a lawyer, “Harry something,” but nothing came of it. April explains that she ultimately took the payout from the company as she wanted to move on. Jenna then asks if she can take the check.
Jenna shows Keith the check outside the office building and explains that the bank account is different from the one the company uses. She figures Hogan’s using an off-the-books account to pay off the women to stay silent about their assaults. The pair talk about the situation while ordering from the Brick & Basil food truck, where Sophie serves them. Jenna tells Keith they should try to help the women and take down Hogan.
Once Jenna and Keith are gone, Sophie, Parker, and Eliot talk in the food truck and decide to help Jenna in helping the other women.
Keith gives Jenna a USB in the office to install into Carol’s computer. Jenna walks into Carol’s office, where she’s on a call with someone (Harry). Carol is hesitant to plug the USB into her computer, but Jenna manages to get her to do so. Jenna then meets up with Keith in the I.T. room. Keith now has access to not only Carol’s computer but also Hogan’s and Brimley’s, as they are all connected through the calendar. Keith tells Jenna that Carol’s computer is filled with illegally downloaded Hallmark movies. Specifically, ones where a prince is hiding as a farmer, or a carpenter, or something similar. Carol also frequents dating sites, seeming to find her secret prince in hiding.
Keith cannot access any documents through Hogan’s computer as Hogan only has hard copies. Jenna explains how April said Hogan would let employees see the paperwork when they draw a contract, but Hogan has to trust them first. Jenna is determined to access the documents but is unsure how. Immediately, they receive a notification from the music showcase saying it’s been shut down due to food poisoning. Jenna sees this as her opportunity. If she can find Hogan a new singer, she could worm her way up to his inner circle, but Jenna’s unsure how she’ll find one. Keith then gets an alert saying the food truck is outside, and they decide to grab lunch.
Breanna is the food truck worker and starts singing while preparing their meals. Jenna then asks if Breanna sings professionally, to which Breanna responds by telling Jenna she performs at a venue not far from there. Jenna then promises to introduce Breanna to her boss and calls Hogan to tell him about the potential new client. Hogan tells Jenna she shows great initiative and wants her to be more involved in the business. He asks her to join him at the show that night.
Jenna and Hogan go together to watch Breanna’s performance. Hogan is impressed with Breanna’s performance, and they talk with Breanna and her manager (Sophie). Jenna recognizes Sophie from the food truck, but Breanna and Sophie brush it off as nothing. Hogan then goes to talk business with Breanna and Sophie. Jenna talks with Keith over the phone while waiting. Hogan soon reappears and begins acting inappropriately toward Jenna. His words start to slur, and a flashback shows Parker roofied his drink. Sophie and Breanna quickly intervene, and Breanna carries Hogan off. Sophie tells Jenna she sees potential in her and looks forward to seeing how Jenna will perform on the job, also telling her they’ll be watching.
The next day at work, Carol is angry at Jenna for working her way up the corporate ladder and refuses to let her sign the contracts with Hogan. Jenna receives a call from Keith in which they hear a strange clicking (a sign that the phones are being tapped). Carol gets a message from her online suitor (Harry) and runs off to meet him. With Carol gone, Hank tells Jenna to sign the contracts with him.
Hogan invites Jenna into his office once again, where he reveals where his safe is and takes the contracts out to be signed. He begins acting inappropriately again and tries to turn his office camera off, but it keeps turning back on. Parker barges in as the maintenance worker, there to fix his lights. The drilling bothers Hogan, so he leaves Jenna with the paperwork, allowing her to photocopy them.
Jenna then goes to Keith; she now has proof that Hogan is stealing from the companies. The pair figure that if they can get Hogan caught for his financial crimes, his sex crimes could also be revealed. Jenna needs more proof and therefore needs to break into Hogan safe. Suddenly the fire alarm goes off. Jenna uses the opportunity to try to get into Hogan’s safe, thinking he must have the combination somewhere in his office or computer. Keith provides her with an earbud connected to his own so they can talk.
Noticing Jenna is missing, Brimley sends the security team after her, but Eliot takes them all out. Keith finds a video detailing how to break into the safe (starring Parker) and sends it to Jenna.
Meanwhile, Carol is on a date with Harry, pretending to be a Belgium prince disguised as a lumberjack, otherwise referred to as “a Lumberduke”. When Carol looks at her phone, she sees a message saying there was a fire at her work and runs off.
Suddenly, the fire alarm turns off before Jenna can open the safe. She gets Keith to get Hogan’s ex-wife to call Hogan to distract him. While Jenna is looking away, Parker unlocks the safe. Jenna finds the paperwork right as Carol returns. Jenna tells Carol that she thinks Carol was trying to protect her. Carol says otherwise, that she doesn’t care about Jenna and didn’t want another mess to clean up. Hogan then comes in, but Jenna shows Carol that it’s her name on all the paperwork instead of Hogan’s. Hogan put everything under Carol’s name, pinning everything on her if anything came out.
The cops suddenly arrive, and Carol tells them that Hogan is an abuser. The cops state they’re there to investigate the fire alarm but arrest Hogan and Carol after their accusations. Keith provides the cops with video footage of Hogan’s previous assaults he’d found stored on Hogan’s computer.
April thanks Jenna and Keith for all they’ve done. As the pair walk away from the office building, they walk right past the Leverage team, not even acknowledging them. Jenna found a business card for Leverage International and says that maybe Keith and her could call them as they make “a pretty good team”.
Guest Cast[]
- Emily Hall as Jenna Monroe
- Jeffrey Vincent Parise as Hank Hogan
- Julian Silver as Keith
- Gail Rastorfer as Carol Barsten
- Bonnie Gayle Sparks as April
- Rebecca Buller as Officer Noble
- Anthony Michael Frederick as Brimley
Aliases[]
- Eliot: Jeb- security
- Sophie: Bridget- singer manager and bar owner, Susan- food truck worker
- Harry: Hans
Episode Notes[]
- This episode could be considered a "Lower Deck Episode". A Lower Deck Episode is an episode focused primarily on minor characters, using their point of view to give an outsider's perspective on the central plot or characters.
- While working at her new job, Jenna receives a notification of a meeting with Lefbridge Stewart (a cover for the Leverage crew). She immediately recognizes the name as a character from Doctor Who and notifies her boss, finding it suspicious. This is the only time on the show someone has recognized an alias from Doctor Who.
- Some iteration of “How random is that?" is said four times during the episode.
- The file Jenna can't open is titled Kelli.
Trivia[]
- At the end of the episode, Keith is seen wearing a Jon Cleary & the Absolute Monster Gentlemen t-shirt. Jon Cleary is New Orleans-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His website is located at https://www.joncleary.com/.