| “ | Eliot hasn't talked to his dad since he joined the army. | ” |
— Parker | ||
The team joins Eliot in his hometown and help take down a corrupt fracking operation that is threatening his estranged father.
Client[]
Mark[]
GreenSlate Energy
Summary[]
The episode starts with Billy Spencer convincing a mother to stay despite a local fracking rig’s impact on the town, such as poisoning the tap water with methane.
Back at the Leverage base, Sophie has become concerned about possible collateral damage the team may have caused or been causing, ever since her encountering Arthur. Breanna creates a connection so the team can video chat with Hardison, who’s in the space satellite. Eliot comes downstairs, telling the team he’s going off somewhere for a few days but won’t tell them where. Breanna reminds Eliot that Hardison could track him, so Eliot tells them he’s going to Oklahoma. Sophie, Parker, and Hardison recognize that Eliot is going his father. Parker and Breanna hitch a ride in Eliot’s food truck to lend Eliot emotional support.
When in Eliot’s hometown, Parker sees someone getting beat up, and they stop to lend aid. After they scare the attackers away, they realize that the man is Eliot’s father, Billy. They go to Billy’s house, where he explains that some security from GreenSlate Energy attacked him. Billy tells them that he’s been gathering evidence of the fracking impacts on the town, and GreenSlate is trying to silence him. Billy’s managed to get them to take an environmental review, but he thinks the company hired to do the review is shady. Parker and Breanna leave to let Eliot talk to his father, but Billy doesn’t want to talk.
In the food truck, Parker and Breanna are video chatting with Hardison, revealing to him that Billy, Eliot’s father is black, making Eliot adopted. Eliot joins them in the truck and explains that his birth parents dropped him off as a baby at the hospital where his adoptive mother worked. He never told the team he was adopted because he didn’t see it as a big deal.
The team decides to help Billy out. GreenSlate is working on a closed system, so they won’t be able to hack in. Instead, they decide to go after the company’s operator, Peter Marsh and the attorney general, James Hodgins.
Harry and Sophie meet the attorney general pretending to interview him for a candidacy. They convince him to return to his home in Carson, where they’ll continue the interview. Sophie believes Hodgins cares about the people, and once he sees the fracking issues, he’ll shut it down. Meanwhile, Eliot and Parker bug Marsh’s office.
When Hodgins comes to town, Sophie and Harry continue their interview at his house while the team mimics the fracking rig’s effects to scare Hodgins. Hodgins ultimately calls Marsh, who ends up squishing the bug the team planted earlier. Parker then infiltrates his office to listen to Marsh and Hodgins’ conversation, only to find out that Hodgins is in on the cover-up. Sophie gets angry with herself for misreading a mark.
At Billy’s house, Eliot finally gets to talk to his father and apologizes for missing his mom’s funeral. Eliot explains that he joined the army because he wanted to be like his dad, who always told him glory stories of his time in the army. Billy expresses that his military time wasn’t so glorious as he got injured, and a medal that should have gone to him instead went to a white boy.
After their conversations, the two return inside, where Parker shows them the key card she stole from the fracking rig. Billy doesn’t want any part of their plans anymore and decides to go to the townhall meeting to stop the passing of more rigs. Eliot goes with Billy, and they are stopped by the security men, who they take on together. Billy is too late, however, and the building of new rigs is passed, and a press conference is held for the reopening.
At the press conference, the rig explodes when turned back on. Breanna and Parker had planted lithium earlier, which set off the explosive reaction. Billy proves the water is contaminated with methane in front of the reporters.
Having succeeded, the team is about to return home. Billy and Eliot reconcile as Billy says he’s proud of Eliot, and Eliot assures his father that he’s a hero.
Locations[]
Carson, Oklahoma
Guest Cast[]
- Keith David as Billy Spencer
- Doug Savant as AG James Hodgins
- Chris Ufland as Peter Marsh
Aliases[]
- Breanna: Kelly Johnson, IT Member of Enviro Defense
- Harry: Douglas Aaron
- Sophie: Aubrey Harford, journalist
Episode Notes[]
- Although not outwardly stated, it’s implied that Billy is a football coach
- Parker mentions robot bodies, which she first brought up in “The Harry Wilson Job”
- Billy says to Eliot, “What smells like fracking rig and screams like a girl”, which is a reference to “The Bank Shot Job” in which Eliot said, “What smells like crank and screams like a girl?”
Trivia[]
- Tulsa is not the state capitol of Oklahoma.
- This was the 100th episode of Leverage
- Breanna wears the "If You Can Read This, You Are A Local" T-shirt sold by New Orleans company Dirty Coast.[1] The following day, she wore a "From Bloom to Shroom" shirt from NIKE, depicting the stages of a mushroom maturing.
- The song Eliot listens/sings to while driving to his father’s, “Lone Wolf”, was written by Christian Kane for the episode "Lone Wolf" in the Electric Entertainment series Almost Paradise, which was created by Dean Devlin and stars Christian Kane.
- Jacob Stone of the TV series The Librarians is also portrayed by Christian Kane. Stone's father also lives in Oklahoma.
- The T-shirt Eliot is wearing under his buttoned flannel at the end of the episode is for Carson Hardware, his Dad's old hardware store. (The place Eliot's dad wanted him to work)
- In The Juror #6 Job, Nate tells Hardison that he could do anything if he applied himself. Being an astronaut was one of Hardison's responses. In this episode we see Hardison in space.
References[]
- ↑ "If You Can Read This, You Are A Local" T-shirt sold by Dirty Coast