Doc, he’s cool. I found him on the Internet.
Yes, that never goes badly.

The second episode, airing in its regular slot on Tuesday nights finds the team scattered around the world. That’s not really a shock as they aren’t a team yet. Sophie’s still “acting”, auditioning for a soap commercial with all the subtlety and nuance she can muster, Parker’s stealing art, and Eliot’s off hurting people. Only Nate and Hardison are back at home setting up the offices of Leverage Consulting & Associates, founded by the very handsome and leonine Harlan Leverage, III.

Hardison’s busy in the office while Nate’s finding the next good guy who’s been screwed by the powerful. He finds him in one Cpl. Robert Perry who lost the use of his legs in a “friendly fire” incident in Iraq. Except, the fire wasn’t so friendly: it came not from fellow coalition troops but rather from Blackwater Castleman, a mercenary private security firm. ((Whether you’re far to the left or far to the right, I hope we can all agree these private armies are an abomination and should be disbanded. And the boards of directors and executive officers should be held accountable for the bad acts committed on their watch.))

Turns out Castleman got their hands on hundreds of millions in small, unmarked bills which they’re shipping back to the states to use for bribes, ego stroking, and feathering the nests of the politicians in their pocket. CEO Charles Duford has had Congressman Robert Jenkins in his pocket for years, but with all this untraceable cash, he can grow his stable in order to ensure future no-bid contracts.

Meanwhile, Cpl. Perry is stuck in a hospital without the proper equipment for the extensive rehab he needs because Reservists get shipped home, no matter where or how far that is from the treatment they need. This isn’t just story logic bullshit, either. John Rogers is well known for writing about military matters and is an active and vocal supporter of our veterans. We do a terrible job of taking care of our boys when they come back from fighting our wars; Perry’s plight is just a fictionalized example of that. On Rogers’ blog, he informs us that all the vets in the hospital are actual vets, including Jake McLaughlin as Perry “who was stop-lossed for his fourth year in Iraq.”

Not knowing about the money, the team goes into the job thinking they just need to bust Castleman for a few hundred thousand. After a set piece in which Parker and Hardison break into Duford’s office and realize Castleman is more interested in Perry than they should be, the team regroups. Why Castleman didn’t kill Perry sooner is a bit of a plot hole here. There was no reason to keep him alive until the money made it through customs, other than writer-logic. But that’s a small complaint in an otherwise solid episode.

The final game is pretty smart. Money is heavy. You can’t just pick it up and carry it all away. The Castleman security at the port was probably overkill. Either an overwhelming force was going to come in and kill them all, or they were going to easily stop and subdue anyone trying to rob them. What the Leverage team was able to do was grab a few hundred thousand before blowing the door on the shipping container next to the money. With the doors wide open and the security guards running around in a panic, it didn’t even occur to them that there was no way to empty the container that fast.

Watching Jenkins and Duford try to spin the whole affair to the media was a little sickening at first. Sure Castleman lost the money, but it was always found money.  Seeing them make political hay was really gnawing at me until the phones went off. That made me chuckle.

As did Nate’s Tesla. Now I can’t be the only one who knew once he said “electric car” that he’d bought a Tesla. The other geeks and car freaks out there probably made the same leap. Still, it made me smile to see him hop in and peel out. This, by the way, is also a bit of issue politics. Dean Devlin was the Executive Producer on Who Killed the Electric Car. I’m not surprised to see the Tesla here.

Some other thoughts:

• I liked Hardison’s namecheck to Schoolhouse Rock, especially as it felt like we’d gotten a new verse to the song “How a Bill Becomes a Law” with the wooden box information.
• The magic cellphone. I’m surprised it doesn’t look more like the Global Frequency phone. I don’t doubt that a phone could copy and transmit an RFID code. I just doubt that functionality would exist in a general purpose cellphone. I do hope those things don’t turn into tricorders/sonic screwdrivers.
• “When men are telling the truth, they’re not looking me in the eye.”
• “Break a law, everybody’s done that. I mean, my mama’s done that. But steal a law…oh she’s gonna be a legend, baby.”
• I don’t know if Nate’s statement about there being only $500 in cash for every American is true, but it has the ring of truth to it. Although, if I’m reading this Treasury bulletin correctly, it’s closer to $3,000 per person.
• The whole exchange with the appetizers, from Chris Kane’s dopey grin while he kept holding the duck under Duford’s nose through Parker’s reaction to the loudly yelled “ef”, “uh”, and “kuh” sounds.

What did everyone else think?