One of the complaints some critics have laid on Leverage is its reliance on common settings for a con/scam/mission show: bank robbery, horse track, etc. Personally, I not only find those locales comforting, but believe that specifically avoiding those settings would be unrealistic. These are thieves, after all. But tonight breaks the mold in a big way and goes somewhere I don’t believe any heist show has gone before.

My knowledge of the strife and suffering in the countries formerly composing Yugoslavia is sketchy, mostly consisting of what I’ve gleaned from features about the region’s basketball tradition. In fact, if not for tall men with names like Vlade and Drazen and Peja, I might not be able to remember the names of all the republics that split off from Yugoslavia. The fighting during the ’90s was intense and the toll is still being felt to this day. I don’t know how common the practice of using orphanages to front for gunrunners is, but there are certainly enough orphans in Belgrade to make it feasible.

We put these kids in the system, and odds are..they’re gonna…they’re gonna…they’re gonna turn out like me.

There’s no surprise in learning that Parker spent her childhood inside the system, and it makes her little “blow up” from the pilot a little less bothersome, ((She only blew up *foster* parents.)) but I was surprised to find out that Hardison’s nana wasn’t really his grandmother. I suppose it’s significant that two (at least) of the thieves come from broken or non-existant homes, though I suspect Sophie’s family is actually destitute aristocracy.

An intriguing and wholly original con ensues to get Luka back, luring Irina in with the promise of a role in a movie, ((And what a movie. I wanna see NATO troops vs. Werewolves, don’t you?)) and it lets us see Sophie emote in the mother of all habits. That all-white outfit was awesome squared, as was her death scene. Truly, absolutely, fabulous. I love when Sophie “acts”. On top of her performance we got Nate as a stereotypical director. I just hope on the eventual DVD commentary track Timothy Hutton lets us know who he was channeling.

Overall, I was pleased with this episode, although they were too on the nose with the “We Are Family” theme. We get it. We know. The team is a modern stone age family. ((Eliot is Bam Bam.))

Some other thoughts:

• Hardison’s got a thing for orange soda. Notice the Jones Soda in the boardroom and the Serbian local brew in Belgrade.
• I liked the way we were shown Parker was an orphan – by her noting Luka’s tendencies in the home video – rather than being told.
• Hardison’s box of cookies in Serbia were called “Dvopek”. That’s a Croatian word that translates as “Cookie”.
• Greatly enjoyed Parker being walked through flirtation with Nicolas. Her monotone repetition of the words in her earbud was hilarious. Also hilarious: how realistic it was. Dudes don’t care if the hot blond sounds like a robot.
• Sophie: “So, how did you know Irina’d go for the movie thing?”
  Nate: “A European grifter who wants to be an actress? Lucky guess.”
• The obvious phrasebook fail in the orphanage was cute, though tomato? Really? I did appreciate out Haagen-Dazs worked for her, though.
• Also? Liked Parker’s Gymkata-style fight with Nicolas. She just needed to do a handstand or have mysterious chalk appear on her hands to really put it over the top.

What did everyone else think?