Leverage Season Finale Review: Send In The Backups
Jim Garner at .The season four finale of Leverage, "The Last Dam Job," really made me want more of the team, especially to see them with their “backups." Thankfully, we'll get at least part of that when the show returns this summer for season five.
While it's not new that Nate and his squad brought down a bad guy (in this case it was Latimer and Victor), what made this episode unique from other takedowns was the interaction of the team members with their counterparts. I loved it!
Watching Quinn (Clayne Crawford) and Chaos (Wil Wheaton) attempting to work together with Quinn wanting to hurt Chaos - while the latter spoke down to Quinn as he explained the way they were going to break into the computer - was refreshingly funny and brought back memories of season one.
The sudden appearance of Maggie Collins (Kari Matchett), Nate’s ex-wife, was also welcome. Actually, I want to give kudos to TNT for not showing her in the preview and giving us all a nice surprise when she sat down next to Latimer. Did any else catch her reference to Jim Sterling and her attraction to him? I wonder about the chances that Sterling and Maggie have seen each other again.
By far, it was Richard Chamberlain who stole the show as Archie Leach. I laughed so hard when he tazzered Chaos that I had to pause the show for a minute to wipe my eyes. Then, when he and Parker had the heart-to-heart about how he approved of Hardison, and she cared, it was really sweet.
Speaking of touching and sweet, how awesome was Eliot in his protectiveness of Nate?!? Between him trying to talk Nate out of killing Victor/Latimer to him nearly killing Victor himself, he showed how strongly he cares for Nate.
Many may think that the conclusion with Latimer was a bit rushed; to me it felt like it matched about how often we met him, so I didn’t mind at all. Honestly, I’m glad it’s done and I'm looking forward to this summer to see what Nate and the team gets into.
I do have some questions as we go into season five:
- When Nate says he has to make some changes, does that mean he is climbing out of the bottle?
- Why can’t they keep the cave? I like the idea of an “Eliot Signal."
- Besides, don’t we still have some other bad guys out there wanting a piece of Nate?
Jim G. is a TV Fanatic Staff Writer. Follow him on Twitter.