Leverage: Season 4

As with any series by season four the show is looking for new direction. Its no longer just the con of the week. The characters really develop and plot lines begin to span the entire season. As expected the tech stuff is good no sound or video problems. I was a little disappointed in the extras. The shows all have commentary and maybe a deleted scene or two.Episode List (Spoiler Alert)1 "The Long Way Down Job"The fate of a missing climber on an Alaskan mountain is the key to taking down a corrupt financier. When the team returns to Boston, they make a shocking discovery: their office is bugged, and someone is watching them.2 "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job"A mark is killed during a masquerade ball in an isolated mansion, which leads to Nate becoming the prime suspect in a classic whodunit mystery, forcing the team to find out who killed their mark while also ensuring that Nate doesn't go down for a crime he didn't even commit.3 "The 15 Minutes Job"Nate plans to turn a shadowy political consultant into a celebrity—but can Nate himself resist the lure of the limelight?4 "The Van Gogh Job"The team pursues a lost Van Gogh masterpiece, and reenacts a star-crossed love affair between the only two people who know its whereabouts.5 "The Hot Potato Job"Sophie leads a quickly improvised con to retrieve a stolen genetically engineered potato from a highly secure agribusiness headquarters.6 "The Carnival Job"The team attempts to steal a revolutionary new computer chip from a family household, but in the middle of their efforts, the child of the target's family is kidnapped during a chaotic carnival. Eliot must face an old adversary named Roper to get the child back.7 "The Grave Danger Job"The Leverage target a grifter and her two sons who are running a funeral home when in actuality, they're embezzling money from her living clients and selling the identities of their dead loved ones to a drug cartel. As Parker's feelings for Hardison become clearer, things take a turn for the worst when the team learns that Hardison has been kidnapped and buried alive by the drug cartel who are using him as collateral, forcing the team into a race against time as they struggle to track his location and find him before he runs out of air while also finishing the original con of bringing down the grifter and her two sons.8 "The Boiler Room Job"The team targets a 3rd-generation con man who knows every scam in the book (because his father and grandfather practically wrote the book), and Nate decides that since they can't con him, they'll just rob him. Later, Nate learns who's been tracking them: Jack Latimer, a professional investor who's made millions off of companies who have had personnel or practices exposed by Leverage.9 "The Cross My Heart Job"On the way back from another job, Nate meets a nurse, and the Leverage team discovers that a terminally ill defense contractor has stolen a heart intended for a fifteen-year-old boy. To stop the contractor from getting the heart, the team has to steal the Cincinnati airport in less than two hours without any equipment while the job hits too close to home for Nate.10 "The Queen's Gambit Job"Sterling returns and convinces the Leverage team to steal a nuclear centrifuge calibration weight from a high-tech skyscraper in Dubai during an international chess tournament—but things may not be what they seem.11 "The Experimental Job"The Leverage team goes back to college to investigate a program of sinister psychology research. Hardison poses as a cooler, collegiate version of himself, and Eliot goes undercover as a homeless veteran.12 "The Office Job"A documentary film project about a small greeting-card company takes a strange turn when the Leverage team arrives, posing as efficiency experts.13 "The Girls' Night Out Job"While the boys enjoy a poker night (or so they think), Parker, Sophie, and Tara investigate a mysterious handsome man who is using Parker's friend Peggy (from Season 1's "The Juror #6 Job") to get access to an embassy.14 "The Boys' Night Out Job"While the girls enjoy a night on the town (or so they think), Nate, Hardison, and Eliot must extricate their old acquaintance Hurley (from Season 1's "The 12-Step Job") from his involvement with gangs associated with the Mexican and Irish mobs.15 "The Lonely Hearts Job"A charity auction in the Hamptons appears to be a front for a "black widow" con, and the team's investigation puts each member's romantic skills to the test. Meanwhile, Latimer and an unknown partner declare war on Leverage.16 "The Gold Job"Taking his first turn as leader of a con, Hardison constructs an elaborate plan to victimize a pair of corrupt gold dealers.17 "The Radio Job"When Jimmy Ford breaks into a patent office on a job set up by Latimer, Nate goes after him followed by the team, and they are besieged by law enforcement. All seems well until the team finds Jimmy has escaped and gone to a trap for his money. Jimmy is killed by a bomb, and Nate is caught in the bomb while he runs to Jimmy. Nate learns Latimer's partner is Victor Dubenich, seeking revenge for his incarceration.18 "The Last Dam Job"In the wake of Jimmy Ford's death, the Leverage team must recruit allies for a final confrontation as they seek to take down both Latimer and Dubenich once and for all but Nate's own plans for the latter may have far-reaching and fatal consequences for both of them as well as the team.

Sealed, brand new. Received in a few short days.

The gang is back: the hitter, the grifter, the hacker, the mastermind and the thief -- and they're pulling their clever cons to make sure justice is served. And how I wish I could hire them in real life to help me balance the scales against the rich and powerful! The Leverage team protects us little folk of the 99% from the heartless trepidations of the top 1%, and they do it with flair, with expert skills and timing, and with an easy, fun twinkle in the eye.If anything, they are closer than ever, they're family -- and we wish they were our neighbors. Sophie is back, after dropping out for most of last season (actress Gina Bellman was pregnant, and appeared briefly in some episodes on the phone, filmed from the shoulders up). Jeri Ryan (Star Trek Voyager's shapely Borg "7 of 9") did a yeoman's job as the fill-in grifter. Nate is still planning these incredible, crazy cons. Pretty blonde Parker is still adorable as the expert thief with awkward social skills, and Hardison still loves Parker, orange soda, his tech van Maybeline, and hacking anything on earth digital. Elliot is as surly as ever, and we wouldn't want him to be anything else, as he masters every fistfight and any weapon system known to man.Season four's settings are varied, and better budgeted (snowy mountain tops? foreign countries?) -- but every episode sucks us in and has us routing for our gang, even when it looks like everything has gone south and disaster is a heartbeat away (and that happens quite a lot!). A lot of people out there have Leverage to thank for their lives, their fortunes, their freedom, their homes... and we can't help but feel we wish we could find that bar in Boston and sit down with Nate over a two-finger scotch and ask him to help us with OUR problems.And it's not all about the con... they manage to touch our hearts in almost every episode. Check out the trip back to WWII with Hardison and Parker filling in for star-crossed lovers in a day far less forgiving than ours. Look for Danny Glover as the guest star. You'll cheer, and you might just shed a tear before they're done, too. Leverage is all about people. That's why we care.Until that day, it feels really good to watch them help everyone else. Add all 5 seasons to your collection, like me.

I have loved Leverage since episode 1. Loved the concept and the cast (including, since I was also a Nero Wolfe fan, the guest appearances by former characters from that series -- and the cameos and direction of Jonathan Frakes and the guest appearances by Wil Wheaton because I loved STNG). When the series began filming in Portland (my home town) I was delighted to see familiar spots in and around my home town (even if it was substituting for Boston). My family always looks forward to the humor, banter and true affection that has grown between this somewhat dysfunctional "family" group. We all thought this finale was amazing (and enhanced by the fact that it sets the team up to move to Portland where we won't have to disguise our city next season). We enjoyed the clips back to remind (for long-time watchers) or introduce (for newbies) the connection between the characters from the past and present that formed the basis for the dynamics of the way they related to each other in this episode. Since we own all the episodes either on DVD or in our video library, we frequently (by choice) go back and re-watch them just for the pleasure of reminding ourselves of the fun moments in each episode ... so it is no different for us to be reminded through flashbacks of those moments and character tie-ins within the episode. And, if it attracts new viewers because it enables them to understand the current episode and maybe even be interested enough to purchase old episodes to "catch up" all the better. Keep the audience demand growing I say so we can watch Nate & Sophie, Hardison & Parker and Eliot continue conning, charming and watching out for one another for many more seasons.

This is Leverage back to its' very best after season three seemed to drift a little for me and not really meet the standards of the first two seasons. The scripts once again match the talents of the ensemble cast who portray their rounded characters with warmth, wit and intelligence. There are good twists, fun and much excitement.

I like how a former enemy came back for revenge but failed.

Received with thanks

The first three series were so entertaining that this forth had a lot to live up to but it just about made it.. Not the best compared to the previous three, however, they were so good this still rates a five star as only giving it four would be an injustice!

A present for my grandson much appreciated