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The team take on corrupt NOLA PD cops who are targeting innocent homeowners with bogus charges so that real estate developers can build condos on their land.

Mark

Kira Simone & Billy McShane

Client

Romero Delgado

Summary

Two cops, Kira Simone and Billy McShane are waiting outside Romero Delgado’s house, planning on illegally arresting him. They pull Romero over and plant drugs and a gun in his car.

Sarah is Romero’s Lawyer, and Harry tries to appeal to Renee, telling her that he believes Romero was wrongfully convicted as he has no criminal record. Harry also says how real-estate developers are bankrolling politicians to pressure cops into making more arrests as a way to make way for new condos. Renee tells Harry that Romero’s brother ran with the Latin Kings, which is enough for him to look like a likely suspect. Sarah asks Harry for reassurance that she can win this case, which he gives. Harry then goes to the team for help, asking if he could take the lead, as the team trusted Breana to lead a con.

Parker and Eliot follow the cops, Kira and Billy, to their CI. Parker and Eliot then give the CI a card to their fake address under the cover as federal agents. The cops take the bait and go to the address where Parker, Eliot and Breanna are waiting. The three introduce themselves and, after some prompting, tell the cops that they are there working on operation “Fer-de-Lance”. The operation is watching Graziela (Sophie), a “ruthless Marco from Bogota” who’s meeting with “a shady lawyer Harry Wilson” to arrange a shipment of drugs and money.

Once the dirty cops are given the bait, the team plans to let them take their fill of money and drugs from the bust after the arrest, after which they can take the cops down. The team is notified that Romero got attacked in prison due to his brother’s association with the Latin Kings. The team realizes there is no more time left for Romero, and they need to get him out of prison now, so Harry jumps to Plan B.

Harry’s plan B is to kidnap/breakout Romero out of custody during his hearing. Breanna stages a protest outside the courthouse, and Eliot gets himself arrested into lock up with Romero. They then plant a sriracha bomb, and the courthouse has to be evacuated by people in hazmat suits. Parker and Eliot get Romero out of lock-up in the disguise of a hazmat suit. Due to Romero’s limp, the dirty cops catch him before he can get away. Harry aborts the mission, and Eliot returns to holding to protect Romero inside the jail.

With Harry defeated about messing up the plan twice, Sophie encourages him. She shows Harry Victor Lustig’s trunk, a gift she got from her mentor. Inside the trunk is a collection of the greatest grifts and heists.

When the team reconvenes, Harry tells them he plans to run the Turkish Prisoner con. He wants to use a local legend of the “lost stash house” to run the con. The legend goes that a bagman hid $10 million in cash in the walls of a house in New Orleans and didn’t tell anyone where he stashed it before he was killed. Harry previously worked for a client searching for the stash and had collected lots of information regarding it.

The dirty cops meet Parker and Breanna at their base, asking why Eliot is in jail. Parker and Breanna tell the cops that they lied about their true mission and are there for the “lost stash house”. They tell the cops that Romero has a clue that can lead them to the money, originally Graziela’s.

The first clue leads the cops to a graveyard, where they find a key buried. Sophie pretends to shoot Parker and Breanna, making the cops buy their story even more.

The dirty cops talk to Eliot in prison to get his help. He tells them that they need Romero, so the cops agree to let Romero temporarily out of prison so that he can help lead them to the money. Romero says he recognizes the key as being for an abandoned alligator park.

The cops then take Romero and Eliot to the alligator park, where they must cross a swamp. The team planted clues to lead the cops to a note inside a stuffed toy with a coordinate written on it. The cops believe these coordinates to be the lost stash house. They return to their boat only to find it floated away, and Eliot and Romero are ordered to retrieve it.

While retrieving the boat from the swamp, Eliot and Romero fake getting eaten by an alligator. Sophie then turns up and threatens to kill the cops, sending them running.

The cops break into the house the coordinates led to, and Kira tears down the walls. McShane stops Kira, noticing a picture of Renee. Renee runs out of her room, finding the pair had broken into her house.

Later, in the judge’s office, Sarah argues that the cops framed Romero to force him to lead them to the money. The judge sides with Sarah, and they agree to do a thorough investigation on the cops and their history.

Breanna figured out where the stash house was from Harry’s past client’s notes and gifts it to Romero.

Guest Cast

• Alanna Masterson as Kira Simone
• Melanie Hutsell as Renee Fontenot
• Morgan Lindholm as Sarah Nichols
• Derek Theler as Billy McShane
• Xingu Del Rosario as Romero Delgado
• Grant Fortune as Skinny Bob
• Eleanor T. Threatt as Judge Jenkins

Aliases

• Eliot: Nick O'Brien- FBI agent
• Parker: Deputy US Marshal Kate Mercer
• Breanna: Grillo- Cyber Unit
• Sophie: Graziela Ortega- Marco from Bogota

Episode Notes

• Plan M is mentioned. In the original show Plan M was the plan in which Hardison dies
• Sarah Nichols previously appeared in the pervious season, in The Golf Job
• Parker and Eliot mention Hurley
• The crew hired other Leverage international people as henchmen. A job in Honduras is mentioned.

Trivia

• Sophie was gifted from her mentor, Victor Lustig's suitcase. Victor Lustig was a highly skilled con artist from Austria-Hungary, who undertook a criminal career that involved conducting scams across Europe and the United States during the early 20th century. Lustig is widely regarded as one of the most notorious con artists of his time, and is infamous for being "the man who sold the Eiffel Tower twice".
• While there is no Turkish Pioneer con, there is actually a Spanish prisoner con. In the Spanish prisoner con, a trickster will tell their victim (the mark) that they are (or is in correspondence with) a wealthy person of high estate who has been imprisoned in Spain under a false identity. The trickster offers to let the mark put up some of the funds, promising a greater monetary reward upon their release from prison. After the mark has turned over the funds, they are informed further difficulties have arisen and more money is needed. The trickster continues to press for more money until the victim is cleaned out or declines to put up more funds.
• The con described is detailed in "The Confidence Men" by Margalit Fox
• The song playing while Breanna hits the keyboard to raise an army of hot sauce protesters is a snippet of "Thé à la Menthe (The Laser Dance Version)". This is a homage to Ocean's Twelve (2004) in a scene where the thief Nightfox dances in order to evade a series of randomly sweeping laser beams.