Photo : TNT
We’re quite accustomed to seeing Nate Ford and his merry band of ex-miscreants in tough, life-threatening situations but the LEVERAGE season 4 premiere takes it up a notch. As if you needed another excuse not to go mountain-climbing…
We’re quite accustomed to seeing Nate Ford and his merry band of ex-miscreants in tough, life-threatening situations but the LEVERAGE Season 4 premiere takes it up a notch. As if you needed another excuse not to go mountain-climbing…
When we last saw our merry band of ex-miscreants, they had just taken down colossal fish Damien Moreau and Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton) and Sophie (Gina Bellman) celebrated by getting drunk and sleeping together. Oopsie?
“The Long Way Down” starts off like all their season openers – the gang comes back together after a huge, heavy gig to help someone they just couldn’t refuse. As is the case most of the time, they reunite sooner than planned, this time due to the time-sensitive nature of the job. They must scale up a snow-stormy mountainside to recover evidence that will bring down a jerky financial executive (played by Cameron Daddo – SHE-SPIES, RIVERWORLD, HUMAN TARGET).
Photo : USA
There were a lot of great elements to the episode but I felt like I missed something during the first half. Like when you’re reading a book that’s missing two pages and you don’t know it until you’ve skipped them. It could be just a case of not clearly remembering Season 3’s finale but a few things, mainly Parker’s character-based plot point, seemed to have come from out of left field. Not that they weren’t important to the episode or the character arcs or the direction of the season. I’m curious to see if anyone else experiences this or if it was just me…
Daddo turns in a great performance as the Villain of the Week – he manages to be charming, cutthroat, and perfectly detestable. The charming part is the challenge and not everyone gets it. Eric Stoltz (CAPRICA, SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL) also makes an appearance as the catalyst to the job, the missing husband to Ford et al’s client. He, of course, turns in an excellent performance in a limited but pivotal role.
To set up the trajectory of the season, the final scene sets up a lot of questions to be addressed, mainly who will be the Big Bad of the season. In terms of character arcs, you can look forward to a lot of really fun Nate/Sophie interactions (and reactions from the rest of the crew) as well as some interesting developments on the Parker (Beth Reisgraff)/Hardison (Aldis Hodge) front. There wasn’t a clue dropped about Eliot’s (Christian Kane – ANGEL) future but he had some really good moments in the premiere.
Overall, I’m looking forward to seeing what pops up this season, especially since it seems Jeri Ryan (BODY OF PROOF, MORTAL KOMBAT: LEGACY, STAR TREK: VOYAGER) will reappear. Gotta love the stuff you discover on Twitter…
LEVERAGE Season Premiere on TNT Sunday, June 26th 9/8c
