Hustling a hustler is always a tricky job. In Prime Video’s Leverage: Redemption Season 3 Episode 4, “The Hustler Job,” the team — with a take-no-prisoners revenge-seeking Harry Wilson (Noah Wyle) leading the charge — must run the con despite the mark spotting their grift from the start.
While it kicks off with an infuriating crime, this is a job with some absolutely glorious moments. From Parker’s (Beth Riesgraf) nearly erotic response to a security system she can’t beat (yet), to Eliot’s desperate bid to show he has geek cred, it’s a Leverage: Redemption heist packed with the unexpected.
Leverage: Redemption, “The Hustler Job”
In a stately brick mansion, an elderly woman video chats with her frantic granddaughter. At her insistence, she rushes to her computer, where she transfers $10,0000 to an account number. As soon as the transfer is complete, the granddaughter hangs up.
Outside the Leverage headquarters, Harry’s talking to his daughter, Becky (Auden Wyle), about colleges. Becky’s phone rings. It’s her grandmother, frantic with worry. Becky denies ever being in jail. She hands her phone to Harry, who asks his mother what’s going on.
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“The Future Is Both Now and Sucks”
Inside headquarters, Eliot (Christian Kane) fight trains Breanna (Aleyse Shannon) on how to fall properly. Harry comes in with Sophie (Gina Bellman), raging about his mother being scammed. Breanna pulls up articles on “grandparent scams.” Breanna shows the video that Harry’s mother thought was a live call with Becky. It’s a manipulated “deep fake” file, created from a real video Becky made.
She explains that if they were trying to fool a voice-matching security system for a Swiss bank account, they’d need about ten seconds of clean vocal footage and a hacker like herself. However, worried grandmas are much easier to fool. By tracing the IP address on the video, they know where the scam originated. She assures him that Parker’s already on her way. This sets off alarm bells for both Eliot and Sophie. Eliot races to catch up before Parker does something Parker-y.
At the business complex, Parker sneaks up on a security guard while he’s talking on the phone. She has a syringe at the ready, but Eliot nabs her before she can jab the guard. She claims she was only going to knock out the guard to steal his uniform. Eliot doesn’t believe all of that.
Nana-Haters
Breanna narrows the businesses that have the servers needed to run the scam to either a veterinary health care processor or one called Matka Corp. Sophie points out “Matka” means “mother” in Slovakian.
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Eliot and Parker walk into Matka Corp., arguing about whether feeding a dog cheese is a good idea. They ask the very large man (Jeff Chase) at the desk to get them their dog’s medical files. He tells them they’re in the wrong place. Eliot begs him to show him the way. They leave Parker behind alone, and she cases the space, noting there’s nothing out of the ordinary except a door secured with a Glen-Reeder Pressure Gapped 4000C security system. Parker’s never seen one before. “What is such a beautiful thing doing with Nana-Haters?” she asks.
She’d need hours to crack it. It’ll be easier to use the key card. Just then, the door opens and three men emerge, one in a blue suit and two in tracksuits. Parker drops to all fours and scrambles behind the desk. The large guard returns, and the blue suit tells him they’re going to his office.
“Let’s Go Steal a Pool Hall”
Using security cams, Breanna identifies the blue suit as Donovan Keyes (Michael Masini). Keyes and his goons exit the building with Eliot and Parker close behind. They follow him to his “office,” a pool hall. Keyes has a rap sheet for pool sharking, fraud, and gambling.
Back at headquarters, Harry’s furiously running a pool table while Breanna briefs the team on Keyes and his connections to a Slovakian criminal gang headed by Nicolai Bravta. The plan is to keep Keyes in the pool hall while Parker and Breanna get through the keyed door to the servers. Once they have all the evidence, they’ll send it to their friend at the FBI, McSweeten.
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Harry beats Eliot, then challenges Sophie to a game. She insists she’s useless at cue games. Eliot and Parker confirm this. And there’s a flashback montage. Harry says he should be the Inside Man. Sophie says he’ll be the Roper. Parker takes on Eliot at pool blindfolded. Sophie leaves. Harry follows. She tells him the con needs someone who can play it cool. He insists he can. She’s skeptical.
Playing It Cool
Harry tells her his mom still thinks he’s a crooked lawyer. Sophie relents and says he can play Inside Man, reminding him that they aren’t trying to win, just to keep Keyes busy so Parker can break into the servers.
At the pool hall, Eliot and Sophie draw Keyes’s attention. Harry, dressed in a loud multicolored leather jacket and acting quite drunk, howls and jumps in when Eliot calls for challengers. Harry runs the table. Angry at being suckered, Eliot punches Harry, and Keyes intervenes. Sophie lifts the key card from Keyes’s back pocket and passes it to Eliot when she steps in, telling everyone to calm down. Keyes throws Eliot out.
Left with just Sophie and Harry, Keyes compliments Sophie on her hustle. Harry challenges him, claiming that he heard about Donovan Keyes while in prison, promising himself he’d look him up and challenge him the day he got out.
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Keyes agrees to a friendly game but insists they use his table, #13. Breanna is inside the ceiling above the pool hall, worried about spiders. Flashback to when she was installing the cameras: A staff member approaches Parker, and she ducks out, leaving Breanna stranded. Harry wears glasses that Breanna can feed shot info into.
Hot for the Glen-Reeder
Over at the office building, Eliot gives Parker the key card. Slipping back into their dog-owning characters, they get close to the large guard, and Parker jabs him with a knock-out injection. After whispering some sweet nothings to the security system, she regretfully flashes the key card to open the door.
Inside, the door opening startles three young people cosplaying the Lord of the Rings. Frightened, they run to the programming room and lock the door. The server room is off the programming room. Parker examines the door and reports that this security system is a 5000X. There’s no padlock. It’s a completely digital face and voiceprint combined key. Cutting the power will send it into a failsafe. She’s breathlessly excited. There’s no way to crack it (right now).
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Eliot lets Sophie and Harry know that they need more time. The three cosplaying employees huddle in the programming room, worried about what Keyes will do to them and their families. One decides they must purge the system. It’ll take 20 minutes for the program to wipe the servers.
Creating a Moment
Sophie asks Breanna to create a moment of distraction so they can disrupt Keyes’s play. It works, but then Harry goes off-script and insists on laying a bet on the game’s outcome. He offers up Sophie’s necklace as collateral for a $5000 bet. She pulls him aside and protests that the necklace is worth a lot more than $5000. Harry insists that raising the stakes will keep Keyes engaged.
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Eliot overhears the cosplay kids bemoaning the fact that they’ll be stuck in their contracts until they’re 80. He figures they’re being coerced by the Bravta gang. Meanwhile, Parker and Breanna realize that if they turn off the air conditioning, the servers will go into automatic shutdown. Leaving Eliot to make friends with the programmers, Parker heads to the roof.
Upping the Stakes
As Harry plays pool, Keyes chats up Sophie about her role as the Mastermind. Harry deliberately misses a shot. Keyes takes his turn, guessing correctly that Harry wanted to lose the first match. When Keyes’s goons prepare to eject Harry, he offers his house as collateral for a second game. This gets Keyes’s attention. Harry gives him his real name and profession. Sophie questions whether Keyes can even cover that big a bet. Keyes calls Nikolai Bravta and asks him to stake him for the match. Bravta magnanimously agrees, saying that Keyes never lets him down.
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Sophie says that even if it is Bravta, she doesn’t see any money on the table. Keyes has Bravta transfer the money to a holding account and shows them a $500,000 balance. He tells Harry that if he tries to back out of the bet when he loses, the Bravta goons will break all the bones in his body.
Parker vs. the Big Guy
As Parker’s about to disable the air conditioning on the roof, the very large guard grabs her. They fight until she subdues him and cuffs him to a panel. After stopping the air conditioning, Parker jumps into a vent, announcing she has a date with the Nana-Haters.
In the programming room, the cosplay programmers hear tapping and find Parker inside the server room, tapping on the glass wall. Caught between Eliot outside the door and Parker on the other side of the glass, repeating the statement, “They. Rolled. A. Nana,” they feel trapped. The wizard/leader suggests they try to take on Parker. Eliot frantically tries to convince them not to. He asks if they play Illumitrons because he learned some cool moves from Tam (Ivan Mok) on Samurai Midnight. (Reference: Leverage: Redemption Season 2 Episode 3, “The Tournament Job.”)
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At the table, Keyes starts to get a read on Harry and correctly guesses why he’s there to take him down. Sophie gets in Keyes’s head a bit. Keyes tells them he sent some backup goons to his office.
Taking the Room
The backup goon attacks Eliot at the door. As they fight, the cosplay programmers back up and realize that Parker’s in the programming room with them now. They surrender quickly. Parker roars her triumph.
At the pool hall, Harry takes a turn. When Keyes taunts him about his mother, he removes the glasses and hands them to Sophie. As he takes his next shots, he tells Keyes that it’s not about winning. It’s about not being a piece of crap. As Harry’s about to sink the eight ball, one of Keyes’s goons walks behind him and bumps him, causing him to miss his shot.
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When they call cheating on that, the goons grab Sophie and Harry, flipping Harry onto the table and holding a hand out that Keyes plans to break. Sophie tells Breanna to create another moment. Breanna crashes through a ceiling tile, landing on the table next to Harry. Sophie breaks free, grabs a pool cue and wields it like a bo, taking out her goon. Harry, Sophie, and Breanna run for it.
Cleaning House
Outside the programming room, Eliot takes out the two backup goons. Parker opens the door and pushes the programmers at Eliot.
Outside the building, Keyes and his goons corner Sophie, Harry, and Breanna. Keyes’s phone starts ringing. It’s Nikolai Bravta, demanding to know where all his money has gone. He hangs up. Keyes accuses the team of stealing the half million. Harry points out that a half million means nothing to Bravta.
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Flashback to Parker reaching the server room: She hacks in and finds all the Bravta Swiss bank accounts.
Harry tells Keyes that fooling a Swiss bank account’s security is tricky. Flashback to Breanna reviewing what they’d need. Breanna tells Keyes he provided the vocal footage. Flashback to Keyes’s call to Bravta to secure the $500,000.
You Should Probably Start Running
Sophie reminds Keyes that Bravta is panicking and blaming him. She recommends he start running before his goons get a call from their real boss, and then takes her necklace back. The goons’ phones start ringing. Keyes runs, but they catch him quickly and start beating on him. Breanna, Harry, and Sophie watch from a distance.
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At headquarters, Breanna shows Harry that all the scammed money was returned to the victims, including Harry’s mother. They find Eliot and Parker playing pool. Parker’s annoyed that the Nana-Haters didn’t get punished. Eliot explains (again) that they were forced to work for the Bravta gang, and McSweeten has them and their families in protective custody.
Eliot, Parker, and Breanna leave arguing about how to fall and land correctly. Alone together, Harry notes that Breanna in the ceiling was part of Sophie’s plan. Sophie points out that if he hadn’t tried to beat Keyes, he wouldn’t have ended up nearly having his hand broken. He admits he didn’t play it cool. He leaves to have coffee with his mother, but tells Sophie before leaving that it’s too bad she doesn’t play cool, she’d probably be great. After he’s gone, Sophie picks up a cue and makes a neat shot, indicating that she’s conning the team into thinking she can’t play.
Leverage: Redemption Season 3 streams on Prime Video with new episodes every Thursday.
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