Well well well, is that Luke Perry on Leverage? Why yes it is, and he plays a TV psychic/con artist who is bilking people out of their hard earned monies. Time to call in: The L*Team.
Nah, that name isn't going to work. But it is Luke Perry, and just a day after Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the movie) was on. Synchronicity: it is real. So the gang goes to the studio to stake out Mr. Psychic (and ironically, I was watching Psych right before this. Two fake psychics in one night!) and he does a cold read on Parker that freaks her right the hell out. Great acting by Beth Reisgraf and a great way to toss in some exposition about how cold reading works. The team sends in a hippie'd out Tara as a rival psychic, one who "has the Gift" for reals. She gives Luke Perry a psychic reading, which the Leverage Gang proceeds to make come true (complete with Hardison stuffing fortune cookies and a cackling Elliot towing Luke's car away). Not entirely convinced of Tara's powers, LP still decides to take her on as a partner, needing a bigger impact in order to get a network TV deal. Hardison (fueled by gummi frogs and his omnipresent orange soda) does a virtuoso hacking job to feed information to Tara, who "spiritually conveys" it to LP. He does a little too good of a job though, and all of a sudden, LP is in a van. Parker's content to let him get killed, but the team needs to free him...so they can destroy him.
They track him down and find that a criminal wants him to use his psychic powers to track down the money from a bank robbery in which his partner died before revealing the money's hiding place. The team sets up a nice little psychic treasure hunt in order to stall them, then manages to get the two of them into a storage unit for LP to confess that he's a sham, a fraud, a phony, a humbug, etc. Then the wall blows, and he tumbles into his own studio, packed with audience members, who just heard his full confession. Great way to tie it all together, although I'd have to go back and watch again to see if the proximity of the storage unit to the studio came out of nowhere, or was actually setup earlier.
In a nice scene at the end, Nate gives some comforting words to the victim, leading Tara to finally see why the team does what they do. Parker returns the money that the victim had given to Luke Perry, and just when I think that she took it out of her personal stash, she reveals that her and Hardison tracked down the lost bank loot. Ahh Parker, always a thief in the end.
Excellent episode, and with only a few more to go, I do wonder how Sophie will come back into the picture. Meanwhile, Leverage is putting out some great hours of television. Seriously, if you're not watching, go get Season 1 and start catching up. DO IT!!!!
Thursday comedies tonight, and I may have to keep up with new Survivor coming up next week.
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