Leverage (Season 5)

Season 5 of Leverage was in a tricky position, given how obvious it is that Season 4 was originally intended to be the final season. And after such a stellar finale, could this season even be able to top it? Surprisingly, yeah!

Leverage's fifth season eschews the season-long villain structure that Seasons 3 & 4 tried to utilize. This time around, the running storyline was far more character-driven, mostly being about Nate secretly preparing to leave the Leverage team. I actually really liked this storyline. The hook in the season premiere left me wondering what Nate was up to, and as the season goes by, you slowly realize that he's testing Eliot, Hardison, and Parker to continue when he leaves. And this leads to probably my favorite aspect of the season: a large majority of Season 5 is focused on the show's best characters! Eliot, Hardison, and especially Parker get a ton of episodes that focus on them, and they're easily the high points of the season. It also does a great job of demonstrating how much they've developed through the course of the show, especially in the case of Parker. The simplistic storyline also allows for a much lighter tone that feels a lot more like the earlier seasons of Leverage, and whenever the season does take a darker turn, I feel they pulled it off far more gracefully this time around.

In terms of finality and character development, Leverage's fifth season is pretty much perfect. In terms of the general episode quality, however, it's not as solid. There are a lot of great episodes this season, but there's definitely a sense that the show is starting to run out of ideas, especially around the second half. The worst instance of this is The White Rabbit Job, which is probably the weakest episode in the whole show. The concept of an Inception-style episode is neat and all, but it's just too bizarre, unrealistic, and honestly kind of uncomfortable for me to call an enjoyable episode. As mentioned before, I think the season is at its best when it focuses on the characters, because the individual cases are definitely on the weaker side. I also think the series finale does a great job of bringing everything to a close, even if it's not as climactic as Season 4's finale. Every major player gets something to do, and Nate gets to leave the team on an incredibly high note.

At its best, Season 5 offered a whole bunch of top-notch episodes:

The First Contact Job: TWO GOOD OL' BOYS BEHIND THE WHEEL CHASIN' DOWN BAD GUYS IN LUCILLE. No, but seriously, this episode struck the perfect balance between cute and funny character interactions, cute references, and clever cons. 

The Broken Wing Job: Parker's character development throughout the show has been really strong, and this episode demonstrates that fact perfectly. Parker manages to make a friend and pull a con all on her own while in crutches, something you wouldn't have expected her to do back in Season 1. It helps that the whole episode is carried with a charming and funny performance from Beth Reisgraf.

The Rundown Job: In case it didn't seem like this season wasn't specifically trying to appeal to me specifically, we finally get an episode with only Hardison, Parker, and Eliot, and it's pretty much perfection. The dynamic between these three continues to be absolutely amazing, and I was genuinely surprised by how this episode managed to pull off a darker, more intense tone while still able to pull it off. It feels like Leverage was recreating Season 3 of 24, and it did so pretty damn flawlessly.

The Frame-Up Job: Presumably taking place on the same day as The Rundown Job, this episode puts Nate and Sophie through a surprisingly light-hearted and fun caper, and I actually really liked it. Sterling returns, and he continues to steal every scene he's in, but the bickering dynamic of Nate and Sophie is the real highlight. I'm genuinely surprised at how fun they are to watch together, they have some great chemistry!

The Last Goodbye Job: While The Last Dam Job may have been more climactic, I think this was the stronger finale. It had an amazing sense of closure, and ending the show by having the characters essentially play a con on the viewer just felt perfectly. Sterling's character arc gets a great resolution, and the last few minutes are pretty much perfect. I love that Parker is the new mastermind, and I would genuinely watch a "Leverage International" show just to see Eliot, Hardison, and Parker pull cons on their own. Pretty much every one of Leverage's finales were intended to be series finales, but I think this one pulled it off the best.

Overall, I enjoyed Leverage's fifth season a lot. It did a great job at ending the series and had some of the best character moments in the show, even if it felt like it was running out of ideas at times.

4/5 Stars

My ranking of the Leverage seasons is:

3 > 5 > 4 > 1 > 2

My ranking of the Leverage finales is:

4 > 5 > 1 > 2 > 3

Favorite Episode: The Rashomon Job