- When a mark is killed in the middle of a con and Nate is accused of the crime, the crew must find the real killer to prove Nate's innocence.
- The team is hired to take down corrupt Morris Beck, millionaire architect/builder and owner of Beckworx. The whole team attends his Murder Mystery Masquerade gala but, before they can steal evidence and break away clean, Morris Beck drops dead. Nate, looking just like Ellery Queen, (wearing the exact hat worn on the series by Jim Hutton) is almost cast as the evil murderer.—LA-Lawyer
- On a dark and stormy night at a giant mansion, a man walks through the halls holding a gun. He comes to a room with a body draped by a sheet. He tells the person in there to put up their hands. Nate says it's not what it looks like. The man thinks it looks like murder. Nate agrees that maybe it is what it looks like.
Three Days Earlier
At Pub HQ, a woman tells Nate about Morris Beck (guest star William Russ), a builder whose buildings have a way of collapsing. There have been four fatalities and numerous injuries.
Nate says it's an old scam, using bad materials and then leaving town.
The woman is a lawyer with a case against him. She was with a big firm but Beck got her fired and is burying her in motions. She needs the original blueprints or her case will get dismissed.
Cut to Nate and Sophie paying Beck a visit. Eliot pushes a cleaning cart down the hallway.
They find Beck's snotty entitled daughter telling Tom Case, Beck's VP of development, that she's taking the Aston Martin.
They witness an angry man leaving Beck's office. As they follow him, Beck berates his subordinate Potter and orders him to make his murder mystery more complicated.
Nate and Sophie are posing as Yma Sumac (a singer with a 4-octave voice who pretended to be an Inca princess) and Dexter Gordon (a jazz saxophonist from the 30's), who represent a Middle Eastern business with construction needs. Beck has worked up a quote for them. Sophie uses his computer to email it and installs a skeleton key in his computer.
In the hallway, Eliot taps on his giant trash can and Parker hops out and into the records room. She uses the skeleton key to access the server, where she uses a flash drive to grab the blueprints.
Back at HQ, they look at the files and see that they're not blueprints. Instead it's the location of Beck's mansion on his small private island off Massachusetts.
There's a murder mystery gala planned for the next night. Guests are supposed to come dressed as their favorite detectives.
At the party, the VP Case tells Potter to go deal with Beck's daughter, who is dressed as a flapper (possibly Agatha Christie's Tuppence Beresford) and being a nuisance.
Eliot is dressed up a Pinkerton detective and Hardison is Encyclopedia Brown and Parker is Nancy Drew. Sophie is dressed as Irene Adler and Nate is Ellery Queen.
The angry union guy, Capriati, from Beck's office is there. The island is on its own power grid so the power fuzzes out occasionally in the storm.
Sophie thinks Nate is being odd, that Beck is getting to him.
Beck greets his guests by taunting them. They're all his bitter competitors. Beck appears to already be drunk. They begin the game, but first Beck insists all the guests turn over their cell phones.
Capriati the union guy accosts Sophie, warning her not to do business with Beck. The guy from the open advises him to leave. He's Ray from the Salem PD -- not a costume, a real police officer.
Eliot looks for their way off the island and finds only one old boat. Hardison finds the electrical system is from the 1850s, all manual. There's nothing for him to crack or hack. The power keeps going out. He suggests something that will test the electrical output to track the safe or anything drawing a lot of power.
Parker examines the hallway and finds something amiss in the design.
Hardison sends her two floors down to check something out. She finds no safe, just Beck's daughter making out with someone in the pantry where the master control for the power is.
Beck announces the stakes of the game. There will be a murder at midnight and whoever solves it by dawn will win $100,000.
Nate is standing behind Beck on the balcony as he makes the announcement. The power goes out and someone comes out and grapples with Beck. When the lights come back on Beck is lying on the floor below. His daughter looks up and shrieks that Nate has killed her dad.
Sophie tries to calm the panicked guests by announcing that Beck's body is really a dummy and solving his murder is the game, which is news to Potter, who designed it.
Sophie and Nate pretend to be with the murder party company and vamp for the guests to quell panic. Eliot, the "murder doctor," takes the "fake" body away.
Ray the detective examines the spot where the body fell and finds real blood. He snaps some photos with his phone.
Eliot lays Beck's body down in an office. Beck is really dead. His neck was snapped before he fell. Eliot explains that Nate is the only witness and the only suspect so he'd better solve the murder, or he's getting blamed.
Ray the detective knocks on office door, wanting to see Beck. Eliot comes out and says Beck told them not to tell anyone where he is. Sophie runs up with a story to draw Ray away.
Eliot points out the killer can't get off the island til the morning either. Nate tries to remember what he saw, but the power was out. He remembers a medium build, dark jacket and short hair.
Nate sends Eliot off to chat up the guests. Nate also says the person has something shiny in his inside pocket.
Eliot finds Capriati and warns him not to touch Sophie again. When Capriati gives him lip, Eliot whacks him a few times and checks his pocket. There's a silver flask in his jacket.
In the office, Nate bets that the killer was someone who knew Beck better.
Hardison continues checking the electrical boxes. Parker tells him there's something off with the hallways. The dimensions are wrong. She disappears.
Hardison goes looking for her since she her earpiece isn't working.
Sophie tries to distract Ray, but he tells her he thinks Beck is really dead. He tells her about the blood he found. He tells her to stick close to be out of harm's way.
Eliot visits with Case, who says Beck is a jerk who switched the night's events without telling him. When Case goes for a drink, Eliot knocks him down and finds a smartphone in his pocket.
Hardison continues looking for Parker and finds a keystone cop security guy instead. Hardison knocks him down but ends up in a dead end. Parker pulls Eliot into a secret passageway. It goes through the whole house -- she found the blueprints and the safe.
Case tells Eliot he wishes someone would kill Beck for real. Nate tells Eliot to check his jacket for rips. Eliot knocks him out but finds none.
Hardison and Parker come out a secret passageway on the balcony where Beck was killed. Eliot's still not sure Nate didn't kill Beck. Nate gets frustrated and takes out his earpiece. The power goes out again for a second.
Ray pulls Sophie into a room and confronts her. He knows she's not who she says. He also sent a picture of Nate to Interpol and found out he's a grifter and thief. Sophie says she's never heard of Nate. She sticks to her cover story by saying her mother was a big fan of Yma Sumac and named her after the singer. He handcuffs her to a couch.
Sophie tries to warn Nate but he can't hear her.
Nate sits in the dark and tries to remember what he saw. He has an epiphany and puts his earbud in, announcing he knows who killed Beck.
Ray busts in and Nate protests it's not what it looks like. Ray holds a gun on Nate as Nate explains who killed Beck.
Nate says everyone had motive. He shows Ray the secret passages. He says whoever did it had to know Beck gave a speech on the balcony, drunk, every year. The fact that Nate was standing there messed up the plan because otherwise it would have looked like an accident.
Nate remembers that the blackout during which Beck was killed came before the lightning, which is opposite of every other blackout. Nate says there's a master junction box in the pantry, which the killers knew about. One killed the electricity while another one did the deed.
Some of the staff, Case and Beck's daughter would have known about the box. Nate thinks his daughter killed him to get his money before Beck blew it all.
Nate asks to see Ray's badge. Ray opens his jacket. Nate realizes that's what he saw. Ray puts his gun to Nate's chest. Nate says there's one problem. The power goes out and Nate runs down the passageway. Hardison and Parker grab the blueprints. Sophie knocks out Beck's daughter.
Ray thinks he has Nate cornered in another room, when the power goes out again and Nate whacks Ray with a pipe wrench that was put there as part of the original murder mystery.
Nate uses Ray's phone to call Lt. Bonanno.
On the news, Case talks about Beck as if he was a humanitarian. He got the $100,000 for solving Beck's murder.
Back at the Bar HQ, their client is glad Beck's company settled for millions.
Nate tells Sophie that every one of the team believed for a second that Nate might have actually killed Beck. Sophie asks him if he's drinking because of what he thinks they think or because of what he thinks of himself.
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