The French Connection Job 

Eliot goes undercover at a culinary arts school to take down an avaricious restaurateur.

Director:

Tawnia McKiernan

Writers:

John Rogers (creator), Chris Downey (creator)

Stars:

Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Timothy Hutton	...	Nathan Ford
Gina Bellman	...	Sophie Devereaux
Christian Kane	...	Eliot Spencer
Beth Riesgraf	...	Parker
Aldis Hodge	...	Alec Hardison
Steve Valentine	...	David Lampard
Marshall R. Teague	...	Rampone (as Marshall Teague)
Allen Nause	...	Toby Heath
Armando Pucci	...	Jean-Luc
Mike Dunay	...	Leo
Sapphire L. James	...	Whitney (as Sapphire Lichelle)
Patricia Ferguson	...	Hope
Matt Barnett	...	Zachary
Charissa J. Adams	...	Agent Palmer (as Charissa Adams)
Elden Nelson	...	Bike Messenger

Storyline

The team targets David Lampard, a failed chef turned businessman. Lampard fires Eliot's first mentor, Toby Heath, and turns Toby's culinary school into a tuition mill for celebrity TV chefs when Toby interrupts a shady deal at $12,000 per kilo. Eliot does double duty, cooking at Hardison's brew pub and as the new teaching chef at the culinary school and restaurant. Hardison plays with menus, lasers and safes while Sophie plays with her new theatre and Nate plays with minds and mushrooms. Parker feels left out and yearns to discover her passion. Eliot shares his philosophy: Food is Life with appreciative audiences.

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Plot Keywords:

safecracking | restaurant | birthmark | statue | tip | 

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Genres:

Crime | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

TV-14

Did You Know?

Trivia

Nate makes a comment to the mark about opening another bookstore. Portland, Oregon viewers, where the show was filmed, would readily recognize this to be an allusion to Portland's famous Powell's Books, a bookstore that covers an entire city block and claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world.

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Goofs

When Rampone encounters Eliot in the walk-in cooler, Eliot responds that he was looking for ice. In a restaurant, any extra ice would be in a separate walk-in freezer, which wouldn't contain boxes of produce, except when the walk-in freezer is built such that the only entry is within the walk-in cooler, keeping the risk of a door left ajar resulting in spoiled frozen stock to a minimum.

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Quotes

Eliot Spencer: I know what you're gonna say, Nate, but I want to tell you something about Toby. He taught me how to use a knife.
Nathan Ford: Use a knife?
Eliot Spencer: No. Not like I use a knife. He taught me how to cook. I was out of the service, and I was working for my second PMC, and the jobs we were taking were way across the line... past extractions and security actions.
Nathan Ford: Wetwork.
Eliot Spencer: Yeah. Anyway, I met Toby. We were reconning this restaurant in Belgium. And I should have closed him out. I should have been in and out in under ninety ...

User Reviews

Why was there a stereotypical comment about tipping

Usually Leverage is one of my favorite shows. However, the stereotypical scenes that the only black character refuses to tip was unnecessary for this episode. They have done this with Hardison's character often.

In The Boys Night Out Out Job, Elliot asks Hardison if he said "thank you".

The one time Hardison led a job, Nate did not even respect him and it didn't go as planned. Nate's job never go as plan, they just finally work out but everyone on the team at least always shows him respect. When the others led a job, Nate respected him. All of this was because of how the writers decided to write the show.

All of the characters have stated on more than one occasion that Hardison is the smartest person they know. There are plenty of black smart people in the world. It did very well showing casing a black male as hacker and an intelligent person.

However, it fell short by including stereotypical things like he did not tip or he was the only one on the tram that did not know how to lead (run a successful job).

I hope this stereotypical attributes are removed with the reboot for Alec Hardison and his sister.

Details

Release Date:

12 August 2012 (USA)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

43 min