Leverage: Redemption is here! This is a long awaited comeback for both the fans and the entire cast and crew. After our exclusive interviews with the entire cast and our advanced reviews, it’s time to review Leverage: Redemption 1×01 “The Too Many Rembrandts Job.” This episode is transitional and gives answers about what happened in these years while introducing us to new characters and dynamics. Ready?
Here we go!
The show doesn’t take long to answer our biggest question: what happened to Nate? The end of him was unfortunate … he died after marrying and building a life with Sophie. She is now a widow and feels that part of her heart, that part of her, has gone with him.
I’m really sad for the character, I’m sorry that he had this ending but I don’t criticize it because, knowing the reasons why the actor doesn’t participate in this project, this is the best ending for the character. In “The Too Many Rembrandts Job” they explain to us what happened and why we will never see him without breaking the ship between Nate and Sophie, that is, without them being separated by something more than the inevitable.
They were endgame. And I love it because too many show reboots come back to spoil its ending for the fans.
Sophie is … in depression. She is simply not herself. She is still in shock, she still feels the loss as if it had been yesterday, she still feels that knot in her heart that doesn’t let her breathe normally. It’s as if life has lost color and shine and, suddenly, everything that made her happy before is simply not enough … because a part of her is gone … and will never return.
I like the realistic way of dealing with grief that they show on the show. That depression, that sense of loss, that attempt to glue together the broken pieces of yourself to pretend that everything is fine when in reality you are made of pieces that cannot be held together for too long.
In the midst of all this, Harrison, Eliot, and Parker join Sophie. There, right in the cemetery, in front of Nate’s headstone, paying their respects to him. It seems so poetic to me… it was Nate who brought them together for the first time, it had to be him who brought them back again.
And that way of presenting themselves… the identity that everyone on the team adopts, the identity that Nate shaped until it became part of a whole, part of a family. Until Nate, everyone had felt lonely but when they met him, when they formed the team, they all found a purpose and something they did not expect to find: a family.
And the family is always there to help you… even if we don’t want their help. The team knows that Sophie needs to be distracted, that she needs to smile again, that she needs to remember who she is so they need her to help them with a new case. The bad guys are increasing and getting badder… they need a seasoned grifter on the team.
But Sophie… doesn’t want to. She wants to just lie on the bed while she remembers and never to get out of there again. But the team can’t allow that … and it won’t. And Sophie, well, she’s who she is: a grifter and yes, of course a good con and kicking bad guys’ ass still attracts her… so why not? Just one job …
Although things quickly get complicated and a job that seemed easy is not at all. In Leverage: Redemption 1×01 “The Too Many Rembrandts Job” a new player enters the scene: Harry Wilson. A lawyer who sold his soul for money and seeks redemption since he realized that money can buy many things … except a way to silence his conscience.
Harry has it all, he is smart, charismatic, he knows how to get people through and he is also a tortured soul who seeks to help those he once helped destroy, he wants to balance the scales in some way. Of course, he is not good at stealing art, it is clear to us … although everything is learned.
Harry somehow finds a place in this dysfunctional and wonderful family. There is something that unites him to the team. Maybe it’s that feeling that he has that these people were bad guys one day and that now they help people, that hope of redemption that he sees in them that he is so desperate to get.
Or maybe it’s the way in which everyone trusts each other without hesitation and without fear that they will betray them and it has been so long since he felt that way with anyone …
Thus, in Leverage: Redemption 1×01 “The Too Many Rembrandts Job” Harry teams up with the team because they all have common interests at the moment … and something else. Maybe Harry is the missing piece of the team. But after so many years working alone, Harrison, Parker and Eliot have their way of working as a perfect trio, how do Sophie and Harry fit into this scheme?
Because Sophie’s work has been done by Parker and Sophie feels proud but she also feels like there is no longer a place in the team for her and everyone looks at Harry with suspicion. They don’t know if they can trust him or if he will rise to the occasion.
But there is always room for our favorite grifter. Parker has been doing this job and she is good at it but no one compares to Sophie Deveraux. And she needed this, she needed to remember who she is and what she is capable of.
While the job is underway on Leverage: Redemption 1×01 “The Too Many Rembrandts Job”, we can enjoy action scenes of Eliot, who I love to see kick asses, the established couple of Harrison and Parker (seriously, get married now!) and, of course, the way everything in the team changes again to welcome Harry and to function as the family they always were.
I loved how Leverage: Redemption 1×01 “The Too Many Rembrandts Job” never forgot its roots and not only gave us a realistic answer about Nate but they also honored the character as he deserves and made a callback to the pilot that get me emotional.
Everything that made us fall in love with Leverage is present in Leverage: Redemption. Absolutely everything. The characters have changed, they have matured and, with them, storylines too, Harrison’s computer and instruments have been modernized but, in reality, the show is still the same one that hooked us for its freshness, it maintains that magic that makes the difference and makes it special and the best thing is that it does it without forgetting where it comes from but setting the path to go to new places.
Here ends our Leverage: Redemption 1×01 “The Too Many Rembrandts Job” review. Stay tuned for the review of episode 2 that we will publish tomorrow.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share with us in the comments below!
Leverage: Redemption is available to watch on IMDbTV.
