The Gold Job - Recap

The Gold to be Sold! Company is running advertisements featuring one of the owners, Tommy Madsen, and rapper Lil Pusher. Meanwhile, Tommy’s sister Barbara handles purchases. She’s manning the Boston office when a woman, Amy Campston, comes in to complain that she sent in a gold necklace belonging to her grandmother but only got a fraction of the estimated value. Barbara tells her that it’s too late to file a complaint and claims that it’s already been melted down. Once Amy leaves, Barbara takes out the necklace from her collection, admires it, and puts it on.

Amy seeks out the Leverage team and meets with Nate and Alec at McRory’s. She explains that she was desperate for money and had to sell her grandmother’s necklace to provide for her children. Hardison reassures her that she’s not the first person to get conned in a gold-for-cash scam and tells Amy that they’ll get her money back. Once she leaves, Alec tells Nate that this is the perfect low-profile job for him to handle as the team mastermind.

As they go upstairs, Nate objects but Alec insists. When Nate tries to start the briefing, Alec says that none of them appreciate him and refuses to help with any of the briefing info. Nate stumbles through the briefing but has trouble with the remote and the Internet. He finally figures that they should simply steal the gold from the Madsens’ vault in Portland where they have their national headquarters.



In Portland, Parker sneaks into the company warehouse and heads for the vault. Alec is there with the team but insists that he’s on a mental strike and is just there to carry away the gold. When Parker gets the vault open, she discovers that there’s nothing inside and the alarm doesn’t work. Back at their temporary HQ in a hotel room, Alec explains that he’s been on top of things all along and knew that the Madsens melt their gold down every day and rarely use the vault. The team asks what he has planned and Alec is proud to announce that he has a brand new con, the Double-Prong Monkey. He has created his con based on video game psychology and plans to run the Madsens through a fake treasure hunt. Alec has checked Tommy’s on-line profile at dating sites and confirmed that he’s a dominant alpha-site. He’s hacked dating sites that Tommy frequents and planted the word “treasure” in them, priming him for a treasure hunt. Alec then produces a 16th century gold watch with a Chinese inscription. Nate thinks the plan is too complicated and wants to cut off their supply, but Alec figures that since Barbara majored in archaeology, they can hook her a different way.

For the first part of Alec’s plan, Parker poses as an antique dealer and takes the gold watch to the company’s Portland store. The assayer buys the watch for $42 and then shows it to Tommy when he comes in. Tommy then takes it to their company warehouse where Barbara has just discovered that their smelter, Contillix, is refusing to accept their gold until it meets the required purity levels. Alec has hacked the purity sensors so that Barbara has nothing to do so she takes an interest in the Chinese inscription.



The Madsens go to see Parker at the antique store that Alec has set up. She claims that she bought the watch as part of an auction of the belongings of a 19th century missionary, Samuel Cavendish. The missionary knew about the famous Snake River Massacre Treasure, $10 million in gold which is supposedly hidden somewhere in Portland. Parker lets them look through the other auctioned items, including a chest that contains a coded message with gold residue on it. The Madsens buy the chest for $50 and make a hasty exit. Barbara figures that there must be a key book for the code and checks the Internet. Thanks to Alec, she ends up at the website of an expert on Cavendish. Sophie’s face is posted on the website.

Parker makes a call to lure the real professor out of her office, and then Eliot goes in and puts in some fake photos with Sophie in them. The Madsens show up and witness a fight between Nate and Sophie. Tommy, the alpha male, goes in and orders Nate out. Once Nate is gone, Sophie tells the Madsens that Nate is an antiquities dealer who was trying to force her to help him in his treasure hunt. Barbara admits that they’re for the same reason and show her the watch. Sophie tells them that the inscription is from a King James Bible translated into Cantonese by Robert Morrison. With some coaching from Alec over the earbud, Sophie resists the idea that the watch is the key but finally comes around. She translates the code using the King James Bible and tells the Madsens that the inscription has a route to the treasure through the shanghai tunnels below Portland.



Nate catches up to the others in the tunnels, where they’ve already planted arrows, signs, and hidden speakers. Alec explains that they’re going to give the Madsens a thrilling adventure to lure them on, just like video games lure in players. As the Madsens arrive, Eliot and Nate state an argument with Eliot as Nate’s engineer underling. Nate figures that the brother and sister are there for the same gold that he’s after but warns them that they can’t get to it through the 2’ thick walls without the drill that he owns. He offers to sell it to them for $34,000 and the Madsens say that they’ll think it over. As they leave, Alec asks Nate if he’s impressed yet and he admits that he is, but warns that once someone is forced to manipulate people for a living, they can be changed and not for the better.



Tommy comes back to meet with Nate and Eliot and pays $34,000 for the drill. However, they’ve made it out to the mining equipment company. The Madsens want a 70/30 split because they’re doing most of the work. Alec tells Nate to take the deal and he reluctantly agrees, but after Tommy leaves Nate worries that it’s getting too complicated.

When the team is ready, they call in the Madsens. However, Nate tells them that it’s too risky for them to watch the drilling operation in person. He shows them the CCTVs they’ve set up and Eliot escorts them into the next room to watch. Nate drills through the wall with the Madsens’ drill and finds gold dust. However, water then shoots out of the hole and floods the chamber, and the Madsens listen as the roof of the chamber comes down. Eliot gets them out before the entire tunnel complex collapses and they head for the surface. Meanwhile, Sophie and Alec are watching on the CCTVs and Alec shows her how he set the entire thing up via special effects.



Outside, Eliot tells the Madsens that the tunnels are a crime scene and that he’s not going back down there. Tommy demands that they get the gold and Eliot warns him that the only way they can recover it now is to own the building and the mineral rights. Eliot knows the owner and says that he wants to sell, but is demanding $4.2 million. Tommy negotiates it to $4 million and offers Eliot 10%, but insists that the deal go down by the next morning.

The team checks in and Sophie warns Alec that he’s making a simple land scam way too complicated. Eliot tells them that the Madsens want to buy the building the next morning, ahead of Alec’s timetable, and they realize that he doesn’t have things set up. The Madsens have met everyone else and Nate tells Alec that now it’s all on him to get the brother and sister to pay the $4 million.

The next morning, Alec poses as an IT technician at a law office. He puts a virus in the computer of one of the lawyers, Manchester, and then comes to fix it and tells him to take a lunch break. Alec finally convinces Manchester to do so and then sets up as a lawyer in the office. The Madsen come in and prepare to pay the $4 million, but first Barbara and then Tommy begin to have second thoughts. They figure that the entire thing is too complicated and that Alec looks familiar. When a legal aide comes in and wonders who Alec is, the Madsens realize that they’re being conned. Tommy chases Alec as he runs for it, and Alec manages to escape in a freight elevator.



As Alec and Nate leaves, Nate explains that the Madsens fell victim to rage-quit. They got too frustrated with Alec’s overly-complicated “game” and decided to quit the entire thing. Alec is surprised that Nate understands gaming psychology, and Nate tells him that it’s not over yet. The plan did what Nate figured it would do: distract the Madsens.

Barbara and Tommy go back to the warehouse to call the police, and their foreman tells them that Contillix is finally accepting shipments after three days. The Madsens realize that the three days’ worth of gold has been sitting in their fake vault and run to it. When they open the door, they discover that someone has drilled through the floor and stolen the gold. Barbara discovers that Amy’s necklace is gone, unaware that Parker stole it from her when they bought the chest from her three days ago.



Nate and Alec meet with Amy again and give her the necklace, and inform her that they’ve created a fund in her grandmother’s name to pay restitution to the Madsens’ other victims. They also tell Amy that the Madsens are out of a job.

Barbara and Tommy call the police and file an insurance claim. However, the Portland police soon come to arrest them. The insurance company figures that the whole thing is too complicated for anyone to try to pull off. Worse, the drill that was used to break into the vault was the one that the Madsens bought for $34,000. The police arrest the Madsens for insurance fraud and take them away.

Later, Hardison is writing out the restitution checks when Eliot gives him a letter. It’s a letter that Nate wrote when he first heard about Alec’s new con, and contains Nate’s plan from the beginning. Nate is there and tells Alec that he knows from personal experience that perfect plans never work. He always has a quick, dirty plan in reserve for when Plan A goes bad. However, he congratulates Alec on a smart plan and Alec thanks him for his help.



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