S02.E09: The Pyramid Job

[Prevailing Wind]

Airs Dec 28, 2022

I enjoyed this one a lot.  "Your brandy's watered down and your cigars are fake."

But one of the commercials was for original Leverage and it made me remember how much I like Nate and miss him.

[marceline]

This one reminded me of The Gold Job. In that one it was a brother and sister looking for the Shanghai tunnels.

I feel like this is the Season of Sophie and I'm thrilled for it.

[Maelstrom]

The Season of Sophie indeed. It's long overdue and I'm loving it. The original series, much as I love it, very much showed Sophie through Nate's eyes - a mysterious cipher, a puzzle to deciphered or a tool to be used*. But this reboot has finally shown Sophie through her own lens, as her own person separate from how she relates to Nate, and it really is thrilling.

(*And let's be honest, Nate saw everyone as tools to some degree or another)

This was a fantastic episode for Sophie - more backstory, more evidence of Sophie's talents as a grifter as she overcomes a mark as psychologically astute and manipulative as she is herself, and her speech at the end about taking care of her family and not being sure if she's up for it was perfect. So, guessing Ramsey was the leader/string-puller of her long ago crew in England, and things didn't end on the best of notes. Also... a daughter?!

The mark reminded me of Bronwyn from last season's Unwellness Job, except whereas Bronwyn was an self-absorbed opportunist, Debbie was outright malevolent in her schemes and nasty manipulations of her followers. And wow, was that MLM a super creepy Stepford-esque cult to boot. Spelling Magiq with a Q is a sure sign of evil.

Harry's Brom-Com with the husband was hilarious, from the goofy mustache to the weird armored duel. And of course the observation that it had to be Harry, since Eliot was so much more manly and would scare off the mark 😆

Parker's scene with the client was an interesting mix of reality check and pep talk as only Parker can give. Love the bowl belly, especially when she used it for a drumroll, and called it "little Alec." 🥰 And expressed her amazement at how handy pregnant bellies were for hiding stuff, lol. Oh, Parker...

Random:

• "It smells like dude in here."
• "There are no pyramid schemes in jazz!"
  • I love that it literally took one sentence on Breanna's part to deprogram Ronald the midlevel supervisor, lol.
• Harry's "manly" mustache ended up on the side of the blender in the final scene
• Parker the cater waiter's name tag said Alice
• I feel like we've heard Eliot differentiating lurking from hiding before but can't recall which episode.
• Breanna going crazy after half a day in corporate wage slavery, lol

[marceline]

10 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Parker's scene with the client was an interesting mix of reality check and pep talk as only Parker can give. Love the bowl belly, especially when she used it for a drumroll, and called it "little Alec." 🥰 And expressed her amazement at how handy pregnant bellies were for hiding stuff, lol. Oh, Parker...

I've had my issues with Parker's character in Redemption but having her refer to the birth of "Little Alec" had me pumping my fist.

Can you even imagine pregnant Pardison?

Edited December 28, 2022 by marceline

[Mabinogia]

This one might have been my favorite of the reboot so far. I loved all of it. The Brom-Com was hilarious and very effective. I loved watching Sophie have to deal with someone who saw through her, and seeing her telling the truth in that family speech knowing they are all (except Elliot, probably the only thing I didn't like was that he wasn't part of the main story) listening. Brianna was killing me with her distain for, well, for my work life really. I feel ya Brianna, but some of us have to stay in cubicle hell to earn a living. Loved her deprogramming Jazz Guy, and the way he kept popping up and scaring the shit out of her. LOL 

I, too, am enjoying the Season of Sophie. I found it very interesting that Elliot cornered that guy and demanded to hear Sophie's backstory. I also wonder what all he heard. Surely, he found out more than what we saw. So intriguing. This was a great combo of self-contained con and furthering a longer story arc.

I do love this show. 

[blueray]

I liked this episode a lot. I liked how Brianna anciently helped the other guy when she was working as an accountant. I loved her line about being in a cubical while Harry gets to sword fight lol.

I liked learning more about Sophie's past. Though I did wonder why they benched Elliot for most of the episode. Like he was in it but wasn't involved in the con at all.

[ML89]

I was surprised this was waiting for me yesterday when I caught up on the eps and wow, was it worth it. Loved the evil mark and Sophie's showdown/revelations,  can't wait to see how this all plays out. Her speech to the team, then one about Nate, and then setting up Debbie for that reveal was masterful. I'm not the biggest fan of Big Bads (too many shows burning me after Buffy - including late period Buffy!) but I really want to know who Ramsey is and the whole story of that con gone bad.

Loved Breanna in cubicle hell (the security "protecting presentations in Comic Sans" was perfect) and that she rescued Ronald. Parker with her pregnancy bowl made that whole gag perfection. 

Harry in his Brom-com was hilarious. Maybe it's just me, but I'm beginning to see Harry as sort of the heir to Artemus Gordon and Hannibal Smith and that makes me smile. That awful mustache and track suit and then his line about how he'd been taught how to lie and to fight lately - yes!

I am so ready for the next ep!

[DearEvette]

Season of Sophie, indeed!

I am enjoying the little dribs and drabs (and the grifters coming out of the woodwork) we are getting of whatever grift this is, the one that ended in Sophie becoming Charlotte, the Duchess.  I was always low key interested in how that came about.  I hope we get the whole story by the end of the season.

This was a fun job, but I cannot lie, it gave me flashbacks to the HBO series The Vow (the one about the NXIVM cult) because that was basically a pyramid scheme as well so the markers here were all on point. 

I did enjoy Breanna's horror as a cubicle drone, in her perky pink and cardigan being assaulted by comic sans font.  Ronald was a great character.  I loved how once Breanna turned the switch, the light bulb got a bit brighter each time he visited her.  LOL.  Him running off to pursue his passion was great.  The actor did a great job.

Do you guys think that guy was able to introduce doubt in Elliot about Sophie?  At the end, with Elliot lurking in the shadow there, it seemed like the guy failed, but you never know.  The show may circle back given that it seems like there is more to come with the mysterious guy in Uzbekistan.

ETA;  The female member of the grifter pair reminded me a little of the chess champion character Lauren Holley played in the Juror #6 job.  There was just something about her...

[Prevailing Wind]

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

Do you guys think that guy was able to introduce doubt in Elliot about Sophie?

Eliot's had doubts in the back of his mind since the David Jobs. I think he's been able to work with her after she'd been sufficiently (to his mind) contrite, but I think the doubts are still there, way in the back of his mind.

I've been watching "Emergency!" on CoziTV and I have a hard time reconciling that nice Roy DeSoto with the evil Ian Blackpoole.

[Llywela]

11 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

This was a fantastic episode for Sophie - more backstory, more evidence of Sophie's talents as a grifter as she overcomes a mark as psychologically astute and manipulative as she is herself, and her speech at the end about taking care of her family and not being sure if she's up for it was perfect. So, guessing Ramsey was the leader/string-puller of her long ago crew in England, and things didn't end on the best of notes. Also... a daughter?!

And the question now is: was Debra on the mark with that guess, or was she not? Because up till that moment, it sounded like Sophie was talking about Arthur Wild, since her abandonment of him to prison to save her own skin has been a recurring backstory detail this season.

Also - how much of that exchange did the others hear? We know they all (except Eliot) heard her talking about Nate's death and the responsibility she feels for them as a team, we got reaction shots for that. But her later confession, talking about abandoning someone to save her own skin, and Debra guessing it was a daughter, there were no reaction shots for that. So did the others hear it or not?

11 hours ago, blueray said:

I liked learning more about Sophie's past. Though I did wonder why they benched Elliot for most of the episode. Like he was in it but wasn't involved in the con at all.

I'm trying to think - was this the first time a member of the team hasn't taken part in the main con, but has gone off to do something else? But honestly, the fact that Eliot wasn't part of the main con makes me suspect that his visit to Sophie's old teammate might actually have been part of the plan all along. Because he wasn't included in the structural planning, which means Sophie knew when designing the con that he would be elsewhere, which means she wanted him to be elsewhere, and then he was with her at the end to confront her old friend, having clearly had a thorough debrief to compare notes. So I tend to suspect that Sophie wanted him to sound the guy out, to find out more about what he's really up to and why he really reached out to her like this. Whether or not Sophie knew he'd take the opportunity to find out more about her past, whether or not that line of questioning was also part of the plan, a hook to get the guy to open up...well, that remains very much up in the air.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Llywela

[AnimeMania]

I wonder if Jazz Guy quit the company before he got his bonus, but since Jazz Guy said there was no way to quit the company, I think that he is safe. I thought it was a little weird that there were no men in the Baby Magiq sales force, but maybe not at the highest levels of sales.

[JamieLynn832002]

3 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I thought it was a little weird that there were no men in the Baby Magiq sales force, but maybe not at the highest levels of sales.

I think MLMs of this nature tend to almost exclusively target women so it didn't really seem odd to me.

[SoMuchTV]

4 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I wonder if Jazz Guy quit the company before he got his bonus, but since Jazz Guy said there was no way to quit the company, I think that he is safe. I thought it was a little weird that there were no men in the Baby Magiq sales force, but maybe not at the highest levels of sales.

I think Jazz Guy was an actual employee (office worker).  Not sure if the "virus" bonus would have applied to him anyway.  I got the impression that the company recruited just women into the pyramid deal - independent contractors who became more and more dependent on the company/unable to get out because of the debt.  I'm not surprised they were all women - I don't think I've ever seen a man selling Mary Kay or Lularoe or Discovery Toys...  Not sure if those are the company's rules or because of the product it just tended to work that way.

Edited December 29, 2022 by SoMuchTV

[DoctorAtomic]

I liked that this episode was grifter v grifter, but the majiq lady was still really small time and not quite the foil they were going for. All of her responses were really just cold reads off just getting a vibe that Sophie was too cool for the room, so maybe there is something about her. "I don't think that's quite the truth". Saying, "well, it is," won't work because the other two ladies were in the room, and Sophie had to rope them in too. That's fair. Notice when it got too hot, the mark dismissed them because she was so compelled to get one over on Sophie though. I do always like when they use the mark against themselves. A halfway decent grifter wouldn't have risked a multi million dollar scheme to gloat. 

I would have liked if the husband wasn't as much of a buffon and more in on it either. 

I didn't take stock in the 'daughter' comment at the end because she was just not that good a grifter and if it is the truth, it's such a small time way to mete out that revelation. Also, not everyone all the time has to have a child they abandoned. Sophie selling out/leaving the original crew is good enough for this show. 

I also agree with that Eliot being 'left out' was deliberate, and based on the end, we're going to see something more about that. 

[Sarah 103]

I hope someone can clear something up for me, because I am confused on a plot point. How did Brianna get the virus on the computer? How did she connect the wristband to her computer to get the virus on the wristband, and then onto the owner's laptop? I feel like I missed something. 

Overall, I enjoyed this episode. It was enjoyable to see Sophie have to up her game because she was going up against someone who was her equal/the evil version of herself. Harry's subplot was wonderful. Parker was delightful and a bit offbeat. 

[DearEvette]

IIRC, she snuck up to the secret room where Harry and the Magiq Baby Dude were fighting.  She stole his wristband/drive, plugged it into her computer uploaded her virus onto his wristband/drive.  So when he used his wristband on the master computer it uploaded the virus onto that computer.  At least that is how I am remembering it happened.

[Llywela]

25 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

IIRC, she snuck up to the secret room where Harry and the Magiq Baby Dude were fighting.  She stole his wristband/drive, plugged it into her computer uploaded her virus onto his wristband/drive.  So when he used his wristband on the master computer it uploaded the virus onto that computer.  At least that is how I am remembering it happened.

Yes, they did a little flashback to show exactly this. Since Brianna couldn't get her own flashdrive onto the computer, she used the distraction provided by Harry's swordfight with the man to take his wristband, install the virus on it, and then put it back in its holding dish. The guy then picked it up - not suspecting anything, because it was right where he expected it to be - and went and plugged it into the computer himself.

[Sarah 103]

@DearEvette and @Llywela That's what I thought, but I couldn't quite figure out how she plugged the wristband into the computer. Of course, this may be one of those times when "roll with it, it's TVLand/techie magic" is the best and most acceptable. explanation

[MissLucas]

Excellent episode - it started easy but then proved to be a real challenge (reminded me a bit of the Two Live Crew Job) especially for Sophie. Her grifting skills are superb and just think what is required to be that good: i.e. reading dozens of self-help manuals *shudders*

No way in hell is the reference to a daughter just a throw-away line by a slightly less gifted grifter. If you listened closely you could hear the sound of Chekhov's gun getting loaded.

That final shot of the carnival devil wasn't exactly subtle. Now I keep wondering who will play Ramsay, normally I'd say Mark Sheppard but that's of course not going to work.

[Irlandesa]

On 12/28/2022 at 6:02 PM, DearEvette said:

This was a fun job, but I cannot lie, it gave me flashbacks to the HBO series The Vow (the one about the NXIVM cult) because that was basically a pyramid scheme as well so the markers here were all on point. 

The documentary series I thought about was Amazon's LuLaRich about the MLM LuLaRose leggings with the husband/wife duo.  I can imagine many inspirations but this is one of the most recent.

 

 

[Llywela]

12 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

@DearEvette and @Llywela That's what I thought, but I couldn't quite figure out how she plugged the wristband into the computer. Of course, this may be one of those times when "roll with it, it's TVLand/techie magic" is the best and most acceptable. explanation

I think the wristbands contained USB drives, so Brianna plugged the USB part of it into her own laptop (while hiding under the table watching the sword fight), installed the yes virus onto it, then put it back in the pot so that the mark would plug it into the master computer himself, doing the job of uploading the virus for her.

[Chaos Theory]

This has definitely been Sophie’s season.  Digging into the past of Sophie that has only been hinted at here and there.   We get reminded that she was not always a good person.   That she did leave a lot of misery in her wake.  Now we find out there might even be a daughter out there somewhere.    That is intriguing. There are so many ways this could go….and like with ”Nana”  I would love to actually meet this daughter because it could be such a fun cameo,  

[P2C2E]

This was a fantastic episode and might be my favorite so far.

I'm excited to get more of the Sophie story. When she talked about abandoning someone I thought she was referring to her husband, the Duke. The original series had that brief conversation with her aunt where she said he'd never got over Sophie and died of a broken heart. (I think, it's been awhile since I've seen it). I wonder if it was a stepdaughter? Sophie threw Wilde under the bus because she didn't want to jeopardize the family she had built and the stepdaughter she was going to be mother to. But then something later caused her to leave that family and she put it in her past so she could live with it.

Anyway, can't wait.

[andromeda331]

I loved the Brom-Com between Harry and the guy. It was so funny. And it worked too. 

I liked Breanna helping Ronald realize he was working for a pyramid scheme.

Debra you're no Sophie. Started out good but got so busy trying to get Sophie that she forgot everything else. 

I like learning more about Sophie's past. I've always wondered about it from comments she made in the Reunion Job and of course William and the Countess from the King George Job.

[gryphon]

Easter egg found in this episode:  when the authorities arrive to arrest the Babymagiq couple, the black cars are labeled NCC1701.   
 

Man, I love this show. 

[Prevailing Wind]

7 hours ago, gryphon said:

Easter egg found in this episode:  when the authorities arrive to arrest the Babymagiq couple, the black cars are labeled NCC1701.   
 

Man, I love this show. 

Did Frakes direct it?

[marihunc]

No, the director was actually Noah Wyle 😄

[aradia22]

Virginia Williams and Christopher Gorham were great guest stars. The MLM scheme was one of the more realistically written evil organizations this season. I almost hope they find a way for those two actors to come back in different schemes. Or at least her. Why shouldn't Debra level up to a different sort of evil organization?

The lighting was not great but otherwise, this was one of the better episodes. The costumes weren't distractingly bad, the acting was good, the writing was solid. I don't know if it fully supported 3 plotlines (Harry's con and Sophie's backstory got a little lost in the shuffle). 

I understand why it doesn't come up every episode but I liked Harry's earpiece falling out. 

Glad things are working out for Ronald and his jazz trumpet dreams.

[aradia22]

Quote

Also... a daughter?!

I thought they were going to jump to the daughter being Miranda but evidently that's too simple. If they're really introducing a character like that, I hope they were smart about the casting. I can't imagine Sophie's daughter won't be a recurring character if she exists.

Quote

No way in hell is the reference to a daughter just a throw-away line by a slightly less gifted grifter. If you listened closely you could hear the sound of Chekhov's gun getting loaded.

Yeah, that seems like too sophisticated of a misdirect for a TV show like this. 

[Mabinogia]

13 hours ago, aradia22 said:

I almost hope they find a way for those two actors to come back in different schemes. Or at least her. Why shouldn't Debra level up to a different sort of evil organization?

Actually, that would be interesting, if someone they "took down" wiggled their way out of a long-term prison sentence and popped back up with a new get rich by ruining others scheme. Sadly, I am sure that kind of thing happens. Not some "supervillian/arch nemisis" type deal, but just some schemer who manages to wiggle out of any situation to pop back up like a weed. 

These two would be good as there are two of them, so one could turn on/give evidence against the other and manage to wiggle out of any long term sentence to come back with a new scheme. I really like both actors so either one turning up again would make me happy.