Latest news with #conartist
CNN
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
TikTok's scam sleuth wants to show you how companies are cheating — in a fun way
We live in the golden age of grift. Most of us can't go a day without at least one scammy text about an unpaid toll or a call from an unknown number with a shockingly human-like AI voice on the other side. The scale of the scam onslaught feels like it's part of some Faustian bargain we all entered into: In exchange for the miracle of, like, access to all the world's knowledge and people in our pockets, all the world's knowledge and people similarly have access to us, including the hustlers and the con artists. But way more hustlers, con artists and grifters than any other generation of human beings on Earth has ever had to comprehend before, let alone fend off. Thankfully, all the scam spam doesn't seem to have killed anyone's appetite for the grift as a genre. Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos con? I'll take a book, a podcast, a documentary and at least one serialized streaming project, please. Lifting the veil on a doomsday cult? I'm in, every day, and twice on Sundays. Never forget: We once had two dueling Fyre Festival documentaries on Hulu and Netflix. OK, maybe I'm just a mark for tales of clever cons, exposed. This newsletter is, in part, an outlet for my own fascination with the business hype cycle, which tends to, you know, exaggerate the truth. Or straight-up lie. But (thanks again to the miracle of the internet), I know that I'm not alone. Alex Falcone, an LA-based comedian, is a fellow con connoisseur (a con-noisseur?). Through his TikTok channel, Falcone excels at the art of the two-minute explainer, tackling frauds big (AI) and small (white chocolate). Falcone says he isn't a journalist, but he approaches his work with a similar hunger to peek behind the facade of a thing and expose it. Of his early foray into 'unfun facts,' Falcone says, he wanted to find the intersection of 'a little bit of a wet blanket, but you're OK afterwards… I don't like ruining people's day.' He's hit a nerve on TikTok, where he has more than half a million followers and a popular recurring series called 'Is it a scam? Yep.' (The delivery here is crucial: 'Is-it-a-scamyep!') The schtick is fast-talking facts and plenty of jokes about the companies and people and concepts that are, in one way or another, selling a bill of goods. I caught up with Falcone recently over Zoom to discuss the businesses of grift, comedy and journalism. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Nightcap: Can you tell me how you got on the scam beat? Alex Falcone: I've always liked the scheme-y underbelly. My grandfather worked in a few different contexts in carnivals, but the bulk of his life he was a pitchman, setting up a table by the midway selling kitchen gadgets and magic tricks. My dad's first job was as a kid standing in the audience while his father demonstrated a magic trick then yelling, 'How did he do that? I'll take two!' I met a con man when I was 16, and he taught me how to do card-cheating and pool-sharking stuff… and, like, mostly didn't use it for evil. I just like knowing how it works. It's sort of like the glass elevator where you see the mechanism behind it. Like, how am I being manipulated? I was working on 'unfun facts,' which is like the opposite of a party trick. My party-ruiner is telling people something that's going to bum them out that they didn't know. And that, it turns out, had a lot of overlap with my interest in things that were slightly crime-y. Nightcap: Why do you think people on TikTok have been so receptive to the scam series? Falcone: I think everybody is vaguely aware that they're walking around in a haunted carnival all the time — that everybody is trying to take advantage of them. If you're at a midway, then you know the basketball hoop is harder than other basketball hoops. Otherwise they wouldn't give you stuffed animals for making one free throw. Why is that? It's because it's 11 feet, and it's not perfectly round… and you know that it's wrong, but then it's still fun to be like, 'Oh, that's how you were getting me.' Nightcap: Do you find yourself, or your audience, experiencing scam fatigue? Falcone: So this is the trick. By slightly redefining what 'scam' means, it allows me to keep finding new ways to talk about things instead of just being bummed out. Whenever I'm tired of talking about AI or crypto, I can do an episode on white chocolate. Nightcap: Ugh, such a scam! Falcone: It's disgusting! It was originally invented as a medical coating for pills. And then they were like, 'we can sell this because we have all this extra cocoa butter lying around, and we can mix it with palm oil, which we've cut down the rainforest to make, and now we have too much of it.' Every step of that is terrifying, but also it tastes like cat vomit. So that's inherently funny. That's my palate cleanser. I have an escape valve for a lot of this. Actually, if you hadn't asked that, I would have asked you the same question… How do you avoid getting bummed out by this? Are all of your colleagues just sort of zombie-brained now? Nightcap: There's a bit of zombie-brain going around. I will say I spend a good amount of time — like a shameful amount of time — disassociating on TikTok. Falcone: I think that's great… There are a lot of problems with the way algorithms work, but one of the things that's great is you can just create an account with a new name, a fresh algorithm, and decide this algorithm is just for escapism. I did a video about algorithms a while ago, and so as a demonstration I decided to make an account for videos about bunnies. In TikTok, it took me 15 minutes before the algorithm was just rabbits and nothing else… So that is one of the ways that I've kept myself sane — having multiple algorithms that I play with depending on my mood. Having a rabbit account as a side project is really fun. Nightcap: You've covered AI hype and marketing a few times… Falcone: It feels like there's an emperor-has-no clothes situation — that we're all just waiting for somebody to be like, Oh, wait, it's bad! Oh… we thought so, and then you told us we were dumb for thinking that it's not working, but it is actually bad. Nightcap: How do you source your scam material? Falcone: I have what I think of as the mainline scam, where the answer is 'yep,' and I just have a backlog of those. Occasionally, stuff from friends pops up. Somebody mentioned to me the other day that the Oscars were originally started to prevent actors from unionizing, which I assumed couldn't possibly be true. But it turns out, [Louis B. Mayer] of MGM was the founder of the academy, and that was what he said he was doing. (Editor's note: This checks out.) The user submissions have a separate path, because the answer to 'Is it a scam?' can sometimes be 'no.' Nightcap: I was so nervous when I came across one of your videos about Costco. Please don't ruin Costco! Falcone: Costco was a great 'nope.' The thing about Costco, and this is true of a lot of these things, is it's not a scam, but it's definitely a scheme. You have to pay to shop, which is such a crazy business model. You pay to walk in the door of a store where everything still costs money. That's definitely a scheme. But I don't think it's a scam. Now I have 100-150 messages every day on the different platforms, asking 'can you look into this thing for me' … But the main source is just things that I'm generally mad about in my own life. I have plenty of those to keep this going for another couple years.
CNN
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
TikTok's scam sleuth wants to show you how companies are cheating — in a fun way
We live in the golden age of grift. Most of us can't go a day without at least one scammy text about an unpaid toll or a call from an unknown number with a shockingly human-like AI voice on the other side. The scale of the scam onslaught feels like it's part of some Faustian bargain we all entered into: In exchange for the miracle of, like, access to all the world's knowledge and people in our pockets, all the world's knowledge and people similarly have access to us, including the hustlers and the con artists. But way more hustlers, con artists and grifters than any other generation of human beings on Earth has ever had to comprehend before, let alone fend off. Thankfully, all the scam spam doesn't seem to have killed anyone's appetite for the grift as a genre. Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos con? I'll take a book, a podcast, a documentary and at least one serialized streaming project, please. Lifting the veil on a doomsday cult? I'm in, every day, and twice on Sundays. Never forget: We once had two dueling Fyre Festival documentaries on Hulu and Netflix. OK, maybe I'm just a mark for tales of clever cons, exposed. This newsletter is, in part, an outlet for my own fascination with the business hype cycle, which tends to, you know, exaggerate the truth. Or straight-up lie. But (thanks again to the miracle of the internet), I know that I'm not alone. Alex Falcone, an LA-based comedian, is a fellow con connoisseur (a con-noisseur?). Through his TikTok channel, Falcone excels at the art of the two-minute explainer, tackling frauds big (AI) and small (white chocolate). Falcone says he isn't a journalist, but he approaches his work with a similar hunger to peek behind the facade of a thing and expose it. Of his early foray into 'unfun facts,' Falcone says, he wanted to find the intersection of 'a little bit of a wet blanket, but you're OK afterwards… I don't like ruining people's day.' He's hit a nerve on TikTok, where he has more than half a million followers and a popular recurring series called 'Is it a scam? Yep.' (The delivery here is crucial: 'Is-it-a-scamyep!') The schtick is fast-talking facts and plenty of jokes about the companies and people and concepts that are, in one way or another, selling a bill of goods. I caught up with Falcone recently over Zoom to discuss the businesses of grift, comedy and journalism. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Nightcap: Can you tell me how you got on the scam beat? Alex Falcone: I've always liked the scheme-y underbelly. My grandfather worked in a few different contexts in carnivals, but the bulk of his life he was a pitchman, setting up a table by the midway selling kitchen gadgets and magic tricks. My dad's first job was as a kid standing in the audience while his father demonstrated a magic trick then yelling, 'How did he do that? I'll take two!' I met a con man when I was 16, and he taught me how to do card-cheating and pool-sharking stuff… and, like, mostly didn't use it for evil. I just like knowing how it works. It's sort of like the glass elevator where you see the mechanism behind it. Like, how am I being manipulated? I was working on 'unfun facts,' which is like the opposite of a party trick. My party-ruiner is telling people something that's going to bum them out that they didn't know. And that, it turns out, had a lot of overlap with my interest in things that were slightly crime-y. Nightcap: Why do you think people on TikTok have been so receptive to the scam series? Falcone: I think everybody is vaguely aware that they're walking around in a haunted carnival all the time — that everybody is trying to take advantage of them. If you're at a midway, then you know the basketball hoop is harder than other basketball hoops. Otherwise they wouldn't give you stuffed animals for making one free throw. Why is that? It's because it's 11 feet, and it's not perfectly round… and you know that it's wrong, but then it's still fun to be like, 'Oh, that's how you were getting me.' Nightcap: Do you find yourself, or your audience, experiencing scam fatigue? Falcone: So this is the trick. By slightly redefining what 'scam' means, it allows me to keep finding new ways to talk about things instead of just being bummed out. Whenever I'm tired of talking about AI or crypto, I can do an episode on white chocolate. Nightcap: Ugh, such a scam! Falcone: It's disgusting! It was originally invented as a medical coating for pills. And then they were like, 'we can sell this because we have all this extra cocoa butter lying around, and we can mix it with palm oil, which we've cut down the rainforest to make, and now we have too much of it.' Every step of that is terrifying, but also it tastes like cat vomit. So that's inherently funny. That's my palate cleanser. I have an escape valve for a lot of this. Actually, if you hadn't asked that, I would have asked you the same question… How do you avoid getting bummed out by this? Are all of your colleagues just sort of zombie-brained now? Nightcap: There's a bit of zombie-brain going around. I will say I spend a good amount of time — like a shameful amount of time — disassociating on TikTok. Falcone: I think that's great… There are a lot of problems with the way algorithms work, but one of the things that's great is you can just create an account with a new name, a fresh algorithm, and decide this algorithm is just for escapism. I did a video about algorithms a while ago, and so as a demonstration I decided to make an account for videos about bunnies. In TikTok, it took me 15 minutes before the algorithm was just rabbits and nothing else… So that is one of the ways that I've kept myself sane — having multiple algorithms that I play with depending on my mood. Having a rabbit account as a side project is really fun. Nightcap: You've covered AI hype and marketing a few times… Falcone: It feels like there's an emperor-has-no clothes situation — that we're all just waiting for somebody to be like, Oh, wait, it's bad! Oh… we thought so, and then you told us we were dumb for thinking that it's not working, but it is actually bad. Nightcap: How do you source your scam material? Falcone: I have what I think of as the mainline scam, where the answer is 'yep,' and I just have a backlog of those. Occasionally, stuff from friends pops up. Somebody mentioned to me the other day that the Oscars were originally started to prevent actors from unionizing, which I assumed couldn't possibly be true. But it turns out, [Louis B. Mayer] of MGM was the founder of the academy, and that was what he said he was doing. (Editor's note: This checks out.) The user submissions have a separate path, because the answer to 'Is it a scam?' can sometimes be 'no.' Nightcap: I was so nervous when I came across one of your videos about Costco. Please don't ruin Costco! Falcone: Costco was a great 'nope.' The thing about Costco, and this is true of a lot of these things, is it's not a scam, but it's definitely a scheme. You have to pay to shop, which is such a crazy business model. You pay to walk in the door of a store where everything still costs money. That's definitely a scheme. But I don't think it's a scam. Now I have 100-150 messages every day on the different platforms, asking 'can you look into this thing for me' … But the main source is just things that I'm generally mad about in my own life. I have plenty of those to keep this going for another couple years.
CNN
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
TikTok's scam sleuth wants to show you how companies are cheating — in a fun way
We live in the golden age of grift. Most of us can't go a day without at least one scammy text about an unpaid toll or a call from an unknown number with a shockingly human-like AI voice on the other side. The scale of the scam onslaught feels like it's part of some Faustian bargain we all entered into: In exchange for the miracle of, like, access to all the world's knowledge and people in our pockets, all the world's knowledge and people similarly have access to us, including the hustlers and the con artists. But way more hustlers, con artists and grifters than any other generation of human beings on Earth has ever had to comprehend before, let alone fend off. Thankfully, all the scam spam doesn't seem to have killed anyone's appetite for the grift as a genre. Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos con? I'll take a book, a podcast, a documentary and at least one serialized streaming project, please. Lifting the veil on a doomsday cult? I'm in, every day, and twice on Sundays. Never forget: We once had two dueling Fyre Festival documentaries on Hulu and Netflix. OK, maybe I'm just a mark for tales of clever cons, exposed. This newsletter is, in part, an outlet for my own fascination with the business hype cycle, which tends to, you know, exaggerate the truth. Or straight-up lie. But (thanks again to the miracle of the internet), I know that I'm not alone. Alex Falcone, an LA-based comedian, is a fellow con connoisseur (a con-noisseur?). Through his TikTok channel, Falcone excels at the art of the two-minute explainer, tackling frauds big (AI) and small (white chocolate). Falcone says he isn't a journalist, but he approaches his work with a similar hunger to peek behind the facade of a thing and expose it. Of his early foray into 'unfun facts,' Falcone says, he wanted to find the intersection of 'a little bit of a wet blanket, but you're OK afterwards… I don't like ruining people's day.' He's hit a nerve on TikTok, where he has more than half a million followers and a popular recurring series called 'Is it a scam? Yep.' (The delivery here is crucial: 'Is-it-a-scamyep!') The schtick is fast-talking facts and plenty of jokes about the companies and people and concepts that are, in one way or another, selling a bill of goods. I caught up with Falcone recently over Zoom to discuss the businesses of grift, comedy and journalism. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. Nightcap: Can you tell me how you got on the scam beat? Alex Falcone: I've always liked the scheme-y underbelly. My grandfather worked in a few different contexts in carnivals, but the bulk of his life he was a pitchman, setting up a table by the midway selling kitchen gadgets and magic tricks. My dad's first job was as a kid standing in the audience while his father demonstrated a magic trick then yelling, 'How did he do that? I'll take two!' I met a con man when I was 16, and he taught me how to do card-cheating and pool-sharking stuff… and, like, mostly didn't use it for evil. I just like knowing how it works. It's sort of like the glass elevator where you see the mechanism behind it. Like, how am I being manipulated? I was working on 'unfun facts,' which is like the opposite of a party trick. My party-ruiner is telling people something that's going to bum them out that they didn't know. And that, it turns out, had a lot of overlap with my interest in things that were slightly crime-y. Nightcap: Why do you think people on TikTok have been so receptive to the scam series? Falcone: I think everybody is vaguely aware that they're walking around in a haunted carnival all the time — that everybody is trying to take advantage of them. If you're at a midway, then you know the basketball hoop is harder than other basketball hoops. Otherwise they wouldn't give you stuffed animals for making one free throw. Why is that? It's because it's 11 feet, and it's not perfectly round… and you know that it's wrong, but then it's still fun to be like, 'Oh, that's how you were getting me.' Nightcap: Do you find yourself, or your audience, experiencing scam fatigue? Falcone: So this is the trick. By slightly redefining what 'scam' means, it allows me to keep finding new ways to talk about things instead of just being bummed out. Whenever I'm tired of talking about AI or crypto, I can do an episode on white chocolate. Nightcap: Ugh, such a scam! Falcone: It's disgusting! It was originally invented as a medical coating for pills. And then they were like, 'we can sell this because we have all this extra cocoa butter lying around, and we can mix it with palm oil, which we've cut down the rainforest to make, and now we have too much of it.' Every step of that is terrifying, but also it tastes like cat vomit. So that's inherently funny. That's my palate cleanser. I have an escape valve for a lot of this. Actually, if you hadn't asked that, I would have asked you the same question… How do you avoid getting bummed out by this? Are all of your colleagues just sort of zombie-brained now? Nightcap: There's a bit of zombie-brain going around. I will say I spend a good amount of time — like a shameful amount of time — disassociating on TikTok. Falcone: I think that's great… There are a lot of problems with the way algorithms work, but one of the things that's great is you can just create an account with a new name, a fresh algorithm, and decide this algorithm is just for escapism. I did a video about algorithms a while ago, and so as a demonstration I decided to make an account for videos about bunnies. In TikTok, it took me 15 minutes before the algorithm was just rabbits and nothing else… So that is one of the ways that I've kept myself sane — having multiple algorithms that I play with depending on my mood. Having a rabbit account as a side project is really fun. Nightcap: You've covered AI hype and marketing a few times… Falcone: It feels like there's an emperor-has-no clothes situation — that we're all just waiting for somebody to be like, Oh, wait, it's bad! Oh… we thought so, and then you told us we were dumb for thinking that it's not working, but it is actually bad. Nightcap: How do you source your scam material? Falcone: I have what I think of as the mainline scam, where the answer is 'yep,' and I just have a backlog of those. Occasionally, stuff from friends pops up. Somebody mentioned to me the other day that the Oscars were originally started to prevent actors from unionizing, which I assumed couldn't possibly be true. But it turns out, [Louis B. Mayer] of MGM was the founder of the academy, and that was what he said he was doing. (Editor's note: This checks out.) The user submissions have a separate path, because the answer to 'Is it a scam?' can sometimes be 'no.' Nightcap: I was so nervous when I came across one of your videos about Costco. Please don't ruin Costco! Falcone: Costco was a great 'nope.' The thing about Costco, and this is true of a lot of these things, is it's not a scam, but it's definitely a scheme. You have to pay to shop, which is such a crazy business model. You pay to walk in the door of a store where everything still costs money. That's definitely a scheme. But I don't think it's a scam. Now I have 100-150 messages every day on the different platforms, asking 'can you look into this thing for me' … But the main source is just things that I'm generally mad about in my own life. I have plenty of those to keep this going for another couple years.
Geek Girl Authority
5 days ago
- Business
- Geek Girl Authority
LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION Season Finale Recap: (S03E10) The Side Job
For a finale, Leverage: Redemption, 'The Side Job,' doesn't feel all that final. Not to say it isn't a masterclass in building an engaging and layered narrative. But, honestly, that's kind of a given with this series. It also elegantly bookends the season with Hardison (Aldis Hodge) returning and Parker (Beth Riesgraf) holding him to his six-month reflection on the reason they do what they do. We can only hope Prime Video gives them a few more seasons with which to continue doing. RELATED: Catch up with our recap of the previous Leverage: Redemption episode, 'The Polygeist Job' In this episode, the unique use of black-and-white and color footage to denote the scenes 'in' the con versus adjacent is a multi-purpose device. It sells the film noir style of story. It highlights the epically dramatic lie Parker sells to the mark. Most brilliantly, it reminds us that Parker sees the world in black and white. Always has. Always will. It's her con. Her way. Image Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video Leverage: Redemption, 'The Side Job' Cold open on a black and white pan over Puerto Nuevo, Colombia. In a shadowy pub, a hatted man seated at the bar answers his phone, saying that he needs to get to the island to close the deal before 'the blonde' finds him because she's going to kill him. Further down the bar, the camera focuses on Parker glancing over with a grin. In Louisiana, two weeks earlier, at the Ramirez Processing Plant, the hatted man, wearing a suit and no hat, directs a hesitant worker to dump the load into the bone-grinder. In his office, he finds Parker rifling through his files. He's the plant's owner, Edgar Ramirez (Ricardo Chavira). She's [allegedly] Elise Bannister, a social worker. RELATED: Olivia Morris Shares How The Librarians: The Next Chapter Hooked Her From Page One She's investigating the child labor he uses. As he escorts her out of the building, she notes how small his workforce is, height-wise, and gives the bone-grinder a hard look as she passes it. Outside, he's impressed by the sports car she drives. Putting together her surreptitious entrance, her ransacking of his office, and the fancy wheels, he guesses she's up to something and promises to find out what it is. She scoffs and drives off. Reality As Ramirez heads back into the plant, the picture flips to color. Elliot (Christian Kane) and Sophie (Gina Bellman) drive up, looking for Parker. Sophie checks in with the rest of the team to see if they know what Parker's up to. Breanna (Aleyse Shannon) and Harry (Noah Wyle) are in a hospital room, asking a woman about a boy, Rodrigo (Adan Carvacaño), who lies unconscious in the bed, his arm in an external fixator device. She tells them he had told her that he got a good-paying job, but she didn't know it involved dangerous machinery. She tells Harry they can't sue because Rodrigo had fake work papers saying he was old enough. When Breanna asks where he got the papers, Rodrigo wakes up and says it was Ramirez, but he can't testify because Ramirez will punish his undocumented cousins. Boundaries At headquarters, Sophie asks Elliot if the particulars of this case don't have him worried. Harry gets off the phone with his mom and asks them how to get around answering her questions about Leverage. Breanna enters and debriefs Edgar Ramirez, who repeatedly violates child labor laws. He deflects the bad press onto the employment agency, saying Dean Cisco (Garrett Hines) didn't vet the employees properly. However, Breanna's learned that Ramirez actually owns Cisco's company. RELATED: TV Review: Leverage: Redemption Season 3 Harry wants to know why they're so concerned about Parker. Parker arrives and explains that she is triggered by cases involving kids. She's installed bugs and cameras in Ramirez's office and a backdoor to his computer. Breanna has access to all of it. Parker promises to call if she needs help. When Elliot questions her going it alone, she points out that everyone on the team has their personal side job projects. Elliot looks out for veterans. Harry takes on legal clients. Breanna does her white-hat hacking. The team wishes her well. As Parker leaves, Sophie asks Elliot if he believes Parker's explanation. He doesn't. The Set Up Back in black-and-white. Ramirez and Cisco discuss Parker's visit. Ramirez tells Cisco that she was looking for paperwork on his employees connecting them to Isla Nubla, a tiny island off the coast of Colombia. He remembers receiving a voicemail from a Marta Cabrera from Gold Star Properties asking about employees from Isla Nubla. He plans to go see her in person. RELATED: Dean Devlin Dishes on The Librarians: The Next Chapter's Magical Homecoming In color, at the Gold Star offices, Sophie lets herself in. Over the cons, Breanna reminds Sophie that Parker wasn't taking anything from Ramirez's files; she was planting the Isla Nubla stuff, including the voicemails from Cabrera. As Sophie wonders why Parker laid a trail to Gold Star, Breanna realizes that Ramirez should be arriving any second. Sophie finds a blue folder with a sticky note on it that reads, 'FOR SOPHIE.' Grinning, she opens it up, picks up some wardrobe props, and acknowledges that Parker set her up. Drawing Sophie In When Ramirez knocks on Gold Star's door, it's back in black-and-white. Sophie greets him as Marta Cabrera. He says he's there to discuss Isla Nubla. She jumps on the topic, explaining that Gold Star owns the island now, and they're waiting for investors to develop a deep-water cruise ship port. Parker makes her entrance, pointing out that the island is empty because Hurricane Frances forces everyone to evacuate, and no one was allowed back on. However, before they can develop, they need someone born on the island to sign off to satisfy Colombia's government's mandate to respect indigenous claims to the land. That person will get a million dollars a year for life as compensation. RELATED: Geek Girl Authority Crush of the Week: Leverage: Redemption 's Parker Outside, Ramirez tells Parker he doesn't need her now. He'll find someone born on Isla Nubla by the weekend. Parker coerces him back with talk of making even more than the payout Mart Cabrera mentioned. She texts him an address to be at in an hour. Something Like That He leaves, and the picture blinks back into color. Parker returns to the conference room and debriefs with Sophie. They agree that the seat-of-the-pants grift was a lot of fun. Sophie guesses that the real reason for Parker's con is that their current jobs are too safe. Parker allows that might be part of it. Parker tells Breanna to meet her at the address she just texted Ramirez. They arrive on the 34th floor of a partially constructed building. Parker tells Breanna she wants to put the mark under stress to distract from the lie. Playing the building's architect, Breanna guesses that the real reason for Parker's con is that she wants to innovate their cons. Parker allows that might be part of it. RELATED: On Location: The Belgrade Fortress on The Librarians: The Next Chapter Flip to black-and-white for Ramirez's arrival on site. Breanna calls Parker and Ramirez over to where they can't be overheard. They step out onto an unfinished balcony. Breanna tells him that Marta didn't divulge that anyone indigenous to the island will get a piece of any business established there. She wants her firm to be the one to build the port. If Ramirez wants in, he needs to buy in at 10 million dollars. She guarantees a ten-to-one return, minimum. Spinning Stories At headquarters, in color, Harry checks in on Sophie, who is reviewing Parker's sting. Sophie explains how Parker's combined two different cons to convince Ramirez to empty his coffers into an escrow account that the Leverage team will pillage. She's concerned that Parker's placing herself in danger in order to close the deal. In black-and-white, Parker attends one of Ramirez's fundraisers. On the dance floor, he accuses her of being a bigger bad guy than him because she uses people to get ahead. His phone pings, and he shows her that Cisco has doctored papers to prove that Ramirez was born on Isla Nubla. This pulls the rug out from under Parker's plan. Recovery In color, Parker sits in the corner of Rodrigo's hospital room. His aunt comes in and tells Parker that he's improving slowly. She tells Parker that she's a good person for helping them. Parker gets up and leaves. RELATED: A Leverage: Redemption Primer: Get Ready to Steal Season 3 Harry gets into his car, unaware Parker's hiding in the backseat. She startles him. He screams and jumps out of the car. She follows and tells him she admires him because he changed. He points out that she did, too. She admits she did eventually, but it started out as a way to do new crimes, a challenge. She says she changed with the team while he changed on his own. He guesses that the real reason for Parker's con is that she's trying to figure out how people change. Parker allows that might be part of it. She asks him to revert to evil lawyer mode temporarily as a favor. At the plant, in black-and-white, Harry finds Ramirez. Calling himself Dexter Cheeble, Harry asks for employment records on Hector Ortez, a 19-year-old born on Isla Nubla, Colombia. Ramirez tells Harry that if he comes back in the evening, he'll get the paperwork for him, and they can discuss some potential financial accommodations. Shaking hands on it, Harry leaves. Ramirez places a call, saying that they've got a problem. Flipped In his office, he tells Parker about Harry's visit. She recommends they pay Harry off. Ramirez argues that blackmailers just keep on taking. They're better off just killing him. He's already engaged some men from Cisco's bunch. They'll wait for Harry in the plant parking lot and kill him as soon as he arrives. Parker turns to one of her hidden cameras and shoots a meaningful look at Breanna. Breanna's surveillance footage is in full color. She tries to raise Harry on the coms to warn him. Next, she tries Elliot. Meanwhile, Harry arrives at the plant. He gets a warning text from Breanna just as a black SUV squeals up behind him. The goons chase him into the plant. RELATED: Read the Recap of the Best Leverage: Redemption Season 3 Episode, 'The Grand Complication Job' Parker slaps Ramirez in black-and-white, accusing him of screwing up by ordering the hit on the lawyer at the plant. He suggests they leave. In color, Harry fights the goons until Elliot arrives. Harry runs out and confronts Ramirez and Parker in black-and-white. Parker pulls out a gun and shoots Harry twice. Ramirez takes it from her and puts a final slug in his back. Elliot arrives, and Ramirez criticizes his hitman skills, leaving Elliot to dispose of Harry's body in the bone-grinder. Ending It Once Ramirez and Parker leave, the scene reverts to color. Elliot compliments Harry on his fall and helps him to his feet. Back at headquarters, Parker tries to make light of the real hired killers she didn't anticipate. Sophie and Elliot insist she finish the con immediately. She agrees once Breanna assures her that they will get every cent of Ramirez's money. In black-and-white, Ramirez leaves the plant with his papers. Parker drives up and offers him a ride. He gets in, and she stuns him with a taser. Grabbing his phone, she messages the plant supervisor to clear the floor and send everyone home because of a spot inspection. RELATED: TV Review: Cross Season 1 In color, Sophie's waiting at the Gold Star offices and tells Breanna and Harry that Parker's late. They ping her phone and discover she left it at headquarters. Back at the now-empty plant, black-and-white Parker prepares to send Ramirez through the bone-grinder, explaining that a little while ago, someone asked her why she does what she does. When the others asked her, they didn't let her answer: they just kept guessing. Starting up the bone-grinder, she gets ready to tip Ramirez in, stating she's not sure what she's going to do. The bone-grinder stops. Faint with relief, Ramirez sees Elliot and assumes he's there to stop Parker. Elliot denies this and walks away. Got Your Back Parker follows him in color and asks him if he's going to stop her or tell on her. He tells her that they aren't like the others. Whatever she chooses to do, he's got her back. In black-and-white, Parker rushes back to the bone-grinder. She turns it on. Desperate, Ramirez tips the trolley and rolls out. By the time Parker follows him out of the building, he's disappeared. Flashforward to the Colombian pub. Cisco tells Ramirez that the papers he traveled on aren't from him. Parker walks over and ends the call. RELATED: Read our Leverage: Redemption recaps Full color when the phone hits the bar. She tells him his papers are hers. Flashback: After Parker and Breanna pulled the construction site con, she had Breanna use Cisco's software to create new Colombian papers. In the pub, she tells him he's been traveling as a wanted fugitive. Her real reason for the con is redemption. She tells him his redemption begins with empathy. In the U.S., he's dead. Flashback: Parker leaves his shoes, wallet, and cell phone next to the bone-grinder opening. Now that he has to live in a country with no papers or resources, hiding from the law, maybe he'll understand the lives of the people he exploited in his plants. Not Just the Side Job Parker returns in time for Breanna to go pick up Hardison. Before Sophie leaves for a weekend with Jack, Harry asks her to meet his mother because he wants his mother to meet his best friend. Once Hardison's home, Parker gives the team her report, the product of six months of analyzing why she does crime. She's concluded that she's a thief. She breaks the rules because the rules sometimes say it's okay to hurt others, and that's not right. This is her way because it's their way. All three seasons of Leverage: Redemption are now streaming on Prime Video. Come on, Prime Video. Let's give Leverage: Redemption three more seasons. REVIVAL: Check Out 9 First-Look Photos From Melanie Scrofano-Led Series Diana lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she invests her time and energy in teaching, writing, parenting, and indulging her love of all Trek and a myriad of other fandoms. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. You can also find her writing at The Televixen, Women at Warp, TV Fanatic, and TV Goodness.
Geek Girl Authority
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Girl Authority
LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION Recap: (S03E08) The Cooling Off The Mark Job
Fans of Leverage: Redemption and the O.G. series are pretty familiar with the various roles in a con — the mark, the roper, the inside man. However, in 'The Cooling Off The Mark Job,' a contingency role, 'the cooler,' comes into play when a mark gets away and finds the crew's HQ. The twist here is that the crew is still out on the con. Instead, he finds their old friend Hurley (Drew Powell), and things get complicated. RELATED: Catch up with our recap of the previous Leverage: Redemption episode, 'The Shakedown in Clone-Town Job' Hurley's coming off a con-gone-wrong, and that's a novel situation as well. After all, he's a bit of a jack-of-all-cons, lending a hand to various crews across the global Leverage organization. What does a Mr. Fix-It do when he feels broken? This is what Leverage: Redemption is all about. Image Credit: Prime Video Leverage: Redemption, 'The Cooling Off The Mark Job' Hurley arrives at Leverage headquarters and looks up at the Val's Juke Joint sign with a somber expression. Flashback to a con in Rio. As he and his team enjoy 'The Gloat,' the mark escapes the police and runs into traffic. Hurley jerks back into the present and heads inside. The space is empty. He shouts a greeting, setting off the intruder alarm. A laser cage appears, and Hurley passes out from the knockout gas. Out on a con involving cowboy hats, Breanna (Aleyse Shannon) checks to see who tripped her alarm. When she realizes it's Hurley, she calls him to apologize. After turning off the cage, she hands the phone to Sophie (Gina Bellman). RELATED: Falling Skies Season 4 Premiere Thoughts and Recap Sophie explains to Hurley that their mark ran off before they could close him for the full take of three million. They only got two. As she's inviting him to make himself at home, a gun-wielding man runs in and threatens to kill Hurley unless the con team gives him back his money. Thinking quickly, Hurley claims to be looking for them too because they stole his money. He throws his phone away, killing the line, leaving Sophie stunned on the other end. The Cooler Hurley introduces himself as 'Mark' (lol). The other man says he's Clay (Alex Boniello). Out on the job, Sophie tells the team that Clay found Hurley at the headquarters. Parker's (Beth Riesgraf) confident that Hurley knows what to do to cool off the mark. Harry doesn't know what that means. Sophie explains, 'In the very unlikely event that the mark finds the crew after the blow-off, someone has to stay behind and convince him to accept his losses and move on.' Elliot (Christian Kane) tells Harry that everyone has a different technique to cool off a mark. Sophie comforts people. Elliot gives them a win. Parker shoves them off buildings, telling them, 'You can't grow until you go.' RELATED: Read our Fallout recaps At headquarters, Hurley's pouring shots for Clay and himself. Hurley puts in a team com earpiece and chats him up. Breanna and Sophie inform Hurley that Clay embezzled his three million from their clients, a church. Sophie advises Hurley to start cooling Clay down. Breanna wants him to find the last million so they can go home. Harry goes to visit Reverand Dupree (Taprena Michelle Augustine). The church needs the money to turn the lot across the street into a community center. They trusted Clay with their nest egg. Now, the real estate company plans to sell to a developer unless they come up with all the money by midnight. Harry urges her to have faith. The Next Move Clay asks Hurley how far he's willing to go to get his money back. Hurley says he's all in, with nothing left to lose. Clay warns him that things might get ugly. He heads downstairs. Left alone, Hurley tells the team he wants to run another con on Clay and take him on a quest. He doesn't believe Clay's willing to accept his losses and move on. RELATED: Geek Girl Authority Crush of the Week: Leverage: Redemption 's Parker Elliot sneaks into headquarters. Hurley hits him over the head with a bottle. Clay's got a gun pointed at Elliot and demands to know where his money is. Elliot claims the con crew stiffed him, too. He grabs Clay's gun and tells Clay that Parker is on her way to his office to take the million he held back. Clay runs out. Elliot switches the gun's bullets for blanks. He smells the booze on Hurley, a recovering alcoholic, and warns him against making poor choices. Elliot gives him the gun loaded with blanks and tells him to give it back to Clay to build trust. Clay brings Hurley to the Bayou Bluffs Real Estate offices. He explains they were just getting into development when things went south. He introduces Hurley to Denise (Nicolle Ashley), a deaf property salesperson. It's her last day. Clay signs fluently in conversation with her. A sound from the manager's office attracts his attention. He and Hurley go to investigate. The Near Miss Parker breaks into Eiger's safe and steals a folder randomly to make the theft look convincing. Clay sees her leaving the office and pulls out his gun and chases her. She escapes through a ceiling panel into the vents. Clay insists on following. While crawling through the ventilation system, Hurley freezes, imagining a widow pointing an accusatory finger at him. Coming back to himself, he realizes that Clay has fallen through a hole in the vent and pulls him up. RELATED: TV Review: Leverage: Redemption Season 3 Giving up the pursuit, they return to the office kitchen where Hurley starts cooling Clay down. He offers Clay another scam, promising him that a big score is just around the corner. Clay doesn't look enthused or convinced. Sophie, Harry, and Breanna listen in from the mobile headquarters, urging Hurley to rope Clay in for the missing million. Clay tells Hurley they're not the same and walks away. Hurley follows him, asking where he's going. Clay says he's going to the police. The team gets there first. Dressed like detectives, Breanna and Harry head into the Economic Crimes Unit and convince Detective D. Lancer (Robert Walker-Branchaud) that they're from Internal Affairs. He offers to meet them in the backroom of a nearby bar. Once he's gone, they set the office up to look like Breanna is Detective Lancer. Harry clears out before Clay arrives. What They're Not Seeing Clay comes in, claiming to be a victim of fraud. Breanna says the con crew is well-known to police and pulls out a folder on Sophie and Harry. When the phone rings, she turns her back, and Clay steals the folder. RELATED: Read our Cross recaps In the mobile HQ, Sophie prepares. She mentions to Parker that Hurley is drinking again. Whether he internalizes or externalizes the feelings he's dealing with, things could go wrong. She advises Parker to tread lightly as she's his Leverage manager. Parker has faith in Hurley, but accepts the advice, seeing as Sophie's experience with Nate (Timothy Hutton) gives her expertise in these matters. Clay finds Sophie alone in a motel room. When he demands his money, she throws a duffel full of shredded paper at him, claiming Harry double-crossed her. She tells him Harry got all three million, causing Clay to panic. He calls his Swiss bank to check the balance. Breanna intercepts the call and uses his password to transfer the last million back to the church. Once they've confirmed the transfer, Sophie offers Clay a chance to get Harry. Instead of rising to the opportunity, Clay breaks down in tears. Hearing this, Hurley runs out of the mobile unit. He bursts into the motel room, claiming to have followed Clay to protect him from Sophie. Clay tells him he didn't steal the money for himself. He was trying to help Denise. Saving Clay Back at headquarters, Hurley appeals to the team to help Clay. He sees himself in Clay. Hurley wants them to run a con to keep Clay and Denise from losing each other. While Elliot protests that they don't do love cons, Parker urges Hurley to run it. Clay feels guilty about getting Denise the job in real estate, moving her up from the valet parking desk. Because she sold a penthouse unit in an uninsured development destroyed by a hurricane, her client lost their investment. The Bayou Bluffs manager, Barry Eiger (Jonathan Gregg), threw her under the bus, and she plans to move to Seattle to live with her mom. RELATED: A Leverage: Redemption Primer: Get Ready to Steal Season 3 Elliot caters the cake for Denise's last day party. Hurley convinces Clay to talk to her, offering to be his Cyrano with an ear com on a separate channel from the team. Sophie and Harry arrive as Veronica and Carl Lundermeyer, real estate tycoons. They interrupt the party to whisk Denise away. Informing her that because she's a sales associate, not a licensed broker, the non-compete clause doesn't apply to her, they urge her to come work for them, as she can bring all the clients with her. As they leave, Sophie spots Eiger eavesdropping from a nearby cubicle. Clay's frozen with anxiety despite Hurley's help. Hurley gives him a pep talk and shoves him out the door. Elliot's got his feet up in the break room when he spots a custodian pushing a cart by the door. He leaps to his feet and follows. Complications Clay finds Denise and starts to confess his love to her. Elsewhere, Elliot shadows the custodian. From a different direction, a woman in a yellow dress, carrying a huge balloon arrangement that obscures her face, enters the office and turns. Elliot informs Parker and Breanna that he's spotted two contract killers in the office. RELATED: The Librarians Sequel Coming to the CW Breanna learns they're known as The Party Girl, identity unknown, and The Janitor, aka Nathan Clegg. Going through the decoy folder Parker stole, Breanna discovers that Denise's client is a front for a cartel. Elliot prepares to take on the assassins. He starts with The Janitor, who has a Japanese blade hidden in his mop handle. At Hurley's insistence, Clay tells Denise that she can't leave. He needs her to stay, but before he can express that, he blurts out that there are killers looking for her, repeating what Hurley is saying. Hurley appears and suggests they leave. Clay and Denise argue in sign language as to whether to escape down the stairs or the elevator. Sophie and Harry approach the other office staff and offer them each a $50,000 signing bonus. This gets them all out of the office. The boss follows. Cleaning House Elliot beats The Janitor with a roll of bubble wrap. Leaving the fight room, he sees the balloons. It's a trap, and The Party Girl ambushes him, jumping on his back, laughing maniacally. Hurley makes it to the parking garage alone. A third assassin appears, but Hurley refuses to give up Denise's location. As the assassin prepares to shoot, Sophie warns Hurley it's going to get loud. All the car alarms simultaneously go off. Hurley punches the assassin. Parker appears out of nowhere and hits the assassin with a taser, knocking him out. Flashback to Sophie and Harry escaping to the parkade with Clay and Denise. They find the valet station, and Denise hands out keys. Everyone punches the alarm buttons. RELATED: Read our Leverage: Redemption recaps Cut to Elliot in the office, lifting the unconscious Party Girl over his shoulder. He reassures everyone that he's okay. 'Can't Grow Until You Go' At headquarters, Clay and Denise have a candlelit dinner. Parker and Hurley watch from a balcony. Hurley regrets they weren't able to take down Eiger. Parker hints that they might've. Flashback to Harry and Breanna in Detective Lancer's office, handing over the green folder full of incriminating evidence of a money laundering scheme. Lancer storms off, insisting he'll arrest Eiger immediately. Hurley laughs delightedly at the news. He asks Parker how Clay found the headquarters in the first place. Flashback to Clay during the first con. Parker bumps into him and slips the address into his pocket. In the present, Hurley looks confused. Parker explains that she'll never give up stealing stuff and that she's gotten good at running the crews. However, she's never done the feelings piece well. She admits that she sensed that Clay wasn't really a bad guy, but she was more concerned about Hurley. She sent Clay in his direction to help him find his way after Rio went bad. Hurley chuckles, realizing he was the mark she wanted to cool off. He hands her his beer bottle and thanks her. Leverage: Redemption Season 3 streams on Prime Video with new episodes every Thursday. Prime Video Renews FALLOUT for Season 3 Diana lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she invests her time and energy in teaching, writing, parenting, and indulging her love of all Trek and a myriad of other fandoms. She is a lifelong fan of smart sci-fi and fantasy media, an upstanding citizen of the United Federation of Planets, and a supporter of AFC Richmond 'til she dies. Her guilty pleasures include female-led procedurals, old-school sitcoms, and Bluey. She teaches, knits, and dreams big. You can also find her writing at The Televixen, Women at Warp, TV Fanatic, and TV Goodness.
