Warning: This post contains spoilers for Leverage: Redemption Season 3, Episode 9 heavier character development for Parker (Beth Riesgraf), but “The Polygeist Job” provides a more balanced and humorous story, and is all the better for it. This is not the kind of Leverage: Redemption episode crafted to spotlight a character or two, but is instead the kind meant to showcase how madcap the adventures of the criminals at the center of the story can be. It’s a fun ride and feels very much like a classic con the characters might have pulled in the original Leverage series.

Leverage’s primary team comes together to help get justice for a group of firefighters who had their service cut off by the tech company Futurilogic when the company “throttled” them by upping their rates in an area of peak usage and then robbed them of the ability to civilians to evacuate. It’s exactly the kind of story of morality that Leverage loves, but it is not quite as saccharine because “The Polygeist Job” ups the humor instead.

Surprisingly, that humor does not come from quippy one-liners or even the group’s confusion about discovering the Futurilogic executives are the of a polycule. It comes from the camp of the “cabin in the woods” con.

“The Polygeist Job” Is Great At Leaning Into Its Horror Theme

The Cheesy Slasher Style Hides A Real Threat

Leverage: Redemption is extremely fun when it leans into the themes of the cons in the episodes. While a lot of those can be more serious episodes, “The Polygeist Job” leans way into the comedy while using horror movies as a backdrop. The only other series that might do that as well is Psych. Psych had a lot of pop culture parodies, however, and Leverage is not known for that.

The group heads to a campground and takes over the area, leading the retreat for Futurilogic. That allows Breanna (Alyese Shannon) to be the inside man as a public relations hire, and everyone else to play horror movie archetypes. Parker clearly has the most fun at that, and Riesgraf is delightful in the role, while Christian Kane is equally hilarious, even though Eliot is not having nearly the amount of fun as Parker is.

The horror ideas used are a little disorganized overall, as the episode borrows from classic summer camp slashers, stories of haunted dolls, and a tale of a creepy cult in the woods, but the disorganization only adds to the confusion for the marks, splitting them up, and leaving me more amused than I should be at their fear.

We should probably feel bad for the likes of executives Aubrey (Cher Alvarez) and Cassandra (Kayli Tran), since they genuinely do want to change the world, but how easily they fall into the traps of the team makes it easy to be entertained instead of empathetic.

The cheesier slasher elements, like Parker at both her creepiest and most flirtatious as she attempts to lure one of the of the polycule to her, are hilarious. So is Parker “air dancing” after pretending to get strung up in the woods. It’s those moments that remind us how fun the con is. The cast knows exactly when to play the roles as slightly over the top, and when to pull back from them. Seeing them go from horror movie archetypes to themselves is a little jarring at times, but it works for the episode.

The North Korean Assassins Feel Unnecessary

They Overcomplicate The Con

It’s a hallmark of Leverage: Redemption, starting in the original Leverage series, that there is always something that goes wrong at some point during the con. This time around, it’s North Korean assassins who are after Futurilogic’s founder because he lost their government’s investment in the company. They interrupt the con to kidnap Aubrey and question her about company founder Matt (Benjamin J. Young). Of course, Eliot and Parker step in to help her, adding to her already confused state.

While the complication that usually happens about two-thirds of the way into the episode is always unexpected, it also always ends up serving the con. Here, I’m more curious about how the con would have played out without the assassins. They seem like overkill. The endgame of “cabin in the woods” is clearly to terrify the executives and get them to report the strange goings-on to the police, only so they will be in place to report the money laundering later, but what was next for Aubrey?

Cassandra and Sam had already been dispatched, but Aubrey was kidnapped by the assassins instead of being scared by Parker or Eliot. What horror movie trope would they have pulled on her? Or would they even have needed one? Aubrey is the member of the group who seems to care the most about bringing good into the world, so they might not have even needed to take the con further.

The Polycule Provides A Great Nod To One Of Leverage’s Most Enduring Fan Theories

Though The Polycule Connection Is Underutilized

The polycule is actually underutilized in the episode since the of it are split up so quickly by the Leverage team, so we do not get to understand the full extent of their dynamic. Sam (Adam Henslee) and Cassandra have no problem immediately turning on Matt, and Aubrey only references them as her friends, so it appears like they might not have all been quite as close as the beginning of the episode would suggest, but the polycule provides a great reference to classic Leverage.

When Breanna has the realization that Futurilogic’s executives are a polycule, she does so after making a list of their interactions via comms with the Leverage crew. Parker, Sophie (Gina Bellman), and Eliot all mirror the same traits Breanna describes as they sit close together, Eliot’s hand on Parker’s shoulder, and Sophie playing with Parker’s hair. They are stronger together, use “we” when talking about the crew, etc. The end of the episode even cuts Parker off from asking if they are a polycule.

“The Polygeist Job” feels more like vintage Leverage than any other episode of Leverage: Redemption.

We know that the Leverage crew is family and not in a polyamorous relationship, but an old fan theory would suggest otherwise.

A running fan theory in the original series was that Eliot, Hardison (Aldis Hodge), and Parker were the real endgame relationship of the show, and the writers of the original series opted to put the trio in a lot of high-stakes situations together without the aid of their mentors, which only fueled the speculation. While they have never canonically been a romantic throuple, the fan theory remains, and the closeness of the team here is a nice nod to those fans (though Hardison is absent from this Leverage: Redemption episode).

With references from the polycule, the way the episode makes use of every main character in their distinctive roles, and the group still managing to pull off a win after one out-of-left-field complication, “The Polygeist Job” feels more like vintage Leverage than any other episode of Leverage: Redemption. That makes it a win.