TV Review: Leverage - The Office Job (2011)

TV Series: Leverage (2008-2012) - USAEpisode: The Office Job (Season 4, Episode 12; Original Airdate: Dec. 4, 2011)Directed by Jonathan FrakesSeries Regulars: Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf, Aldis HodgeGuest Stars: Josh Randall, Gene Freedman, Blake Lindsley, Peter Stormare
It's Leverage meets The Office in perhaps the funniest episode of the series and one of the most entertaining.
A long time employee of the Good Cheer Greeting Card Company has been fired but smells a rat as he suspects the CEO of embezzlement and driving the company into the ground. The team goes in under the guise of efficiency consultants but find themselves in the midst of an ongoing documentary being filmed at the same time. Improvising, they use the camera crew to their advantage, but it soon becomes evident that things aren't as clear cut as a simple embezzlement as the CEO is too dimwitted to accomplish that on his on, if he's even involved, and if it's even embezzlement that is at the heart of the matter.
Leverage often has tongue in cheek moments but this one episode goes for the throat in humor. In a parody of The Office, the Leverage team takes asides from the job at hand to speak to the camera about each other providing some humorous moments. Unlike The Office, this is actually funny.
The one difference I found was the usually astute and well planned Leverage team in this is more improvisational. They roll with the punches well and everything comes out fine in the end as is always the case, but getting there has several detours for the sake of humor that the usual episode does not.
My Rating: 5 Fingers. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and it had become one of my favorites, it is a different approach to both the usual assignment and on the characters themselves which some purists may find a little off-putting...but not me.
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