Jun 17, 2013 - 'Client List' Season 3 Pickup In Limbo Over Storyline Standoff With Jennifer Love Hewitt. Writers' vision and the fact that Colin Egglesfield has an established fan base to leverage. Lifetime should listen to hewitt as The best episodes of Client List are those she directs. Pedro • on Jun 17, 2013 7:16 pm.
![Download Leverage Season 3 Episode 16 Download Leverage Season 3 Episode 16](http://toptvseries.biz/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/5ENJSuaRR5xaoX2CvK785GTFjsq.jpg)
Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton) and his clever team of con artists return to take on more corruption in the third season of the primetime drama 'Leverage'. As the season gets underway, we find Nate locked up in a supermax prison, and working with the team on the outside to expose the penitentiary's nefarious warden. Later, the team sets their sights on a corrupt pharmaceutical industry CEO, Nate learns that his father Jimmy Ford (Tom Skerritt) is in bed with the Russian and Irish mobs, Eliot (Christian Kane) reveals his dark side after revealing he once worked for crime boss Damien Moreau (Goran Visnjic), who attempts to sell a bomb at an auction and elude justice by fleeing to San Lorenzo.
Hot on the trail of Moreau, the team goes to San Lorenzo, with help from the Italian spy, who mourns that Damien Moreau will never leave SL. Flores, an old friend of Eliot, was running for President against Moreau puppet, Ribera, when the General was suddenly imprisoned as an enemy of the State. In the last days of the election, UN inspectors are everywhere, and Nate is determined to find a candidate and run an American-style election. Enter innocent schoolteacher, Michael Vittori. On Nate's side: a 24 year old genius with a smart phone and a problem with authority. Do Moreau and Ribera even stand a chance? I've been rather hard on this show over the previous two seasons – mainly over the way it seemed content to just exist, produce easy TV and then retire to an eternity of filling the afternoon schedules in the lack of anything else.
I don't say I've been 'unfair' because this has been true for the first two seasons and even this third one has elements of it. The main difference for me here is that it does actually have a whack at having a season-long narrative as well as improving in several other areas. The plots remain the same (helping people who have been wronged by the rich/powerful) but in the background we have the gang being forced to try and take down a powerful criminal banker, Damien Moreau. The opening double episode that set up this plot offered me hope that it would be well used but unfortunately they conclude that episode by deciding they will flush out Moreau by simply continuing to help people each week!
And so they do and we're back to the case per week format without much mention of Moreau. This improves at the usual points (mid-season break and the final 3 or so episodes) and it works well enough but I would have liked it to have been better integrated into the whole season.
The individual episodes are generally better and I found I enjoyed more of them. Some of them still have the 'sad-eyed member of public' establishing scene that plays out overly worthy, tragic music – I guess such scenes are the cost of doing business but the stronger episodes manage to setup without such cloying melodrama. The various plots are mostly nonsense but, melodrama aside, they seem to be slowly getting better at the light touch that such caper productions need.
![Download Download](http://toptvshows.co/images/poster/Leverage%20season%201%202%203%204%205%20%20poster.jpg)
The humour is better and more consistent than before and it makes it easier to go with the plots because they are quite fun. It still can't shake off the rather 'low-rent' feel that it has though and I'm not entirely sure where that is coming from.
Perhaps the camera/film? Because it doesn't quite have the slick 'look' that it could do with as an extra touch. It still does have some weaker episodes (such as the one with the mine) but there are also stronger ones such as The Rashomon Job which was a hoot start to finish. The cast are decent but also, if I'm honest, a little bit of a limiting factor in how slick and glossy it can look. I like Hutton but he is no George Clooney in terms of the type of presence and charisma that his role requires; the sub-plot regarding his alcoholism is just something I wish would go away. Bellman is equally not brilliant but good enough – the various characters and voices she has to affect show her limits, which is a bit of a problem for someone supposed to be a great grifter. Kane also continues to look like a Division 1 footballer with that haircut and it doesn't help that some of the plots have him looking all sincere and deep (he can't do either), but he is very good at the physical work and also mock annoyance with Hodge.
Speaking of whom, Hodge remains my favourite because, although his geek material is easy, he does seem to fit and he looks good in the role and commands attention. Riesgraf also has better material this season and is funnier for it.
The various guests are TV-grade but do OK; Canalis cannot act but has the legs, Wheaton is one for the geeks (and also a link to director Frakes) while Visnjic is OK in the main villain role but perhaps not as impacting as I had hoped for. Overall Leverage is still a genre-show that sticks to its formula but this third seasons sees that formula working better thanks to an improved freshness in the writing and a more consistent tone. The melodrama is a limiter and it still isn't as slick as the material could do with it being, but it is fun and showing a bit more awareness of what viewers want from it.