‘Leverage: Redemption’ Recap – ‘The Golf Job’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Twelve of ‘Leverage: Redemption’.

​Over the course of the past eleven episodes, Leverage: Redemption, has done a phenomenal job of spotlighting a great many of the modern injustices people currently struggle with in the real world. For we’ve been exposed to the horrors of corporate greed, and how some members of big pharma are about profits over people. Plus, we’ve also been able to enjoy stories that remind us of the wonder of just being decent to one another, since Team Leverage has taken the time to go above and beyond for people that don’t fit their operational profile, simply because helping them is the right thing to do and taking the time to make someone’s life better, pays off in more ways than we can ever imagine. 

But, the show has yet to really examine some of the world’s worst monsters. Those inhuman pieces of trash that see their fellow man as a commodity or a product and it makes sense as to why the series has held back from looking at people like that. Because what they do is as terrifying as can be, and it really is uncomfortable to learn more about their actions and how they prey upon the innocent. But as it turns out, the show wasn’t trying to hide away from monsters of that sort, it was looking for the right opportunity to put their gross actions in the limelight. Specifically, when the audience was so hungry for justice, it would be fine with seeing the team go after such pieces of garbage and well… after eleven episodes full of infuriating moments of injustice, the show's next episode served as the perfect moment to spotlight the worst of the worst

A feat that the ‘The Golf Job’ accomplishes, by having Harry and Eliot and Eliot’s old friend, Jack Hurley, be thrust into a case involving human trafficking, unexpectedly and without support (since the rest of the team had other Leverage stuffs to do), when they ran into an outright monster named Carl on the back nine. Since they quickly figured out that Carl was big on moving people as product and our trio was so incensed and disgusted by learning about what Carl did for a living… that they immediately went above and beyond to catch him so that the people he was buying and selling could go free and so that he could spend the rest of his life in jail, and that led to some moving and inspiring sequences. Wherein we saw Harry and Eliot move outside of their usual comfort zones to bring this guy to justice and thankfully, they did, before more trafficked people were sold into Carl’s ‘corporation’.

But what matters more about this plot and this quest to bring Carl down, is that it really did do a fine job of spotlighting a topic that we don’t talk about all that often. Because human trafficking sadly is a thing in 2021 and what makes it taboo and uncomfortable to discuss… is that people really don’t think it is a possibility in this modern world. But this episode goes to show that this is indeed a problem. one that has been allowed to thrive for far too long because of its outlandish nature and this collective desire to believe it is an impossibility. So this episode really does deserve a round of applause for showcasing a real-world problem that makes everyone uncomfortable to think about, and for also offering up a potential solution to this problem. Since this episode exposed the reality that this kind of work takes a team of twisted individuals to accomplish.

Which means that having law enforcement really work that angle and go after every single associate involved in such a heinous crime, would not only bring down a network of traffickers but hopefully help expose a few others or put the fear of incarceration into the rest of them to stop this now. Which might be an imperfect answer, but it is a start, and that attempt to try and fix something this awful, once again speaks to the wonder of this show and this episode. One that also made sure to keep things light by way of Harry and Eliot and Jack’s comedic moments on the green and in between and it was also refreshing to see Harry make a grand effort to redeem himself here, since he has been eager to do more of that since day one and well, now that this fascinating and bold tale has come to a close, it will be interesting to see what other brave storylines this series has lined up as we begin to wrap up the  season. Until next time.

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