Leverage season one ended with the group having gone their separate ways and their base of operations all blown up. The second season picks up a while later with Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton) on his own and slowly finding himself longing for fighting the good fight. Similarly, Sophie (Gina Bellman), Eliot (Christian Kane), Parker (Beth Riesgraf) and Hardison (Aldis Hodge) are finding difficulty in resuming their previous lives and looking for reasons to work together. In short, they all discover that not only do bad guys sometimes make the best good guys, but they as a group make a great team. Over the course of the second season the group faces news challenges such as Nate’s constant battle avoiding another drink, Sophie disappearing to find herself and sending Tara (Jeri Ryan) to replace her and the return of faces from the past that are friendly (Nate’s ex-wife Maggie, played by Kari Matchett) and not-so (Nate’s nemesis Sterling, played by Mark Sheppard). All of this culminates in a surprising season finale that will leave you anticipating the third season, which begins airing on TNT Sunday, June 20th. Pick up this DVD to get all caught up and ready for the new run of episodes.
Each of the fifteen episodes is presented in Widescreen format and Dolby Digital 5.1. These episodes look and sound amazing and, even on DVD, will be great to watch on your HD TV. Every episode has a commentary track featuring a mix of cast and crew. There are some great Special Features included in this set, starting with a Q & A with the creators of the show, John Rogers, Chris Downey and Dean Devlin. John Rogers also gives a video tour of the two main sets for season two, Nate’s loft and McCrory’s Bar. This tour also reveals some nifty behind the scenes details. Next is the “Behind the Boom” featurette which shows how a huge special effects scene is put together and also gives insight into exactly how they got away with blowing up the Leverage HQ at the end of last year. Series music composer Andy Lange gets a spotlight, as he should. The last two features are the funny ones, being a gag reel shown at the season two wrap party and a spoof video with Aldis Hodge entitled “The Hand Job.” The gag reel reveals on-set flubs as well as some pieces with the crew that need to be seen. Aldis’ video shows his attempts to teach the viewer how to run some real-life cons with varying degrees of success…ok, no real success at all.
This is a great set for a terrific show and is available now at Amazon or your favorite retailer. You have plenty of time to get all caught up before season three or even just to re-watch a great collection of episodes. Pick it up today and keep checking back with Pop Culture Zoo for more on the new season of Leverage.
