- The Leverage team's holiday good deed goes awry when their attempt to give a small-town librarian the spy-thriller adventure of a lifetime is interrupted by a shadowy spy organization.
- The team tries to give a dying librarian a spy thriller adventure before he expires, but they discover the man is more than he appears and more capable than they thought. Meanwhile, Bligh and her RIZ team get involved, looking for a dark secret from the librarian's past.—Gislef
- In Kenner, LA, a girl, Emma is getting books at the local library. The librarian, Mr. Blanche, gives her one more book as a recommendation. Once Emma leaves, a man looking on, Maurice, comments on Blanche helping the girl and how Blanche gave him a book to read when he was Emma's age. Blanche has a heart attack and collapses, and Maurice goes to his side and have someone call 911.
At the bar, Harry is talking to his daughter Nicki on the phone as he comes in. As he hangs up the call, Sophie comes up behind Harry and they talk about the holidays with their loved ones gone are bad for them. They join the others having Christmas dinner, and someone knocks at the door. Eliot answers it, and finds Maurice there. Maurice says that he needs the team's help, and when they let him, Maurice explains how Blanche gave him refuge when he was a fifth-grader being chased by bullies. Tghen he says that Blanche has stage-four cancer and refuses to get treatment, and is having episodes with his heart. Sophie wonders how they can help, and Maurice explains that he wants them to make Blanche feel like a hero like the ones in his books, for one day.
Once Maurice leaves, Sophie tells the others that what Maurice is asking isn't what they do. Parker figures that lying to people during Christmas is what the holiday is about, and the others agree. Sophie finally gives in and says they have to treat Blanche like any other mark.
Later at the library, Breana and Eliot run surveillance on and Breana admires the library's "antique" computers. She gets a list of every book Blanche has checked out over the years and sends the list to the others at the bar. Meanwhile, a local tries to take out a homeless person and Blanche objects. When the local threatens to get violence, Eliot grabs his hand and tells him to leave. Once the local leaves, Blanche asks Eliot what he can do for him. Eliot leaves with Breana and a book, and figures they should give Blanche a spy adventure. Someone is running surveillance on Eliot.
Back at the bar, the team rehearses the parts in their spy drama, written by Sophie. Breana figures they need a safe word, and Sophie leaves it up to Eliot. Eliot goes back to the library pretending to be shot and tells Blanche that he needs his help. Blanche threatens to call the police, and Eliot tells Blanche that he's a spy, but was compromised, needs to get a thumb drive to his case worker, and asks Blanche to help him. Blanche agrees and Eliot takes the librarian out to his car, Blanche steals a nearby car because Eliot's enemies will know his car. At the bar, Breana thanks Sophie for doing it for them, and Sophie says that she's doing it for Nate, who would have hated it. She figures they all need a nudge out of their comfort zone.
Eliot says that he needs to send an encrypted message to his case officer, and needs to find a hacker on the dark web. He gives Blanche his phone with the GPS location, and Blanche tosses it out the window so no one can trace the phone. Blanche says that he learned how to hotwire a car from his misspent teen years, and says that it's the most alive he's felt in years. They go to a planetarium where Parker pretends to be a hacker, because Sophie needs Breana to be the real hacker. Blanche figures they should check to see if the drive has been wiped, and Breana realizes there's nothing on it except Eliot's secret chili recipe. Breana sends Parker the real file.
Blanche and Eliot go to the address on the drive, which is a wine & beer garden, to make the drop. Breana and Parker are in a food truck nearby monitoring the situation, and Parker serves cocoa. Sophie reviews the script for the "big action scene", complete with three of Eliot's soldier buddies as stuntmen. Harry is wearing an eyepatch and a fake mustache, and goes in to get the drive. Eliot gives Harry the drive, and Blanche notices the customers acting suspicious and punches Harry and unconscious, then tells Eliot that it's a setup. Sophie tells Eliot over the comms that Blanche is hooked and Eliot should go with it. Eliot does, and the stuntmen come in. Blanche does surprisingly well, but one of them tasers Eliot. The other stuntmen knock down Blanche and leave with Eliot.
Blanche recovers and steals a motorbike, and goes after the "stuntmen". Meanwhile, Parker and Breana realize the "stuntmen" aren't the men Eliot brought in, and go back to the bar to tell Sophie and Harry. They got the drop on Eliot's team, knocked them out and tied them up in their own van. Parker brings in Blanche's bag and discovers there's spy equipment in it, and they realize Blanche is actually a spy.
The RIZ thugs take Eliot to a secret lair where Bligh is waiting. She refuses to say who she's working for, has decrypted the drive, and knows it's not the real Ledger. She compliments Eliot on finding Copperhead and reactivating him, and asks where the real Ledger is. Eliot plays along, saying the Ledger is In his truck, and Bligh has one of her men inject Eliot with a psychotropic to get him to tell the truth.
Breana checks the DoD database and determine Blanche used to be a black-bag op, and 30 years ago he vanished... just when he became a librarian. Blanche comes in, aiming a gun at the team, and tells them that they should tell him who they are and what's going on.
Bligh tells Eliot that when Copperhead retired, he took a cache of information with him, about people who are now leaders of nations and want the information found. Nobody thought Copperhead was still alive until the team went after him, and people saw Blanche's picture. Bligh thought the team was running a con to get the Ledger, and wants to know where Copperhead is. Eliot says that he doesn't know and wouldn't talk if he did, and Bligh explains that the drug he was given will bombard him with his most traumatic memories. When she mentions the code name of an operation Eliot was a part of, he has PTAS.
The team tell Blanche what they were doing, and Harry points out that Eliot is missing. Blanche figures the men that attacked him were private security, but doesn't know the major players in the present. Sophie figures that it's RIZ, and Harry suggests Breana check the Flanders group, the shell corporation Breana confirms that they have office space in an office park outside of town. Blanche has slipped away, and Sophie realizes where he's heading. She refuses to let Blanche die of stage-four cancer on a mission they guilted him into, and Sophie tells Harry to stay there if Blanche comes back.
Bligh continues to taunt Eliot about how he avoids seeing his father, and says that she'll make the PTSD stop if he gives her Copperhead. Eliot recites his chili recipe, and Bligh tells her man to give Eliot another dose. Once Bligh leaves, Eliot breaks the chair he's tied to and takes out the RIZ guard, then leaves.
Outside in the truck, Breana confirms that the loading dock is the only way in. She remote-disables the camera on the dock, but warns that it will take time. They back the truck in instead, to block the camera, and Parker climbs onto the roof. Meanwhile, Blanche finds Eliot after taking out the remaining guards and takes him out. Parker joins them and gets them out the way she came in, and they take Eliot back to the bar and flushes his system with saline to get the psychotropic out. Eliot figures Bligh will keep coming until she gets the Ledger, and Blanche says the Ledger no longer exists because it got destroyed on his last op. Nobody would believe that, so Blanche ran, and hid as a small town librarian. Now the people Blanche knows will never be safe, and Sophie suggests they give RIZ a fake Ledger. Breana figures she can fake a dummy floppy disk to convince RIZ the data broke down over time. Harry says he can arrange the hand off, and he has way of getting into his old firm's holiday party. Parker has gotten a tuxedo for Harry, and not very convincingly claims that she bought it.
Harry and Sophie go to the party at a private club, and Sophie points out that he's still keeping secrets from the team. Blight comes over and introduces herself, invites Sophie to come to her with the signed auction, and tells Harry to stay behind. As they go, Bligh says she's becoming annoyed with the team's interference. She tells Sophie that if the team gives her Copperhead, she's let the team go. Sophie says that she'll giver Blight the Ledger, if Blight lets Copperhead go. If Blight refuses, Sophie will sell the Ledger to Blight's biggest competitor, and walks away
Harry meets one of his former partners, John Safer, at a church. Safer doesn't believe that Harry is seeking redemption, and figures the team doesn't know about Harry's crooked past. Harry admits the choices he made cost him his marriage and his daughter, and neither one of them have to keep making bad choices. Safer admits that sent the invitation to Harry, and has Harry's office waiting for him as he leaves.
Eliot and Blanche meet at the library, as Breana makes the fake disk out in the foot truck, and Blanche admits that he knows about "Operation: Kansas" that Blight was torturing Eliot with earlier. He figures it isn't easy for Eliot to keep it down, and Eliot wonders why Blanche isn't seeking treatment for his cancer. Blanche says that isn't how he wants to go out, and Eliot figures that Blanche sounds like his father, and says that he hasn't spoken to him since he was 18. He feels like he's waited too long, and Blanche sympathizes as the disk finishes. The power goes out, The three RIZ men go into the library, gun drawn, and Breana sets off the squibs in the books. Their opponents return fire, and one man goes to turn on the lights. Harry takes him out with a cattle prod, and Eliot attacks another with a library cart. Blanche takes on another, who knocks Blanche out, and Eliot fights the third and final man. One man tries to shoot Eliot, and Blanche jumps in the way and takes the bullet meant for Eliot. The shooter uses a sonic stunner on Eliot, also hitting the others the backlash. He gets the floppy from Blanche and leaves.
Eliot goes to Blanche, administers CPS, and yells for help.
The next day, Bligh and two of her men grab the shooter, and Bligh point out that the disk data is corrupted and Blanche is worth nothing to her dead. and he's terminated... but it's a business and she isn't going kill him. If he violates his NDA, she'll expose his past.
At the library, Breana confirms that there's no bugs, and Blanche reveals that he was wearing a blood pack, and Parker secretly gave the RIA men blanks in their clips, and they all used the same type of guns. Harry has found the book that Blanche checked out every year, that he hid the Ledger desk in. .Eliot assures Blanche that he saved the lives of everyone that came into the library, and changed others. He gives Blanche the keys to the red Ferrari he was going to use in the con, so Blanche doesn't have to hotwire it. Blanche eagerly takes the keys and gives Eliot the disk, but first Blanche tells Eliot not to wait.
That night at the bar, Sophie hands out gifts. She tells Harry to keep trying to bond with his daughter, and Hardison sends a text to Parker saying he sent Maurice. Breana says that the information on Blanche's disk was unreadable, while Eliot goes to his family holiday party and gets a text from his sibling that his father isn't coming. Disappointed, Eliot goes back to the bar. drinking the alcohol he was going to give his father as a gift.
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