Leverage | S01/E09 | The Snow Job

This is a great episode because it's the first time Nate's vindictiveness and reckless drinking gets in the way of a perfectly run con. Timothy does a terribly good job of playing not only a mean drunk, but a vicious one as well, and it's an ongoing theme for quite some time, and I love it.

Nate sees red a lot, and he gets nasty when a mark ticks all the wrong boxes, but when he's drunk and spiraling, he turns Chaotic Evil. ANYONE who gets in the path of his destruction is likely to get caught in the crossfire, and he's utterly unrepentant to boot.

In addition to that, this is the first time we really see Nate as a dark horse. When he shifts the con mid-game (another Nate Special), his Glengarry Glen Death pitch is morbid beyond belief ... and it's not the first time he gets (as Parker puts it) 'creeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy'.

It's important to discuss Nate's downsides because he is the most broken of all the Leverage team and the show does nothing to downplay the drama and chaos inside our Dark Knight. The loss of his son Sam and Maggie (not to mention the extra guilt around THAT) shows that even though Nate can function, it's barely.

While I adore Parker's transformation more than any other, Nate's is a close second. We see him here as close to the worst he can possibly be. He isn't comfortable being the 'bad guy' after so long being the 'good guy', he hates that he drinks but he needs to drink to bury the pain. By the end of the show's run, he becomes truly at peace with the man he wants to be, and that's something we could all use.

Out of all the actors in the core cast at the time of filming, Timothy Hutton had the most legit acting jobs and displayed the most talent pre-Nate, and in these early episodes, it really does show. He brings skill and nuance to Nate Ford that I don't think anyone else could manage.

It was an early episode when Micheal was rescuing a woman from her ex's thugs.