Leverage Episode 2.05 The Three Nights of the Hunter Job

Monica Hunter, a TV journalist, reporting that a school bus driver, Ray Pennington, had caused a crash by driving erratically. Ray's daughter comes home and finds that Ray has tried to commit suicide.The daughter tells Nate that she saved her father's life, and that the police cleared Ray of any guilt concerning the crash. She says she doesn't want money, but she wants her father's good name back, which Monica Hunter stole. Sophie decides to take Nate's job for this case. Nate says it's a need for control after her breakup, but Sophie says she just needs a new challenge.

Sophie plans to get the network to deliver a complete apology to Ray despite minor opposition from the team as to her taking the lead. Hardison explains Monica's show, 'Hunt for the Truth'. She basically makes a hatchet job to ruin an innocent person, who then can't sue. Sophie's plan is to get Monica to run a story that will destroy her reputation by offering her a story that would get her respect.

Parker has to work hard, but she manages to get herself caught stealing Monica's press badge. Monica 'convinces' Parker to tell her about the 'huge story' she found. Parker brings Monica to her source's house, where Monica meets Hardison: with an afro! 'Wade Perkins' is a bit off-kilter and Monica is going to leave, but she notices Eliot walking down the hallway, then leaving when she sees him.

Suspicious, she listens to Hardison's' story about secret prisons being built in underground bunkers at abandoned military bases to replace Guantanamo Bay. Parker says her other source is General Mark Chesler, who works at the Pentagon.

Eliot manages to steal the real General's ID badge and give it to Nate. Monica is even more convinced of the story's truth when she sees Eliot in the building and assumes he's following them. Monica has her cameraman film her asking Nate about the secret prisons, and he denies everything, which she takes as a good sign. They sneak into the General's office and Parker finds a red file with everything on the bunkers. Monica tells Parker to bring Hardison to her studio for filming.

When Parker and Hardison arrive, Monica tells them she's not running the story because it would comfort the people of America to think hear about the prisons, while she sells her program by scaring people. Sophie comes up with a new plan.

The next day, Parker meets Monica at a coffee shop saying that 'this is bigger than we thought'. Monica is skeptical until Parker is hit by a car. Eliot takes the red file and drives off, making sure Monica recognizes him.

Hardison brings Monica to deserted building to meet the general, where he tells her the 'truth': a weapons research lab spilled a nerve gas into the water, which Hardison says will get all over the country because of the rain cycle. Nate says the toxin should take effect in a few days, and that the bunkers aren't actually prisons, but safe houses for the country's elite, with water filters to keep them safe from the poisoned water. Nate tells Monica to ask her sources about 'Project Destiny'.

Hardison finds Monica's sources and blocks her from contacting all but one. When she asks her last source, a congressman, about Destiny, he thinks she's talking about his favorite stripper and tells Monica to never tell anyone about it. This convinces her that the team's story is true, and she becomes afraid of all the water she sees. A few hours later, Monica visits the apartment Hardison was using and makes him take her to an army base to film it, thinking it's one of the bunkers.

Hardison films Monica as she climbs over the fence surrounding the army base, and they both get caught immediately. Monica and Hardison are interrogated, and Hardison stalls his interrogator with information Eliot struggled to find using Hardison's computer. Nate, dressed as a General, manages to get onto the army base and tells the officers interrogating Monica and Hardison that they were a test of the base's security. Nate gives Monica some trimethylxanthine, which he says slows the effect of the toxin, and drives Monica off the base, running from the base's security.

Monica takes Nate to Hardison's apartment, which is completely empty. Eliot scares Monica, and she runs away with the red file, after pepper spraying Nate. Monica goes to her station and interrupts the stock program for an 'emergency broadcast'. She starts talking about the government conspiracy and the poisoned water. When she goes to show the red file, it has been replaced by other papers. She is arrested by security, who finds the trimethylxanthine; apparently it's an antipsychotic.

Ray is vindicated, and the team celebrates by telling confusing Parker about conspiracy theories. Sophie tells Nate she feels lost, and Nate says he's there to help her just like she helped him when he was drunk.