The Wedding Job

To retrieve the money promised to the family of an innocent man, Ray Palermo, who took the fall for mafia boss Nicky Moscone, the Leverage team poses as the wedding planners for the don's only daughter, Maria on her big day. Somehow, the team must manage to pull off a wedding in the midst of pulling off the heist, all while avoiding a dangerous Russian mobster known as "The Butcher of Kiev".

## Locations

* Los Angeles, California
	+ Brava Cucina Italian Restaurant

## The Con

Parker and Hardison pretend to be FBI agents to get access to the surveillance van so they can copy a FBI badge. Eliot uses the badge to get the surveillance, but they are all on cassette tapes and therefore Hardison's flash drive is not useful. Since they can't get access any other way, Sophie poses as a wedding planner and brings the team in as her consultants. Nate poses as the priest, Eliot the chef, Hardison the DJ, and Parker a dressmaker. The team are still yet to find the money by the day of the wedding.

The Butcher of Kiev is one of the guests with the Russian mob. He has a history with Eliot and would want to kill him if he sees him. Nate wants to leave but Sophie refuses to abandon her friend Theresa or the bride.

While Nate officiates the wedding, Parker goes to the screening room which is the last room the team hasn't searched for the cash. However, not long after she breaks into the room, Sergei of the Russian mob and Nicky Moscone come into the room before she can find it. She hides behind a curtain. Moscone opens the briefcase only for them both to see it's empty because someone has already stolen the money. Parker lets the team know that the money is gone.

Nate looks around the wedding tent to see if he can figure out who took the money. When he spots Heather he remembers a phone conversation she was on when he walked in on her earlier. She told Nate to get out of the room just before insistently telling someone over the phone "It's in the screening room!" Nate tells Sophie to get Heather's phone.

Meanwhile, in the screening room, Sergei pulls a gun on Moscone, insisting he gets his money, especially since the man he shot in the restaurant was Sergei's brother. Moscone, obviously shocked at that revelation, states that was just a misunderstanding just before Sergei's phone rings. When he answers the phone, Nate and Sophie are shown to have called him from Heather's phone, revealing that Sergei and Heather are the ones that stole the money.

Nate tells Eliot to get to the screening room. As he turns to walk out, he runs into the Butcher of Kiev. Nate reveals Heather and Sergei's plan. Sergei can now kill Moscone in revenge for killing his brother and Heather walks away with all of the money that Moscone has in her name in his Cayman accounts.

While Eliot is fighting off the Butcher and his men in the kitchen, Parker stumbles out from behind the curtain pretending to be drunk. Because of her plot, Sergei and Moscone leave the room. Sergei starts to lead Moscone away from the wedding, however, Hardison pulls Moscone away to do the father/daughter dance, saving his life. Nate finds the cash and tells Eliot to "Put it in the trunk." Hardison makes an excuse to get the bridge and groom on their way to the honeymoon early, thus getting them out of danger.

Sophie finds Heather attempting to run away and warns her that Moscone is just about to discover that she's the one who sold him out. Heather grabs her bags and runs, driving away quickly.

### The Reveal

After Heather leaves, Moscone rings the bank in the Cayman Islands and changes the passcodes while Hardison listens in, and then Hardison cleans out the bank account, leaving Moscone "$5 for socks". Eliot puts the remaining cash in the newlyweds' car.

When the team gives Theresa the money, they also show her a news report saying that new evidence has come up in her husband's case. Hardison had connected his bugs to the FBI's bug signal so they overhead Moscone and Sergei's conversation, where he referred to murdering the man in the Palermo's restaurant.

By the end, the Palermo restaurant opens with the team celebrating with Theresa and her daughter. They also reveal to her that Ray has been cleared of all charges and will be released soon to rejoin his family.

## Guest Cast

* Dan Lauria as Nicky Moscone
* Nicole Sullivan as Heather Moscone
* Andrew Divoff as Sergei
* Rick Overton as FBI Special Agent Taggert
* Gerald Downey as Special Agent Todd McSweeten

## Aliases

* FBI Special Agent Thomas (Hardison)
* FBI Special Agent Hagen (Parker)
* Ruby Holden (Sophie)

## Notes

* The aliases Hardison and Parker use - FBI Agents Thomas and Hagen - reference Thomas Hagen, a character from the movie *The Godfather*, which also featured mobsters and organised crime
* This episode was to have featured the first appearance of FBI Agents Taggert and McSweeten, who also appear in The Bank Shot Job and The Fairy Godparents Job. However, when TNT moved this episode back in the broadcast schedule, we first meet the agents in "The Bank Shot Job".
* The broadcast order also made Hardison's question about Eliot and marriage odd as in The Two-Horse Job, which aired earlier, he met Aimee Martin.