Nate’s plan is to steal the guy’s diamonds since they’re uninsured and the largest part of his assets…if they can find them. Hardison locates a Stradivarius violin the guy bought, that’s probably locked in the vault of a local concert hall. So Nate’s next big idea is to mess with the man himself, creating a fake interview which hilariously involves Hardison, an uncomfortable Eliot and a green screen. The fake interview gets leaked and of course, conveniently Sophie turns up with a solution. She gives him a fake profile of a guy from his country who came to the U.S. to study the violin — a hero he can make. Guess who it is? Hardison, who apparently is darn good with a violin, but gave it up after he discovered computers. (And as he mentioned in an exclusive interview, Aldis Hodge really is a violinist.)
Sophie and Hardison con the president’s brother well enough to get into the vault and see the expensive violin. Nate finds out that the lockers are named after musical terms, and that Parker thinks the vault is pretty much impenetrable (except once when the orchestra played the 1812 Overture). So Nate changes the plan, having Sophie pitch the idea of the bad guy throwing a concert for his brother’s imminent arrival, with Hardison as the star. Cue confused Hardison face. And the title of the episode comes from the title of the piece Sophie and Nate think he can play — which is way over his head. At least he gets to play the expensive violin.
Hardison turns up at the concert hall to meet the conductor and try not to fall flat on his face. He makes some excuse about his mother and ducks out of the rehearsal to buy himself some time. Meanwhile, Sophie and Eliot sneak around to get the access codes they need to get into the vault…or try to. Parker and Hardison think Nate is a psycho for trying to time the heist with the music, but that’s his big plan. At least until George Clooney’s girlfriend interrupts him again to stalk him. She wants something out of the safe too — an envelope leading to the man she is blackmailing them to catch. So now they’re doubly busy.
Nate tries to lead the team according to the piece, while Hardison tries valiantly to pull off the violin prodigy role. While Parker tries to decipher the vault code, Eliot goes and lays a smackdown on an Oakland Raider…or tries to. This takes longer than it usually does for Eliot. Nonetheless, they get into the vault with four and a half minutes to spare. Except the Oakland Raider is still trying to wail on Eliot while Parker waits to explode stuff. She blows the hole in the floor that gets them into the vault and knocks him out with it. Classic.
Finally we get to Hardison’s violin solo and shockingly, he pulls it off so well that everyone stops to listen. Aldis Hodge is truly talented, folks. Hardison leaves his teammates in awe, and gets a huge ovation. Unfortunately, gawking ran the team out of time. The bad guys find them all still in the vault. Nate decides now might be a good time to tell the president that his brother is trying to kill him, and of course all the evidence is carefully corroborated by events earlier in the episode, like always. Nate gets away with everything and delivers the envelope to George Clooney’s girlfriend — correctly deducing it really has to do with her. He is unimpressed with her, but hey, the world is a better place now…or at least on its way there.
We find out Eliot had the genius idea to sell the violin and give the money to help the poor country. Aw, isn’t he cute! Meanwhile, Parker can’t believe Hardison can actually play the violin that well. We come to find out Nate hypnotized him to get him to regress to his childhood violin expertise. His ego is wounded and he’s ticked off, and I can’t say I blame him. Poor guy thought he’d done something awesome on his own and no dice. As Sophie points out, Nate ends up alone again.
And…we’re already into reruns. Next Sunday will be a mini-marathon of the show’s four already-aired season three episodes, before the show comes back all new on July 11. Weird to burn them off so fast and jump into reruns so quickly, but at least it gives you something to do on the holiday, right? What do you think of the season so far? Let me hear it below.
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