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Cast: · Timothy Hutton · Christian Kane · Aldis Hodge · Gina Bellman · Beth Riesgraf · Clancy Brown Related Sites: · Read our interview with Leverage writer Geoff Thorne! Grade: A-

Clancy Brown guests on this week's Leverage as a sly dog who's gained clandestine access to lists of people who are behind on paying their taxes. They're on payment plans, but they're vulnerable to being scammed by his credit collections expertise, and he's draining their credit cards dry. It's just the sort of thing one turns to the Leverage team to get help with. Splitting up, Eliot and Hardison head toward a small town bank where the fellow hides his funds, to scare him into thinking the funds are no longer safe there. Meanwhile, Sophie and Parker enter his corporate offices to set up the sting.

Eliot (Christian Kane) thinks he's got the easy end, and has hauled Hardison out into the sticks along with him because he wants to enjoy the rest of the trip as a fishing expedition -- with dirt, and worms, and hooks, all things Hardison (Aldis Hodge) has had no hands-on experience with, nor wants to. But before they get very far, they discover the true purpose behind the collections scam when they are captured by a survivalist militia group building bombs financed by the stolen funds. Picture "Deliverance" recast with Kane and Hodge, and you're on the right track to visualizing this.

This gives team leader Nathan Ford (Timothy Hutton) two goals -- rescue the guys from the middle of nowhere, and assist Sophie (Gina Bellman) and Parker (Beth Riesgraf) to avoid detection as their cover becomes more and more tenuous. I particularly liked Parker's actions when posing as a telephone debt collector, although I did have a hard time believing she would forget about being on an open phone line at one point in the plot. It was also fun to see the usually at-odds Hardison and Eliot get an opportunity to do a bit of a "buddy adventure" in a setting that tests their relationship as much as it reveals its true nature to the audience.

Gone Fishin'. (l-r) Aldis Hodge and Christian Kane as Alec Hardison and Eliot Spencer in Leverage. photo credit: Erik Heinila/TNT

Leverage, "The Gone Fishin' Job," debuts Sunday at 9pm | 8pm CT on TNT.