| “ | you really are beautiful.... | ” |
— Nate, to Sophie | ||
From TNT: While searching for a philanthropist’s missing wife, the team comes up against a grifter ring running a web of sophisticated “Sweetheart Scams”. Now, Nate must learn how to steal hearts… or risk losing Sophie’s for good.
The Client
Wealthy businessman and philanthropist Walt Whitman Wellesley IV contacts Nate and the team to find his young wife, Lacey, who went missing four days previously, with no indication of abduction or a ransom demand. Lacey, who turns out to have been a part of a dangerous ring in a series of Sweetheart Scams, seduced Wellesley and married him for access to his money, only to fall in love with him. Nate skeptically agrees to help Wellesley in return for an indeterminate favor.
The Mark
Meredith and her partner Oscar San Guillermo run charity bachelor auctions which are, in actuality, a front for their ring of "black widows" - pretty, young women who seduce the wealthy bachelors they bid on in order to marry them for their money. Oscar is the face of the auction and Meredith's muscle. Meredith has already murdered several of their unsuspecting victims, some of whom were her own husbands.
The Con
Guest Cast
Leon Rippy continues his recurring role as Latimer in this episode.
- Walt Whitman Wellesley IV (David Ogden Stiers)
- Meredith (Emma Caulfield)
- Oscar San Guillermo (Cas Anvar)
Episode Notes
- As Nate notes, Walt Whitman Wellesley IV is the type of person the team usually targets, and Nate is openly hostile to him in the episode's opening scenes. Consequently, Nate agrees to take Wellesley's case only with the understanding that he can call in a favor and take advantage of Wellesley's power and influence at some time in the future. This is the second lofty connection Nate has made during the winter season, the first being his acquaintance with Mr. Conrad (CIA) in The Experimental Job. The season ends before Nate collects on the favor.
- Parker mentions that fact that her plant "does something", a callback to the second episode of the first season when she asks Hardison "What do plants do?" after buying one for her office.
Trivia
- David Ogden Stiers' character's name, Walt Whitman Wellesley IV, is very likely in part a wink to Stiers' most famous role, Boston Brahmin surgeon Charles Emerson Winchester III, in the 1970s television comedy M*A*S*H. The character's name itself is a combination of the names of American poet Walt Whitman, known for his patriotic poetry written during the Civil War, and Wellesley College, a private liberal arts college located in Boston. One of the "Seven Sisters" women's colleges, Wellesley was founded in 1870.