Warning: This post contains spoilers for Leverage: Redemption Season 3, Episode 10.

season 3 has leaned into Parker (Beth Riesgraf) as its main character after allowing the first two seasons to be focused more heavily on Sophie (Gina Bellman) and Harry (Noah Wyle), and her side job in the finale is the culmination of the season’s exploration of who she is. Despite featuring the rest of the main cast in the episode, “The Side Job” is thoroughly Parker’s episode, and it makes great use of Riesgraf’s abilities.

The episode sees Parker pulling a con on a man (Ricardo S. Chavira) who uses child labor from the children of undocumented immigrants. It’s certainly relevant considering a lot of states have increased searches for undocumented immigrants and have relaxed their child labor laws. It’s also the perfect combination of hot-button topics for someone like Parker, who has a particular soft spot for kids who are taken advantage of. The episode takes some fantastic artistic risks and demonstrates how much Parker has grown as a character while still retaining the very “Parkerness” that makes us love her.

Most episodes of Leverage and Leverage: Redemption have the same format: the new client recounts how they were taken advantage of, the Leverage crew decides to take their case, the mark is conned with a complicated plan that seems to almost crumble. Here, we join a con already in progress that Parker is pulling on her own. The con is signified by it happening in black and white.

In fact, Parker models her con and the character she is playing after the femme fatales in film noirs. She mentions that she got the idea from the old movies that original series character Nate used to love. It’s a great way to remind the audience that the crew still misses the old mastermind of their schemes, even if the show has been able to successfully move on without him. It’s also a great showcase of Risegraf’s talent as Parker and .

Parker is completely different in this episode in a way that works perfectly for the character. Parker needs to live as the character she is pretending to be to pull off a long con, so her every mannerism is carefully controlled, and even her voice is just different enough to really sell the role. It’s so fun to watch Riesgraf embrace this part for Parker. It’s a long way from the young woman who stabbed a mark with a fork when he tried to hit on her in season 1 of the original series.

, enhancing the noir elements of Parker’s character.

Throughout the episode, the team wonders why Parker is pulling a con without them and why she is doing it the way she is. Parker ropes each member of the team into the con at different points, and each time, they strike up the conversation about the why of it all. Sophie thinks Parker is searching for the rush that comes from improvising an unplanned con; Breanna thinks Parker is looking to innovate old cons; and Harry (Noah Wyle) thinks Parker is looking to understand why people change through the con itself.

Every time, Parker’s response is “something like that,” and it is not until the con is actually over that we learn Parker’s real reason. It pays off a conversation between Parker and Hardison (Aldis Hodge) from the start of the season when he decides to take some time off because he is not sure he wants to be in the field anymore. Parker and Hardison both question why they do what they do — crime in the name of good — and here, Parker offers up her answer, complete with a presentation and a binder full of facts for Hardison.

The situation is a great reminder that Parker has always been a little different from the rest of the team. She has never been good at understanding her feelings, but she always enjoyed crime. Those aspects of her personality are combined to make it seem like the darkness in her is pulling her under during the con as she threatens to kill the mark, and Eliot (Christian Kane) offers her his unconditional support.

The mark and the audience fully believe Parker in the moment, but the fact that the scene of her threatening the man’s life is still in black-and-white shows that it is part of the con, and not Parker losing control. , which is what she loves to do. As she points out, the “why” does not really matter as long as she loves it, and we love Parker for that.

I also particularly love the use of Eliot's character in this episode. While Parker is able to predict every move the rest of her team will make, she has complete faith in Eliot's ability to read her better than anyone else. She knows he will follow Harry to keep him safe, will track her phone (and the mark's) to keep an eye on her, and she knows he will be the one to pull her back from the edge if necessary. .

Despite the heavy-handed themes of redemption in this episode, complete with Parker forcing the mark to learn empathy by leaving him on the run in Colombia, “The Side Job” does not feel like the final chapter of the season. Leverage season finales typically feature the return of a bad guy from the past and the team closing a previous chapter of their lives. That’s not what this episode does.

Instead, it feels like we’re still in the middle of the story. Even Harry’s distracting subplot about trying to reconnect with his mother and set boundaries with her is unfinished. He wants to take Sophie to meet her as his best friend. While that provides a sweet moment between them, it also feels like the start of a new story point for them that we are not getting to see play out, something Leverage does not often do with its finales.

If anything, , tying up old loose ends and bringing back familiar faces. That episode, however, was missing half of the cast. At least here, the audience gets to see everyone, even Wyle and Hodge, who are recurring special guest stars this season, back with the team.

“The Side Jump” does make great use of Risegraf’s talents and an experimental episode format to give us a great ride. It just leaves me wanting even more and hoping that season 4 is on the way.