Sunday, May 31, 2009

5.1 Return of the Prodigal


Summary and Spoilers

Mickey Bricks is back, fresh from selling the Sydney Opera House to a series of marks. He’s interested in rounding up some of the old team. Eddie closed his bar and is working in a posh restaurant. Albert is in jail for cheating at cards – but he’s got a mark for his old friend. Ash is up for it, but Danny and Stacie are still in the USA.

The mark is Sarah Naismith, a good looking woman on the outside, but a scruples-free property developer in reality, someone who moves in after great tragedies like earthquakes, buys up cheap land, and then bribes government officials to avoid meeting building regulations. To trap her, Ash sets up an elaborate office con that makes Mickey look like he’s got insider stock information. Sarah buys everything and prepares to invest one million pounds, but makes things difficult when she insists that Mickey match her investment so that he is under the same risk. There’s another small problem as well: the entire con is being watched by a shady character and his goons, and he’s just waiting for the guys to make their score before he swoops in and takes it away.

Comments

There’s a remarkable, unexpected twist in this episode – so please don’t read any further if you haven’t seen it yet! All through the episode, this ‘mobster’ type is looking for two con artists. We see his goons watching Mickey and Ash outside the building where they are throwing the faux cocktail party and assume, of course, that this is who they are watching. However, unbeknownst to us, the mark and her personal assistant are also cons, and they are the two cons that these guys are following! This has to be the best twist ever in Hustle history; they’ve had some good ones before, but this one is virtually unpredictable.

As if that wasn’t enough of a twist, it turns out that Albert set this whole thing up, telling each of these pairs that the other was a legitimate mark!

By the end of the episode, we’ve got a new crew again; Mickey agrees to try one score with Emma (Kelly Adams) and Sean (Matt Di Angelo).

This show is just not going to be the same without the animated Danny and the ever-beautiful and ever-clever Stacie. Both had scheduling conflicts. My understanding is that Stacie will be back for season six; I’m not sure about Danny.

Hustle Quotes

Aaron: Maybe we should have bought his girlfriend something.
Sarah: A new schoolbag, perhaps.

2 comments:

  1. Are you sure that Stacie is due back for series 6? I understood that Emma and Sean were both returning and in fact Matt Di Angelo's (Sean)agent has advised he is scheduled to start filming again this summer.

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  2. Actually, you're right, me bad. According to this article (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a146652/hustles-exec-producer-talks-series-six.html), executive producer Simon Crawford Collins states that he'd love to have them back but there are no immediate plans. Coupled with the fact that Kelly Adams and Matt Di Angelo *are* coming back, I'd say it's unlikely.

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