6.6 The Hush Heist

Summary and Spoilers

The gang’s stock market con end abruptly when the mark turns out to be a detective inspector. They’ve been targeted by MI6 operative Jennifer Hughes (who is a mate of Mickey’s foe DCI Lucy Britford) to break into a Syrian bank and steal something of high value to the government, in exchange for their freedom. What’s more, they can keep whatever else they find in the twin bank vaults. Mickey agrees, which frees the gang to begin planning the robbery. But at the same time, Mickey is trying to figure out a way to double-cross Britford’s collaborators. He needs to keep a step ahead of them, because, as he suspected, Hughes plans to re-arrest the gang and charge them with bank robbery.

Comments

About halfway through this episode, I just had a very strange twisted thought: is Mickey orchestrating another con on Britford? Is Jennifer Hughes not who she says she is – is she actually in cahoots with Mickey?

Memorable Moments

• The exciting, well-executed, classic bank heist, with a few Hustle twists

Hustle Quotes

Jennifer: Lucy was right about you being a charmer. You know she wanted to screw you.
Mickey: We don’t always get what we want.

Jennfer: Wait. If you already had this [the blackmail tape], why go ahead with the robbery?
Mickey: That part’s easy. You see, there were six bags, not five. Call it a payment for services rendered.

6.5 Conned Out of Luck

Summary and Spoilers

When Mickey gets conned into buying a useless phone via a website, he falls victim to a well-known con curse – he has lost his mojo, his luck. On the flip side, Eddie almost ordered the same phone from the same website, but didn’t because it looked too good to be true. Eddie’s luck has skyrocketed: business is booming, and he even has a stripper working in the bar with him. The gang (except for the skeptic Emma) is convinced that somehow, Mickey’s mojo has been transferred to Eddie.

The only way to reverse the curse is to con the people who sold Mickey the phone. In this case, it is an up-himself charicature named Mervyn Lloyd. He considers himself a visionary, but he’s just an opportunistic entrepreneur – an extremely obnoxious one. The con will be to convince Lloyd that Albert, the venture capitalist, is about to announce a groundbreaking new invention. Disgruntled former employee Sean will lead Lloyd into the trap and make him invest in this non-existent item.

Comments

Sir Richard Branson makes an appearance, playing himself, as an unwitting part of this elaborate con to establish Albert as someone who knows the big players.

Memorable Moments

• Rosie’s (Lloyd’s undervalued assistant/slave) tiny giggle when she sees Lloyd has been conned

Hustle Quotes

"Well, that makes it official. Mickey’s lost his mojo."
- Ash

"As far as I’m concerned, moving forward, young is the new old."
- Mervyn Lloyd

6.4 The Father of Jewels

Summary and Spoilers

Sean bows out in the middle of a switch con, leaving the mark with 50 thousand dollars of the gang’s money, because of a very good reason: the sudden appearance of his dad. If you recall Sean and Emma’s backstory, this is the same dad who left them when Sean was three and Emma five. The difference is, Sean still carries a major grudge. His plan is to con his dad out of 79 thousand pounds – as long as he can run the con. Emma, on the other hand, says that is in the past and she holds no ill feelings. It’s up to Mickey to release her inhibitions.

The con, as planned by Sean, is over-complicated (and real fun to observe). The team is going to convince Rex Kennedy (Sean and Emma’s dad) that there is buried treasure under the property he is about to sell. But a twist occurs that messes with Sean’s mind. The con is being handled immaculately, with one problem: his dad, instead of hording the treasure for himself, keeps feeding information to Sean to make sure that Sean gets his fair share of the treasure.

Comments

This is by far the best episode in a long time: clever and emotional, with great opportunities for everyone in the cast to show their talents. Even Eddie has a small but pivotal role. And in a wonderful tie-up, Sean’s original mis-step – where he neglects to switch cases – it negated with his father, where the entire gang participates in a major case switch.

Memorable Moments

• Everyone eating cake

Hustle Quotes

Sean: Seriously, all this has brought one thing home to me: you know, I could have spent my entire life thinking about a family I missed out on when the whole time, my real family, the people I care about –
Emma: We got you an X-Box as well.
Mickey: Please give it to him before he finishes that speech.

6.3 Tiger Troubles

Summary and Spoilers

When a mark dies, that’s usually enough bad news, but this time it’s much worse. The mark’s brother, Czech Charlie (a known violent type), wants the results of the convincer – 500 thousand pounds. On the good side, the gang have until the end of the week to get it.

Comments

This is a simpler, well-structured plot and con. It’s also a strong idea to have Albert’s life or death dependent on the team pulling off the theft. The weak point in the plot is of course how easy it was for the gang to switch the real tiger with the fake one. One would imagine that when the tiger was about to be moved, there would be a huge group of guards assigned to stay very close, since obviously this is when the item is at its most vulnerable.

Memorable Moments

• The entire cast has a turn at interacting one on one with the stuffed tiger

Hustle Quotes

Emma: I was just so busy ogling the architecture.
Baincross: Yes. I see what you mean.

6.2 The Thieving Mistake

Summary and Spoilers

‘Liability’ Finch latches on to the gang and tries to get them to rescue him from his teeny predicament. It seems he has partially stolen a valuable van Gogh. He thought he was fetching it for a Russian art lover, but it’s more likely that it is for a Russian mafia lover, seeing as the Russian has threatened to park a truck on him if he does not deliver. Mickey is cold and logical, refusing to help, despite Ash’s ambivilence and Sean’s outright disgust at not coming to the aid of a fellow con man. A gung-ho customs agent, Davis, forces Mickey’s hand, trading Sean’s jail term for a promise from the gang to retrieve the painting and clean out Finch as well.

Comments

Your appreciation of this episode will depend on how much leeway you are willing to grant for the plausibility of the over-convoluted con, and how charming you find guest-star Mark Benton (Finch), who gets heaps of screen time.

Hustle Quotes

"Because we’re professionals; because we don’t like prison; and because we don’t work with anyone who has ‘liability’ in their name."
- Mickey, explaining the reasons why they will not work with Finch

6.1 And This Little Piggy Had Money

Summary and Spoilers

Sir Edmund ‘Piggy’ Richardson is the mark: a banker who grabbed a big pension when his bank went under, while hundreds of underlings lost their jobs. Now Richardson wants to condult with other banks, and he think Albert is a headhunter. The team will get Piggy will transfer his assets on a one-way trip. But the con is threatened by a new threat: Lucy Britford, a hot-shot female detective who views Mickey as the ideal career-building scalp. Lucy is a cut above Mickey’s normal law-enforcement foe: she is anticipating – or correctly guessing - the team’s every move.

Comments

This episode could also be called, "Accents", as Emma (Australian) and Mickey (American, cockney) flash their talents.

If I was sharper I would have picked up on where the film-makers were scamming me! Although Piggy writes down ‘DCI Britford’, we never see who is on the other end of the phone line, nor do we see who is outfitting him with a wire – so we assume it is the real DCI Britford and her team.

Memorable Moments

• Emma impersonating Kylie Minogue; there is such a natural resemblance that this is a no-brainer
• Mickey switching accents from American to cockney

Hustle Quotes

Emma: Yeah, but there is one thing I don’t get.
Ash: What’s that?
Emma: I don’t even look like Kylie.

Mickey: Everyone I go after is a crook – one way or another. I simply see if they can take it - as well as dish it out.
Lucy Britford: Well said. But strictly speaking, it’s still illegal.

5.6 The Road Less Travelled

Summary and Spoilers

Carlton Wood and Harry Fielding, the two deceitful intellectual property thieves that were conned in the season 5 episode New Recruits, have been spending the last few months carefully tracking and researching Mickey and his team. They have assembled a team of their own; people who have been conned by Mickey and Co. Now it is their turn for some payback.

Wood and Fielding have determined that the Convincer – the part where the con allows the mark to win a bit to build up confidence – is the weakest link in the chain. They’re going to dangle a huge reward, then walk away with the Convincer – a one million dollar sum. But Fielding’s team has a couple of weak links as well: one of them is that they are using Alfie, a dim-witted upperclass snob, to be the front man.

Comments

We basically know that Mickey’s team is going to triumph every time (although that formula has been broken before in other episodes, and full credit for that). But anyway, assuming that they are going to get the upper hand this time, I realized very early on that the only way they could do that is if Alfie was actually a sophisticated con man who was working for/with Mickey. So they got me…as Alfie was the one person who wasn’t working with Mickey!

A romance seems to be growing between Mickey and Emma. They were just about to kiss – for real this time – when they were interrupted by Ash and Sean.

Hustle Quotes

Alfie (the mark): Survival of the fittest. Never mind, eh pops. Maybe next time.
Albert: You can count on it.

Emma: Have you ever been married?
Mickey: Yes, once.
Emma: And?
Mickey: And…now I’m not.
Emma: Touchy subject.
Mickey: No, no. No, she cheated on me.
Emma: Sorry. So you split up.
Mickey: Yeah, had to really. I beat the guy half to death with a baseball bat and got sent to prison for three years.
Emma: You beat someone with a baseball bat?
Mickey: Why so surprised?
Emma: Um, because it’s quite out of character.
Mickey: [laughs] What, you’d expect me to con him to death?

Mickey: Oh, I’m expecting two colleagues to join us. Please have them shown through when they arrive.
Accounts Manager: Does it really take four of you?
Mickey: I have twelve officers at my disposal, Mr. Glencross. If I choose to, I will invite all of them.
Accounts Manager: Sorry, I didn’t mean -
Mickey: I’m perfectly well aware of what you meant: that as beaurocrats, we are somehow wasteful with resources, but if we were to find you’d underpaid your taxes, I think reclaiming that money and the resulting fines would be an excellent use of resources. Don’t you?