- To recover funds from an incarcerated investment banker, the team tries to help his introverted stepson.
- The team accepts to recuperate some of the money a shamelessly fraudulent investment banker stole from a medical charity. As he's under house arrest during the official investigation, the team must draw him out and provide a valid exemption. Thereto, Nate arranges to stop in for the headmaster of the banker's stepson Widmark Fowler's exclusive Boston private school and hires several team members as coach etcetera.—KGF Vissers
- The fairy tale genre meets Off Broadway in another Jonathan Frakes episode. The team capitalizes on 1 of the 3 exceptions to house arrest, attendance at a family event, to get Ponzi thief, Fowler, out of his penthouse. They just need enough time to find the millions Fowler squirrelled away before his arrest. FBI agents Taggert and McSweeten keep it real for Parker and Hardison of the FakeBI. Sophie, Eliot and Nate play fake teacher, coach and German academic at Dalton Academy, where the feckless stepson of Fowler will shine ...—LA-Lawyer
- A man bangs on the door of of a clinic with his young daughter in his arms. The security guard won't let him in, but a doctor overrules him and rushes to help. The girl's having an asthma attack and the doctor is able to help her.
Later, the doctor tells Nate and Parker that the girl could have died and the clinic never should have closed. A man named Fowler bankrupted it. Parker finds five ways to accidentally insult the woman in one conversation. When it's finally over, after Nate has promised to help, he misses Sophie.
(roll credits)
Sophie has coffee with her much younger boyfriend, who tells her he doesn't think things are working out. He says he feels like she's always wearing a mask and doesn't share with him. "I just don't know who you really are, Katherine," he tells Sophie. And then he leaves.
Hardison shows off a fancy new metal detector in his phone to an uninterested Eliot. Nate comes back to the loft with Parker, ready to start prep for the job. Still no Sophie. They start without her.
Hardison recaps Daniel Fowler, the CFO of the largest private investment firm in the state. It was a Ponzi scheme. His accounts are all frozen. Except for the $20 million Hardison found hidden on the books.
Sophie joins them.
Fowler's under house arrest in his penthouse under FBI surveillance. Hardison tapped into their wireless feed so they can watch him. They want to get rid of Fowler to search the penthouse for the money. They review the exceptions for house arrest: personal safety, death of a relative, or a family event.
They watch as Fowler talks to his 10-year-old stepson, Widmark, chastising him for losing his cell phone. "I'd ground you, but you don't have any friends to go out with anyway," he tells him.
Nate decides Fowler will need a pass to attend Widmark's debut as...something. He's working on the details.
Hardison pays a visit to the school's headmaster as an envoy from Botswana, claiming the president read his grad school thesis. He wants him to visit Botswana, where they're working to rebuild the educational system, all expenses paid. The headmaster takes one look at the paperwork piling up around him and takes the ticket.
Later, his harried secretary tries to deal with a herd of angry parents. She assures them the school board has sent over a competent replacement.
Enter Nate as a nebbish German scholar, Dr. Melcher, telling them to prepare for all the changes he's going to make following his method of melding mind and body. He introduces his associates Sophie (as a teacher) and Eliot (as a gym teacher).
Hardison and Parker, decked out in full WASP gear, check out a vacant apartment above Fowler's.
Back at the school, Nate tries to find an event they can have Widmark succeed in. Eliot's a little concerned about using the kid to get to his dad, but Sophie and Nate explain they're just acting as fairy godparents, setting him up for a win.
Eliot tries first with fencing, whereby Widmark is soon made into a pincushion by the school's hulking bully, Skyler.
On to spelling. In a spelling bee, Sophie tries to set Widmark up by giving him easy words such as "food" while giving Skyler words such as "pseudosyllogism." The plan is foiled when a young girl is able to spell everything Sophie throws at her while Widmark slogs through "sunset" and "bicycle." The girl wins with "antidisestablishmentarianism."
After class, Sophie tells him, "Good job." He says he tries hard all the time, but no matter how hard he tries, it never happens. He just wants someone to like him.
Hardison and Parker install a motion detector in Fowler's penthouse hallway. They hide behind a shrub when two agents come to his door. While hiding, they see a guy with a gun creep out of the stairwell. They disarm him and Hardison chases after him while Parker picks up the gun—just in time for the FBI agents to come upon her.
She's standing there, pointing at them, as they're shouting at her to drop the weapon, when they recognize her as Agent Hannigan from the Moscone mob case last year. And here comes Hardison, aka Agent Thomas. It's one big reunion. They then tell the duo that they're secret backup on the Fowler case.
Back in the loft, Nate isn't too impressed with the team. Sophie and Eliot couldn't rig anything for Widmark to win, and Hardison and Parker got busted by the only two FBI agents who know them.
Eliot gets cranky when Hardison says he can't ID the gunman. Then Parker produces her near-perfect sketch of him. "Wow, I didn't know you could do that," Hardison tells her. "I thought everybody could do that," she says.
They start bickering over their next move when Sophie hears something on Fowler's surveillance. It's Widmark singing perfectly. They'll stage a musical—in two days.
The next day, she's got the kids singing their science fair projects. Widmark comes through.
Meanwhile, at Fowler's penthouse, Hardison and Parker use their FBI identities to case it. Parker uses Hardison's metal-detecting cell phone to scan for a safe in the walls.
Back at school, the parents—especially Sklyer's dad, Mr. Sanford—are peeved that Widmark is getting the spotlight; his dad stole money from everyone in the school. Nate assures them his starring role in the "science-ical" is purely based on talent.
In gym class, Eliot seems to have found his comfort zone teaching the girls fighting moves.
Nate reminds Sophie not to lose sight of the fact Widmark isn't the focus, but she feels bad for him. She just wants people to see him as he really is. He deserves that, she says; everybody does.
In their empty staging penthouse, Hardison and Parker look over blueprints , trying to figure out how to get into Fowler's place. The real FBI agents drop by, and the young one flirts with Parker. They check that their "secret backup" is going to the school.
At school, Widmark is having some serious stage fright issues, warbling like a dying cat in rehearsals.
At his parents' penthouse, Parker tries to beg off the trip to "guard the equipment" so she can break in and look for the money. But that only leads to the agent who's crushing on her suggesting he stick around, too. So Hardison volunteers to stay.
At the school, Sophie has misplaced Widmark.
Hardison prepares to try to break in, using Parker's rapel-down-the-side-of-the-building technique. She starts to talk him through it on their ear buds, but her FBI crush interrupts.
Meanwhile, Sophie finds Widmark hiding in the bathroom, crying. She starts to tell him not to let them get to him, but Nate interrupts over her ear bud, telling her just to talk to him and not tell him what to do. So she tells him she's a con artist.
Hardison asks Parker how long he has to disarm the security system. Then her FBI crush asks her if she believes in love at first sight. To both of them she says: "I believe you have 30 seconds before the bells and whistles go off. Don't be afraid to override feelings. Don't be blue." Hardison figures out he's supposed to cut the blue wire.
Sophie finds herself opening up to Widmark, saying she's been lying to herself so long that she doesn't know who she really is. But all he needs to do is be himself.
Hardison pries open a wall and finds a small metal box as Widmark prepares to go on stage.
Hardison gets the case open, feeling proud of himself, but then finds it's empty.
Then, in the auditorium at school, Eliot spots the assassin.
The science-ical begins, with a girl singing about clouds.
The team chats over their ear buds, trying to figure out how the assassin would know to be there that night. Nate thinks Fowler's arranged for a hit on his FBI security so he can run. But they don't know how he could have gotten word out since he's being monitored.
At the penthouse, Hardison finds a cell phone in the metal box. (Flash back to Widmark telling Fowler he lost his phone.)
Nate thinks his money, or whatever it is, is in Fowler's camera case. Nate wants Sophie to swipe the case, telling her Fowler's the job, not Widmark. But she refuses to set him up to let him fail.
Backstage, Eliot takes down the assassin. In the penthouse, Hardison finds a bunch of texts to someone named Sklyer, the hulking middle schooler.
Nate watches the audience as Skyler's dad, Mr. Sanford, gets a text, walks down the aisle (presumably to shoot video), and takes Fowler's camera case with a knowing nod. So Sanford must be an accomplice.
Eliot continues tossing around the assassin backstage as Widmark goes on stage to sign about bread mold. He starts slow and then bursts into a little softshoe and full showman's routine. Sophie tries to shush Eliot, who is fighting backstage.
Widmark finishes with a ta-dah and gets a standing ovation from everyone in the audience except his stepdad. During the applause, Nate swipes the bag Sanford left for Fowler. It contains a new identity and plane ticket to Bogota.
Eliot and Sophie swipe Sanford's bag from him and play the audiotapes over the school sound system, proving they were in it together.
Sophie and Nate visit the doctor at the clinic and present her with a check for more than they lost. As they're chatting, Fowler's wife walks up. The doctor explains she needed a job after Fowler went to jail.
Nate enjoys that this was the first con that depended entirely on Sophie's telling the truth. He wonders if she'll make a habit of it.
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