‘Leverage: Redemption’ Sneak Peek: LeVar Burton Guest Stars in Beth Riesgraf’s Directorial Debut (VIDEO)
Comic-Con
There are two things that are quite special coming up in one of the eight Leverage: Redemption episodes dropping this fall: the guest star and the director.
Series star Beth Riesgraf (who plays thief Parker) is making her directorial debut in “The Bucket Job” episode featuring guest star LeVar Burton. IMDb TV dropped a sneak peek as part of Leverage: Redemption‘s panel with Riesgraf and Noah Wyle (fixer Harry Wilson) at Comic-Con@Home.
As seen in the clip, Burton plays a small-town librarian, Mr. Blanche, and hitter Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane) and maker Breanna Casey (Aleyse Shannon) are spying on him from the stacks. He’s “never married, no passport,” she notes. “The guy really doesn’t like to go far from home. He’s only been in the news one time, 10 years ago. When they tried to shut down the library. Mr. Blanche led the charge to save it.”
As Breanna discovers after doing her thing on the library’s computer (“oh, you gorgeous antique”), he reads a lot — 10,000 books over 30 years, about one a day. It’s mostly fiction (mystery/detective, action-adventure, horror/fantasy, paranormal romance), and he checked out Shogun a dozen times.
“What is our story going to be for our librarian to be hero for the day?” grifter Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman) wonders. “I don’t think a sprawling saga of feudal Japan is going to work.” But she does have a nice kimono — and she’s not the only one:
According to his character description, Mr. Blanche is “very kind, empathic and extremely liked by the townspeople. A voracious reader, he fantasizes about being a hero like in the books he reads. Blanche is quietly battling Stage 4 cancer and when the team finds out, they plan a make-believe adventure to lift his spirits.”
He’s one of a few “fun” guest stars coming up in the second half, executive producer Dean Devlin told TV Insider while noting the fun Star Trek connection: “When you think about how many episodes we have directed by Jonathan Frakes, getting to have LeVar had a special meaning for us. It was really great to have him there.” Along with his work on the revival, Frakes directed 13 episodes of the original 2008-2012 drama.
Like the original series, Leverage: Redemption follows the crew of bad guys out to make sure the rich and powerful don’t just take what they want without consequences. Riesgraf, Kane, Bellman, and Aldis Hodge (recurring as hacker Alec Hardison) all reprised their roles from Leverage.
Leverage: Redemption, Returns, Fall 2021, IMDb TV
