Leverage/Tear Jerker

Examples of Tear Jerkers in Leverage include:

• The death of Jimmy Ford in "The Radio Job."

Jimmy: Tell them stories about me. Tell them...tell them how much Jimmy Ford loves his son.

• The flashbacks to the death of Nate's son, slowly parceled out throughout the first season.
• Parker's fear for the orphans in "The Stork Job":

"You put these kids in the system, and odds are, they're gonna, they're gonna...they're gonna turn out like me."

• "The Future Job": A fraudulent psychic uncovers a secret Parker has never told anyone: that she witnessed (and blames herself for) the death of her brother when they were children. Made worse by the fact that Parker has No Social Skills -- she can't interpret normal nonverbal cues, and thus has a hard time understanding cold reading.
• "The Maltese Falcon Job." The season two finale, Nate after spiraling further and further out of control after the loss of Sophie. Finds himself at the mercy of his rival Sterling who wants to exchange a Gun Smuggler his after and Nate's team in exchange for Nate's freedom . Because Nate is not like them. In the end Nate has captured the Gun Smuggler and in a gambit leveraged his way to exchange his capture for his teammates freedom. While the team escapes a FBI mooks asks "Who is this guy?" Nate, bleeding and exhausted. Who for the last two years prided himself for being above his team laughs and says, "I'm a thief."
• The Star-Crossed Lovers backstory in "The Van Gogh Job".