Money Heist Meets Leverage In Netflix's 3-Part Crime Series Finally Returning After 3 Years Away

While one of Netflix’s best hits blends Money Heist with Leverage, the show’s three-year gap between seasons means viewers may not even know how soon it will return. Netflix prides itself on having a show for everyone. Whether it is Netflix’s global smash hit sci-fi series Stranger Things, a playful teen comedy like Sex Education, or a dark psychological thriller like His & Hers or Mindhunter, the streaming service has a diverse array of offerings.

However, the crime genre is one space where Netflix has truly stood out since the streaming service rose to prominence a few years back. From gripping murder mystery shows like A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder to political thrillers like The Diplomat, Netflix has explored every imaginable type of crime show. One of their most successful entries into the genre is the five-season thriller Money Heist. A Spanish crime thriller, the show uses flashbacks, time jumps, and changing POVs to play with its real-time storytelling, making the titular seemingly simple heist devilishly complex.

While Money Heist became a massive hit for Netflix in 2017, the American crime drama Leverage was a five-season hit in the same genre a little earlier. That show followed a group of career criminals who worked together to carry out heists on behalf of ordinary people mistreated by corporations and governments. Based on the writer Maurice Leblanc’s fictional gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, the Netflix mystery Lupin blended the premises of Money Heist and Leverage to create a fresh, unpredictable entry into the crime mystery genre.

What To Expect From Lupin Season 4

Debuting in 2021, Lupin stars Omar Sy as Assane Diop, a career thief who models himself after the show’s title character. The son of a Senegalese immigrant, Assane’s tragic backstory begins when his father’s rich employer, Hubert Pellegrini, frames Assane’s father for the theft of a diamond necklace, leading to his untimely death. The teenage Lupin swears to get vengeance on the Pellegrini family, prompting him to become a master thief in the vein of Leblanc’s legendary character.

While Lupin season 2’s story expands the world of the show further, all three outings of the crime mystery take an inspired approach to their storytelling. Like Money Heist, the show toys with the conventions of the crime mystery genre to keep viewers guessing, as Lupin constantly bombards the audience with twists that seem far-fetched only to seem perfectly foreshadowed upon a re-watch. Meanwhile, the show also borrows the best part of Leverage’s setup.

Lupin takes the cathartic “Eat the Rich” themes of that earlier American hit and applies them to Assane’s story, with the main character’s personal connection to a formative injustice making his plot even more compelling. While the heroes of Leverage stood up for the little guy as a matter of principle, Assane has a more personal motivation as he attempts to clear his father’s name and the name of his family. This makes the show’s story compelling, although things have gotten more morally complex with Lupin season 4.

While season 1 focused on Assane’s attempts to take down the powerful Pellegrini dynasty, season 2 instead centered on his search for his kidnapped son. As if this weren’t dramatic enough, season 3 then saw Assane work on his relationship with his wife while trying to steal a priceless Black Pearl. Like Money Heist and Leverage before it, this outing effortlessly blended character drama with heist show thrills.

The primary appeal of Lupin initially comes in seeing Assane pull off his ambitious schemes, but gradually viewers come to love the show’s lead character. Like Money Heist, Lupin has a slick, subversive mystery at its core, but, like Leverage, the Netflix show’s good-natured hero is its most compelling selling point.