#I can't say I'm an OT3 shipper but goddamn I still love the dynamic they have

[dna-d2]

Leverage Redemption, and How it Handled Character Replacement

(Long Post Alert, so I’ll put a TL;DR down at the bottom)

(Also Spoilers for Leverage Redemption if you haven’t seen it)

So I recently got around to watching Leverage after way too long, immediately followed by Leverage Redemption. To start off with, if you love found family and eating the rich, watch this show. If you don’t like that stuff, also watch it, because I promise that by the end of it, you will. It has quickly become one of my favorite shows and I find myself smiling consistently throughout watching it. (Especially when Eliot is on screen because goddammit, I always end up picking the tough guy as one of my favorites. Though it’s much better when Hardison is on screen too because I fucking love their dynamic)

Anyway

Before I get too far into this, let me give you a pretty quick rundown on Leverage as a whole, to help contextualize all this. Also so I can finally talk about why I love this show in general, because no one else I know watches this and I need to talk about it.

So Leverage is basically a show where a group of ex-cons (convicts, con-men, you decide) teaming up with the guy who used to help catch them to pull off a heist for what they think are the right reasons at the time. (Spoiler alert, they got tricked, and then had to pull another heist to fix what they messed up) After that, they basically decided to remain teamed up to basically pull heists and con various types of rich douchebags who were gaming the system at the expense of the people. This is basically the whole show.

The Crew is comprised of five people. Sophie Devereaux (if that is her real name), the Grifter. She’s basically a master at pulling cons and tricking people. She’s basically the actress of the group, who pulls a lot of weight in getting the mark ready for their tricks and whatnot.

Eliot Spencer, the Hitter. And also my favorite character. He is literally what he’s advertised as. He hits things. REALLY well. In all seriousness, I can only think of one or two times in the entire series that he actually lost a fight, and he usually managed to get them back pretty quickly. He’s basically the violent older brother of the group, and as per sibling rules, he must always torment his younger siblings. Especially the middle child. That’s important. But also HE’S the only one allowed to torment them, because the second anyone else tries to mess with them, he (sometimes literally) jumps in out of nowhere to beat the everloving shit out of them. It’s great.

Alec Hardison, the Hacker. He’s also what he’s advertised as. A master hacker, as well as a Jack of All Trades in most technological and non-technological type stuff. You never know what knowledge he’s gonna pull out of his bag of tricks, but you can bet your ass he’s gonna use it to pick a fight with Eliot. As stated previously, he’s basically the middle child, though I get I a little iffy on the expression right around here as it regards Parker. Since they start dating about mid-way through the series. But not in terms of his relationship with Eliot. Honestly, I see their dynamic as one of the big selling points of this show, and I fucking love seeing them interact with each other. One minute Eliot is literally threatening to kill Hardison over a sandwich, the next he’s punching the shit out of someone because they threw Hardison over the side of a building and NO ONE throws Hardison over the side of a building, godammit. Except maybe him. (His words, not mine)

And then Parker, first/last name unknown, the Thief. She is an expert thief who, fun fact, canonically has high-functioning autism. (Technically the producer or whoever said that she had Asbergers, but that was back when the first season was running, and during a time when the autism spectrum probably wasn’t really a thing, or at the very least not well-researched) She’s crazy. At least that’s how people keep describing her, but personally, I just think she’s neat. She’s actually my second favorite character. VERY close second. It fluctuates depending on the episode, honestly. (Btw I wasn’t joking when I said first/last name unknown. We know one of her names is maybe Parker. Is it her first name? Is it her last name? Is it even her name??? Literally no one knows, not even the CIA. It’s great. I love it)

And then of course there’s Nathan “Nate” Ford, the Mastermind, He was once an Insurance investigator who chased these four down multiple times and probably got them all caught at least once (though clearly not for very long). He’s the guy you see in memes with the galaxy brain playing 4D chess backwards. He’s smart, he’s an alcoholic, and his son died. A perfect recipe for a hot mess to play team dad with a newly formed found family.

These five spend five seasons ripping off mostly rich white dudes and eating the rich. (not literally. If that’s what you’re looking for, watch Hannibal. I’ve never watched it, but something tells me that’s a little closer to the whole eating people thing) They quickly became a family, pretty much, and had lots of fun doing it. Each of these characters were a huge part of why Leverage was as good as it was. However, before the revival series began, there had to be some changes.

Between Leverage and Leverage Redemption, there were some issues with Nate’s actor, Timothy Hutton, and due to those issues, the show runners elected not to bring him back for the Revival series. And I’m not gonna go into that because it’s not really the main point of this analysis.

However because of this, that left a huge, and very important, gap in the main cast. The Mastermind, the LITERAL reason these guys were brought together has now been killed off due to casting issues. So what is a team of writers to do in this scenario?

Surely they’re just going to bring in some guy who has the exact same skill-set as Nate, who is also ultra-mega-smart, who we just HAPPENED to have never seen during the five seasons of the show, right?? That would make total sense, wouldn’t it??

So the writers did exactly NOT that.

Instead, they got Noah Wyle, of the Librarians (another series that a lot of the producers and writers actually worked on) and cast him as a good bad lawyer named Harry Wilson. The kind of lawyer who’s GREAT at his job, however he was not helping the right people. Eventually he realized that he was in fact NOT the good guy, and decided that he was gonna screw over one of this douchebag clients by stealing a painting of his from a museum, on the EXACT same day that Sophie, Eliot, Hardison, and Parker happened to have decided to steal a painting from a museum to cheer themselves up on the anniversary of Nate’s death.

So they of course figure him out immediately, observe how he does this, and watches as he immediately trips an alarm and almost gets caught. After this, they decide to help their brand new Mr. Wilson screw this guy over, and after that, he joins the team.

Now, what does this add to the team, you may ask? The new Mastermind, right???

WRONG

Mr. Wilson is a good lawyer, but he is by NO MEANS a criminal like the rest of them. He’s inexperienced, a little naïve, overall just not a con-man like the rest of them. He does however bring a lot of legal information and fancy lawyer-y loopholes to the game, which proves to be pretty useful throughout the season.

But I know what you’re thinking. If Mr. Wilson didn’t replace Nate as the Mastermind, then who did??

Well, no one, really. Instead, the rest of the team stepped up and each started pitching in their ideas for the overall plan, with Sophie mostly taking the lead. And this is kind of the genius of how they handled replacing Nate. Instead of just bringing in some rando smart dude that we just never heard of or something, they bring in a new guy who covers a new skill-set that they didn’t have before. While he is the new Fifth guy, he is not JUST the new Fifth guy.

He’s the new guy. He’s filling in the place Nate left on the team, but he is by no means a replacement for him. He’s not the Mastermind, he’s the…Well, Sophie keeps calling him “Our Mr. Wilson” so I think that’s just his title. You’d think he’d be the Lawyer, but nah. So he’s not the Mastermind, and he’s not the New Nate Ford. And he never will be. Nope.

He’s the Mr. Wilson.

And btw I know I didn’t really address Breanna and how she actually more closely fills in the archetypical “Replace Character A with Character B who has the same skills” but that’s because one: This was mostly about how they handled Mr. Wilson. Two: I think her integration with the cast is almost flawless. I say almost because I miss Hardison. And Three: She also wasn’t a carbon copy of Hardison. She was less experienced in certain fields, but more experienced in others, and is also a Gen-Z kid who’s more than willing to fight the power. 

(I’m serious about Hardison though. Please put him in more episodes next season I miss him. Have them both, I would LOVE to have them both. That’s a new dynamic that I think would be great. They’re sitting in Leverage, tag-teaming the bad guys’ security systems, it would be awesome)

TL;DR: They had to kill off a major character but instead of replacing him with some random-ass carbon copy that we just somehow never heard of in five seasons, they brought in an actual new guy who covers a new set of skills, but also is very inexperienced regarding the field they work in, and instead all the veterans of the group help fill in the role that the dead character left.

Also if you wanna watch it but don’t care where to start, I have two personal picks for ”Episodes I show Someone to Introduce them to the Show”

First is Season 3, Episode 11, “The Rashomon Job”

Second is Season 4, Episode 12, “The Office Job”

They’re both very good, and are basically my favorites

(Edit: I was gonna put more recommendations in the tags but I guess today is the day I learn there's a 30 tag limit. Who knew? NOT ME)