#and those dont even come in til hardsons pov

[formosusiniquis]

so rewatching the rashomon job (a perfect bottle episode, proof you don't need a long season to have filler eps) and what i think is interesting is that by my math hardison is 19ish during this solo job.

this is a bit of a fixation of mine anyway, for a show that otherwise runs a very tight timeline episode to episode the character ages just get sort of hand waved away. parker and hardison are the young ones, eliot is older but usually gets grouped in with them; and nate and sophie are the experienced members of the crew. any references to their past will get you some vague year point that you can slot into a general time line but you aren't getting a year point.

except in season 3 where nate tells moreau that he's got hardison a 24 year old with a problem with authority (rough quote, haven't made it that far in the rewatch yet). so we work back. the rashomon job is 5 years from season 3, you assume each season paces about a year though realistically some of the timing should stretch out a little longer but we'll average it out to a year. so that makes season 1 hardison roughly 21 and puts the crew pulling this accidental rivals job 2 years before they meet in canon.

meaning that two of our three professional criminals looked at a 19 year old alec hardison and thought that was minister bioko, someone with enough importance or money to get invited to an event like this one