#eliot: i am so dangerous that people are better off without me (and they're dangerous too tbqh)

[kiralamouse]

I honestly wonder if the Leverage crew could've coalesced without Alec Hardison, the one (1) member of the crew who doesn't have mile-high-and-thick emotional walls.

The Nigerian Job.png

[comicaurora]

I've recently finished Leverage and Leverage redemption and am in the process of casually rewatching it. (Thanks for introducing me to FMAB and ATLA too btw) I just want to ask you a few questions about it, like: What are your favorite things about each character? What are your favorite things about each relationship. What are your favorite things about the group? How do you feel about the sequel? How do feel about the romance in the show? What are your favorite running jokes? Thank you

hoohoohoo, it's like an essay prompt but about something I actually like

What are your favorite things about each character?

Nate: to be honest, kind of a hard sell - definitely the protagonist I like the least, intentionally so. That said, when they're dealing with a really hateful bad guy it's always fun to see Nate turn all his asshole powers against them and get really smug about it

Sophie: extremely insightful! fun to see it weaponized, extra fun to see her very gently use it to try and help the rest of the team live their best lives, especially Parker

Parker: oh how easily Parker could have been an Obliviously Sexy Unhinged Harley Quinn type, and instead we got the first thoughtfully written explicitly neurodivergent female character I've ever seen. Never infantilized despite it being a frequent plot point that the others help her through her difficulty in social settings and with processing loss. Full-fledged character in her own right, grows and becomes more comfortable without ever having her neurodivergence "fixed". she's a great character and I find her writing refreshingly free of red flags or "oof" moments. love that she's good with kids and teaches them Crime in the first ten minutes of hanging out

Hardison: literally the only normal person in this group and I say this as a compliment. everyone else is at least kind of a james-bond-style superspy with borderline preternatural abilities but hardison is the only character I trust to order a coffee without making a scene. unconditionally the emotional heart of the group and the only character able to openly admit that he likes the other characters, which is vital in a group of Edgy Loner Crime-Boys.

Eliot: joke answer, the hair. real answer, I love any character who turns themself into a weapon and stoically accepts that they'll never be anything else again. "Incredibly simple, but in the same way that a sword is simple." Adds a beautiful substrate of angst to all of his funny or lighthearted moments, as underlying it is a character who concluded long ago that he's irredeemable, and because he thus considers himself entirely disposable and even irrelevant is now determined to spend the rest of his life making the world a better place. Also, one of the only Edgy Badass Lancer types who is incredibly overt about how much he likes and cares about his teammates and never even jokes about "bah I'm better off on my own I was just passing through etc etc."

Harry: just an absolute wet noodle of a man. Love that he's taken Hardison's role of "only normal human being"

Breanna: absolutely love how bad she is at the social grifting side of things, because that is 100% accurate to every tech person I know

What are your favorite things about each relationship?

There's a lot of relationships and I'm not about to highlight all 10 OG pairings plus the 9 new pairings added by Harry and Breanna, so instead I'll just highlight my absolute favorite underrated one, which is Parker and Eliot. They have this odd synergy where they're both by far the most physically dangerous people in the group and also the most scarred by a country mile, and they have this kind of unspoken camraderie about it that only gets overtly highlighted in Season 4 Episode 1, "The Long Way Down Job." Everyone else in the group is a person, they seem to think; people they want to protect. But the two of them are tools and weapons, and that means they can do the things that people can't. Also within this synergy there's a good foiling dynamic where Eliot has basically seen it all and come to terms with everything under the sun, while Parker is comparatively extremely hyperfocused and rather sheltered and is constantly grappling with new situations. Underrated dynamic.

What are your favorite things about the group?

They just hang out sometimes! It feels like they keep existing when the camera's off them. Valuable screentime is spent on them just chilling and chatting, getting dinner together and bringing up more wacky offscreen hijinks. A story that's relentlessly All Action And Disrupted Status Quo All The Time starts tuning you out after a while, but it's the slow, peaceful moments that make us invested in their success and in them being able to help the innocent-victims-of-the-week.

How do you feel about the sequel?

Loved the first season, tentatively optimistic about the rest of it - I've been burned before so I'm taking it slow.

How do you feel about the romance in the show?

Parker and Hardison's thing is cute and compelling! Big fan of how it doesn't override the other dynamics and isn't treated as intrinsically more important than the rest of the gang's relationships. Nate and Sophie's thing feels a little more plot-mandated and tbh Nate is kind of an unlikable fuckhead so I'm not sure why Sophie was so hung up, but it wasn't too disruptive and it was always very funny seeing them play a dysfunctional couple on a grift

What are your favorite running jokes?

"Dammit Hardison." Parker pushing people off of things. Someone asking Eliot if he knows about some niche thing or random bad guy and then it flashes back to him getting waterboarded in Area 51 or whatever and it cuts back to him mildly going "yea". Wil Wheaton is in this show and everybody hates him. "It's a very distinctive [thing]." Harry, walking befuddled sunshine man, being like "yes I know all the inner workings of this specific niche evil lawyer thing, I was a bad guy remember?" to this group of expert crime boys and somehow surprising them every time