#hm. I'll have to write that Rashomon meta one of these days

[eyrieofsynapses]

Man, okay, one of the things I love about The Rashomon Job is how layered it is (and ngl that's a meta on its own), and this bit--besides being absolutely hilarious--is such an excellent demonstration of how it works.

Because the thing about it is that everyone's building off of each other's stories. Not one of them is telling it in a vacuum outside of Sophie. Of course, Sophie being Sophie, she's going to drum it up and make it into a dramatic story. But she doesn't know this bit... which means this is the boys entirely on their own.

And you know what? I'd say that the first scene here--Hardison and Eliot--is probably one of the most truthful scenes in the entire story. Eliot isn't one to be super flowery, and he wouldn't play up a diplomat being overly grateful like that. He's absolutely messing with earlier aspects of his telling to irk Sophie. But that? Why play that up?

And given it's a much younger and less experienced Hardison, who seriously overplayed his grifts in the first season even with a couple of years of experience... yeaaah, that's about on-point.

So Eliot's probably giving us a pretty on-point retelling right here, even with several years of distance. (Which, considering he noted he'd forgotten about the whole thing till they brought it up, is actually rather impressive and possibly indicative of his good memory.)

Then Hardison takes it and does a full heel-turn. Of course, retroactively knowing it was Eliot will already unconsciously cause him to reframe that encounter. Honestly, if he were telling it truthfully from that perspective, I think he might actually reframe Eliot a little more positively (or at least closer to the friendly animosity they have). And he knows full well how much he overplays grifts. Hardison is well aware that Eliot's telling is probably fairly realistic.

But, well, it's Hardison. If there's one thing he loves, it's messing with Eliot. So we go from a relatively accurate retelling to something that is absolute and complete bullshit, for no reason other than the fact that Hardison wants to tick him off.

And that's the brilliance of this episode! It's hilarious! It's delightfully fun to watch them modify their stories specifically to tailor to how they want each other to hear it, because it tells us a lot about them and how they like to be viewed. (Though I'll be honest: I'd love to hear their separate takes just to get an idea of their genuine impressions of each other.) It's also entertaining to peel back the layers and try to figure out what they're playing up. If you know them well enough, you might even be able to guess at the real story. That's the fun of it. Just... guys. The Rashomon Job is such a masterpiece of storytelling, both from the characters and from the creators.

The Rashomon Job ➤ Saving Minister Bioko ↳ Eliot vs Alec

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