#redemption 1x03

[independent-fics]

Inde watches “The Rollin’ on the River Job”

Leverage Redemption 1x03

“Hardison had to have a lot of practice before Eliot agreed to open those van doors” yes please missing 12 years lore (or original run lore) either way I love

I kinda love how Sophie just keeps referring to Harry as our Mr Wilson it’s cute. She really working to make him feel included

Oof growing pains with Sophie coming back and Parker being the mastermind

Really love Hardison’s algorithm. Love how he’s still helping them find clients

Ahhhh callbacks to learning it’s not always about the money with clients

“I lost count of my marriages, but I only had one husband” my heart

15 MANUALS WHERE

Sophie being happy to be back on a stage

”I’m Parker” yes you are

“We have to rob the vault” “YES” Parker my beloved she deserves all the vents and vaults 

Brennas “trash bags from couch, couch” the implications there

Telling Sophie to walk off after her “let’s go steal” get her back in the groove hahaha

a con with a flow chart Hardison making those for her and helping her ahhh I love them

“Are you using a flow chart for all your interactions” SO WHAT IF SHE IS and where can I get one

The Mark being upset about not being verified on Twitter goodness, they really thought these guys through 

Goodness, Eliot transitioning into OK I was a cop why is he so dramatic 😭this man closeted theater kid I swear the slight accent and tone change? Man suddenly sounded like he’s been through 40 years on the beat like what

I don’t like the cgi clay birds (idk why it bothers me like it would be cool if they learned ig )

I am not getting enough Parker and Eliot brainstorming moments together

Sophie that pink suit is stunning

Breanna already out and aboutttt

Gahgh nvm already benched

Gah the parallels of the newer team members growing like the originals

Parker’s you don’t like my dress? 🥺(also love that this is kinda mirroring the original run episode 3 bridesmaid dress? In a way)

Eliot bonding over cooking with the other security guard ahhh my heart

Ahhh more leverage friends??? I want all the lore

“It’s a very distinctive- hold on” the writers just couldn’t forget that love it

Ice cave, gorilla enclosure, catered a wedding I love these mentions

“Food sensory experience” Eliot you nerd

Harry’s little thumbs up to Breanna I love this duo

Nooo not Eliot’s new friend

Why they always go for typical Russian names we got Ivan Dimitri then the bodyguard is Jake??

Parker making Eliot smell the money haha I love them

Breanna coming in with the ideal gas law you smartical partical

Awww Eliot helping Dennis still and having game night (and the 7 shirt!!!)

THAT WAS MY CAKE PARKER (I love them so much)

Always trust the person inside the van (ugh Hardison I love your notes)

Ugh yeah Breanna me too about the world and the timeline of my life. I would love to kick it in the junk too.

With the pearl yes Parker!!! My beloved world famous thief

[fourteenthofaugust]

Sophie Devereaux + pink suit Leverage: Redemption 1x03: The Rollin' on the River Job

[best-iwtv-scene]

ROUND 1B, MATCH 7

Descriptions/Propaganda under the cut:

Louis saves Claudia from the fire (1x03/1x04)

Consumed with guilt after instigating a race riot throughout Storyville, Louis desperately tries to help the innocent black people of his city from the violence surrounding him. Despite his vampirism, he is unable to help anyone on the street, but as he comes to a burning house, he can hear a young girl inside, terrified and bound to suffocate from the smoke around her. Louis rips through the building and jumps to where Claudia is hiding, picking her up and bringing her to the Rue Royale. This moment is seen both from Louis's perspective at the end of 1x03 and from Claudia's viewpoint at the beginning of 1x04. Louis depicts his act as one that not only saved Claudia but saved him, too, forever changing his life from that day onward. Claudia depicts it as magical, amazed by the "black angel" that saved her from death. The scene is scored by "Claudia" by Daniel Hart in 1x03, introducing her theme which is frequently used throughout the show. "I could not save the Azalea. I could not save Storyville. I could not save the aunt on the wrong side of the wall, but I could save her. My light. My Claudia. My redemption."

Propaganda:

No propaganda was submitted for this scene.

"You and Me, Me and You" (2x01)

After years of travelling through cold, war-riddled Eastern Europe in search of vampires, and after finally finding one only to watch her throw herself into a fire before them, Louis and Claudia find themselves on the way to Paris. Claudia is fractured from witnessing Daciana's death, feeling like she will never find a community or understanding in anyone no matter where she goes. In the back of a car, lit only by the passing lights of France at night, Louis promises Claudia that he will be her community, her companion, wherever Claudia goes, vowing that he will never leave the earth as long as she still walks it. Wounded by what she saw, Claudia desperately wants to believe Louis and there is a fragile kind of hope in her eyes as she looks up at him. As the monologue continues, the camera slowly pans to Claudia's right to reveal an imagined Lestat, throat slit and bloody, sitting next to her, Louis fighting with himself over who to look at as he promises "you and me". This scene is heartbreaking, particularly knowing the direction of Louis and Claudia's relationship through season two, Louis making a promise that both vampires so greatly wish to be true, but ultimately does not hold, pushing each other away as the season progresses. The scene is scored by Daniel Hart's 'The Whole World Was Ready To Return', a piece many consider to be the best on the soundtrack, the short string motifs, building and layering to mirror the hope and desperation of the promise until it reaches a climactic cadence at the sight of Paris. The piece returns in 2x08 over Louis's final monologue, playing out the season in a bittersweet moment.  "We can't be the only good ones out there... Soft words. If you were the last vampire on earth, it would be enough. You and me. Me and you. You and me. Me and you. You and me."

Propaganda:

No propaganda was submitted for this scene.

Submitted by @interviewiththevicious

[raayllum]

I know it’s a longer one, but I vote for Rayla’s Position In The Narrative as a Dual Antagonist!

*cracks knuckles with shania twain music* let's go girls

So I've talked about this very briefly before in the context of a much larger meta about something completely different, but 'Rayla is the only character who enters the show as an Antagonist for both the humans and the elves. She is the first character to be caught in the middle, opposing everything the human characters are currently all trying to save (King Harrow’s life), and also ruining whatever chance her mission has of success, angering and endangering her fellow assassins. Much of season one, then, is pushing her into a more positive role for the humans, and much of season three examines whether or not she is right to oppose the elves — and how to reverse it if she can. This is part of why she wrestles so intensely with the ‘failure’ of both her own mission and her parents’

After all, neither Viren nor Claudia are an antagonist in any way until 1x03. Soren doesn't arguably become an antagonist at all until S2. Part of this is because Soren and Claudia, while they face set backs in what they were trying to do (protect the royal family; keep the egg on their side), they don't 100% shit the bed, so to speak. Claudia would've had the upper hand if Callum hadn't blind sided her and even then they struggled to get rid of her smoke wolves and she got out of the chain herself. Soren did successfully protect Callum and reeled from the loss of Harrow, but was still confident in his ability to find the princes when he thought that was the mission Viren was giving him.

Which is to say: Soren and Claudia don't go looking for redemption until much, much later, if at all; Soren only reaches that precipice 2.5 seasons later in 3x05 and then finds in full in 3x09. And even when they are opposing the heroes, they are not opposing their father; they are still aligned with a certain side. Likewise, even though Callum and Ezran are working against some humans, they have confidence that they are making their mother proud with the mission they have taken up and are later reaffirmed in their choices by Harrow.

Rayla doesn’t have any of this reaffirmation. Even Ethari, with their brief reconciliation in S3, doesn’t offer her much, if any, hope or comfort beyond their initial hug. 

Rayla enters the show, has one scene, and immediately shoots herself in the foot, because she fails at the one uttermost thing she was absolutely supposed to do on a mission we have every indication she begged/fought to be on within an inch of her life, and she chokes at the finish line.

R: I am pretty awesome at everything... right up until the moment when it really matters. I dunno. I hesitate. I think too much. Get confused about the right thing to do. Then the next thing I know, I've failed.

Then, to make matters worse, she covers up her failure and lies about it until it’s forced out by circumstance. Then, even after being removed from the mission, she resolves to make up for her mistake and heads to the castle in secret... and then defies and fights her mission leader. Thus, Rayla is squarely an antagonist for the first two episodes and it is only because we see her spare a human / struggle (both things our favourite princes are not privy to) that we root for her and trust her when she begins to turn in 1x03. 

And in fact, much of 1x03 revolves around narratively ‘rehabilitating’ her as she follows Ezran’s lead, answers the boys’ questions, defends them, stands against Runaan to protect them, and is cinched by her vow to Callum: “Say the word and I’ll go back in that tower with you.” Say the word and I’ll fight against the rest of my troupe / people for you. 

She goes from being both an antagonist to the humans and elves to switching right around and becoming an antagonist to her own people, the elves as well as her own family, with her and boys becoming their own side and their own team in many ways. Otherwise known as, in Rayla’s words:

But even once she’s switched sides, this double antagonism doesn’t just go away. Rayla is often directly opposed to whatever the boys want in S1-S2 - to go to the Banther Lodge, to take the boat, to take the easier path up the mountain, to trust Soren and Claudia at the Moon Nexus, to have Callum go out into the storm, or to try to save the dragon in forest. And in addition to this double antagonism, much of S1-S3 is Rayla’s reformation and redemption arc to both sides of the war, to both the humans she would have hurt and to the elves she left behind.

However, and this is where it gets somewhat tragic, is that it’s not like S1-S3 are smooth sailing for Rayla. She continues to consistently fuck up, often regardless of the support other characters’ offer in action or in word. 

Which is to say: Rayla is also the most antagonist to herself. She gets in her own way, she trips herself up, and all of that just compounds and reaffirms her belief that the problem is her. She can switch sides, run away, get people to back off, take or learn every possible maneuver, and disaster will still follow, because the disaster is her.  

Which is to also say: Rayla focuses so hard on redeeming herself to other people, to other causes, to other nations, she forgets that redemption is also supposed to be for herself, let alone that in so many cases she has nothing to forgive herself for. Not all, as we see in TTM and S4 and the way she blows her own life to pieces and Callum is caught in the crossfire most of all, but much of it. Even in the way she comes back into season four, knowing that she fucked up in some capacity, and that now she has to make up for it. 

In many ways that what makes S4 so complicated for her, as Rayla is simultaneously at her best and her worst. On the one hand, she’s come home to try and let go (as far as we know). On the other hand, she still can’t let go, and she’s lost what made her Rayla in so many ways in her time away. Which just makes me think of this quote from a recent podcast interview with Head writer Devon Giehl and writer Iain Hendry on the show (reflecting on Rayla in 4x08 rather than 4x04, mind you):

 You see her through seasons one through three like — just seems like any opportunity, she’ll be the one to make the big sacrifice. She’ll go out there to try and save the dragon, she’ll go and try and fight Viren and his army alone to protect everyone and so on. So the fact that once again she defaults to ‘I have to give up something painful to myself.’ [...] But I think you don’t do the — usually, you don’t do the greater whole any good by completely sacrificing yourself, and I do think that is often the lengths, like you said, a lot of the Moonshadow elf culture norms and mantras go to eventually is ‘You have to be willing to completely forget who you are’.

So now it seems, perhaps, that her heart is finally hard enough to do whatever it takes. 

Or is it?

Rayla reminds Callum that destiny is a book he has written himself. That the pen and paper is in his hands. That the Narrative is his to control. And I think it’s particularly purposeful that Rayla says this in response to Callum pigeon-holing them both into the roles they initially started out in. Callum, feeling powerless and out of control as a ‘regular’ human or as a dark mage, submitting to the terror of doing horrible things. Rayla, being asked to be a proper assassin, and kill the accidental snag in her plans, her mistaken target, for another’s sins. He’s asking her to be his antagonist again, if he’s forced to be hers. 

And, of course, this extends even further into the season finale, in which Rayla does the last thing the world that Callum wants, running after Viren again, highlighting what’s changed about their dynamic and what hasn’t, the ways they’ve grown to understand and accept each other, and the fundamental misunderstandings and clashes they’re still having. If you want to read more about this exchange and interplay of foils I’d recommend reading this meta here :)

Last but not least, I’d like to close this meta off by saying that there is one character who shares this dual antagonism from the start, and that’s Aaravos. He ‘helps’ people while really making them indebted or flat out pawns in his game. He offers gifts that leave the mages who take them dead shortly thereafter. 

He opposes the elves and dragons, yes, but has no love for humanity left in his heart. He opposes and orchestrates the downfall of each effort of peace. He will use humans and discard/destroy elves and dragons alike with little recourse. He doesn’t care about anyone, and Rayla (used to at least, and still does, deep down) care about everyone. 

And just one of the many ways they parallel each other across the seasons, but particularly in season four.

[lassieposting]

God okay so, as a movie/show fan who’s never actually read the vast extended universe of books, this meta explains so much about Sauron’s characterisation in ROP.

Like. He is absolutely riddled with red flags for someone with serious complex trauma. I picked up on it the very first time I watched the show; it’s what got me Begrudgingly Invested, even though I hate Amazon and I really wanted to hate their take on Middle Earth. But what I didn’t understand was why, because at no point in the movies or the show do we ever see Sauron involved in a situation or a dynamic that would create those red flags. But if Morgoth inflicted such a horrific punishment on him that he was either imprisoned or in no state to fight for the entire War of Wrath? Yeah, that starts to makes sense.

(Long and rambling dissection of the trauma markers and how they could relate back to this meta under the cut)

Doormat Tendencies

This is a recurring theme throughout the season: Sauron is an immensely powerful divine being – arguably the most powerful divine being outside of Valinor – but he consistently defers to Galadriel on basically everything, even to the point of giving up on his own plans, and he does it with very little fuss.

1x02: He asks her for a heading for the raft, even though he’ll later claim that he had his own plans.

1x03 – 1x06: He wants to stay in Númenor. She wants him to return to Middle Earth. He returns to Middle Earth.

1x03 – 1x06: He just wants to find work as a smith. She wants him to claim the crown of the Southlands. He ends up taking the crown.

1x08: He wants redemption. She tells him it’s too late, he’s already an irredeemable monster. He believes her, and becomes an irredeemable monster, rather than continuing to try for redemption on his own.

Now, I’ve seen a few different takes on why he acts like this – manipulation, fondness, boredom – but to me, the implication here is that this is someone who is used to being dominated and having his wants trampled over by a stronger, more forceful personality: Melkor.

“It would seem I am not the only elf alive who has been transformed by darkness. Perhaps your search for Morgoth’s successor should have ended in your own mirror.” – Adar, 1x08

It seems that, at least in the ROP universe, Galadriel and Melkor have similar personalities. Specifically, they’re both driven, stubborn, mercurial, tempestuous, fiercely independent, highly ambitious, and assertive to the point of…well, bulldozing people to get their own way or achieve their own goals. This is a personality type Sauron has always been drawn to and gelled well with – Halbrand more or less becomes Galadriel’s devoted sidekick throughout the season, just as Sauron was Morgoth’s. He’s someone who is drawn to impose order on chaos, and that means he’s drawn to chaotic people.     

And so, with Galadriel, Sauron quickly falls back into comfortable, familiar patterns of behaviour, because to his fucked-up Normal Meter, they actually read as safe – this is a dynamic he understands. He’s learned, over many long millennia with Melkor, that it’s better to adapt around chaotic behaviour and erratic demands than to try and push back against them. And we can see echoes of this even thousands of years after Melkor is defeated: the few times Halbrand does challenge her plans for him, Galadriel talks over him or brushes him off, and he lets her. It’s a token resistance – he wants to show he’s not a complete pushover, but he doesn’t actually expect her to care what he wants, or to factor his wishes into her longterm plans.

Halbrand: “As a matter of fact, my intention was –”

Galadriel, interrupting: “My companion is simply feeling the weight of his task. Come time, I am sure he will do his part.” – 1x05

Basically, S1!Galadriel is benefitting from the fact that Melkor has spent thousands upon thousands of years conditioning Sauron to do as he’s told. And how do you teach someone as stubborn and headstrong as Sauron to do as he's told? Well, if you're Morgoth - prideful, cruel, impatient, increasingly twisted and insane - probably with violence. Which brings me to -

2) Fighting Style

For this, I’m gonna focus on that one scene with the Númenorean smiths.

This scene has me absolutely vibrating because for all that it serves to showcase how much damage “Halbrand” can do, it’s actually not wanton violence. He tries to deescalate this situation three times once he realises he’s been caught out – first with humour, then with a warning, and then by trying to physically leave.

We know they’ve already triggered his temper – we see his homicidal thousand yard stare when they’re mocking his apparent relationship with Galadriel. And while the smiths are under the impression they’re picking on a Man, Sauron is obviously well aware that they’re starting shit with a Maia, and that he can take the lot of them. But even knowing he’d win the fight, he doesn’t throw the first punch. He’s willing – he wants – to walk away.

And if he’s genuinely repentant here, that tracks. He’s sick of all the violence. He doesn’t want to fight anymore. But his line, “Please don’t do this,” is not please don’t hurt me. It’s please don’t make me hurt you.

And the second he realises they're not going to let him go? The second they start beating on him? He erupts like Orodruin. He goes feral.

Like…look at the fighting style here. It’s vicious, absolutely, but first and foremost it’s highly effective self-defence. He targets vulnerable, immediately disabling spots; eyes, noses, windpipes, knee joints. He relies on speed and agility to dodge blows and give himself space to manoeuvre. He doesn’t get caught up in focusing on one opponent; he’s tracking all their movements around him and prioritising targets accordingly. He takes each of them out of the fight as quickly as possible, and once an opponent is downed, he drops them and moves on to the next one. The only time we see him linger over hurting someone, letting himself take a moment to gloat or savour it, is right at the very end, with Call me Halbrand, once all his opponents are already on the floor.

The energy in this scene is weird. The first time you watch it, it makes sense for it to be so visceral, because Halbrand would be in major danger here - he's seriously outnumbered. But rewatching it, knowing that he’s Sauron, there’s no subtle sign that this is actually an immensely powerful low-level deity toying with a few unwary Mannish thugs. It still feels like he’s fighting for his life. And the feeling that gave me was that...well, part of him thinks that he is. I think that being cornered, and smacked around, and laughed at while he’s sprawled out on the floor, actually triggered him.

In other words, he fights like someone who’s used to getting cornered into fighting either a group* or an opponent who’s bigger and stronger than he is. Sauron is, apparently, accustomed to fights where his best chance of surviving – or, at least, coming out with minimum injuries – is to down his opponent as quickly as possible and scarper before they get back up again.

*(Which, let’s face it. Morgoth’s mines were full of enslaved POWs who hated his guts and would’ve hated Sauron’s too. If he found himself chained up down there with them – a very obvious indicator that he’s lost Morgoth’s favour – the chances that those prisoners would band together to try and lynch him are, let’s face it, very high. And while there would undoubtedly be orcs on guard to keep the prisoners in line, Sauron hasn’t exactly been a good boss to them, and there are probably plenty who’d turn a blind eye unless explicitly ordered to break it up by a superior.)

Now obviously, Sauron is a Maia. He's strong, and he’s absolutely pulling his punches in the Númenor street fight – if he wasn’t, those smiths would probably be dead. Galadriel is aiming to kill when she tries to stab him, so she'd be putting a fair amount of force and weight behind that blow, and he stops her hand like it's nothing. Effortless. And he's powerful, in so many ways. There are very, very few things in Arda he would need to fear.

But he would be no match for Melkor.

As in the quote used somewhere up above:

“Though of immensely smaller native power than his Master, he remained less corrupt, cooler and more capable of calcultion.”

Melkor is bigger, stronger, tougher and more powerful than he is. Melkor is fully capable of hurting him. And if Melkor is the kind of person who’s not against using violence or humiliation to control his generals, he probably has hurt Sauron plenty in the past. 

3) Fawn Response

Most English speakers will be familiar with the term “fight or flight” – a creature’s ingrained response to a situation they perceive as stressful, dangerous or frightening. In psychology, these are called acute stress responses, and there are actually four of them, with the other two being freeze and fawn. Every living thing has an acute stress response.

Of the four responses, three are purely instinctive: honey badgers will fight a curious lion; gazelles will flee from a hunting cheetah; rabbits freeze when caught in the headlights of an approaching car. The fourth response, fawn, is unique to people and a few other highly social species.

In people, each response can manifest as a variety of different behaviours.

Fight: Verbal or physical aggression, explosive outbursts, controlling or domineering behaviour, impulsivity, bullying, picking fights for no obvious reason, teeth grinding, urge to lash out

Flight: Workaholism, overthinking, obsessive or compulsive behaviours, feelings of anxiety or panic, fidgeting, feeling trapped

Freeze: Dissociation, self-isolation, emotional numbness, depressive episodes, numbing behaviours (i.e. self-medication via substance misuse), indecisiveness

Fawn: Codependency, conflict avoidance, approval-seeking, submissive or people-pleasing personality, emotional manipulation, weak or no sense of personal identity, lying to avoid confrontation

Most trauma survivors are hybrids, and will show aspects of more than one acute stress response, and this is true of Sauron. But one of the things I find really interesting about him in ROP is that he’s predominantly a fawner.

Unlike the three instinctive responses, fawning is learned – it’s one way the complex human brain adapts to long-term threatening situations where the fight, flight and freeze responses don’t work for us. The fawn response is very common in people who’ve suffered abuse – a violent marriage, a malignant narcissist parent, severe bullying – where their best chance of survival was to placate and appease a more powerful abuser they could not escape.

E03 - When Elendil presents Halbrand & Galadriel to Tar-Míriel, we see Halbrand quietly urge Galadriel not to antagonize the Númenoreans and prompt her to show proper courtly manners by kneeling. When she immediately antagonizes the Queen, he starts showing subtle signs of agitation, and he intervenes as soon as Míriel suggests she's losing her temper with Galadriel's impudence. When Galadriel tries to interrupt him again, he does a very clear leave this to me hand gesture. He flatters the Queen to settle her ruffled feathers, and subtly diffuses the situation by addressing Pharazon when he suggests taking time to consider "their" request. He's taken a hostile confrontation between Elf royalty and Mannish royalty (Galadriel & Míriel) and turned it into a diplomatic discussion between advisors (himself & Pharazon).

And we see, several times, that this is actually Sauron’s first reaction to stress and conflict.

E08 - When Galadriel confronts Halbrand about the broken Southlands royal line, he drops the act immediately, but his first inclination is to try and reason with her. As he approaches her, his body language is open and conciliatory - the big innocent eyes, the low-calm-and-soothing voice, the slow and telegraphed movement. He's trying to make himself seem like less of a threat. When she tries to stab him, all he does is stop her - there's no counter, no move to incapacitate or harm. This interaction goes south in the end, devolving into “fight” when he invades her mind, but his first instinct is to appease. To convince.

E03 - In the same episode, we see Halbrand plying the Númenorean smiths with drink and camaraderie after they start antagonizing him, because he thinks that’s going to give him the best shot of stealing a guild crest unnoticed. While he certainly considers multiple homicide - we can see it on his face - it's actually only after they start hitting him that he flares up in return.

While he’s certainly capable of immense violence, and he does go that route sometimes, it’s usually his backup option – force is what he relies on when fawning doesn’t work.

This makes so much more sense in the context of Melkor as someone who is not only infinitely stronger and more powerful than Sauron, but who also becomes increasingly temperamental and unpredictable over time, more likely to be cruel to his own loyal followers as retaliation for their failures.

For their relationship to begin with Mairon adores Melkor and end with Sauron is afraid of Morgoth, there would have been a deterioration in their relationship, and in Morgoth’s treatment of Sauron, at some point. The fact that the relationship never devolves to the point of Sauron abandoning Morgoth of his own free will suggests that this downturn in their relationship was a slow and crumbling thing, taking place over a long period of time. That tracks: abusers often present themselves as perfectly likeable at the start of a relationship, and reveal their true colours slowly, escalating as their victim adapts to their increasingly unacceptable behaviour.

As the second-in-command of what’s essentially a dictatorship, Sauron would be right in Morgoth’s inner circle, dependent on Morgoth’s favour for his status and authority, and isolated by rank from the rest of Morgoth’s forces. He’s not Melkor’s equal, even if Melkor listens to his advice, but nor is he One Of The Men, and he outranks even high-ranking Úmaiar like Gothmog. He has no equals, no one he can lean on or share camaraderie with, nobody who can side with him against Morgoth if necessary. This power structure actually leaves him really vulnerable to abuse from above. In Valinor or Aman, if a Vala was ever cruel to their Maiar, they could at least be kept in check by other Valar. In Arda, Melkor has no oversight. There’s no one Sauron can go to if he feels mistreated. So when Melkor begins to turn on him, Sauron would quickly find that he has limited means of protecting himself thanks to his actually-quite-precarious position in Melkor’s court. He can’t fight back, because Melkor is stronger than him. He can’t flee – where would he go? They’d hunt him down, and he can’t exactly turn to Aule for protection anymore. He can’t afford to freeze and go to pieces, because the safety he does have is reliant on the benefits of his place in the hierarchy, and to keep that place he needs to be capable and competent. In this situation, his best defence is keeping Morgoth happy – attuning himself to Morgoth’s moods and learning to manipulate them, stroking his ego, currying favour, giving Morgoth as little reason as possible to be displeased with him.

And so, he becomes a fawner.

4) Treatment Of Subordinates

“For my part…I had sacrificed enough of my children for his aspirations. I split him open. I killed Sauron.” – Adar, 1x06

The main exception to Sauron’s fawning tendencies is Adar, who provokes an immediate violent response.

This makes sense – Adar’s betrayal in Forodwaith, and his brutal murder of Sauron’s last fana, was a devastating blow to Sauron’s self-confidence, and he’s out for revenge. But his treatment of Adar, and the orcs Adar considers himself responsible for, does draw attention to the way Sauron has learned – or been taught – to treat his underlings in general.

Our very first look at Sauron, before we even see him in person, is through Galadriel’s eyes during her excursion into his Forodwaith fortress. And what we see is pretty monstrous. Sauron thinks nothing of torturing, mutilating and killing the orcs who follow him – his own soldiers – if he thinks it will advance his goals. According to Adar, Sauron killed many, many orcs in the course of his experiments with the Unseen World. Adar seems to have been his second-in-command at that point, and while they may not have been friends, there was some degree of trust between them – Adar was able to take Sauron by surprise, which means Sauron was comfortable enough with him to drop his guard. And yet, it never occurs to him that Adar cares about the welfare of the orcs. It never occurs to him that Adar might take issue with the orcs being used as test subjects. It never occurs to him that eventually, given enough dead loved ones, Adar might turn on him. 

Now, we’ve established that Sauron is someone who claims he wants to be his own man, but actually tends to follow the example he’s been set by his current role model. And since this doesn’t seem like the kind of leadership he’d have learned from Aulë, it’s far more likely that his first foray into Dark Lord-ship saw him imitating Morgoth’s treatment of those who served him – placing a certain degree of trust and authority in his lieutenants, but simultaneously keeping his underlings in line through pain and humiliation. If he himself was cowed by harsh punishment, and emerged too afraid of Morgoth to have considered rebellion, why wouldn’t he assume Adar to be similarly afraid of him? Adar is, after all, an infinitely inferior being. A mutilated elf-orc against a Maia has to be a similar power differential to a Maia against a Vala: Adar should have had no hope in hell of ever taking on Sauron and winning.

Elendil’s pull in Armenelos is limited – at this point in his life, he’s just a sea captain whose family is known for causing trouble. There’s no reason for Sauron to think that Elendil would be a useful ally in the Númenorean court – he saves him purely because they’re on the same side. Quite a change, from the man who has, up to this point, thought nothing of throwing allied lives away for his own ends. Unfortunately, because the first season is so condensed, Halbrand is only the King of the Southlands for about five minutes, so we don’t get to see whether, given more time with Galadriel as his reference point, he would increasingly follow her example rather than Morgoth’s.

Later, we see him exposed to a different example. He stops working to watch Galadriel training her volunteers, leading with positive reinforcement and camaraderie. He would also have watched her interact with them on the ship during the journey to Middle Earth. She is a stubborn, demanding and unyielding commander, but she does care about her people, and she knows how to win loyalty. And what does Sauron do in their very first battle together? He saves Elendil, despite having absolutely no selfish reason to do so.

5) Dysfunctional Attachment & Sense Of Identity

Galadriel’s backstory is full of loving, positive relationships: in 1x01 we meet her brother Finrod, her friend Elrond, her long-suffering second-in-command Thondir, and (in a one-line mention by Finrod) her mother and father. In 1x07, she also mentions her long-lost husband, Celeborn. In contrast, the only relationships mentioned for Sauron are Morgoth and Adar, neither of which were positive or loving. Aulë, interestingly, isn’t mentioned at all.

One of the first things ROP establishes about Sauron as a character (once we actually meet him in person) is that hes a self-serving survivor with low empathy. He stops Galadriel climbing onto the raft while the humans bicker about whether to leave her adrift, and he doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice everyone else on the raft to cover his own escape.

The rest of the season reinforces that he is not someone who bonds easily with others:  

Galadriel then goes on to form a number of new relationships over the course of the season: her mutual antagonism with Míriel becomes mutual respect, she befriends Elendil, she briefly serves as a mentor figure for Theo, she makes an enemy of Adar. But Halbrand doesn’t. We see him interact with other characters – the Númenorean smith who gives him a job, Míriel, Bronwyn briefly – but he doesn’t build anything with them. The interactions are very surface-level, very shallow – a means to an end.

So, while Sauron is clearly a charismatic charmer, someone who knows how to present himself as likeable, there doesn’t seem to be much drive in him to actually bond with others.

But he’s not a complete sociopath, and he's not completely devoid of empathy either. We know this from the one relationship he does build in S1, which is with Galadriel.

In 1x02, both characters are quite literally adrift, and for the same reason – their lives have fallen apart. Galadriel has been betrayed by her company, let down by her closest friend, exiled back to Valinor by her king – she’s lost all the resources and allies she’s relied upon to carry out her quest for vengeance. Sauron has lost a war, his master, his allies, and his life after Adar’s betrayal. They’re both floundering, desperate for something to give back some of the stability and purpose that they’ve lost.

And up until the identity reveal, they do find it. This is a relationship characterised, above all else, by understanding of and confidence in each other. They snark and bicker and annoy each other, but they also support and guide each other, challenge each other's worldviews, and restrain one another’s worst impulses.

But they react to the loss of this relationship differently.

So really, it’s no wonder that Sauron gets attached very quickly: this is probably the most positive relationship he’s had in thousands of years. And as we’ve already established, he’s a follower by nature – he’s drawn to strong, domineering personalities who give him purpose (ordering their chaos). Galadriel is exactly what he feels he needs at that point.

Galadriel is, if not an emotionally healthy individual, at least healthier than Sauron. She has been through some shit, but she has always had the support of people who love her, and as a result, she is self-assured and confident in her place in the world. While the loss of their friendship – and of “Halbrand” - will grieve her, it won't change her fundamental understanding of who she is and what purpose she serves.

But Sauron has been rewired over millennia to be incredibly dysfunctional. He doesn't bond easily with others, but when he does, he throws himself wholeheartedly into that relationship - and only that relationship. He invests his entire identity in that other person and how they see him, what he thinks they want him to be. He makes them the centre of his universe, and adjusts his values and identity to complement theirs.

But the problem with making other people your guiding light is that once they're no longer there to direct you, you lose your way. When Morgoth is vanquished, Sauron struggles (and ultimately fails) to keep what's left of his forces together – Adar implies that while a lot of the orcs did decide to follow Sauron, a lot of them also deserted and didn't come north at all.

With Morgoth as his guiding light, he turns to evil. What may have started out as low empathy in Mairon becomes active cruelty in Sauron. Desire for order becomes obsessive need for control. Intelligence and creativity becomes lust for power and sovereignty. With Galadriel at the helm, Halbrand veers back in the other direction, with his positive traits beginning to reassert themselves - bravery, humour, charm. He shows mercy to both the Numenorean smiths (of his own accord) and Adar (as a concession to Galadriel).

He's even selfless a few times - bringing the raft back for her even though he doesn't know who she is or what value she could have to him, and then saving her from drowning even though he does know who she is and how determined she is to see him dead.

“He bid as many as he could follow him north…” – Adar, 1x06

The ones that did go with him, as we know, ultimately turned on him in favour of Adar. Without Morgoth to keep pushing him to conquer and destroy, he can't keep up the momentum, because he doesn't actually want the same things as Morgoth. He wants to rule the world, not corrupt it.

The same thing happens when Galadriel casts him out. Without her prompting him to do good things - and his own desire to live up to her image of him leading him to do good things on his own - he stops doing them altogether, because it's hard to claw your way out of being a terrible person, and it's harder still if nobody notices or cares that you're doing it. He's realised he doesn't want what Morgoth gave him, but he also doesn't really want to be the hero. He’s got no bloody idea who he really is and he's torn about what he truly wants - and an underdeveloped, fragile or non-existent sense of self is very common in people who’ve spent their entire lives being controlled by someone else.  

So, why play along with her in the first place?

"You've done far more than that for me. I'd all but given up, but you...you believed in me. You saw strength in me. You pushed me to heights that no one else could have. I will never forget that. And I'll see to it that no one else does either." – Halbrand, 1x08

On its most basic level: she's kind to him.

Victims of longterm abuse have a very skewed idea of what interpersonal relationships should look like, and what they can expect from other people. He's had his confidence badly knocked by Morgoth's mistreatment and Adar's betrayal; she gets him back in the saddle as a leader, and she does it with faith and encouragement rather than with cruelty. Of course he's a little bit obsessed with her. She's probably the first person to act as though she cares about him in millennia - it's overwhelming, it's addictive. And because she's making him feel good about himself, he's more inclined to play the part she's assigned him, because doing so is a shortcut to getting her approval, which, again, makes him feel good about himself, and so the cycle continues. Right up until it doesn't, and he loses that positive emotional feedback loop he's so eager for.

6) Rejection Sensitivity & Abandonment Issues

“You don’t know what I did before I ended up on that raft. You don’t know how I survived. How we all survived. And when these people discover it, they will cast me out. So will you.” – Halbrand, 1x05

Sauron’s fear of rejection comes up a few times throughout the first season of ROP. It’s the focus of one of his most openly vulnerable moments, when Galadriel confronts him in the forge – they’re both on the verge of tears in that scene, and when he’s staring into the fire he looks positively haunted.   

1x08’s confrontation scene then shows us that not only does Sauron fear rejection, he also reacts to it really badly. Of course, this could be because he’s an entitled manchild who throws temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his own way, but we’re looking at him from a trauma perspective, and severe rejection sensitivity is a common aspect of CPTSD. For real people, it tends to be rooted in one of two things:

You’ve been taught that you are unworthy of love. Perhaps your abuser has taught you that they are the only one who will ever care about you, and their abuse is all you will ever deserve. Perhaps they’ve told you that nobody will ever care for you at all. Perhaps you’ve been taught that your true self is pathetic, shameful or not good enough. Over time, you internalise the belief that others are inherently disappointed or disgusted by you. In later life, when you try to bond with others and they reject you, it feels like they are confirming that belief, which is devastating, and you lash out instinctively.

You were loved conditionally. Your abuser was loving and affectionate to you sometimes, but when you displeased them, they would take their love away to punish you, leaving you perpetually insecure in the stability of your most vital relationships. You end up constantly anticipating the next time your closest bonds will be yanked out from underneath you, and as a result, you never learn how to feel safe and secure in another person's love or friendship. So when you feel like someone has taken their love away, all the old feelings of panic and abandonment come rushing back, and you lash out.

For Sauron, there's a distinct vibe of #2. We see Galadriel grant Halbrand absolution for the evil he claims to have done, and we see how much that seems to affect Sauron; that's a very emotionally raw scene for him. He's spent a very long time believing himself completely beyond redemption, and then his most bitter enemy tells him (albeit unwittingly) that he can be forgiven. That she, specifically, can forgive him. And he seems to bind her specific forgiveness up with the concept of redemption in general - he doesn't believe he can do it without her support, he thinks he needs her to show him how to be good. So when Galadriel takes back that forgiveness in the raft vision, because she didn't know who she was pardoning, it doesn't seem to occur to Sauron that he could, technically, keep trying to find his way back to the light without her. In his mind, she's not just taking away some words she said when she didn't really know who she was talking to - she's taking away the very possibility of redemption altogether.

So Sauron flips his shit. He goes, "Oh, you want me to be evil? Fine. Fine! I'll show you evil."

And honestly...this kind of self-sabotage is actually really common in traumatized people with serious rejection sensitivity issues. I have rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD), an especially severe kind of rejection sensitivity, and RSD support communities are littered with people who have destroyed their relationships, explosively quit their jobs on the spot, dropped out of classes, cut off friendships forever...all because they felt rejected and their own brain went nuclear on them. Hell, I’ve done some of those things myself. It’s like a red mist in the moment – half the time you don’t even realise what you’ve done until you’ve calmed down, and at that point, you’ve got no choice but to walk whatever stupid path you’ve built for yourself, whether that’s “find a new job before rent is due, you moron” or “take over the world because you’ve got nothing and no one else left”.   

Anyway this got really long and disjointed because I’m pulling from so many different aspects of trauma here and it all ties in together so tightly but tl;dr, ROP!Sauron practically has CPTSD stamped on his forehead, and this meta explains why. What do you know of darkness, indeed.

(From Morgoth’s perspective, I’d imagine that starting out so much more powerful than even the greatest of his underlings would lend him a carelessness in his treatment of his servants that, for someone so proud and superior, would prove difficult to let go of even as he grew weaker over eons.

So like, while it’s true that certain forms of punishment – enslavement, torture, etc – would run the risk of alienating Sauron completely, why should Melkor care? He was, is, has always been, the greatest of the Valar. Even if Sauron does start hating him, what's a puny Maia going to do? He's not powerful enough to overthrow Melkor on his own, and while there are undoubtedly those among Morgoth's forces who think things would be better with Sauron in charge, the chances of that minority being brave and foolhardy enough to risk Morgoth's wrath by allying with him openly (or of Sauron being brave enough to call on them to do so) are very slim. Sauron won't turn to another high-ranking Úmaia with the suggestion of overthrowing Melkor together, because what if they promptly turn him in for treason? The first punishment would've instilled the fear of god Morgoth in him, so he's not going to risk another, worse one. No - alienated or no, he'll have virtually no choice but to keep his head down and just? Deal with it. Especially if Melkor keeps his punishments behind closed doors, as Sauron would have every reason to want to keep it that way - the rank-and-file gossiping about his humiliation could lose him the fear and respect of his subordinates, and that could make his life way more difficult. I can definitely see Morgoth as someone who’d stubbornly refuse to admit that, past a certain point, he’s disseminated so much of his power into corrupting Arda that he actually should be worried about alienating Sauron now, because Sauron could probably best him. I think he’d want to cling to his own image of himself as the most powerful Ainu beneath Ilúvatar – he wouldn’t want to see how far he’s fallen. And accepting that any of his underlings could threaten him would mean having to face that.)   

Sauron Unchained

Remember when Sauron mentioned "THAT first sunrise," on the raft in the Vision? (Not THE first sunrise. The sun already existed. He's talking about THAT first sunrise, after Morgoth was defeated.)

"When Morgoth was defeated, it was as if a great, clenched fist had released its grasp from my neck. And in the stillness of that first sunrise, at last! I felt the light of The One again. And I knew, if ever I was to be forgiven, then I had to heal everything that I had helped ruin" (1x08).

That sunrise was a pretty big deal.

Let's review this moment Sauron describes from The Silmarillion.

(Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath.)

Before the rising of the sun Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon-host, and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin. Then the sun rose, and the host of the Valar prevailed, and well-nigh all the dragons were destroyed; and all the pits of Morgoth were broken and unroofed, and the might of the Valar descended into the deeps of the earth. [...]

Then Morgoth was bound.

[...] Thus an end was made of the power of Angband in the North, and the evil realm was brought to naught; and out of the deep prisons a multitude of slaves came forth beyond all hope into the light of day, and they looked upon a world that was changed.

Those slaves who emerged were not the servants of Morgoth (like Orcs, Balrogs, etc.), but rather Elves, the likes of Gwindor, who were captured, imprisoned and enslaved, sent deep into the mines to dig.

But Sauron described his experience from their perspective.

Sooo... why?

"When Morgoth was defeated, it was as if a great, clenched fist had released its grasp from my neck. And in the stillness of THAT first sunrise, at last! I felt the light of The One again."

Some complain:

Why did the writers make it seem like Morgoth made Sauron evil, against his will?

-----They didn't.-----

Why did they change Sauron's character from liking Morgoth because of efficiency, to loathing him?

-----They didn't.-----

Why did they make it so Sauron only allied himself with Morgoth in order to survive?

-----They didn't.-----

They didn't change anything. They didn't even have to add anything. None of this came out of the clear blue just for fun. It's not even just for the sake of making the show.

Sauron manipulated Galadriel, but he did so with the TRUTH, making it easier for her to pity him than if he flat-out lied.

["And in the stillness of that first sunrise..."]

(Meanwhile, he talks about forgiveness.)

Galadriel: "No penance could ever erase the evil you have done."

Sauron: "That is not what you believe." [...] After our victory, you said that whatever I'd done before, I could be free of it now. [...] I told you the truth! I told you that I had done evil, and you did not care! Because you knew that our past meant nothing, weighed against our future. :D"

What is this 'trauma' he allegedly experienced? Sure, he was wary of the consequences of crossing Morgoth, but I mean ... he was the guy--Morgoth's #1--his right hand Maia--his most devoted servant. He would never do anything in disobedience or rebellion. Else how would he achieve such a status?

The implication of his tale is not that he was FORCED to Morgoth's allegiance, giving him this general fear that was finally lifted when Morgoth fell.

Something happened.

He made ONE mistake.

(And since Patrick said they're not in the business of pure Easter eggs, there's a REASON they showed this.)

In Sauron's most humiliating moment, being in the jaws of Huan, Lúthien told him "that he should be stripped of his raiment of flesh, and his ghost be sent quaking back to Morgoth; and she said: 'There everlastingly thy naked self shall endure the torment of his scorn, pierced by his eyes, unless thou yield to me the mastery of thy tower.' (The Silmarillion: Of Beren and Lúthien).

Before that, Sauron had it all. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he already had Beren (who had a price put on his head by Morgoth) IN HIS PRISON. But hearing Lúthien sing to Beren in the hour of Finrod's death, he sought great reward for bringing her to Morgoth. When his dying servant told him that Huan was there, he was like, Oh. I got this.

Things went sideways, and he had no choice but to yield to Huan, or face Morgoth's wrath... so he let them go.

As a result, Beren and Lúthien waltzed their way into Angband, stole a Silmaril and escaped.

So, um...?

Charlie referenced what Lúthien told Sauron, when speaking about the 'clenched fist' line. His paraphrasing is quite unnerving, given that he knows what backstory we are going to see next season... and I don't know... but I would like to... and it makes me wonder.

"You can go whimpering back to your master and tell him that you've let me in. You've failed. You haven’t defended your kingdom." [...] I read from that this thing that Morgoth is so powerful and so scary, that it would've meant consequences for Sauron. - Charlie Vickers

Where exactly was Sauron after his failure? He dwelt in Taur-nu-Fuin for a while, but a lot of time passed between then and the end of the War. So...WHERE DID HE GO? Wouldn't the most devoted and powerful of all the servants of Morgoth be actively involved in the defense against the host of the Valar?? One might say things were trending upward for him...

...until Finrod, Beren, Lúthien, and Huan came along.

How long would it have taken Morgoth to find out that everything was Sauron's fault? How long would it have taken to hunt Sauron down, as he fled?

Not very long, I reckon.

[...] there must have been an element to their relationship where Morgoth was someone he feared at times, or someone that would punish him when he failed. [...] there must have been some truth in [the clenched fist] line. - Charlie Vickers

No wonder he described the end of the War as if he had been among the slaves who emerged from the deep prisons..."beyond all hope into the light of day"...reminiscing the first sunrise after the overthrow of Thangorodrim, and the great, clenched fist that released its grasp from his neck as a result.

In the Great War, he wasn't just sitting in a tree, or even in a back-up tower, watching from the side-lines.

He failed Morgoth.

Miserably.

And was punished for it.

No wonder he was missing during the War of Wrath.

"What do you know of darkness?"

[cakeandpi]

Breanna!! major spoilers below

I love that Parker is trying and failing miserably at teaching thief skills because she doesn’t know how to teach this particular student yet.

Harry’s first Leverage-client meeting! And Parker upset that Sophie is taking back the lead, a role that Parker isn’t ready to entirely hand over to Sophie.

Also poor Breanna, she thought she did well on the ‘follow the money’ but came up waaaay short. It’s like showing up for the first class of college thinking it’s just going to go over the syllabus except per the professor’s email there’s already homework due.

Oooh, game of nose-goes? What’s the role that Harry’s going to play that the other’s didn’t want? It can’t just be to avoid playing Sophie’s fake-husband.

“I’ve lose track of the marraiges but I only had one husband.” Where’s my fanfic of all the women Sophie married in her past?

Hahahahaha Breanna managed to pickpocket Harry but she got pickpocketed by Parker. And I love the explanation of “I’m Parker”.

“Get him with a misdemeanor.” Oh Breanna Breanna Breanna. Those can be bribed out of. And oof, Harry’s a bit mean about the whole ‘they don’t care and bribe their way out of trouble’ bit, meanwhile Eliot is very matter of fact. I hope Brianna finds her footing pretty soon.

"I assume it’s rather difficult to rob a casino in general?”/“Eh, kinda.” LMAO PARKER. Also!! Did the Leverage writers finally get to write their casino heist story?

That ‘clothes in trashbags from couch to couch’ sounds like something’s Breanna’s done. Felt a little too throw-away-y for it to not be from her past.

“Hardison used to get me the job. And sometimes, a 401(k).” AMAZING. I love this detail.

Etouffee and jambalaya Brick&Basil truck! “The crescent city’s best local food truck” I love that little sign on the side.

“Huh. I couldn’t find the ‘Get Eliot a 401(k)’ section in the manual.” Omg the manual referenced earlier is for Leverage-thievery-stuff, not just hacking stuff. And of course Hardison would leave a (15 volume) manual for his little sister.

"You can’t plan a grift with a flow chart.” You can if you’re Parker and the flow chart is flexible enough.

“Parker, are you using a flow chart for all your interactions?” Oh no. But at the same time, a sideways callback to how Sophie was using grifting tricks on the team/Nate just because she could.

Parker does a great southern bell accent.

“Renegade. That’s what they used to call me on the job.” Amazing.

“I didn’t put police on your resume!” Oh Brianna, there’s all sorts of reasons someone would leave a job off a resume, he’s just gotta go with one that’s not “it was too long ago”

“Where were you stationed?” Hm, and this is for a casino job? Shreveport. Has to be.

I’M RIGHT

“I don’t miss.” You are going to miss, that’s definitely a Special Disc. And... he misses.

Chaudry’s an attractive looking bad guy.

Parker and cereal!

Oh and Breanna can’t stand the temptation. Also that pearl for whatever reason looks fake, though that might be because I’m more used to fake pearls.

I bet Old Cop’s spreadsheet is gonna be important later.

“I told you not to do it.”/“You would’ve.” Yeah but Parker would have waited, not gone for it right then and there. But Parker doesn’t feel the need to prove herself. Breanna does.

And Sophie keeps it from spiraling out of control by being very matter of fact - they’ve all messed up, but Breanna’s mess up makes her recognizable, so she’s off the front lines for the con.

Breanna leaves out of frustration, only none of the three others notice. Hm. Is she going to go get into some more trouble? Oh, no, she’s gone to be alone out in their hideout’s courtyard.

“Let me guess, you’ve come to make me feel better.”/“Oh, I think I’d be about the worst person in the world for that job.” At least Harry knows his strengths and comforting others is not one of them.

“Oh, poor baby, all you have is money and good looks and privilege and access.” Ah, this is not just about having to be sidelined for this con.

“And what about you, seems like you could do just about anything and all of its scary, what do you want?” And Breanna’s obviously feeling a bit down on herself, but rather than follow her into that mood Harry turns it around on her, pointing out that she is ridiculously talented and can do a lot of things, she just needs to decide what she wants to do with those skills. Does she just want to fool around and mess up and have fun? Does she want to work? Does she want to laze about? Does she want to improve on the skills she has? Does she want new skills? Because each one of those takes her on a different trajectory with Leverage and the team.

“I want the world to stop sucking. ... This team, it says it can make a difference. Okay, fine. I’ll give it a shot. Because I love my brother, and because I’m desperate, not because I believe in hope or something stupid like that.” I love her character motivation speech here.

I’m laughing at Parker getting frustrated because she can’t hide the money fast enough. And then she figures out a way, but they’ll have to make the dress bigger. (Oh, are they going to get the client involved with the dress design? That’d be cool!) And Parker and Sophie have a little talk about how Breanna wants to impress and that Parker’s going to have to teach her. And a reference to how the og team helped everyone on the team get better.

Now that is an amazingly poofy dress. I love it.

They did get the client involved with the dress alterations!! Yes!!

Eliot and Old Cop having cake together. And that’s gotta be some good cake with Eliot genuinely complimenting him.

Oh dear, Parker’s flowchart is getting caught because she’s sticking to it a little to hard, not letting it flow around her. It feels like she should be better at this though, with the 10-odd years that she’s had to do this without Sophie. But this might be more her falling back into old patterns, just like Sophie falling into patterns on leading the cons.

Ooh okay these guys are in on the con. Wait I should know these people?? I... don’t think so but maybe?

Flounce, flounce, kick

Oof. Too much money to carry out. Way too much. And Russian mob. (Is it a very distinctive tattoo Eliot?)

Okay the con’s gone off the rails, so it has to be rescued somehow. Breanna’s figured out a way (“did the math twice”) though everyone waits for Parker’s okay to go through with it. I don’t know exactly what it is - sink the vault into the river? Plant it on various gamblers? Make it seem like Chaundry was stealing from himself? But it rests on Breanna being right and not just showing off. But Parker’s seen that when Breanna’s under pressure - not fake 'practice’ pressure, the real stuff - she can perform, its just when she’s trying to impress that she fails.

“You cut your way through an ice cave. You escaped a gorilla enclosure. And you catered a wedding for the mob.”/“It wasn’t catering. It was a food sensory experience.” Is that a reference back to season one? If not, I really want to know more about that not-catering job!

Oh no!! Old Cop took a hit for Eliot. And as soon as the mafia goon is taken out, Eliot takes time to make sure Old Cop is all right. (If they mess up the con, the family loses the house but they can if needed con Chaundry again and get the house back. If Old Cop dies they can’t get him back.)

Okay Breanna at least has to know the baddies see real camera footage again, right? And Eliot seemed to almost deliberately not-quite look at the camera. They’ve got to be counting on the bad guys finding out and hitting the emergency lock.

All the money’s gone! But... how? Did Parker take Eliot with her into a vent? Fake wall?

Oh sir you are not good enough to accuse Sophie of having conned you without her turning it right back around on you. And she gets a one-person gloat too.

Lol and the pearl is gone.

Squish? Oho. They went through the floor and down the river.

Aww, Breanna’s joined Eliot on the ‘receiving end of Parker’s too-hard physical affection’.

“That was ... my cake, Parker! He made it special for me!” Methinks Eliot doth protest too much about him and Old Cop not being friends.

“I want to take on the bad guys. I have to learn everything.” ‘Have to’ is an interesting choice.

“Parker. My first memory is of 9/11.” Whereas that’s my.... 9th? 10th? grade math-class memory. Breanna's grown up in a very different world from Parker and Hardison - probably Eliot’s background is closest to hers.

And.... Parker how did you steal that pearl? Is this an exercise left to the viewers or a bit of ‘it’s tv, we’re having fun’? (Or both!)

[mistressvera]

Parker, what do you think?

[dorian-they-ao3]

LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION (2021) | starring ALEYSE SHANNON as BREANNA CASEY and BETH RIESGRAF as PARKER

[mikimeiko]

Made for Love | 1x03. I Want This Thing Out of My Head

[thewynne]

Apropos to nothing i love Eliot wearing old man reading glasses to fill out a job application for the con while he loudly complains like a grandpa about having to fill out the job application

[thieves-never-say-die]

LETS GO STEAL A RIVERBOAT CASINO

[fourteenthofaugust]

Sophie Devereaux + pink suit Leverage Redemption 1x03: The Rollin' on the River Job

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

"I'm not scared. Kinda ready to kick it in the junk." Oh I like her

[rockinhamburger]

Nathan Shelley: A Defense

Who deserves empathy? Who deserves judgement?

I am not surprised but still disappointed by how much people seem to be really missing one of the central themes of Ted Lasso. It is not as bad as it was back in October when the finale aired, but god, there are still so many people that seem to want Nate to get no redemption and, in various ways, continually express no interest in seeing him become the best version of himself. A lot of people seem to want Nate to get his comeuppance, to see him suffer, ironically behaving a lot like Nate when he got to see the people who had wronged him suffer and receive their comeuppance.

For a show about the healing, transformative power of forgiveness, love and empathy, dang do some people stop short when it comes to Nate, arguably the most demeaned, bullied, downtrodden character in the entire show. Redemption and forgiveness for Rebecca, who tried to destroy dozens of careers and lives, and Jamie, who behaved like shit to the people he saw as beneath him, but none for Nate? So, we have three characters who have used their power incorrectly, but only one of them is the outlier who deserves judgement and retribution?

Alright, got that rant out of the way. Now I want to specifically address a thing I’ve seen that is utterly baffling. I’ve seen people argue that Jamie’s and Rebecca’s respective journeys are different than Nate’s because we saw them get better, whereas we saw Nate get worse. We didn’t see Rebecca and Jamie getting to the dark place they were in by S1; we landed on the start of their positive trajectory. The difference is that we are watching the entirety of that story play out with Nate.

Another argument I’ve seen is that the show hinted at Jamie’s and Rebecca’s good natures in S1, whereas we apparently saw the opposite with Nate. So, basically, Nate doesn’t deserve redemption because he got worse and his truly bad nature was hinted at early on. This implies something utterly ridiculous: that he was always bad, that Nate did not actually have positive traits to begin with. And that’s just… I can’t even cope with how wrong that is.

Selective memory for sure, so let’s go back to season 1 and remember why we love Nate and why his turn is so devastating.

In 1x01, Nate defends Roy’s great legacy as a footballer when Beard suggests his star years might be behind him. He gives Ted and Beard a lift to their places. Nate is loyal and generous with his time. He is also clearly self-conscious and lacks confidence, but he works hard and takes pride in his job.

In 1x02, Nate is still showing surprise that Ted is even deigning to notice him, let alone asking after his opinion. Nate says Sam has been ‘underperforming’ since he arrived from Nigeria. That’s a very generous thing to say; it’s clear he knows Sam has potential, but something is getting in the way of his success. This helps Ted make some great coaching decisions. Nate is smart and good at reading people. He also makes adorable boxes with his niece. A few of the players laugh at him for having done this. Jamie also calls him “bitch boy” to ringing laughter, and it doesn’t seem like it’s remotely the first time.

In 1x03, Nate nervously but bravely shares his idea for a strategy. He is speechless with joy when he gets to see it in action. He also shows that he cares whether the pitch is properly taken care of. He’s the kit man; presumably, he is not responsible for clearing shit off the field, but he does it anyway. We also see tinges of that in his first scene - caring about the field the players use. In the midst of all this, we also see that Nate is being bullied and harassed by Jamie, Colin and Isaac every day, and that no one has intervened, even Ted, who has decided Roy has to be the one to intervene.

In 1x04, when Ted invites Nate to be his plus one to the gala, Nate says, “I’m free every night.” As Jason has said, jokes on this show have consequences. This illuminates for us that Nate spends a lot of time on his own and even suggests Nate may not have many friends. We also learn that Nate can’t afford to buy a new suit. He later shows some gaining confidence when he says hello to Rebecca and a marked amount of grace considering she doesn’t appear to recognize him or realize he works for her. Later, Nate thanks Roy for talking to Colin and Isaac.

In 1x05, Nate encourages Ted to open up about the problems in his marriage by asking about the distance, but he does so in a very gentle way, asking if he can ask something first. He’s also self-aware enough to notice and apologize when he inadvertently provided unsolicited feedback on something with which he doesn’t have experience: “Marriage. Just so, you know, so complicated. So many different challenges and... I think. I don't know. Sorry.” Then he makes a smart conversational move to bring Beard into the discussion. “You ever been married?” After they win the match, Nate also walks Henry on to the pitch to see Ted after the game, reuniting father and son.

In 1x06, Nate participates in the ritual with the team, sacrificing sunglasses that made him feel perceived in a positive way. He is honest and contributes positively to the group.

In 1x07, Nate says he believes Richmond can do anything; he believes in the team and their ability to succeed. He has thoughts about the team, but he is scared to share them because he believes it could lead to losing his job and having to move back in with his parents. He also instantly accepts Ted’s apology, and once he’s finished the roast portion of his pre-game speech (which Ted encourages him to give), he provides Roy with genuinely good advice, not just on the field but in life, to make sure he isn’t keeping his anger inside because of what it might do to him as a person if he holds it in. He cares about Roy and his well-being.

In 1x08, Nate is supportive of Ted’s one night stand, like Beard and Higgins. And when Beard asks if Ted had fun, Nate immediately follows up to ask if *she* had fun. He also comes up with the name for the Diamond Dogs.

In 1x09, Nate apologizes for walking away from Ted over the Roy situation and for his dream self.

In 1x10, he believes he has been fired and lashes out. He is surprised Rebecca even knows his name, an echo of the first episode, and it turns out he has been promoted. He is so excited about this that he keeps blowing his whistle at inopportune times out of zeal. Later, he mourns the loss with the team.

I just have no patience for people suggesting Nate isn’t the wonderful character we saw so many hints of in S1, alongside the signs that Nate might lose his way for a minute. All of us have the capacity to hurt and help within us; we are all struggling with the tug between ego and soul. The idea that Rebecca and Jamie deserved redemption but Nate doesn't is not only a terrible message for the show to end on, it’s also a bleak way to look at the world. Either we all deserve redemption, or no one does - or more accurately, it's not about deserving redemption but about earning it. That is what Rebecca and Jamie have been doing along the way, so it’s not too late for Nathan Shelley. He can, as Rebecca said in 1x09, get on the road back.

We are all worthy of love and empathy because we are human and make mistakes. We hurt people because we are damaged by interacting with a broken, human world. This show presents the central thesis that kindness and empathy is transformative, and that wanting violent revenge and retribution is an ego-driven desire borne out by pain and suffering.

We need to appeal to our best selves, always, by returning to our greatest strength: love.

[raayllum]

i found it interesting when rayla admitted (to a sleeping callum but still) that she ruined what she and callum had, but she selected the word revenge, and it reminded me of their fight in s3! but i also wonder what are your thoughts on it, since at the same time it confused me a bit if u don't want to answer it's totally fine, idk if this counts for you as s4 negativity :(

S4 / TDP negativity is mostly like "This part was bad [with no room for disagreement]" or like, people flat out complaining. But that line stuck out to me too, so I think perhaps it comes from like, the difference between Rayla's feelings and what she names / how she actually processes her feelings.

Rayla moves from calling her assassination mission in 1x01 from Justice to Vengeance (1x03) to Revenge (1x05) and resolves that upon seeing the egg, she's embarking on a journey of Redemption. I think that fits in line with how Rayla sees her own return (which choosing to come back is implied to have been a decision she only made a week ago, and we still don't know what precisely made her reach that conclusion either, so I'll be curious if S5 goes into more detail with it) as her chance to redeem herself to Callum for leaving, maybe?

It's also possible as time went on that's more and more what her journey became, as something clearly happened to her to cause her to react the way she does in the Drakewood, which Soren calls her out on: "You can't save everyone," is a far cry from Rayla going back to save the dragon all on her own. TDP loves to recontextualize things like this, though, so are just guesses until if/when S5 possibly sheds more light on it though

[aceofwhump]

Can you recommend foody scenes and fics where the whumpee gets poisoned or drugged? (No no-con please)

Thanks

Sure thing! Here's some great drugged/poisoned scenes:

Burn Notice 7x11

MacGyver (1980s) 1x11

Hawaii Five-0 and 1x23 5x07

The Alienist 1x07

Timeless 1x06

Merlin 1x04 and 5x08

White Collar 1x10

The Mentalist 5x02

Sherlock 3x01

Murdoch Mysteries 9x18

Harrow 2x10

Leverage 4x10

Leverage Redemption 1x09

Legends of Tomorrow 3x05

Teen Wolf 3x01

Hudson & Rex 2x16

Once Upon a Time 3x03 3x04 and 3x05 for Charming poisoned and the whole of season 7 (Hook's poisoned heart)

Dark Angel season 2 (Logan Cale is infected with a genetically targeted retrovirus that is activated when Max touches him.)

General Hospital April 2021 multiple episodes

Free Rein episodes 3x01, 3x05-3x10

Legend of the Seeker 1x01

Fate the Winx Saga 1x03

Supergirl 2x22

Outlander 5x09

NCIS 1x20 and 2x22

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3x21 and 3x22

Emerald City 1x02

Hallmark movie Hailey Dean Mystere: Deady Estate.

Off hand I can't think of any fanfics but you can always look through my masterlist and see what you find: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jfJ8rHwvGCzmCfwJolr925mSCjcR5TS0TDPlCnzCOEY/edit?usp=sharing