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felassan · 4 years ago

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Dragon Age development insights from David Gaider - PART 1

This information came from DG on a recent SummerfallStudios Twitch stream where he gave developer commentary while Liam Esler played DAO, specifically the mage Origin. I transcribed it in case there’s anyone who can’t watch the stream (for example due to connection/tech limitations, data, time constraints, or personal accessibility reasons). A lot of it is centered on DAO, but there’s also insights into DA2 and DAI. Some of it is info which is known having been out there already, some of it is new, and all of it imo was really interesting! It leaps from topic to topic as it’s a transcript of a conversational format. It’s under a cut due to length.

Note on how future streams in this series are going to work: The streams are going to be every Friday night. Most likely, every week, they’re going to play DAO. Every second week it will be Liam and DG and they’ll be doing more of this developer commentary style/way of doing things, talking about how the game was made as they play through, covering quirks and quibbles etc. Every other week, it will be Liam and a guest playing a different campaign in DAO, and Liam will be talking with them about how DA changed their lives or led them into game development, to get other peoples’ thoughts on the series (as it’s now been like 10 years). Some of these guests we may know, some we won’t. When other DA devs are brought on, it’ll be in the DG sessions. They hope to have PW and Karin Weekes on at some point. Sometime they hope to have an episode where they spend the whole time going through the lore.

(Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)

[wording and opinions DG’s, occasionally LE’s; paraphrased]

DAO’s development actually finished up around April 2009. They then put it on ice for around six months before release. Human Noble is DG’s favorite Origin. It’s one of the ones he wrote. He also wrote the Dalish Origin as well (Tamlen is his doing ;__;). DAO’s temp name during development was Chronicles. DG has never played any of the DA games after they were released. He played them pre-release loads of times, when they were half-broken or incomplete etc. This stream is his first time seeing everything played after completion.

NWN: Hordes of the Underdark was the first game where DG was a/the lead writer, in charge of other writers, as opposed to a senior writer. It was pretty well-received. In the fall of 2003, BW were just finishing up HotU when James Ohlen came to DG to talk. BW had been having issues during the development of NWN with the IP holder for D&D Wizards of the Coast, so they were interested in starting their own IPs that they would have ownership over (and also for financial reasons). JO said to DG that one of these new IPs would be fantasy and one would be sci-fi. He knew that DG was more fantasy-oriented, and so asked DG if he wanted to take this on. DG was down, and the first thing to figure out was what that fantasy IP was going to be.

JO gave DG an atlas of European history, which he still has, and said that he wanted him to make a fantasy world that is reminiscent of medieval Europe and reminiscent of D&D - “make it like D&D but not, file off the serial numbers really well”. This worked for DG because he was pretty familiar with D&D and there were also lots of things that he didn’t like about it and wanted to change. So DG went off and for the next six months worked on creating a setting, beginning with documentation and the map. This was kinda strange because they had no idea at that time what their story would be. JO was very interested in having a “genetically evil” enemy in the setting (like an equivalent to orcs). DG wasn’t a big fan of this and his initial go at the setting omitted this (i.e. darkspawn were not a thing) and was a lot more realistic. JO insisted on adding them later on.

This period of development wasn’t actually a good process. There were other people who were working on the project who were designing the combat side. Looking back, DG feels that they should have put their heads together a lot sooner. The combat designers had various ideas for various prestige classes and subclasses, and DG would be like “these are nowhere in the setting [lore]”. He tried his best to add a few of them after the fact, which is why we see things like DA’s version of the bard archetype. The combat designers and artists originally had a vision in mind of a game that was much more along the lines of the type of fantasy you’d find in the Conan the Barbarian world - bare-chested barbarians, sorceresses that show a lot of skin, a grimdark world with barbarian hordes. They were just assuming that’s what it was going to be. At this point in time DG had never thought, “Oh, maybe I’m responsible for communicating my ideas to them” - he’d never done this role before and was just told to go create the world. He created world-building documentation and would send out emails saying “I’m making this documentation, please go ahead and take a look”, not learning until later on that nobody outside of the writing team really likes reading such documentation. He learned tricks later on like making the docs more accessible, less dense and wordy, and overall easier to peruse.

There was no real ‘vision holder’ for DA. Mass Effect did a much better job of that. Casey Hudson was the project director and the vision holder for ME, and he had the power to enforce a set vision of what was and was not ME. ME therefore ended up having a bit more of a coherent vision. DG was in essence the vision holder for DA, but he didn’t really have the authority to enforce it on the artists. The DA teams ended up spending a good 3.5 - 4 years of the ~6 years of DAO dev time going in circles, not exactly sure what they were going to make, the various people working on it having different ideas of what ‘kind’ of fantasy they were going to make. The writing team were leaning towards LoTR; the artists were leaning towards Conan; at one point one of the project directors was leaning towards a point-and-click Diablo-style action adventure; and nobody was overriding anybody else.

The fans who hang out on the forums and in similar places have a very different idea about what kind of game they like and want to play versus the telemetry BW get from the public in general. As an example, fans on the forums tend towards playing non-humans and feeling that playing as a human is boring. Forum-polls reflected that, but BW’s general public-telemetry shows that around 75-80% of the playerbase played a human in DAO. Elves were at 15% and dwarves 5%. In contrast, in the core/forum-based fanbase, the human figure dropped down to 30%.

DG originally wanted Zevran to be a gay romance (he has talked about this before). He asked JO if he could do that pretty early on, thinking of Jade Empire which had same-gender romance options which were really popular. BW were surprised about that, and DG had no idea that the JE team were going to do this. For DAO, he had an idea for an assassin character. He had been reading about how the CIA and KGB would often recruit gay men to be their assassins, as they didn’t tend to have family ties. DG thought this was really interesting. JO was cool with the idea on a conceptual level, but thought that the work that would end up going into it would be better served if those characters could be romanced by both male and female PCs. Zevran and Leliana weren’t intended to be bi, they were “bi out of convenience”, but at the time these sorts of things (representation and such) didn’t enter into the equation as much as it does today. DG wrote Zevran in his head as being romanceable by men.

DG would ask the hair artists, “Why all the mullets?”, because he never understood that, and he’d get “a sort of shrug response”, and an indication that “it’s easier to model, I guess?” Having hair which is loose, in the face, in locks, coming over the shoulders etc wasn’t really supported at this point by the tech or the engine. Hence, they ended up with like five different versions of mullets. On the subject of the engine, for the first half of development they were using an upgraded version of the Aurora engine from NWN, and it was not good. Several years in they decided to switch. Trent Oster was in charge at the time of making a new proprietary BW engine. At the time it wasn’t ready yet, but the DA team decided to grab it, use it and hammer it into the DA engine. That engine had “so many little weird quirks”, like lighting on skin not working properly and looking bad, and one of the issues was hair. It was supposed to be BW’s proprietary engine but it really wasn’t optimized for RPGs and didn’t include a dialogue system. They had to custom-build the conversation system. (At the time Trent didn’t think BW should be doing RPGs anymore, which is a whole other story of its own). DG recalls programmers complaining about things in the engine that weren’t ready for ‘prime-time’. Even compared to games released concurrently, DAO’s graphics were a bit dated.

For the worldbuilding, they had an internal wiki and they kept everything on there. They ended up with a lot of legacy documentation on there very quickly. Eventually they solved this by hiring an editor whose sole job it was to wrangle the documentation. DG started work on the setting in the same manner in which he’d embark on starting a homebrew - ‘so like, first, here’s a map, oh, I like this name, vague ideas, a paragraph on each major nation, a rough timeline of the history, expanding, and it just growing from there’. After about six months, they brought on other writers, and by then he had around 50 pages of documentation. This 50 pages was a minute amount compared to the amount they had generated at the time of release. Originally, they weren’t sure where in the world specifically the story would take place, so DG made sure to seed potential and brewing conflicts throughout Thedas. They settled quite quickly on the new Blight starting in Ferelden. Once they established that, the writers went to town on taking Ferelden specifically and blowing it up detail-wise. Jennifer Hepler was in charge of the dwarves and Orzammar. Mary Kirby was on Fereldan customs and traditions.

The first version of the setting was more grounded in realism, almost like a post-fantasy. The dragons and griffons were extinct and a lot of the things that were thought to be fantastical were thought to be over with. During development, they started clawing these things back. They brought back dragons because the game was named Dragon Age (lol). DG was approached like, “Hey, we named the game DA, can you bring back dragons and weave them into the story more powerfully?” Wynne’s writer Sheryl Chee had a bit of an obsession with griffons and was often like ‘omg, griffons :D’, and this is the origin of Wynne’s dialogue with the Warden about griffons.

KotOR was the first time BW had tried to do a game that was fully voiced-over. For KotOR, BW sent the work of casting, direction and so on down to another studio in California called Technicolor. BW had little say in the process then and when they got it back, “it was what it was”. By the time they got to DA and the first ME, BW had a good system down for recording and VO had become an important thing in games at the time. BW are really one of the premieres for this, a lot of actors really like acting on BW games as they get a lot of space to act where they wouldn’t normally be able to do so otherwise. DG has learned a lot from Caroline Livingstone on how to encourage the best performance out of an actor. For DAO, DG worked together with the various lead designers and Caroline to decide on the auditions, casting etc. This was one of DG’s favorite things to do.

Gideon Emery as Fenris, GDL as Solas and Eve Myles as Merrill were times where DG had written the character and then went to Caroline and said “I have an actor in mind for them, can you check it out?” These were specific times where he was able to secure the actor he wanted. This didn’t always work out, for example there are times when actors aren’t interested or have no time due to scheduling conflicts or were too expensive etc. Eve and GDL were DG’s roommate Cori’s idea. Cori was a big fan of Torchwood/the actors from Torchwood, and worked as an editor at BW for a long time. Gideon was DG’s idea after playing FF12. For DAO, DG didn’t have any specific ideas in terms of actors. Casting Morrigan was the longest, most drawn out process.

The Circle went through a whooole process during worldbuilding. Initially, mages in the game weren’t supposed to have any “fighting magic”. The restrictions were originally such that in the lore, they didn’t teach mages that. Mages weren’t taught any magic that could kill people, only ‘indirect’ forms of magic that could support others. However, [during what sounds like] playtesting it was asked “Why can’t I cast a fireball? I just want to cast a fireball”, so the writers had to go back and rework how magic in the lore worked completely.

Flemeth was originally going to be voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo, and she was totally on-board, but unfortunately because of DAO’s development delays, she was unable to attend the new recording time as she had a conflict in her schedule (she was filming House of Sand and Fog). Shoreh was quite disappointed about this and her family had been so excited that she was going to be in a video game. When the movie was finished, Shoreh came back to BW and let them know that she was still available, and this is how she ended up in ME2. For a while they were trying to find an actress with an accent that authentically mirrored Shoreh’s. Out of the blue around this time, Claudia Black’s agent sent BW an audition tape of her. At the time Claudia hadn’t done any games but wanted to get into it. The tape was of Claudia doing a beat poet rendition of Baby Got Back. DG still has this tape. DG was a big fan of Farscape and on listening to the tape, it clicked right away in his head that Claudia would be perfect for Morrigan.

The Fade ended up being a big irritation for the writers. They wanted the PC to be able to assume different forms and such while in there. A lot of this stuff proved too difficult for the combat designers to work out, and so it ended up getting changed a lot. They had a hard time coming up with gameplay that could work in the Fade. The mage Origin is DG’s least favorite of the Origin stories, as he’s really dubious about the Fade section in it. It didn’t work out like how they had pictured it in their heads. By the time they got to DAI, that’s when the Fade really looks like how the writers first described/envisioned it. By this point the artists were more keen to give it a more specific feel. DAO was made at a time when ‘brown is realistic’ was a prevailing thing in games dev.

The experience of a mage in the world isn’t represented or conveyed very well to the player when the player is a mage. The experience of the player when they’re playing a mage or have a mage in their party doesn’t really match up with how the world lore tells them how dangerous mages can be - for example, how they can lose control and so on, we never really have an example of a PC mage struggling with being taken over by a demon. This was originally supposed to be a subplot in DA2 for mage Hawkes, in one of the last cuts. In Act 2, mage Hawke was originally slowly being tricked by a demon in their head that they thought was real, only to realize at the last minute. Mouse the Pride demon in the mage Origin is the only time in the entire series that they really ever properly demonstrated how demons can fuck with [PC] mages. Also, PC templars were originally supposed to have a permanent lyrium addiction that they needed to ‘feed’, but this was scrapped as the system designers weren’t keen on it and felt that it was essentially handicapping the player.

Mages were originally also not supposed to be able to deal with pure lyrium (it would ‘overload’ them). There is a plot where mage PCs run around touching lyrium nodes to refill their mana bars. On this DG was like “Wtf is this?” The designers said that it works, and DG said “but it flies in the face of the lore”. This instance is an example of how the DA team was working where the various departments (writers, artists, designers etc) all had their own ideas about how the game and its world would work and never overrode each other (see above). DG feels that DAO is a little contradictory in that way. It’s only after the game came out that a lot of the people on the team really “bought into” what they’d put forward. This got easier as they went on, with people involved buying then into the things that make Dragon Age, Dragon Age. At one point, not everyone on the team was even aware of those things.

DG relates that originally, they would ask the artists, “Ok, can we get a village?” and said village once created would be quite generic and non-specific to DA. The writers would try to relate how things are in the DA world and list things that would be found in a village like this specific to the DA world, and the artists either didn’t read it or had their own ideas (DG isn’t sure which), and nobody was around to tell them not to do that and that they should do it differently. Everyone having their own ideas like this is why we ended up getting something that is this sort of “cobbled together half-Conan half-LotR mish-mash”, and after a while this sort of became DA’s “thing”.

Initially, BW had concepts drawn up for a lot more different creatures. After they went in circles for those years and consequently ran out of time to do all the models, they had to cut these concepts down more and more. Demons were among the ones that were the first to go (this is why we have situations like a bereskarn as the Sloth Demon in the mage Origin). The original concepts for things like spirits of Valor and Sloth demons were really good. Early on, JO made a list of D&D creatures that he liked. He picked the ones that they were thinking of doing, sent them to DG and said to make a “DA version of this”. For example, D&D succubi essentially became Desire Demons. Desire Demons were originally patterned off Sandman, neither male nor female yet really alluring, acting more like a genie and trying to ferret out mortals’ inner desires (which are not necessarily sexual in nature), without being overtly sexual. The artists’ version came back and that was basically the model seen in-game. The writers were like “What is this, this is nothing like the description?” and the artists responded that on the list from JO, it was included, in that you had to click on “succubus” to get to the Desire Demon description, so they had just read “succubus” and done their version of a succubus. The artists did loads of great work, but this was one of the instances were DG was like “???” By then, it was too late to change it. The writers were able to encourage them to make Desire Demons a little more fearsome, so that made it in at least.

The mage Origin was one of the more contentious Origin stories. It had like 4 different versions written of it over time. It was often the case that BW would hire someone, and writing an Origin story was their first test. Three different writers came in and wrote a version of the mage Origin and those versions just didn’t work. Finally they passed it to Sheryl Chee and she wrote it. The Origins were the parts of the game in general that were written/rewritten the most often. There were several others that got written that they discarded.

Duncan was slated for death from Day 1. When DG writes a story, the thing he does first is pick out the big emotional beats that he wants, such as deaths. He decides these ahead of time and the stuff in-between comes later and is more often changed. Oghren was also originally supposed to die, but this ended up getting cut. DG related a story of how Oghren came to be: At the time, there was a phase JO went through when he thought everything had a formula that it could be done by. One of these ‘creative forumulas’ was that all such IPs had a two-word name that they’re known by, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Dragonlance (being Dragon-Lance). This is how ‘DA’ and ‘ME’ came to be. One of the formulas he wanted to implement was how to distill the ‘comedy character’, like Minsc or HK-47. These characters were very popular with the fans and JO was certain that there was a way to figure this out to create one for DA. At the time, DG argued with him a lot about this. JO insisted it could be done. DG was originally supposed to write this character but ended up not doing so. JO came up with a list of comedic archetypes and had DG write a blurb about what kind of character each could be. These were then sent out to the team who voted on which was their favorite. This process eventually resulted in an archetype basically called ‘The Buffoon’ (think Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin, the kind of guy people laugh at because he’s such an oaf).

At this point ‘The Buffoon’ wasn’t named or made a dwarf yet. JO came to DG to write him, but DG said there was a problem which is that he hates this archetype. Homer and Peter are characters that he despises. DG is a professional writer, but this was comedy (outside of his areas of strength), and he felt the best he would be able to do is write a character who makes fun of this archetype and lampshade that. Comedy is something that has to come from within the writer. Oghren was given to someone else, and he ended up getting rewritten again anyway. By the time they were working on Awakening, DAO had not yet come out, and the assumption prior to the game going out was that Oghren was still going to be the most popular character from among the followers. The comedic character that ended up being the most popular along these lines was Alistair, which was interesting as he wasn’t intended as a comedic character, “so shows what we know”. DG was dubious that Oghren was going to be popular, because “he was kind of pathetic, honestly”, but that was the thinking at the time. Thinking he would be well-loved is why he was in Awakening.

On Alistair, any character DG writes is going to be sarcastic. At the time DG had made it a sort of personal challenge to recreate Joss Whedon’s dialogue patterns in his characters. Alistair was a sort of mish-mash of Xander from Buffy and maybe Mal from Firefly. DG wanted to see if he could do it, so Alistair was kind of quippy and self-deprecating. DG never really considered this to be Alistair’s main personality feature, but when other writers wrote him, they often had him doing this, as they liked the trait so much, and so this is how Alistair ended up as he did.

On dwarves, the dwarves being cut off from the Fade is very much baked into who the dwarves are as a race. There’s a specific reason why. This has been hinted at so far and it’s likely to come up in the future. DG had various ideas for some things that he wanted to include with the races or the way the world works etc. Some of them ended up never happening or some are mentioned only as part of the lore (templar lyrium addiction never coming up in gameplay is an example of this). Dwarven history and the nature of the dwarves is one of the things that survived pretty well though. DG calls Jennifer Hepler “mistress of the dwarves” and says that she did a really detailed, amazing breakdown of their history. After Jennifer left it was Mary Kirby, and DG feels that they did a good job of maintaining how dwarves were, in terms of both how they’re often presented in fantasy and yet also quite different in DA. Orzammar is one of DG’s favorite plots all together. You can really tell that Jennifer Hepler really enjoyed the dwarves and brought a lot of love to that plot.

DG draws a distinction between DA fans and the unpleasant people who harassed Jennifer Hepler.

They managed to keep the Tranquil in. There was a while there where they were going to be cut. At the same time, DG regrets that they couldn’t solve the making of the player more aware of how mages are dangerous, thing. Players could make a cogent argument like “they’re not that dangerous, look at me [mage PC]” and the writers were like “well... yeah, that is fair”. It was a case of showing one thing and the player experience of it being another. DG feels that this made the templars come off worse than they are. DG feels that they are being massively unfair and too extreme in their approach to the problem, but the problem itself is a real thing. He feels that there’s some merit/truth in the argument that mages are oppressed, but he looks at it more like an issue like gun control rather than as treatment of oppressed people, saying that we don’t have an example in real life of oppressed people who can explode into demons and cast fireballs and so on.

There are some funny pronunciations that worked their way into DA, and the reason for a lot of them is as follows: the writers had to create a pronunciation guide for VO, because otherwise you end up with a lot of inconsistencies. (Some did still slip through). The guide was online, and if you clicked on a word, an audio file for it would play. Jennifer Hepler was in charge of this and did a great job, but has a really strong NY accent, and in some cases the ‘NY-ness’ of her pronunciation endearingly worked itself into things (the way Arlathan is sometimes said is an example of where this happened sometimes).

Sometimes the writers trying to communicate the “hotness” of a character to the artists didn’t go smoothly. The writers would sometimes say things like, ok, this character is a romance, they need to be hot, and the designs would come back looking “like Burt Reynolds”, and the writers would be like “???” And then a character that wasn’t particularly intended to be hot, as in that wasn’t mentioned at all in the descriptions of them, would come back “accidentally hot”, and the writers would be like “Why couldn’t you have done this when we were asking for a character that was meant to be hot”, and the artists would be like “What?? He’s not hot”. And this became a thing (lmao - this discussion was prompted by DG being asked “Was Duncan meant to be that hot?”, for context). Some of the artists were so paranoid about their [in]ability to judge actually-hot characters that when it was time to pick an appearance, like for Alistair, they gathered up all the women at BioWare, and DG (“resident gay”) into a room to show them an array of faces and bodies like “Is this hot? Is this hot?” DG and co would sit there like, “How can you not tell? Is this a straight man thing?!” Anyways, this is why oftentimes we ended up with characters who are accidentally hot.

Over time, the writers realized that the way they communicated to artists needed to be managed better. The words they would use would have different connotations to them the writers, than what they did to the artists. For example, for Anders’ design in DA2, he was supposed to be “a little haggard”. When DG thinks of haggard, he thinks ‘a little tired, mussed hair, looking like you’ve been through some shit’. But the artists based on that produced concepts with super sunken cheeks, looking like he’d been terribly starved. The writers needed to develop a specific vocabulary for communicating with the artists, as artists think in terms of how something looks, but writers are thinking in terms of what the character “is”. Anders’ description talked about his history a lot, and the one visual-type word that jumped out was “haggard” due to its visual connotations. “A lot it came down to the writers being up their/our own asses.”

When they got to DAI, they had figured out that the way to get best results on this front was /not/ to have the writer go off and develop a long description and pre-conceived notion of what the character looked like in their head. In such scenarios artists don’t feel that they have much to contribute to the process or an ability to put their own stamp on who this character is and make them interesting to them (the best, most interesting characters are when people at all stages of the pipeline properly get to feed into it). They learned that the better solution was to bring the artists in earlier, and to give them little blurbs, and not name the character but give them an ‘archetype’-sort of ‘name’. For example, Dorian was “the rockstar mage”, “cool”, “Freddie Mercury”. The writers wouldn’t be sure that a particular concept would ‘hit’, so at this stage they would offer an array of options and sit the artist down and walk them through the concepts. The artists would then provide a bunch of sketches and it would go back and forth, with both taking part in the character creation process together. For the first two games, the writers were “really hogging” this process to themselves. They got better at not doing this and better at communicating with the artists by DAI.

There were a lot of arguments about how mages in DAO had a lot of specific lore words like “Harrowing”, “phylactery”, “Rite of Tranquility” etc. There was concern that this would be too confusing for players to understand and that it was too complicated. DG says that thankfully he put his foot down and pushed for this stuff to be kept. A lot of fans assume that as lead writer DG had all this influence, way more influence than he could possibly exert on a team. He wasn’t even a lead, he was a sub-lead, under a lead designer. He only had so much say. If the lead designer or lead artist wanted to do something differently, often there was not much he could do. Hence he had to pick his battles carefully, choose the important ones to fight. The mage vocabulary thing was one of these.

Templar Greagoir’s name is pronounced “Gregor” and it comes from a place in Alberta near where DG lived.

Codex entries are usually one of the last things that get done in a project like this, and so all of that kind of textual lore comes in super late and is super punchy as by then the writers have written so much and are exhausted. They had to find a way to make this process cute or interesting or fun for themselves, which is why a lot of entries are quite fun to read. Sometimes a writer would make a joke for banter [irl], and it would end up making it into an entry.

Only Morrigan and Duncan got unique body models in DAO. The companions all have custom-morphed heads but not custom-morphed bodies (Morrigan not included here). This is why every model has a necklace or a collar right at the point where they had to be attached to be a body. These sometimes used assets that couldn’t be used by the PC but were not unique to that character. Duncan probably got a unique model because he was in a lot of marketing/promotional material. Qunari were originally conceived as having horns.

Most people didn’t even finish DAO once (public telemetry again here), only approximately 20-25% actually did. The devs try not to read too much into this kind of thing, but the telemetry does tell them where a lot of people stop playing the game permanently (they call these “drop-off points”). One of these points in DAO is the Fade during Broken Circle. Sometimes when people interpret this data they involve self-serving biases, but it was generally accepted that the Fade there was too long, too complex, not interesting enough, etc. [source]

[Part 2]

[Part 3]

[Part 4]

[Part 5]

[Part 6]

[‘Insights into DA dev from the Gamers For Groceries stream’ transcript]

#dragon age #bioware #morrigan #solas #video games #queen of my heart #mass effect #lgbtq #jade empire #fenris #the Fenaissance #alistair theirin #lul #fav warden

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jimmymcgools · 3 years ago

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Can you do a directors cut for they pay me a golden treasure?

hi! this has been in my ask box for like two weeks! i'm so sorry! my brain broke and i forgot how to think about things!

i'm glad you asked for this one, thank you so much 🙏 i'd had the first ~500 words of this sitting in a google doc for so long -- i was originally thinking of posting after i finished slip and fall season. but then my brain did that thing where i wanted everything to be exactly perfect and i kept working and overworking the first few paragraphs until way too much gluten had formed in the dough and it was chewy and terrible.

but then i took a step back and just tried to write a thing that captured all the little interesting ideas i wanted to include, and that helped me get the ball rolling.

commentary below! 💖

Two points of pressure weigh down his shoulders, as heavy as the bags of cash had been—heavier, even. It feels like he has two hands locked on either side of his neck. He can feel the man who owns the hands standing behind him, and he can hear the echo of the word wife.

this idea was one of the first things that made me want to write this oneshot -- linking this physical sensation of carrying the bags with this metaphorical way he feels lalo's control over him.

He swallows. His mouth is tacky with a sugary layer of Gatorade.

i wanted the whole thing to hopefully be SUPER sensory and way deep in jimmy's head. and this is the kinda shit that takes me longer than it should to remember. sometimes i have to just sit and think through every part of my body as if i'm in that situation and see if anything good leaps out.

He’s just standing there outside the apartment and his arms are so heavy and his shoulders are so heavy and his head is so heavy he feels as if he’s going to fall right through the ground, as if he’s going to plummet into the earth before she can even open the door.

this is one of the sentences that previously died to being overworked. i kept changing it and changing it until eventually i looked back at my very first version, which was more brainstormy note than intended prose, and i thought it was better than anything else i'd managed. so i used that!

There’s a bang and his eyes snap open. The door is widening to a square of light and his hands are in front of his chest, curling into balls.

this part is a reverse of the previous example, though! here i kept an earlier version for a while, something that started like "The door opens with a bang etc etc" and then i realised it DID need more work, it needed to be more in jimmy's head and not tell the reader exactly what was happening in the first three words.

A square of light—sand and sky and space blankets—and then she’s there, silhouetted against the white, and he takes— —one step, then the next, then the next— —through the bright doorway.

fuckin' love an em dash, mate

His legs, having delivered him here, to this final glowing space, give up.

another one of the ideas i was very excited about for this one-shot was comparing kim to the golden glowstick he holds that night in the desert! i always think about it when i watch that scene!

here's my first shot at making the comparison -- this final glowing space. for a while i wanted to include the memory of him holding that glowstick right here, so that people might link it with him holding her in the entryway, but it didn't work with the pace.

Her voice sounds like it’s coming down a long phone line, traveling through thousands and thousands of copper-lined miles. Crackling and cracking.

i'm a self indulgent lil shit so i put some references to my other fic in here. hopefully if youve read acb, this specific description makes you think of baby kim and jimmy talking softly on the phone at night.

Kim’s fingers are razors in his hair, crushing his head close against her shoulder.

another metaphor from early acb used here, which in itself is a reference to a song by the national, of course. all my fics are just a bunch of national songs stacked inside a trenchcoat

As soon as his chest touches hers, he’s clawing with tight fists at her back, holding her faster and faster, like he’s scrabbling for purchase over screaming dirt

i loved the idea of drawing all these parallels between the desert experience and his experience here. it makes me think of the split-screen opening. jimmy's dry tongue sticking to his mouth is like him trying to say the first part of kim's name. the way he hugs her is like the way he scrambles towards the esteem.

it's all entwined forever now.

From down the long crackling line, she says his name again. Jimmy. He almost can’t hear it. Jimmy.

god, i'm such a writing nerd and i love thinking about writing so much and it's like -- what does not having his name in speech marks add here? in my head it adds so much. is it real, is she really saying it? is he just thinking it? yet he says he almost can't hear it. somehow not having the speech marks also makes it feel far away to me. intangible. if she's really saying it, it doesn't feel real anymore.

i love writing!!!!

“Hey,” Kim says, her voice quiet, her eyes locked on his. The dry skin on his lips stretches with his smile. “Hey.”

would die for these two softly exchanging "hey"s.

It’s good to be close because he knows there’s something horrible trapped between their chests. Something he can feel running warmly down his white and unblemished t-shirt.

jimmy brushing his hand over the spot as they sit together on the sofa.

Like he’s something that might burn her, or something that might break. Or both—like he’s fragile and electrified.

i kind of want to do more with this duality at some point. i think they both feel this about the other. that they could burn them or be burned by them.

He wants her to cradle his cheeks the same way she always does, or stroke her thumbs over his mouth, or curl her fingers around his ears, but she doesn’t. She just holds him in her fingertips. Like water in her hands, he thinks.

more of that wild self-indulgency, but god i couldnt resist linking this moment with the first time they makeout in acb:

"Then she pulls back, breathing heavily, looking down at him. She frames his face with her hands. Gasping for breath, staring up at Kim from between her palms, Jimmy feels like she’s the only thing holding him together. Like he’s water in her hands."

the only thing holding him together.

the ", he thinks." i added in the one-shot makes me feel like jimmy's making the link too, not just me as the writer.

The apartment smells of smoke. Another thing he’s dragged with him over the threshold from the desert: one hundred thousand dollars in cash and the word wife and the smell of dust burning beneath a high sun.

of course, it smells of smoke because kim's been smoking inside, but jimmy doesn't know that

Boxers picked up and then put down in almost the same spot on the bathroom floor.

this moment always gets me. these actors are incredible. there's so much goddamn emotion in one little action.

In his hand now, the ache of a yellow glowstick. The edges of his fingers are made red with it, and his skin and bones and all the gaps between the different parts of himself are marked out with the light. He’s awake, and the yellow stick is fragile in his grasp. Glowing through the cold and the dark. Burning a ghost on his retinas. His suit jacket is thin above him, a loose sheet. The desert is loud with lizards and wind and tires wheeling over dirt roads. The glowstick is golden.

and now finally i get to this glowstick moment. i'm really proud of how i executed this paragraph. it's the writing nerd in me again. i love what the present tense does to it. to me, it makes it feel eternal, ongoing. this is how i felt okay about not setting up the glowstick thing earlier. this paragraph makes me feel like jimmy's been thinking about this the entire time.

all the gaps between the different parts of himself are marked out with the light

also the thought of like... jimmy sitting awake in the desert thinking about the jimmy vs saul of it all.

Burning a ghost on his retinas.

"Did I dream it or did I have $1,600,000 on my desk in cash? When I close my eyes, I can still see it. It's burned into my retinas like I was staring into the sun."

Kim’s face is warm against his spine. Her heartbeat seems to pulse through his skin.

more of my stolen acb lines, this from the final chapter:

"He can feel her breathing, her knees pressed up close behind his, her chest against his back. Her heartbeat seems to pulse through his skin. If he didn’t know better, he’d feel like the Sandias, like a line of protection between her and the world."

When he closes his eyes, he’s walking, he’s still walking.

returning to the first sentence here gave it all a terrifying feeling to me. like -- does jimmy feel like this moment of getting home is the dream? this looping dream?

thank you so much to everyone who read this one-shot, by the way! i was super nervous about tackling canon times, and everyone's messages have been so reassuring. i really appreciate it 💖

#asks #anon #directors commentary #that got SO long

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leverage-commentary · 4 years ago

Text

Leverage Season 2, Episode 5, The Three Days of the Hunter Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Mark: Hello, I’m Mark Roskin, Director of this episode.

Melissa: Melissa Glenn, one of the writers of the episode.

Jessica: Jessica Rieder, the other one of the writers of this episode.

John: [Laughs] John Rogers, Executive Producer.

Chris: Chris Downey, Executive Producer, and this is The Three Days of the Hunter Job.

John: Uh, Glenn and Rieder, why don’t you tell us a little bit about this episode - how, uh, how we came up with this? I’m opening my beer, you guys talk.

[Beer Can Opening]

Melissa: [Laughs] Okay, enjoy. Um, I think the episode actually, Albert had the first idea, of doing something with a tabloid- or media-type person.

John: Right.

Melissa: -that’s Albert Kim.

John: That’s right. It started as like a Page Six person, right?

Melissa: Yeah, and then we just took it to the room and explored it, and we just thought it would be a lot of fun to go after someone in this… arena.

Jessica: Originally, I think we were thinking, yeah, more like tabloid, but then we thought that more often people who are really, like, injured today by the media, it tends to be more like, y’know, more on-screen news kinda stuff. So we took it in that direction.

John: Yeah, with- with newspaper circulation dropping by 20% every year, they’re really kinda losing their power as a threat. And, uh, you know, there have been cases of people appearing on these sort of shows that have been driven to, uh, suicide, or been wrongly accused and [unintelligble] in the press. And with the 24-hour news cycle, you know, that’s a big deal. Uh, we would like to mention that this was based on no one individual.

Chris: No, absolutely not.

John: Absolutely not.

Chris: And if we were to mention who it might be based on, we’re gonna say Wayne Gretzky.

John: That’s good, Wayne Gretzky will be the code word. Because Wayne does not do slanders.

Chris: Absolutely not, Wayne will not sue us in any way.

[Laughter]

John: Now, that’s one of the creepier and better victim intros that we’ve done, the failed suicide. We’ve had a lot of talk about like, did he die, did he not die?

Jessica: That’s true.

John: And uh, I believe it was actually a reference on The Sweet Hereafter. The bus accident.

Jessica: It was! That movie wrecked me!

[Laughter]

Jessica: Oh my gosh, I literally watched that movie on a plane and people were looking at me.

John: As you sobbed in the aisles?

Jessica: Yes, I was openly sobbing. I’d forgotten about that.

John: So we thought the most tragic thing we could would be a bus accident. And of course, y’know. And we used a technique, so slandering people.

Chris: Now, Marc, was there any movies or any things you looked at when you, uh, were prepping this? That you wanted to, uh-? How- how did you prepare for this one?

Marc: Uh, you know, I watched- I watched Network again. It was something I wanted to see, and just watching a lot of the local newscasts. And actually, watching their newscast, where we shot the show, uh, was helpful as well.

John: That’s worth mentioning, actually. We’ll get to this stuff, and we’ll point it out, but Portland, yet again, came through for us. And instead of having to build a newsroom, we got a newsroom.

Marc: Yes.

John: Which channel was it?

Marc: They’re Channel 8 News. And they gave us the room, they gave us all the technical support we needed, all the cameramen that you’ll see on the floor there are theirs. They really rolled out the red carpet to us.

Chris: And I think there’s- is there a newscaster on this, too, from there?

Marc: Yeah, yes. The guy who bookends the show, at the end, Joe. He’s one of their local, uh, local newscasters.

John: This is also where we’re advancing Sophie’s arc. And why don’t you talk about how we wound up doing this?

Jessica: Um, I think that we wanted Sophie to be getting uncomfortable. Sort of, like, wanting to spread her wings a little bit. So right before this, she had broken up with her boyfriend and was just, sort of, feeling a lack of control over her life. And so usually, she’s taking orders from Nate and he’s crafting the vision, but as sort of a struggle to find her new identity and maybe get a little bit more control over her life, we had her take over and be the one sort of calling the shots on this one. Which is really fun. I think that everybody in the cast had a little fun, like, changing the roles around.

John: Well they had a lot of fun both teasing- kind of also teasing Tim, a little. It was-

Jessica: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John: More than teasing Nate, it was also teasing Tim on some of his acting stuff.

Chris: It was actually one of the unintended benefits of Gina’s pregnancy, which was, as we did this arc of her going to find herself, everyone had to take on different roles. And I think it was probably the first episode of the season where we got to really explore that, and we get to see all the different dynamics that it caused.

John: There’s also a callback here, is Sophie talking Parker through the con; that’s something we actually reference in the season finale. And again, that’s one of the things where we really wanted to hammer, which is, they all seem very competent, but they’re all very good at one specific thing. And we really wanted to set up for when we knew Sophie would be gone for an episode or two, the chaos that would ensue when that occurred. This is also kind of a cue to Nate’s control issues, where he can’t even let her talk. You know, it has to be done his way. Um, and Beth Broderick!

Chris: Beth Broderick. Uh, Marc, how did we- how did we end up with Beth Broderick?

Marc: Beth was a friend of Dean’s, who, they were politically active together. They campaigned for Howard Dean together-

John: They were with Bill Ayers, right? They were Weathermen?

[Laughter, Crosstalk]

John: I remember, because Beth and Dean were there when Bill Ayers wrote Obama’s book. They were there but- Wait, are we recording?

[Laughter]

Jessica: Yeah, yeah.

John: Dammit, alright.

Marc: And Dean just- Dean read the script and said, ‘This is gonna be perfect for her’. And she hit it out of the park.

Chris: Boy, did she ever. And I mean, it was just amazing vision on his part, and boy she’s great.

Marc: And also- and also, for a guest star, she’s in almost every scene of the show.

John: This is one of the biggest villains of the- of the two years.

Marc: Yeah, every scene. And the stuff that we made her do, you’ll see later on- big monologues, climbing fences, and she did everything.

John: Yeah, she’s a trooper, man. She went over that fence in shoes. Well that’s- it’s- because again, we were playing around with the format. This is an open mystery, so we know what the con is, but it’s one of the times where really, the victim’s POV is the effect that we’re creating. It’s a lot like Order 23, your hospital episode, where the intent is to see the emotional state you’re bringing up in the person. And so you just live with the villain more that way. And for those episodes, you really need a heavy hitter for an actor.

Chris: And it was also interesting, too, because, you know, we were always looking for cons that didn’t involve delivering a sack of money. We wanted a con where we wanna evoke some kind of a reaction in the bad guy that brings them down, and this one was tailor-made for that.

John: Yeah. And if, uh- this was actually based on, you know, us talking about people who sell fear, and sort of the fear industry in America. And we always say we’re bringing the villain down with their original sin. And so, she sells fear, we’ll bring her down with fear. And this was the big speech- I think I’m the one who came up with the sandworm, it was- it was originally, uh, “the creature that she once bestrode like the [mumbled] on the sandworm of doom.” And I believe you wisely cut out the sandworm of doom reference at the end of this speech.

[Laughter]

Chris: Wow, somebody- somebody mercifully did that?

Jessica: I guess we figured the four people who would understand that weren’t going to miss it that much.

[Laughter]

John: And now we’re in Washington! For the miracle of stock footage.

Marc: Yes.

Jessica: It really does add scope. Every time I watch this show, I’m like, “we like- went there!!” But we didn’t.

John: Again, that’s Portland coming through for us.

Jessica: We just went to Portland, yeah. [Laughs]

John: Well, and Portland doubles as a lot of great cities, east coast cities, and uh, we got a lot of great stuff off of Portland. And this is the newsroom we were talking about.

Marc: Yes, this is the newsroom, and we had to be out of there by four o’clock every day, because they actually had to have their news broadcast.

[Laughter]

John: I love the hair and bow choice on Beth here.

Jessica: Oh my gosh.

Marc: Oh, that’s fabulous.

John: Wardrobe and hair here, now they were kind of intentionally mirroring Beth there.

Marc: Yes, and you’ll notice that every outfit that our Beth Riesgraf is wearing, does match Monica a bit, whether it’s a little color, a little highlight.

Chris: Yeah, it’s great. It’s terrific. And she really just, she looks like a local newscaster.

Jessica: She totally does.

Chris: She just does.

Jessica: I have to say, this was one of the most fun scenes to write. Like, Beth- or Parker being so out of her comfort zone? Because she is so competent, y’know.

John: Yes.

Jessica: And so to be able to write her being a little insecure and fumbling around a little bit was just, it was really fun. And that was actually fun throughout the episode, to be able to write all these people. And just, y’know, being out of their comfort zone, and the comedy that, y’know, lies in that.

John: Yeah, and also Hardison- Hardison being effective, but going over the top as he always does, which- which, y’know, brings us down. Which we actually wound up hitting in the Ice Man later on in the season, yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. A lot of the stuff that we set up here- like, inadvertently, I think, paid off in the Ice Man.

John: Not inadvertently at all, we planned this-

[Laughter, talking over each other]

Jessica: Not inadvertently- did I say inadvertently? I meant deliberately.

Chris: No it was meticulous, we certainly didn't write these things by the seat of our pants.

Melissa: Don’t mind her.

John: We weren't banging these out in four days at a time.

Chris: This was not written in four days.

Jessica: This was certainly not written the day before it was shooting, no.

[Laughter]

Melissa: I love this scene. Her lean in here is-

Chris: Oh this is so ‘Happy Birthday, Mister President’.

[Laughter]

Chris: It is. That's what I heard when I heard that.

John: And now we go to- now we go to conspiracy land. And it was a lot of fun designing Hardison’s- Hardison’s den of crazy. Marc how did you wind up- where'd you go for that?

Marc: We- our art department just came up with a lot of concepts, and our set designer, Adam, just was- he basically put this together himself-

Chris: It's fantastic.

Marc: -with Becca, but it was just great, it really-

John: And that hair is CG, let's add that, that hair is actually a CG effect.

[Laughter]

Marc: We were wondering if we should just have Hardison just laying on the floor and, you know, revealing him, but then we thought why not- let’s give him a proper reveal.

Jessica: And those eyes, how they are slightly crossed the whole time, that's actually Hardison- that's actually Aldis doing that right? Those aren't contacts?

Marc: Yes, that's actually Aldis doing that.

Jessica: He must've had-

John: Yeah, massive headaches by the end of the-, yeah.

Jessica: That's what I was gonna say. I look at that and get a headache.

Marc: It was on a special skills on his-

John: On his actors- on his headshot.

[Laughter]

Marc: Right next to rollerblading.

Melissa: And it was actually true, right?

Jessica: Be careful what you list there, they will make you do it.

John: No the paranoid- the paranoid stuff here was an awful lot of fun to write. We had cooked up an awful lot of- we had found an awful lot of crazy crap on the web. This is- yes this is the one they're building the bunkers to put the Guantanamo people in, when they were talking about closing Guantanamo.

Jessica: Oh yeah, we went through so many possible conspiracy theories. We all tapped into our inner like freak to like, ‘what do you think the government is doing’. It was really- it was kind of an insight-

John: And then when you do the research and find out what they've done, it kind of takes the-

Jessica: Yeah, it's like oh, my stuff’s kinda boring.

John: ‘I think the government lets do one where the government's testing bio weapons in the New York subway. Oh they did that…’

Jessica: Oh shoot.

John: That's not- wow.

Jessica: Guess that can't be funny anymore.

John: No, that's not funny at all.

Marc: Oh Aldis did a great job in this role.

Chris: He just so inhabits this role, you know. I can't say enough about him.

John: I don't know what is Beth doing behind there, where she's kind of, like, scratching at the neck, like she just hates being in this outfit

Marc: Yes.

Jessica: It's true, she does.

John: No, this is- this is a great crazy. And it's interesting to see how it's really a tonal shift from like conspiracy theory to Three of the Condor like at the halfway point of the episode.

Marc: ‘What’d you find? What’d you find?’

[Laughter]

John: ‘Hey, little Timmy.’

[Laughter]

Marc: My favorite line.

Jessica: It’s true.

Marc: ‘Terrorists!’

[Laughter]

Chris: Oh, coming out of the sandbox.

John: Coming out of the sandbox, yeah.

Chris: I love that.

John: We eventually- I think we wound up in the writers room just doing long rants and then taking the best sections of them.

Melissa: Yeah it was a lot of [unintelligible].

Jessica: Our poor writer's assistant, I think, basically just had to cut and paste into the script. Like remember that section three pages ago?

John: When we were really drunk, right. And this is also- like, we have to reestablish her villainy and make sure we understand that she is deserving of the horrible fate we’re about to bestow upon her by the fact we know that we’re gonna- this is also where the nicknames for Parker came up which was a lot of fun. You guys came up with a lovely bit where she just kept giving her horrible nicknames.

Jessica: That's right.

John: This office is like- this set is like the tardis; people are always coming out of doorways.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, no.

John: There's just way too much space in here.

Marc: Keep moving.

Jessica: I just have to interject that this is my favorite Christian costume of the year. Suit. I would put Christian in a suit every episode.

Marc: I would love to as well.

Chris: The Men in Black.

John: Yeah, the sort of Men in Black.

Jessica: I like it! Hair pulled back. Yup. It's good. That’s my secret agenda; I'm just putting it out there.

Marc: He's not a big fan of suits.

Jessica: No, he doesn't like them.

Chris: I have to say, I thought the interplay between all the characters in this one was probably my favorite of the season.

John: Really?

Chris: I mean everyone really- I really did- I thought all these little scenes of them just played great.

Marc: Well I love this, because this was a note where I think I called John and said, ‘You know, with Eliot and Parker when she's asking all these questions about conspiracy theories, how is Eliot’s tone?’ And all John said was, ‘big brother effing with little sister.’

Chris: Yes, that was it.

Marc: I was like, ‘Got it.’

John: That's it.

Chris: That's the model of this episode.

John: Because Parker’s grip on reality is- anything- there's a great description of Sherlock Holmes in the- I think in A Study in Scarlet where Watson writes down everything he knows. And it’s a- he knows he has no idea of the- Sherlock Holmes has no idea the earth goes around the sun, because it's not important to solving crime. And it amuses me that Parker, outside of crime, could be talked into believing pretty much anything.

Jessica: It's true. She's so savvy in some ways, and totally clueless and childish.

John: And particularly with these guys who she trusts. This lift, did we take this lift from the tango that eventually died?

Jessica: Yes!

Chris: I think it was.

Jessica: Oh the tango.

John: Use all the parts of the buffalo.

Chris: Which may live again folks.

John: Which may live again.

Melissa: Then we won't tell you what it was.

Jessica: Right.

Melissa: It's great trick that Apollo showed us, where using just a really strong magnet and lifting somebody's IT tag off-

John: Now was it- was a lot of fun, was finding the neodymium magnets and which- you know what you can do? They can tear off the hand of a young child. When I saw that on the web, I must've- I must've said that phrase at least twice a day for the rest of the year.

Melissa: They are very strong magnets.

Jessica: I think that's true.

John: I’m delighted by the fact that you can buy something on the web that can tear off the hand of a small child. The magnet that he's using is a neodymium magnet it's a very powerful- and that's something Apollo actually showed us in order to lift metal objects off people, it's incredibly strong.

Chris: And what's this location that we have as the Pentagon? This is an active building in Portland?

Marc: This is the active local political building in downtown Portland.

Chris: And they basically just emptied the local city government for us?

Marc: Yes.

Chris: They just sent everybody home for the day. ‘Go drink.’

Marc: And this was also used in the two-part season finale as well.

John: The finale, that's right.

Marc: The room that Eliot stole the badge is their assembly room. This is a fun scene. I think the two of them together was great.

John: And the camera man actually found a nice little beat here. He's just like, ‘I like to get punched.’

Jessica: I like it.

[Laughter]

John: There you go. And Eliot is always, like, this little beat of suspicion, this little-

Marc: I figured I'd go slow motion here just to try and sell it a little bit more.

Melissa: Well done.

Marc: But I love Beth Riesgraf’s performance in here, as soon as the video camera’s on her.

Melissa: Yes.

Marc: Wanting to take the spotlight a little.

Melissa: It was perfect.

Marc: And Beth Broderick just shoves her away. It was perfect. This was all ad-libbed.

Jessica: This is so local news, too.

[Laughter]

John: It's really cheesy.

Jessica: It’s very local news; just great.

John: And now there was a big thing- it was a big thing with the uniform, getting a uniform that would work on Tim. Because Tim’s hair is not a buzzcut, and the problem with television, if you buzzcut someone, you live with that look for the rest of the season.

Marc: Yes.

John: So we were actually gonna abandon the idea and then our consultant told us that the special ops guys who come back from Afghanistan keep both beard and longer hair and wear it with the uniform, so we gave him that particular uniform and it worked out just fine with the beret.

Chris: Fans of Taps may enjoy watching this little sequence.

John: Fans of Taps. Does he die in Taps?

Chris: I don't remember.

John: Does he die in Taps- or is this- could we say like we’ll do it in a way where this is like a continuity of Taps.

Jessica: This might be him.

John: This is a pseudo sequence-

Chris: Could this be his character from many years later?

John: You know, we never said where Nate went to school. We-

Jessica: That's true; there's a lot of material.

John: I like the implication that Nate Ford was actually the kid in Taps; that's kind of screwed up. Yeah, and then this was a tough one because we did not have the bag of money, right?

Chris: No.

Jessica: That's true.

John: So we had to establish- we were like, ‘Great, it’s information.’ And then we’re like, information is a great concept, it doesn't really work on television. And that's where we came up with a red file.

Melissa: Yes, put it in a red folder.

John: We spent a long time figuring out what the visual cue would be that the audience could track, that Marc did an excellent job of establishing to the audience, so the audience would understand: that's the MacGuffin, that's the axe, you know.

Marc: And ‘red file’ is said a couple times; they just keep hammering it.

John: Well what was Dean's rule? You never- the audience doesn't really hear it until the third time.

Jessica: Oh that's interesting; it's true.

Chris: And you get a nice little swagger, here, where it’s just all she cares about is the status in the Washington press core.

John: Yeah and- it's not all based on Wayne Gretzky's resentment of not being picked in [mumbled].

Chris: No, not at all.

[Laughter]

Chris: Not Wayne Gretzky's resentment at all.

John: You know Stanley Cup won't get you respect in the Washington press core. There's actually a great photo of him sitting there right in front of that wall, one of my favorite shots, just mad.

Marc: He was just in an armchair. ‘Let her run it.’

John: Oh, there was the other thing. We spent like a day, where I may have been drunk. We spent like, a day coming up with the sleazy stories that she would promo.

Jessica: That was fun.

Melissa: What’s going on at naptime?

Chris: Secret call girl ring.

John: What's killing you?

Jessica: Which of your appliances are trying to kill you? I have to say, at home it's currently my microwave. That's a different story. But they are actually trying to kill you sometimes.

[Laughter]

John: How’s hiatus treating you there?

Jessica: You know what? It's been rough and I'd rather not talk about it. It’s good if we go back to work.

Chris: For those keeping score, here's the evil speech of evil.

John: Evil speech of evil.

Melissa: This is a great evil speech of evil.

John: That's right.

Melissa: I love this speech.

Jessica: Yeah.

John: Yeah this- and this was kind of the- this was kind of an honest thing where we realized that this con wouldn't work. Where just because the people that are Wayne Gretzky's audience members believe that only bad people go to jail, and therefore would not be scared by this story.

Chris: Well, and also again, it’s like the idea of what- what kind of scandal is- would appeal to her? It’s sex; it’s salacious details. It would have to go to some different level than the violation of civil rights.

Marc: And will you tell the listeners what the significance is of Ren Field and Betsy Wetsy?

[Laughter]

John: Yeah well, Betsy Wetsy is just a doll name for her, and that's one of the nicknames. Renfield is Dracula’s insane human assistant who was- we meet, I believe, locked up in a mental institution.

Chris: Oh that's right, that's true.

John: That's where the nicknames come from.

Jessica: Obviously Marc, it is Dracula's evil assistant.

[Laughter]

Jessica: I'm sorry.

John: You know what? It's just-

Chris: I mean, everybody knew that.

John: It's just supposed to make sense to Beth Broderick's character; it's a little bonus point for the people paying attention.

Chris: He cut the Dune reference in to keep Renfield.

John: If you cut Dune, you keep Renfield.

Jessica: We decided to let that one go, yeah.

[Laughter]

John: And Gina really tees off nicely in here. And this is also an interesting idea that Nate’s not unaware of this role in the group is destructive. But he doesn't care when he does it.

Jessica: That's true.

Chris: Right.

John: And it's interesting this leads right into Top Hat where we see he's back in that position and it’s consuming him at the end of that episode. You know, where she- there's actually an interesting arc in the second season where Sophie's smarter than Nate, and is more personally developed. She understands she has to get her head together or she's gonna wind up dead. Where Nate just really spirals out in a more addictive style. Nice- nice zoom.

Chris: Nice bullet.

Marc: The ninja zoom!

Chris: And this, what a-

John: What a hit, oh man.

Jessica: That stunt was amazing.

Chris: This is- to talk about- talk about this stunt, Marc.

Melissa: This is amazing.

Chris: What happened?

John: Because when we saw this on dailies, we thought you killed her.

Jessica: We thought you killed the stunt woman.

Marc: I did too, and um, basically she took a hit really hard.

Chris: I mean, so the car actually hit the stunt woman.

Marc: Yeah, she jumped up a bit. Normally-

Chris: How fast was the car going?

Marc: Normally you wouldn't take that much impact, but she took a lot, she took a lot.

Chris: And was that her regular stunt double who does the flips?

Marc: No this was a different stunt girl that we had, someone who can-

John: Who then left the set right after and went on to live a perfectly healthy life in another state.

[Laughter]

Marc: No, she was fine. She got up; she was great.

John: Yeah.

Marc: The other problem is when we had Beth Riesgraf there, there was a pile of red ants that kept coming-

Jessica: Oh, that was-

Melissa: Climbing up on her, that was-

Marc: She was always like ‘Come on, shoot! The ants are getting me!’

Melissa: I remember she was trying to blow them away.

John: Now does anyone remember why he's a postman?

Jessica: Because postmen don't get noticed.

Melissa: Nobody notices them.

John: That's right, and what’s the classic G. K. Chesterton story that we were referencing?

Chris: The job depends on this.

Jessica: The postman?

John: The job- no

Chris: We've got five new writers out there who know the answer.

[Laughter]

John: They all know that we’re referencing G. K. Chesterton, The Invisible Man.

Chris: They're out there thumbing through Dune right now waiting for us.

[Laughter]

Melissa: Rieder and Glenn are going down.

John: No, one of the first mystery stories I ever read was a G. K. Chesterton mystery story where he figured out the killer was the postman because nobody pays attention to the postman. It's the only person who goes in and out of buildings without ever being noticed.

Jessica: Wow.

John: I’m fairly sure that's where- and this of course is Deep Throat. This is where we spiral off into Three of the Hunter,

Chris: This is Deep Throat folks.

Jessica: I know that one.

Chris: Our only note for this scene was: he must step out of shadows.

Jessica: It’s true.

John: We didn't care where the shadows were.

Jessica: I don't think we wrote the rest.

Chris: We wanted it to be a parking garage, I'll say that right now. But if it couldn't be a parking garage, it was like: he must step out of shadows.

Marc: I looked, I tried to find a parking garage, I swear.

[Laughter]

Marc: It was gonna be a company move; I couldn't do it.

John: No, I understand.

Marc: This is actually in the basement of the-

Chris: No, it works great.

John: It does work great.

Marc: -assembly building.

John: Especially with the elevator, with the cage door. I always love those.

Chris: You couldn't oversmoke this, right, there's smoke, right?

John: I think Tim’s actually on fire right now.

[Laughter]

John: Generating so much smoke in this scene. This is where we spiral- I remember- I think we spun up the virally evolving toxin, and there was that guy I went into that long bit and you looked at me like, ‘Wait, is that real?’ ‘No no, it's not real at all, don't worry about it.’

Marc: I think we did this- we did this scene, we did her scene outside of the assembly room, we did the scene of her breaking into the office; I think that was all one day in the same building.

John: Wow.

Chris: Wow. Boy that's a lot.

Jessica: And how many days did you guys have to shoot this? Was it seven?

Marc: Seven days.

John: It’s seven days. Most network shows are 8-12.

Chris: Yes.

John: Most 8; some 12; us 7, occasionally 6½.

Melissa: We don't mess around.

Marc: And the guy who shoots second-unit was busy.

Melissa: It was rather busy, shooting first-unit.

John: Right, yeah.

Jessica: Oh right, yeah.

Chris: By the way, I think the- you filled in on this one also. We should note that, I think-

John: You had like a week prep on this; there was cancellation-

Marc: Yes. Yes.

Melissa: This one we jumped on.

John: And did a great job because this is visually very- this is very layered and it's very complex. And- I'm sorry, that outfit kills me every time.

Marc: It's funny, because everybody got to play a part in this except our grifter, Sophie, who usually gets to play characters.

Jessica: That's true, yeah.

John: Yeah, that's the idea. And also the idea was to, you know, also start easing her out of that, you know, she's only around really for two more episodes of this season.

Marc: And here again is another mention of the red file.

John: There you go, flashback. And the murderous, besuited Eliot. Tim really dug in on the paranoia here. He really-

Marc: Yeah.

John: That's a menacing, scary look.

Marc: Yes, it was a lot of lighting.

[Laughter]

John: The shadow’s on the wall; that's very nice.

Marc: God bless Dave Connell.

John: And then back to the apartment of crazy.

Marc: Yes, and more teasing the little sister.

Jessica: That was so fun.

Chris: It's great her leaning up against him, too.

John: It was interesting to watch. Like I said, the pairings that wound up happening this year evolved. And not just because we wound up losing Gina for the back half of the season, but the Parker/Eliot thing got really interesting. And then the Eliot/Sophie thing got really interesting early in the season, that sort of, you know, now that he's forgiven her he's actually a confidant because he's the only one whose overawed by Nate, you know?

Jessica: That's true. I think it's funny, because last season I think-

John: Is that a good look, too, by the way, Reider?

Jessica: No, I actually didn't hear the last thing you said because I was kind of focusing on that, but the suit it- just kidding, I always listen to John when he talks. Otherwise he threatens to fire me. But I think-

John: Rat.

[Laughter]

Jessica: Or sometimes he actually does it; I just ignore it. But the first season it was a lot of, like, building Parker and Hardison’s relationship and like, we really love that and really enjoyed writing it. But this here was really fun to do more of the brother/sister stuff between Parker and Eliot and even like Eliot and Hardison. And that was, like, the most fun thing in my opinion to write, cause that was just so family-like, you know, a dysfunctional, funny, loving family.

John: And also Chris and Aldis are kind of like brothers in Portland. Like, hanging out with them, that relationship is very real.

Chris: And Beth, too.

Marc: I love this little beat of - just jumping in - of just, Hardison explains everything he's doing and just saying ‘you doubt me? Look at this.’ And it's happening in real time.

Chris: I like- this was a very numbers thing. You came up with this.

John: I came up with this because I have friends who are journalists and, you know, one of the things they talk about, is the fact that every journalist cultivates like 3 or 4 good sources on the hill, but the overreliance on those sources means they can never call them on their bullshit. And that turned into this kind of-

Chris: But it's nice; the math part I like, too.

John: The math part is nice, too. It's a nice bit of physics bullshit.

Chris: Math porn.

John: Math porn.

[Laughter]

Chris: We don't do a lot of that.

John: Project Destiny, by the way, is a lovely callback to The Core, the movie I did in 2003.

Jessica: More quizzing.

Chris: Available on Amazon.

John: Available on Amazon. I just wanna say, a lot of science fiction writers like John Scalzi and Joss Whedon, they really like it.

[Laughter]

John: And, you know, it comes highly recommended. No. This is- the stripper scene is ridiculously funny and is really one of the better flashbacks. Just- those flashes are tough, because they have to be one shot, really, and they have to convey an enormous amount of information as fast as possible.

Chris: Now here, this is- we’re getting into the paranoia sequence. This is great, I love this.

Melissa: Just the water everywhere.

Marc: This was, yeah, we did everything; every time she sees water, we just went to slow motion.

Chris: It’s so well done. It’s- it's all- just you saw that the choice of water really plays out here. Because it's everywhere.

John: Where did you get that fish tank? Who has that fish tank?

[Laughter]

Marc: No, I requested the fish tank.

John: Who has that fishtank in their office? Nobody has that fish tank in their office.

Marc: That was the one request I had from the art department.

John: And the whole idea is they're basically breaking this woman's sanity, which is-

Jessica: That’s fun.

John: But she made a nice older man try to commit suicide, and she’s deserving of it.

Melissa: She deserves it.

Jessica: That was one of the challenges, I think, of spending so much time with her, is that we had to keep reestablishing her villainy so that we didn't feel bad for her. Cause like, when you spend so much time with her, we didn't want to make her into the victim.

John: Particularly Beth Broderick, who is a particularly sympathetic charming actor, we didn't want to-

Chris: Well it's a testament to her, because it's true, a lot of these ones you want, sort of, physically imposing bad guy when you're putting them in in this kind of Saw-like trap.

[Laughter]

Jessica: Yeah, totally.

Chris: Seriously.

John: ‘This is Jigsaw. In front of you is a briefcase full of money orders.’ What no- not saw what are you doing?

Chris: A kind of psychological Saw.

John: Yeah, but it's interesting, this is the one of the rules we have, which is things can't just go randomly wrong, they have to go wrong because of either something we've set up that is an unintended consequence, or they've succeeded too well. And Marc where did you get all these amazing vehicles?

Marc: This was the local national guard.

[Laughter]

Marc: Again, Portland opening up its doors to us.

Chris: This is a product of our- of that trip we took to scout locations, which if our wives were listening right now, was to see things like this and not to drink.

[Laughter]

Marc: Yes it was.

Chris: Not to go to strip clubs.

John: Exactly.

Marc: And they gave us everything.

Chris: So you see-

John: So cut the silent treatment, ok? It's right there!

Chris: So this is why we went, so we can have this sequence, so now you know.

Jessica: Chris how's your hiatus going?

[Laughter]

John: So yes, this was the local national guard; all their vehicles, all their guys in uniform.

Marc: Personnel, guys in uniform, all their vehicles. They basically do all the repairs on vehicles that are used to also be a big firing range where they test weapons as well. That's why they kept saying ‘Don't go up the hill.’

John: Really?

Marc: ‘Don't go up the hill, there's a couple things that haven't gone off yet.’

Chris: This is a great shot right here.

John: Yeah this we couldn't have built this, probably.

[Laughter]

Chris: No.

Jessica: Probably not.

John: I'm thinking on seven days we couldn't have put that together. That's a good looking bunker. And there's Beth Broderick charging the fence like a trooper.

Marc: Charging the fence. We do have a stunt person in this shot, but we used her just in the one little brief shot. Beth wanted to go all the way over. I'm like ‘No no, I've got a lot more work to do with you.’

Melissa: I remember writing this and we thought once she throws the purse over, that's commitment. If a woman throws a purse over a fence.

Chris: Oh wow, that's her folks!

Marc: Yeah, cause it was written, I think, just tossing the purse and then she's over. I'm like, ‘No, we gotta carry this over.’

John: Yeah no, that's Beth Broderick on the barbed wire, yeah.

Jessica: In those heels, that's moxie. That's not hubris, that's moxie.

John: ‘That's not hubris, that's moxie.’ Nicely done. And now yes, cause that's just a poorly thought out idea.

[Laughter]

John: But she's driven by paranoia and madness and so-. And Sophie has seen the wages of her obsession.

[Laughter]

John: This is a- this is also a pattern that we wind up, which is Hardison in trouble and everyone kind of enjoying yanking him around a little. Because he's usually on the other- and I think we say this actually in this one. It’s like, ‘Not so funny being on the other side.’

Jessica: Yup.

John: Yup and the parallel interrogations. This was a ton of fun.

Jessica: This was my- I think these were my favorite scenes of the whole episode. Just Hardison playing around with this guy. I don’t- I just love this whole part; writing it was fun, watching it was fun.

Chris: Oh, I love this line here about ‘This is not a planned community’? That was perfect.

[Laughter]

Marc: ‘She's a freak, man.’

John: No. And these- and this is interesting. This should be taken from The Closer. This is like- this shooting style is dead serious. No- and these are- and these are actual soldiers right? One of them was.

Marc: No no, these guys are both actors.

John: The gate guys are-

Marc: The gate guys are, yeah.

John: Actual soldiers, right.

Marc: And the guys in the hallways.

John: Yeah. And she's gone and the problem is, and this is another thing, again, when you've got a five hander, it’s like who’s in the game, who’s out of the game at any given point. Who’s dead and who's been blown. Yeah, it's not fun. You know, there's a lot of shows with one lead and four sidekicks, and having like really five-hander is-

Jessica: Those lucky bastards

John: Like yeah, those lucky bastards.

Chris: And another one of our almost real time endings. I’d say this-

John: I’d say this is the pattern of the second season, that we really got into about episode three or four. Acts four and five are almost real time.

Chris: Almost always really time.

John: Act four in particular.

Chris: Sometimes 3, 4, and 5.

John: Yeah, act 4 in particular.

Marc: Here's where Eliot gets to toy with Hardison.

Melissa: Yes, just so much fun.

John: Yeah, just so much frustration and rage. Just the little shit eating grin there, yeah, because it's usually the other side. Cause there's nothing funnier than Chris Kane annoyed. Chris Kane annoyed is money.

Chris: And that was- she just did that, right?

Jessica: Yeah, that was not scripted.

Chris: A little found moment.

John: She just found a gas mask. And I like she's completely oblivious to the things that might go horribly wrong. For Parker this is actually amusing.

Melissa: It’s fun.

Jessica: It's all a game, yeah.

John: I also love, again, both establishing her mania and her villainy here, that she will sell out humanity for a chance to be in the bunkers.

Marc: Right.

John: Even in this moment, she's a weasel. Yeah, we’ll have no mercy for her.

Jessica: Yup, it’s true.

John: And I also like- it was a great job by makeup and wardrobe. But particularly make-up and hair on this one, to slowly spool out her look-

Jessica: Yeah.

John: -over the course of the act.

Marc: And keeping the continuity. This is where I said to Aldis, I said ‘This is your moment where you get to be Samuel L. Jackson for a moment.’

John: Oh when he flips, when he's got the information. Yeah we saw these in dailies actually- that look up right there-

Jessica: Yeah, that was-

John: That was like, ‘woah, what the hell is that?’

Jessica: ‘What’d you do to Aldis?!’

Marc: Yeah, I said ‘You've gone from crazy weird scared paranoid, give us a good-’

John: ‘I want you to reach into the bag and take out a wallet.’ No, he's really- and the slam, the hand slam was great. This- and this guy did a really good job. Now these- this whole act- and this was- But again, we’re talking about sort of the things you find in second season, is you go from making 13 little perfect ones, to learning how to make 100. Is you really start finding out it’s ok to just live in one scene for an act, if it's a really entertaining scene.

Chris: In one set. Yeah, like when we broke it, it was like act 4 is the army. That’s where we’re living.

John: And really only one sequence - interrogation and rescue. That’s it; there's nothing else really going on. In the first season we found this very static, and just being able to trust the actors and the characters now, this is a ridiculously entertaining act.

Jessica: Yeah.

Marc: I mean, look at all the vehicles they gave us, it's unbelievable.

John: That's your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentleman. Helping out making Leverage.

Jessica: Thank you for that.

John: Also, there's a little throw away there where Sophie explains that, you know, people don't look at generals in the eyes, they just look at the ranks. It's a little-

Marc: Yeah, the stars and bars.

John: There's a little hint to Sophie's background there, sorta background that- Gina had come up with that, we’re kind of seeding through. And these guys trying to decide which ones, who’s crazy. Oh, and the whole bit about them signing the nukes, what had been the news right before was the fact that they had accidentally flown those nukes. Remember that story? The Air Force had lost track of four nukes for a couple days. And we were like, well we could make up something ridiculous or just take the incredibly terrifying thing that's on CNN.

Jessica: Right, yup. Used what they actually did.

John: We wind up making- we have we wound up making up not a lot on this show.

Chris: No yeah, we try- We find ridiculous things, we try to work it in.

Jessica: It’s true.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Whenever possible.

Melissa: At times we have to scale back reality and say people aren't gonna buy this, it's too crazy.

Jessica: Totally true.

John: Absolutely. No, there's a lot of- there’s a couple- couple times where people go ‘Eh, it’s a little much’ is always the real thing.

Jessica: Yeah, it's never something we've made up.

John: The stuff we've just bullshitted, they always buy.

Jessica: Totally true.

Chris: And this is a good example of sometimes people say, ‘Well how would they get away with this or, you know, get past levels of security?’ Well in this one, they get just enough out of the perimeter, and then their cover is blown pretty quickly. So, you know, we’re not saying that the entire US Army is duped by our guys on the fly.

John: But a lot of that's- A lot of it is, in this season, is establishing all they really ever buy themselves is 15 seconds. But the stuff they can pull off in that 15 seconds is why they are who they are, you know. And that's the thing, is at this point, you know, he knows they gotta get the hell out of dodge, and that's why they split up, and that’s why they’re getting ready to do the blow off. The cackle bladder.

Marc: And they have a great escape vehicle.

John: They have a fantastic Hyundai, which really delivers for us here.

Melissa: Which Tim always really drives hard.

Chris: Do they give us product integration in the commentaries?

John: They did actually, we get an extra 20 grand for saying how bad ass this car is.

Jessica: Every time we say it, they give us money.

John: Yeah I like it. Actually it's a pretty- and boom!

Chris: And Marc, I think I remember you called saying, ‘I was just checking to see if we blast through the gate?’

Jessica: Yeah that was yours, was it?

John: Who were you talking to?

[Laughter]

Marc: Yeah exactly I was like, ‘Ok, sorry.’

John: We’re usually calling every week insisting on something exploding, I don't know why you're calling us to ask if they can go through a gate.

Jessica: Can the gate then explode after they drive through? Because that’d be even better.

John: And basically that's the whole idea, is they've only bought 15 seconds, the con is unraveling, and how fast can they play it out?

Chris: Yeah.

Marc: I like the delivery that these- they give in these little beats, little banter back and forth, and Tim’s just, ‘Mhm, yeah, mm.’

John: Yeah, he's really digging in. And she's even more unraveled. No, it’s lovely.

Jessica: I like this part how, like, usually with our villains; we sort of lead them through to the end. But this one, like, we just spun her up so tight that, like, the fifth act is almost just her spinning out on her own, you know?

John: It's really just getting out of her way at this point.

Chris: And was this-? Just for the tech geeks. Is this a steadi-?

Marc: There's that red file reference.

Chris: Was this a steadicam or-?

Marc: Yeah that was steadicam. Steadicam and 360.

John: Oh the- him and- [laughs] this is actually a prelude to something else in the season finale, but Eliot- Eliot in various iterations; the writers were playing around with how menacing he needed to be when he came out of the bathroom. And then we realized you know what? No matter who you are, coming out of a bathroom with rubber gloves is just never a good thing.

Jessica: That's true.

John: Nobody ever comes out of a bathroom with rubber gloves to help you.

Marc: And you can barely see it but we also line the walls with plastic as well.

John: Yeah, you just know that's a bad thing. And the fact that he actually- they sold that, too. That was a big comedy beat.

Chris: He got maced.

Jessica: That was fun.

John: Now this is great, and this is what's amazing, is that this is what's a big chunk of stuff with none of our actors.

Marc: Yes.

John: And all the local Portland actors were great cause that guy’s local. Is the newscaster that she replaces, is she a newscaster or is she a local actress?

Marc: No, she's a local actress.

John: Yeah, and she's got a great look, she looks exactly like that sort of financial, you know, on Wayne Gretzky's network that kind of financial, you know-

Chris: Yes, Versus I think is the network. The hockey channel?

[Laughter]

Jessica: Yeah, the financial girl on Versus.

John: The financial girl on Versus. Exactly. I love- we're gonna get sued by Wayne Gretzky and have no way to explain this. Like why? Got no idea. How do we-

Chris: And another thing to track here that is great, was the pill bottle, because the whole slander of our victim in the beginning was that he had taken antidepressants and was totally out of context and getting her to hold this pill bottle was a great part of the con.

John: Though I'll tell you, that was one of those moments where I realize you're 40, when we originally had the dad be a Vietnam vet. And then we did the math on driving the bus and we realized ‘oh shit, it’s Desert Storm. Oh man.’

Jessica: Right, yup that’s true.

John: And now, yes, just to taking the water with her coat. And by the way, I'd like to say uncle tenuse is coming to town. There we go! Just for the 60 year old comedy fans, that reference.

Jessica: Spit take.

John: Nice spit tak;, classic spit take.

Marc: She was great. She had another bit in the office, but it got cut for time.

John: It got cut. Oh, she was Beth's assistant. She was Beth Broderick's assistant, right?

Jessica: Right.

John: Yes, and then the crazy footage. And it was interesting again, that- Look, her eyes are tearing up; that's great.

Marc: And she did this over and over and over again.

John: But that was- it’s like Knights Tale with jousting. We had to establish what the rules were. I always admire the fact that Knights Tale explains what joint is very effectively and very efficiently.

Melissa: Right.

John: And we had to explain what the rules of her expose style are early, so that we can then have a framework for the audience to see how each beat is falling into place.

Chris: This is how she's brought down.

John: And that's just crazy and screwed up.

[Laughter]

John: I like the fauxhawk on the second cop; I didn't notice that the first time around. And then Beth Broderick taking the hit, I believe.

Marc: We did get a stunt person just for the fall to the ground.

[Laughter]

Marc: There.

Chris: Wow.

John: Oh she's spun out- and now this is a great improv by the guy. Or you came up with this on the set, right? The- the chair push?

Marc: Yeah, I wanted to keep the whole idea that they are on live, he sees the light and he just pushes the girl in front of the camera, like, ‘go, go, go!’

Jessica: Nice.

John: And also, nice choice here, where this little gloat that she puts on right here about the destruction of probably someone she hates is nice. ‘I’m Monica freaking Hunter!’

[Laughter]

John: It is. It’s Network Spock welded onto Three Days of the Condor.

Chris: Yeah it’s the whatever your local 70’s paranoia.

Marc: And that's our local Portland newscaster, Joe.

John: Parallax view too. And that's our local anchor, that's right. There you go, redemption. The end, and the bad guy has suffered, brought down by their own sin. And America can go to bed secure that bad people are punished and good people triumph. And that's the way the world is; they should sleep better.

Jessica: Obviously.

Chris: There's a nice little ending. Who’s idea is it that Eliot‘s cooking here? To carry that forward from season one? Was that- I don't think that was in the script, was it?

Jessica: I don't know.

Melissa: It was in the script, and we followed it through a little with the pitch in the- I think one of the ones where he's like ‘I cook all my own food.’ We were trying to follow this through.

Chris: Grow my own food, that's true.

Melissa: We’re trying to make this very- that’s who Eliot is.

John: And you know, it's interesting, this- We wound up shooting up here in the apartment more than down by where we installed all those expensive monitors. Cause this was just a really kind of fun, intimate space.

Chris: Well this is also sort of the family area, when you're around the table on the bar.

John: Yeah, Eliot’s actually cooking a lot this season. He's kinda going back and forth; he's behind that counter a lot. The fact that they’re- it was kind of a running gag, we never really landed on it, but it goes through the season Nate never has control of his refrigerator again once the season begins.

Jessica: It’s true.

John: They're always stealing his food. Nate- there's a running gag where Eliot’s always icing up from the ice in his fridge.

Melissa: Right.

Jessica: Yeah.

John: This is a nice beat.

Chris: A nice moment between-

John: Where he admits he was a screw up, and she kind of admits that he was a screw up also. Yeah, it was hard. I mean, you really need to establish they can’t have a romantic relationship yet. They're not-

Jessica: Not there.

John: Not there, yeah. And that was the hard won wisdom of first season. They really land the sort of friends and something more beat at the end of this.

Jessica: I loved that throughout the season. I think, you know, that gets sprinkled in a lot and I’ve- you know, them as friends is just- I don't know; it seems so comfortable and there's so much there.

John: Two lonely people who wandered the earth, you know. There's very few people they've actually connected with over the course of their lives, so.

Jessica: I love these final moments with them.

John: There was a lot of these this season, with the, like, little character beat codas.

Chris: There's one between her and Eliot in Top Hat-

John: The next episode.

Chris: -with the same vantage point.

John: 207 there's- yeah.

John: Yeah and again it's- a lot of it is - it’s ok to just hang out with the characters. That was a lot of fun. Anything you wanna say before we take off?

Marc: No, I just- it's great to be able to direct a great script, so thank you girls.

Jessica: Thank you; it was fun.

Melissa: Our pleasure.

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Eliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 2 #Episode 5 #Season 2 Episode 5 #The Three Days of the Hunter Job

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inventors-fair · 5 years ago

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Let’s Talk Flavor: Commentary

I would say overall that most of these cards were fantastic and a great number of the story ideas were good. There will be parts where I suggest edits, and the thing about story edits is, well, it doesn’t impact game design. That’s the thing about the Fair and the thing about Magic in general: the whole thing could be replicated with number systems and program lines and it would be the exact same. It’s the fact that a creature has Flying, or that a spell is made of Lightning that makes the game exciting. This was an interesting experiment.

Let’s talk about cards!

@ace-hobo — Captain’s Wrench

This is a perfectly fine card. I like the “fixed” Voltaic Key style, the moderate power level. It’s a card that someone would probably be middling in artifact decks but fine in budget builds. I’m sort of feeling an Ixalan vibe, maybe with a little steampunkishness. I get that the wrench belongs to De, but it’s a little confusing regarding why they have the wrench. If they’re the captain and they’re not in the engine room, why is the card depicting a tool that would suit them better if they never left the engine room? Maybe the story should be about how DESPITE their captain status, they spend time in the engine room. It’s an easy enough tweak.

@cas-420 — Boiling Blood

The card is pretty good. It’s very aggressive and has synergistic potential. I really don’t see where the flavor is tying into it. I am favorably inclined towards your text, in concept. I can see where you were making the pun on “execution.” The wording is clunky with the repeated syntax, and could have just used the execution line. But what does that have to do with the card? The flavor evokes dissent, protest, retaliation. The flavor of the card evokes speed, purpose, initiative. It’s not a perfect tonal match. I would save the text for a different card with a clearer purpose

@dabudder — Wisdom of the Tides

In terms of card wording, I believe you’d be looking for something like Mysteries of the Deep, where you have an “instead” wording — unless you’re supposed to draw an additional card after? It’s a little confusing how you have it now. Still, Flourish is a fine mechanic, executed well. This was pretty close to being a runner-up. I like the nod towards crabs. We’ve been having a crab mood lately. Overall, not bad. Might need to be four mana, but that’s me being cautious.

@deafeningsandwichpeach — Jyska, Artificer Overlord

The name is probably the best thing about this card, and it’s fair enough for a legendary creature. Considering that this is essentially the Nim ability from original Mirrodin and that it’s a vanilla creature otherwise, I would contest that you’re severely overestimating the power level of this card. It’s not as strong as it seems. In terms of flavor text, this is basically exposition. I won’t dissuade you from story-rich cards, but there’s too much information presented in a manner that overloads the reader. Simplify, punch, beat, punctuate. In terms of presentation, the whole block should be in quotes, and you don’t need to attribute the quote if the character’s on the card itself.

@demimonde-semigoddess — Thaw

Great name, great snow flavor. I can see this in the tundra wastes, something emerging from the snow, bursting out. I had to do some digging. As it turns out, “gelid” is a real English word I had no idea about! I thought from the shackles and your flavor text that it was some Coldsnap lore. In terms of the text itself, it’s not bad. It’s just that the two statements are somewhat disconnected. They work both on their own, but together, they don’t gel well. Still, bonus points to mechanical flavor for an anti-ice feel.

@dimestoretajic — Phytotemple

The card is pretty funky for an uncommon, pushed but not busted. I’d call it a pain in the butt but no more than Wayfaring Temple. Ah, I see, the wayfarers, an homage. But there’s a lot I don’t understand. Who lost the wayfarers? Who’s saying this quote? Why did the phytotemples start appearing in general? Did the original wayfaring temples break into them? What does Selesnya have to do with construction crews? How is that related to the phytotemple’s physiology and motivation? Most importantly, why is there a street named after a Selesnya dissident? I think you should have focused on one specific area of the card’s backstory.

@emmypupcake — Bloom Nurturer

I was really surprised that there wasn’t a card already named this. In terms of card wording, look at High Tide or Bubbling Muck; I think it would read “Until end of turn, whenever you tap a Forest for mana, add an additional G.” The quote doesn’t light my world on fire, but it fits well and reads well. Just remember to indent the attribution with shift+enter. Overall? Good enough.

@fractured-infinity — Shara, Skalla Vengeant

I had to do a little digging, but I like how you incorporated Vivien’s lore in here. That said, Skalla is also, well, destroyed, presumably forever. Where did the spirit come from? Is it wandering around Skalla? In that case, did Vivien go back? Why? That raises a couple questions. In terms of this card, it’s broken. In anything but the most pushed Commander formats, it’s three mana to deal seven damage to any creature you want with minimal repercussions. Any prevention makes her impossible to deal with. In limited, she would sweep unfairly.

@ghost31415926535 — Man-Eater Wurm

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the flavor bar being in the middle of the line. That’s my bad. Let’s talk about the rest of the card. In concept, it shouldn’t be too overpowered. But deathtouch and trample together create complex rules baggage that many casual players simply don’t understand. Nine times out of ten, they’ll never be printed together. Seeing that this is exactly how you submitted it, consider for next time: Only the first keyword needs to be capitalized in a string. Something like Unearth needs its own line. The flavor text is standard enough. Just remember that quote attribution also needs its own line.

@gollumni — Gives You Hell

I love the name here. I got that All-American Rejects song stuck in my head now. Remember that one? Anyway. Firstly, you don’t need to put “target” there; “Enchant creature” implies it. Secondly, and least importantly, don’t forget you can add watermarks in MSE! Thirdly, the flavor text. I get it, but it doesn’t flow great. If there was some wordplay to be done on fire-spitting and whatever turn of phrase you used, like, “spitting poison” in the literal sense — I don’t know, I just expect something a little more concise. It’s a great concept and has the potential to be very funny, so points there. Also, the card itself? Fantastic.

@greensunzenith — Decorated Demon

Liking the name. I don’t like how this card has to be a rare. It’s more of an annoyance than anything. It feels like a card that prevents decisions. It’s not aggressive, nor is it particularly interactive. Conceptually it works, but I’m not in favor. The flavor text is a bit of a head-scratcher. The real question is: who is giving demons sigils? How do they become redeemed? On what world CAN demons become redeemed? This isn’t a Bant thing, is it? I’m a little lost as to the specifics, since it doesn’t play into any tropes and doesn’t inform the world in a recognizable way.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Goblin Decorator

If the flavor text had simply been, in quotes, “Earwigs would go so well with that wallpaper!”, then this card could have been a runner-up. Also, this should definitely be an uncommon. The effect is awesome and powerful and annoying and plays into a variety of strategies. Still, the flavor text is just...too much. It’s a lot of text that tells a story that doesn’t really need to be told. We get enough from the name and that last sentence, combined with a fun ability that matches the card. That’s all we need! Gotta simplify.

@ignorantturtlegaming — Dust, Revenant Force

For future cards, I would highly recommend reading up on design philosophy, what Magic’s colors are about, and how cards come into being. There are a lot of questions that this card raises, and a lot of things that need to be edited.

Green doesn’t get first strike, certainly not mono-green.

Why does this card cost five green mana? What does it provide for the limited/constructed environment?

It should be “Fox Warrior.”

The first thing about the flavor text is that there is far too much of it. It’s exposition for exposition’s sake. Fine in a high fantasy short story, but not on a Magic card.

The second thing about the flavor text is that Dust appears to be a white-aligned character through their actions and themes. I don’t feel anything green about them.

@juggernaut-is-a-metalhead — Devil’s Payment

I’m going easy on card art attribution since, well, it’s Disney and they are indeed evil, but in the future, please attribute it to the show itself and/or the director/copyright holder. So, the card itself. Is it supposed to be a common? Is it an homage to Cruel Bargain and Infernal Contract? This certainly isn’t a common effect, and for one mana, well, I don’t know what to say about this card. In terms of the flavor text, why is everything separated in lines like a poem? It’s way too long to fit into a card with three lines of rules text already. I don’t really understand what it’s even trying to say. The devil asked for the MAN’S youth. What does that has to do with his own? And why is it only sometimes capitalized? I don’t really understand this at all.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants — Hidden Bombardier

Great name. For the card text, it’s powerful, arguably fine in the right format, but very strong regardless. It also needs to say “It deals 3 damage” instead of just “Deal.” Gotta get past the 90′s, erryone. So now, the flavor text... I kinda get it? I just don’t understand what makes this card a shapeshifter. I don’t understand the world in which shapeshifters exist. This card feels like a Goblin. It’s an interesting kamikaze take, if a little too flowery and on-the-nose. It doesn’t exactly inform me, and it doesn’t exactly excite me.

@mardu-lesbian — Ballynock Adoptee

I had to look up to make sure that there were dwarfs on Lorwyn, and by golly, you’re right, there are! In RW hybrid in Eventide, anyway. And that brings up to a major story problem. By the introduction of dwarfs, the world has already plunged into Shadowmoor, and the thoughtweft has already been replaced with the mindweft. I’m stealing this from the wiki, so berate me if I’m wrong, but I always got the sense that the kithkin were highly xenophobic regardless of where the Great Aurora was. The jarring question that remains is: how does a non-kithkin creature become part of the thoughtweft/mindweft? It goes against what we know about the Kithkin and the world in general. If there’s a good explanation, I’m all ears, but I’m not convinced at this point in time.

@mistershinyobject — Phenax’s Messenger

Bonus judge trivia time: I studied Latin in high school and a little in college. From what I can tell about The Callapheia from other cards bearing it’s flavor text, it is meant to evoke classical poetry from Greek and Latin epics. The lines are written four at a time, indented carefully. HERE is a link to all cards with “Callapheia” in the flavor text. The gist is, this card does NOT evoke that. There’s a lot of text, a lot of quotes, a lot of forced story that could have been way punchier if you just had stuff about a snake eating a prophet. I love the card as a limited filler. But yeah, gotta do more research into what it means to have certain aspects on your cards.

@nicolbolas96 — Unpredictable Betrayal

You know, it’s hard to evoke Nicol Bolas well in flavor text. He’s one of Magic’s major villains, a huge face of many sets, with years behind him. And honestly? You didn’t do a half-bad job in this flavor text. Props! That said, this card is way busted. For one, double strike doesn’t affect fighting at all, so that’s...something. For two, it would need to be three sentences; you did a run-on for that last one. For three, mechanically? This is a two-mana spell that eight times out of ten will absolutely destroy two creatures you don’t control. In limited, that’s insanely powerful. In any format that plays creatures, that’s usually amazingly good. There’s a reason spells like Blood Feud and Clash of Titans cost what they cost. Getting two creatures you don’t control to fight is powerful.

@nine-effing-hells — Cairn to Athusis

Actually, this card was one of my favorites from the contest. I’m a heavy Gruul player when I’m not playing cruel control, and I think the gist of this card is super interesting. You made it an enchantment artifact AND a shrine, giving flavor there as well to your new world. The only thing I would have changed is erasing that first sentence from your flavor text entirely. The second is so powerful that it stands on its own. It’s poetic without being overwrought, specific to the world and building off of known tropes. Also, it tells us that “orcs are RG in this world” which is a great mechanical touch. Just needed that little bit of trimming.

@real-aspen-hours — Deflect Consequences

Now this is an interesting card!... What practical use does it have? I’m curious what this has on something like Harmless Offering. I don’t believe that cast triggers will be affected. Maybe it would specifically go against things like “counter target spell you don’t control” or something, but if control changes... I’m uncertain of this card’s applications past the gimmick point. That said, it would be fun to cast a Leveler and have it enter the battlefield under an opponent’s control. I’m not in love with the flavor text. It’s fine. Doesn’t light my world on fire. A touch wordy. But it’s fine. Fits the name and the ability well, so that’s nice.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Inconquerable Alseid

Besides the fact that “Hope” should be lowercase and separated by a colon, the flavor text is really cool! I don’t like this card much. It’s honestly fine, and it’s an interesting commander card that could lead to some cool consequences, but there’s a reason Undaunted has reminder text. It doesn’t look good floating there by itself. There are some abilities that just need reminder text all the time, and Undaunted is on so few cards that it significantly needs this. I think I was a little too harsh on this card on my first go-around, but I haven’t warmed up to it yet. I think the great flavor could have been used on a simpler, more protective card.

@scavenger98 — Kadalla the Scornful

I’m 99% sure it should go “First strike, deathtouch, haste.” Order of keywords is weird sometimes. So are creature types. I don’t really understand the world on which an Elf can be Mardu colors. It’s a stretch of the imagination to say the least. The card itself is...fine? I’d honestly make her an uncommon in today’s world. Yeah, she’s powerful, but she’s a 2/1 for three with all different mana symbols. Regarding the flavor, it’s well-worded, but it’s lengthy and doesn’t actually tell us anything about the character or the world. It doesn’t inform the card, and that’s its major misstep. Again, though, good writing.

@shandylamb — Multani’s Offspring

A fine card, a funny flavor. Just so you know, though, “Saproling” is pretty much only relegated to the token, and this card would probably see print as a plant or fungus. And additionally, as nice as the pun is... What’s this card even trying to say in the story? Multani’s only known child is Muldrotha, and that’s deep lore as-is. As funny as this card might be, it really doesn’t mesh with a Magic feel.

@starch255 — Unscrupulous Horpske

There are only two things I’m concerned about. Firstly: what about this creature makes it “unscrupulous?” What scruples does it have normally in its species? Secondly, this card is trying to make potato salad canon in the multiverse, and I don’t know if such a travesty would be allowed to happen. Potato salad is an affront to taste, no offense to the horpske.

Literally everything else about this card is a 10/10. I would also encourage you to work on a set symbol. Everyone should!

@teaxch — Hidden Seers

Interesting. So what timeline is this? Is this supposed to be, like, a return to Tarkir? Cool concept, I think, although I’m not entirely sold. After hearing the shaman’s whispers, why is Surrak’s first instinct to assume that without dragons a human would lead the clan? Wouldn’t the thought of a world without dragons evoke other thoughts and fears first? That’s my main hand-iffy-motion reason. This is also a supremely petty nitpick, probably the pettiest thing I’ve ever said about a card, but if this is the Dragon timeline then wouldn’t the watermark be the Atarka one instead of the Temur one?

@tmstage — Apostasy

Everything about this card is good...individually. Great name, but what does that have to do with the ability? What is it trying to depict? What does shuffling your library have to do with religious dogma? And the flavor text feels overbearing. Nykita as a character is someone I’d like to know more about, but this card doesn’t tell me much about her. It’s mostly that the mechanics and the flavor don’t mesh in the least, and, well, it’s not a good mechanic. Shuffling is time-consuming, game-prolonging, and has no discernible benefit to the game outside of incredibly niche cards that mostly don’t affect you as the player. And the more I read the flavor text, the less it makes sense. “Allow the world to deform your flawed notions?” It sounds awesome, but what does it mean?

Thank you all for your submissions. New contest tomorrow.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #contest #entries #commentary #flavor town #inventor's fair

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thaliatimsh · 5 years ago

Note

if its alright! wrt the 'directors commentary' asks, honestly anything /Anything/ for 'imperfect life', oof :0

ONE DVD COMMENTARY TRACK COMING UP BECAUSE HELL YES you may ask me about this one. GOD I HOPE THIS READ MORE WORKS OR I’M GONNA DIE OF SHAME. For those of you who’ve missed my pleas: imperfect life is on AO3 here. read it or i cry.

Okay I reblogged that post with not much of an idea about what I’d actually have to say but imperfect life is at least at the forefront of my mind lol

First things first I’d had an idea for a fic about Hodgson At Mutineer Camp that i wanted to write floating around my head for a while that was. I suppose centred on the sheer Betrayal of GIBSON YOU CHANGED MY SHEETS FOR THREE YEARS? WHAT THE FUCK? And as I did more research abt both of them and found that they’d been on ships together & that it was likely that either Hodgson or Peglar got Gibson his job? Fuckin wrote itself, especially seeing as in show-canon Bridgens is the Peglar Papers Steward.

Anyway I’ve said this before to everyone who’ll listen but I will say it again: I think Hodgson is misinterpreted & underappreciated by a lot of the fandom & it makes me SAD and also ANGRY.

Like: I once saw someone say that he was “mad about Jopson’s promotion, so fuck that guy”? NO. He MISSED Jopson’s promotion! He would have gotten a KICK out of Jopson’s promotion! You BASTARDS! Hickey picks on him SPECIFICALLY because he’s out of the loop! I’ll kill you!

Ham jokes? I’m coming to your HOUSE. man’s as ‘obsessed with ham’ as any self-respecting naval officer starving to death in the arctic

Then there’s the “Who is this?” being taken as some kind of a-okay for cannibalism instead of a guy who saw someone shot dead just last night and then spent the morning burying said dead'un being literally scared out of his mind by a greasy lil rat with a knife and Tozer blocking the tent flap with a fuckign RIFLE. DAMN YOU ALL.

Do I think he’s a complete FOOL? YES. Do I think he ever had any kind of malicious intent? NO. Okay anyway I’m gonna talk a bit more abt that later so let me go back to the next part lmao

So Part 2 of the George Henry Hodgson Saga was then to figure out why he had to go stay with his aunts - this ALSO came pretty straight to me, for whatever reason. I think it might have started off as just his parents pleasure jaunt, but as I was thinking about later scenes with Jimmy Fitzjas I came up with a thing abt - Im not gonna find the reference now but in the battersby book there’s a bit abt William Coningham going to take the waters at bath or whatever for Weak Lungs which OBVIOUSLY made me think of my favourite comsumptive Of All Time Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin & the countryside retreats he & his sister Emilia took for their symptoms as teenagers (and unforch Emilia died of tuberculosis aged just 14… rip)

ANYWAY I had some VAGUE idea that George n Fitz could have some kind of Passing Discussion abt Brothers With Shite Lungs that obviously never came to fruition but. Lol whatever, it gave me a reason for why My Parents Sent Me To Stay With Two Aunts.

UH. Right, so then like the third leg for this to stand on was that Fitzjames and Hodgson had ALSO served together & Fitzjames had: 1. recommended Hodgson to the expedition 2: mentioned him TWICE in his Voyage of the Cornwallis 3. Mentioned him in his letters to the Coninghams from disko bay (one of the only Terrors mentioned - there’s a passage abt Fitzjames going to look at the icebergs with Fairholme and Hodgson. ANYWAY; show-canon Hodgson has a sense of humour and I really think he tried to make the men see him as approachable, at least compared to the other Terror officers and that reminds me a lot of how the historical Fitzjames seemed from mystery man! Seeing as they KNew each other I think it’s not unfair to suggest that he’s trying to emulate an older and more successful officer! He wants to succeed! He wants to have fun and to be loved by The Men!

My friend said something very Prescient abt this to me recently which was that THere are a lot of similarities between Hodgson & Fitzjames and it’s kinda like. Fitzjames is the Ideal, and Hodgson just misses the mark. He’s the average man’s James Fitzjames and because he doesn’t know about Fitzjames’ surplus of political luck that only makes him feel more of a failure. Fitzjames gets a bullet that gets him compared to Lord Nelson, Hodgson gets in the gazette as ‘slightly wounded’. Even their monologues! Fitzjames gives a soul-baring confessional he’s never talked about before to someone he respects and he gets! Affirmation! Gets told that he’s a good man and brave and loved! Hodgson gives a soul-baring confessional he’s never talked about before to someone he respects and gets! FUCK ALL! A MAN SITS IN SILENCE! He has to fucking! Walk out alone after all of that! FUCK!!!

Okay so this whole fic just sat in my brain for probably like six months until I literally sat up in bed because I worked out the last piece of the puzzle

(Drac has an epiphany, July 4th 2019, colourised)

Which was, of course, 'Hodgson went to boarding school’ - which is what all of this ends up hanging off of! Boarding school culture! The younger years are servants for the upper years, who in turn are responsible for the younger students! including discipline etc so like… if a younger year brought something up to their “fag-master” it’d be sorted by them and maybe prefects, without getting schoolmasters etc involved.

WHICH is why George doesn’t tell the captains about what happens to Neptune, because he’s out here trying to be a good fag master and get it sorted himself! His own fag master fucked him over by getting the schoolmasters involved when they oughtn’t have been! He’s not about to be Archibald Harrington-Thurlowe! He’s not okaying the mutiny! He’s trying to minimise the damage *on his own* like a fuckin idiot!

IF YOU CALL HODGSON A MUTINEER I’LL COME TO YOUR HOUSE N MAKE YOU GET LOST AND ABANDONED AND END UP EATING YOUR BOOT BEFORE GETTING 'RESCUED’ BY THE SAME GREASY RAT WHO LITERALLY MURDERED YOUR PAL AND TRICKED YOU INTO SLAUGHTERING CIVILIANS! I’LL. I’M NOT HAPPY.

I’m just basically so upset about 'one perfect moment in a whole imperfect life’ being a childhood memory that he was taught to see as so shameful to compare it to cannibalism under duress? FUCK.

A whole imperfect life in GENERAL has me fucked up! He just kept trying and kept just missing what he was aiming for! I mean. That’s relateable. Not one part of a life turning out as you expected or planned? ME!!!! Your achievements add up to nothing and no matter how hard you try you end up a footnote! FUCK offfff

I had some difficulty with the religious angle for a while because. hm. okay. To start with the religious angle IN-CANON is just.... not correct. Catholics don't let you drink the blood. The church of england DOES... and that's what most of these men ARE. The Papist Speech as a whole was cobbled together from one of Crozier's ~Visions~ in the book - and it's important in that case that Crozier is IRISH... Poor analogy, writers! Putting aside that he was also... SEVEN... maybe he was an unusually tall seven-year old, people assumed he'd had first communion/been baptised & no one wanted to cause a fuss... I mean the guy has lead poisoning so it's fair to mis-remember but... YEAH. Messy, which is a shame because it's a powerful monologue very well-delivered, shame it's complete fucking nonsense 😂 (not to be like... SMH Americans but... smh Americans...)

Anyway, as I wrote it? that’s me. I wasn’t raised religious - my dad’s an old-school small-town Continental Catholic, my mum’s agnostic but raised CofE (but *her* dad was raised Jewish (also continental) during WW2), I think they couldn’t be fucked with the drama, I never went to church or anything and as a kid when we had prayers at school assembly I didn’t know what I was doing!!!! I felt bad because I couldn’t fathom God as a concept!!! I still can’t! But as a kid it’s like. I don’t understand and on account of that I’m afraid I’m going to Hell. tfw you write what you know.

ALSO there were definitely a couple of times where I wrote G H Hodgson as played by B W Wooster and I will not be taking constructive criticism on that.

ANYWAY My brain has kindof turned itself off now but I guess this is just. My own personal backstory to this jhsgfjhs. I actually probably have about 400x more to say but it’s fully evaporated. thank you SO MUCH for asking me though. i die.

#i tag #george hodgson #bc i love him #also #long post #that's my baby officer!#insane character essay tag

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rwdestuffs · 6 years ago

Text

Done dirty: Worldbuilding.

Not pictured: Actual worldbuilding.

In all honesty, I don’t know how to start this post.

Yeah, I have the image that’s there to help inform people about the subject at hand, but it’s hard to do a post about something that’s practically nonexistent.

Like, doing a post about how Yang got mistreated in certain volumes, and not getting development from facing the stigma from her Vytal Festival incident is one thing. So is pointing out how Sun is literally just there to be eye candy for Blake’s arc with little to no development to his character whatsoever. Same with how Pyrrha is just a prop for Jaune and a plot device to set off Ruby’s plot device. Same for the grimm in general, or dust.

Talking about writing concepts is hard because it has to be there for a person to talk about. Most mediums that take place in fictional worlds at least understand how to properly world-build.

There’s a show from the 80s that had better worldbuilding in it. And that show has a half-naked superhero cheap action figure as their main protector from an ineffective villain who needs a friend so that he could feel good about himself!

Joking aside, other worlds also have very little issue with worldbuilding. Like the Legend of Zelda games. Thanks to interaction with NPCs, the bits of lore that are scattered around, and the ways that it’s made, you can get a good idea as to how the world works. Hell! There are different species, and they all have different cultures and societies that are unique to them!

Zoras are prideful and are often talented musicians. They pride themselves on their sense of duty and order.

Gorons are prideful of their strength. They feed off of rocks, and they greatly enjoy competitions that show off their strength.

Gerudos are terretorial, and don’t like strangers. They’re a warrior race, and are proud of it. They only have one male child every hundred years.

This is from a Video Game. Admittedly, a Video Game with over twenty-five years of history and other mediums, but still! They managed to have distinct races and cultures despite their limited medium.

Look, the primary reason I’m avoiding the subject is because… there’s is no subject. There’s hardly any worldbuilding, and whenever there is, it’s often contradicted in a later episode, or through the director’s commentary. The same could be said about character traits, but I think I’ve covered that pretty well in other Done dirty posts.

Take the thing about gods, for instance. Qrow says, in the same scene I might add, this:

Which is it, Qrow?- Are people not religious, or have they made gods of their own?- Like… You have literal relics from the past that definitively proves one single religion. Sure, you’d have a few holdouts, but still!

Now that I think about it, uniting under a single religion would probably be enough for dickhead god 1 and ass-face god 2 to say “Yeah, humanity’s united. Okay, you’re all good.”

But we don’t get that.

Even in Marvel, where a literal Norse God regularly visits New York, there are a few skeptics. Here’s an article that details that storyline: https://arousinggrammar.com/2013/02/19/life-questions-with-thor/

Like… All I’m saying is that when you place something extraordinary into the real world, people tend to take the effort into thinking how society would adapt to it. Some people would adapt by thinking nothing is wrong at all, some would adapt by obsessing over it, some would make statues, some would resent the extraordinary, and so on. There are also ways in which the government could adapt. Like in the X-Men series, where the subject of mutant rights is often brought up so often, that you kinda want to see how other countries are handling it (Sidenote: Someone send this idea to Marvel so that the aren’t recycling and reusing the same storyline over and over and over again).

And if it doesn’t have that big of an impact on the ‘real world’ then they tend to find a way to showcase why. In Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Stands are invisible to normal people, so there is no reason for society to have adapted to their presence. In American Dragon Jake Long, the magical world is kept secret, so there’s no reason for there to be big societal adaptations for their presence. Same thing with the show The Life and Times of Juniper Lee (Does anyone remember these shows?- They were pretty good). And when the “fantastical world” does get exposed, like in X-Men or in Danny Phantom, there are societal adaptations. People and society adapt to what is new and not normal. It’s ultimately an interesting way to create a world based on the real world, but still feels separate from ours.

So yet again, we circle around to how the show fails at this. We don’t get the little interactions that make it easier to understand the world. We don’t get the moments that detail how dust changed society. The faunus racism is hardly a thing, and we don’t know if there are clothes specifically designed with faunus traits in mind. There are no societal protections against the grimm like walls around the cities or more emphasis on the importance of Hunters. Apparently the maidens have been around for a long-ass time, but there’s no recorded history of them despite the selection process being random at certain times.

Like, what?- Was there never news about sweet young Olive suddenly summoning the winds without dust or aura consumption?

And speaking of aura, does that cut down on accidents or murders?- What about semblances?- do they cut down on death caused by accidents or murders?- Do they contribute? We don’t know. And that’s because the writers didn’t want to create a. fantastical world that makes sense. They just wanted to get their characters from point a, to point b, and have a few fights along the way to build up tension that ultimately goes nowhere because the fights have no real stakes to them. Because the heroes always win. The only times they didn’t was the fight where Yang’s trauma got fixed the moment she put on her arm and the one where Qrow’s poisoning got fixed thanks to a Deus-Ex-Machina airship to Mistral.

Without stakes, the viewer is left to try to make sense of the world. Which they can’t do because there’s hardly any worldbuilding at all.

We know jack shit about Vale culture or how the society works, and what we do know came from Qrow’s biased review on the continent in the WoR video. Same with Atlas, Mistral, Vacuo, and even Menagerie.

No worldbuilding. Just a travel pamphlet.

And I don’t want no stinkin’ pamphlet. I want a freaking book or website that details all the attractions, and the history of the place. What the people are like. What are the main means of trade. All the things that you could get out of good worldbuilding.

If I can’t have that, then at least build the actual overall world of Remnant. Like how dust effects society and makes it different from ours.

But we also don’t get that.

We get just some generic talks about how “Jaune used to go to a certain town with his family” or Generic backstory about the village that Ren’s family was slaughtered in.

Nothing special. Nothing to make me actually care about the towns.

Just some generic stuff that is never brought up again.

And I for one, am really sick of the world not actually feeling like a world.

I’m not asking for worldbuilding or made-up cultures on the level of Star Trek, but I am asking for is a bit of effort so that it doesn’t feel like the bare minimum was put into it.

#rwde #done dirty #writers crit

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wendip-week · 6 years ago

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Wendip Bits from the GF Complete Series Commentary/Lost Legends Comic

Hey all! @ddp456 here!

So, in between helping Kenzoe64 with the last few pages of the Protector comic and working on chapters of DBR3 (yes, I swear it’s still coming) I’ve had a bit of a secret project I’ve been working on (and to be honest, I’m kinda surprised no one else beat me to it)

Over the last few months, I’ve had a chance to rewatch Gravity Falls through the newly released Complete Series Blu Ray set, and for this, listened to every commentary created for each episode, as well as those made for the special features disc (which forgive me if I’m wrong, but was for the BD set, right?).

While the tracks give a HUGE insight on all things GF, it also unveils the curtain on many things Wendy and Dipper related; some things I guessed correctly from the very beginning (see my personal notes for bragging rights), and some, well, that kinda shocked me, and left me uncertain about a few details. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As you can guess, think of this as a dissection of the commentaries given, focusing on our favorite duo from the series, and afterwards, I’ll include a few questions of my own. Fair enough? Let’s get started:

(Tidbits in the first few episodes)

-Alex Hirsch states that Dipper’s crush on Wendy was always meant to be a big part of the series.

-Hirsch wanted to drop Wendip hints in the first episode (Tourist Trapped), but Rob Renzetti (Supervising producer director, creator of My Life As a Teenage Robot) talked him out of it, saying that he was doing it way too soon.

-The age difference between Dipper and Wendy was the very first conflict that came to mind in the writer’s room, so therefore, it was used.

-The persona of Wendy herself was crafted like that of a “cool camp counselor” so that she could do cool adult stuff, and be able to do “kid stuff” as well without being out of place.

(The Inconveniencing)

-The Cold Open for Episode 5 (Roof Time!) was created at the last minute because the writers realizes that the Wendy/Dipper connection really wasn’t justified. The roof sequence was to make not only Dipper fall in love with Wendy, but the audience as well. (D’aww! - Editor’s note)

-At the end of the episode, the second “Zipped Lips” motion between Wendy and Dipper symbolized many things. It shows that Dipper (despite lying) is accepted by Wendy into her social circle, and given her friendship. Her lying to the other teens is just as important, as she does so without Dipper asking her to. This was done to make Wendy as real as humanly possible, showing that she is just as cool as Dipper (and we as an audience) make her out to be.

-Hirsch often laments on the fact that they didn’t do a full “Wendy-themed” episode. He explains that the point of many episodes is that a said character “learns a sin” and they were afraid to do so with Wendy, in fears that it would ruin her chemistry. (more on this later - Editor’s note)

-They foreshadow the conflict over Robbie and Dipper (involving Wendy) and recognizes that things weren’t always realistic (e.g. how Dipper can beat up the Multi-Bear, but how he was deathly afraid of Robbie). Hirsch’s reasoning is that the audience seems forgiving with such exaggeration as long as everyone appeared to stay in character ( again, more on this later - Editor’s note)

(Double Dipper)

-Originally, Double Dipper had nothing to do with Wendy (GASP! - Editor’s note) The original premise was about Mabel trying to set up a party so she could mingle with the citizens of Gravity Falls, and make new friends, and Dipper, being the anti-social opposite of her, tries to prevent this at every turn, only to fail. It was only when at the last moment, someone suggested to have Dipper’s story be about Wendy.

-During the slow dance scene, the animators specific added a shot of Wendy from Dipper’s POV so that we (the audience) could understand and feel the same anxiety that he did at that moment.

-At the dance of the episode, Hirsch and the rest of the crew theorize about what happens when Dipper goes back inside the Shack at the end of the night. He specifically asked, “Do you guys think he asks Wendy to dance?” The rest of the crew disagree, saying they can picture Dipper trying to dance on his own, and Wendy cheering him on, sprinkling confetti on him from afar like in the beginning of the episode.

(Cute, but what about this?

is it non-canon, now? Did the commentary happen before the real Journal 3 was written? Or is it presumed that Dipper lied in the journal? What the fuck? - Editor’s note)

(Irrational Treasure)

-Going off on a tangent, Hirsch describes Dipper’s crush on Wendy as “creepy” and “over-the-top.” He details that it’s Dipper’s seriousness that leads to misfortune, and for that, he takes a lot of lumps.

-The Zodiac is mentioned here, and the writers explain that the Ice wasn’t always related to Wendy. The symbol was random.

-And as a cute sidenote, the “binkies” that the Pines twins have at the back of their heads were taken from the same ones that the Mario Bros. have.

(Time Traveler’s Pig)

-Alex Hirsch goes hard on Dipper here. He explains that Dipper has a very naive, yet forgivable, but wrong idea about romance.

-He feels that Dipper would die a thousands deaths to have Wendy feel the same way about him.

-Dipper is desperate to have this perfect moment, this perfect day with Wendy, because he believes that he’s not perfect on his own (told ya’ all! - Editior’s note)

-Hirsch says because of this, Dipper doesn’t deserve to get what he wants. This idea of how the world works shouldn’t be rewarded.

-He adds that creating the lessons above was the hardest part of writing the episode.

(Fight Fighters)

-Hirsch knew that the “crush” angle was getting old, but he loved the story presented here. He says that “Dipper’s heart was in the right place” when defending Wendy against Robbie. (again, take that, internet! - Editor’s note)

-Hirsch was blown away by the internet’s response to the episode, shocked to see how many people have had a negative reaction to it. At this point, Jason Ritter (voice of Dipper) responses, “What?! Love doesn’t die, guys!

-Alex goes into how he doesn’t care for “shipping,” that the “Wendy/Dipper” stories come from need for conflict, but not from character relationships. With Wendy involved, Dipper is motivated, desperate, and will do the most insane things.

-He agrees with internet that the crush wasn’t really going anywhere, but he loved the W&D scripts that kept coming in.

-Robbie’s calling out Wendy like a dog (C’mon, out, girl!) was ad-libbed by TJ Miller.

-Hirsch believes that if left alone, Robbie would have never fought Dipper. He was jealous that his girlfriend was going off on all these weird adventures with this kid. (Wait, so there are untold Wendy/Dipper adventures out there?! - Editor’s note)

-The height difference between Wendy and Dipper literally comes from Alex’s real life (and his twin, Ariel, was taller, like Mabel), where he was the smallest kid in class, and his science partner in school was regular sized, and also, his secret crush.

(The Deep End)

-The episode was always meant to be a non-serious, low-stakes piece. Dipper’s having a good time with Wendy was not meant as romantic, but as friends.

-Wendy was originally meant to have a two piece bikini, but the network made them change it (So, wait, it wasn’t a homage to the Sandlot’s Lifeguard Wendy? - Editor’s note)

(Boyz Crazy)

-Hirsch regrets not clarifying the Robbie/Wendy/Dipper portion at the end.

-He insists that the hidden message in the song was mere coincidence. Wendy was not hypnotized.

-He sees the situation as follows: Dipper is jealous that Wendy is into Robbie’s music. For this, Dipper figures there has to be a sinister reason for this.

-Robbie definitely stole the music, but didn’t know that the message was there. Hirsch says as a child, he was personally fascinated by rock bands having hidden messages in their records.

-At this point in the commentary, Ariel Hirsch chips in, saying that in the end, “Dipper wasn’t thinking about Wendy.” Jason Ritter (Dipper himself) agrees, “He’s only thinking about calling out Robbie.” (told ya’ all x3. - Editor’s note)

-Alex Hirsch’s quote about the hidden message: “Backward messages can’t control people’s behavior because you can’t understand them!”

-His notes on Stan and Dipper bonding in this episode: “Both would rather believe that there is a huge conspiracy rather than they’re bad with women.”

(Land Before Swine)

-Hirsch says as side-notes that Wendy had a running bet with Grunkle Stan about who would eat the corn-unicorn first (he didn’t bet on Waddles). Also, he says that Ford has a fear of women because after a bad experience involving someone being freaked out by his six-fingers.

(Gideon Rises)

-Hirsch admits that Gideon’s speech to Dipper is bullcrap. Dipper has beaten plenty without the aid of the Journal 3, but his insecurities make him believe otherwise.

(Scary-oke)

-Wendy has two cut scenes that are shown in the Special Features disc. At the beginning of the episodes, she (along with Soos) is interview by the news and she is chided for using the word “Jerkface” on live TV. She then goes into a huge rant about her “freedom of speech.” The second shows that Wendy was given the blow-horn by Mabel to be the official hype person of Scary-oke.

(Into the Bunker)

-ITB won an Annie award?! (Didn’t know that - Editor’s note)

-Hirsch wanted to keep the Dipper/Wendy crush going, but could see that the audience was getting tired of it. The writers decided to have Wendy become a member of the team and go on adventures, choosing to have Dipper deal with heartbreak sooner than later.

-It was considered to be the third priority for the second season. (Reveal Author, Revisit Switch in the Woods, and Kill the Crush)

-Speaking of, the Bunker’s staircase was taken from the video game classic, Myst

-The script for “Into the Bunker,” was given to Matt Chapman (of “Homestar Runner”/Strong Bad fame), because all of his GF scripts happen to have heartbreak in them, earning him the nickname, “Shipwrecker.”

-Wendy and Dipper’s movie night/Cold Opening was the very last thing to be added to the episode. They needed something to tie Dipper’s investment to both the adventure at hand, and the Wendy crush

-In this, Dipper’s confidence grows by defeating Gideon, and when Wendy says she doesn’t need guys, it brings him to turmoil by the impossible and hopeless.

-The symbol room was originally the “Gonna Die” room.

-This episode is in Alex Hirsch’s top 5 GF episodes, because of its darker tone.

-He details: there are so many good moments in this episode where Dipper is suffering at the hands of this girl that’s so much cooler and so much beyond what he could even understand.

-The GF team knew that this had to be a stand-out episode for Wendy. We had to spend a lot of time with her, showing that she could hold her own and make a valuable addition to the Mystery Crew. Hirsch regrets not doing that more. For this, every time Wendy is added to the team, she’s awesome.

-The most amount of takes in the entire series was the “Dipper crying over dead Wendy” scene. Hirsch explains that it was a hard thing to sell, and a really vulnerable moment.

-ITB’s ending was one of the hardest endings to write. The commentary says they rewrote it 5 times to get it right.

-An idea used was “Love is temporary, but friendship is real love?” (Hell, that’s what I use about 90% of the time - Editor’s note)

-The line “Don’t be itchy.” was added super late to the script. The team tried to avoid as many cliches as possible.

-The first time the Wendy/Dipper confession scene was watched in animatics, Hirsch and crew felt that it was “too romantic,” like a romcom.

-In the Special Features disc, we see a sneak peak of the deleted scene. In this, Dipper goes in on a rant of despair, pledging to Wendy that he’ll try to avoid the Gift Shop from now on, and that she’ll never have to talk to him again, before she stops him and tries to calm him (Dude, Dude, it’s okay...) (Poor baby... - Editor’s note)

-The scene was meant to reflect Alex’s own puberty, which wasn’t romantic, but nightmarish.

-”It’s meant to be terrifying for Dipper. His heart is in his throat as he has to have this talk with Wendy. He’s frozen, waiting for it to pass, and Wendy can see this pain, and she’s doing everything she can to show him, “Nothing’s different. Everything’s normal. You’re normal. These feelings are normal. I’m a couple years older than you, and I’ve seen this. I’ve been around the block. We all go through it. You’re going to be okay.”

(Kinda wish they went this route instead of the whole “age” thing. It’s beautiful - Editor’s note)

-It couldn’t be a “will they/won’t they” situation. The real question was “will they be friends after this?”

-The writers could see a very legitimate path where Wendy is like, “Dude. you’re creeping me out. Maybe we should take a little time from each other because this is not healthy, etc.” The fact that she was so beautiful and cool and treats Dipper so well shows that she IS the awesome kind of person that Dipper thinks she is.

(The Golf War)

-A quick note about Dipper and relationships. Dipper’s normal social fear melts away when he’s around someone he hates so much. Someone like Pacifica brings out pure sass and rage. (HA! - Editor’s note)

(Little Gift Shop of Horrors)

-There was a possible story being tossed around where Wendy gets a tattoo and gradually, it overtakes her/she becomes the tattoo herself. Alex Hirsch loved the idea of a living tattoo, stating that it’d fit with Wendy’s rebellious teen nature, and that she’d learn a lesson at the end of it.

-The writers passed, saying that Wendy is very hard to write for. When we see her, she’s cool and controlled, and for a short story concept, finding that depth to make it valuable would be difficult. Plus, they didn’t want to be compared to Moana (or the fact it’s almost exactly like a Goosebumps story? - Editor’s note)

(Society of the Blind Eye)

-Hirsch and the writers loved the Wendy/Mabel scene because there’s not many of them throughout the series. To them, it was great to show Wendy as the “cool, older sister.” Hirsch dug Wendy’s complete disregard of boys. “Don’t worry about them. Yeah, whatever, they’re a dime a dozen. I’ve had so many boyfriends...”

-The writers discuss what kind of man Wendy would end up with. “He’d have to be something - some kind of specimen. She’s so confident and having a good time, comfortable in her own skin; if a guy’s cool, she’ll be “Yeah, I’ll try it out,” and when she’s bored, “Yeah, no thanks,” leaving a bottomless scar inside their heart,” going on to cite Robbie as example.

-Alex Hirsch added the line about Wendy’s being stressed 24/7. It’s obviously not what she shows the world, and yet, it shows how you can vaguely see it there. (Tell me about it - Editor’s note)

(Blendin’s Game)

-Alex Hirsch’s view on family: “Friendship is thicker than water, and family’s something you can create.”

-Hirsch’s further thoughts on shipping: He tells the writers that it’s meaningless. He rather ask if they have a compelling story instead. He doesn’t care about love, saying “Love isn’t the end - it’s a story turn.”

-A member of the writing cast was going to comment on the baby Wendy and Tambry scene, when she was interrupted, and the point is never bought up again. (Dammit! - Editor’s note)

(Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons)

-Hirsch debated about having a scene where Dipper reveals his real name to Ford. The consensus said no. The same happened for “Dipper and Mabel Vs. the Future.”

(The Last Mabelcorn)

-Originally, the episode was going to be a Wendy-eccentric episode involving her family and her relationship with Manly Dan. On top of that, she was going to gain magical weather powers as well. The team decided against it, not wanting to be compared to the movie, Frozen, as well finding it hard to balance considering Wendy’s grounded character.

For this, they made it up to her by having Wendy (and her influence) take over the episode after the first third.

(Roadside Attraction)

-The Special Features disc shows an alternate opening that doesn’t showcase a Dipper/Wendy angle at all. Dipper asks a group of ladies to borrow a quarter and instead, gets beaten up for it. Mabel and the gang figure from this that Dipper needs help talking to women.

-The whole point of the episode (to Hirsch) is that Dipper gets advice from Stan when Dipper is only trying to move on, while Stan has no idea what he’s doing, stating he is not a role model by any means. The lesson is not to present false affections and learn to hear other people’s feelings. “Stan lives alone for a reason!”

(Dipper & Mabel Vs. the Future)

-The Mabel/Wendy scene was created so that if someone as cool as Wendy doesn’t like High School, it immediately changes Mabel’s perspective on the matter.

-One of the Government agents were originally going to offer Dipper an apprenticeship/”advanced learning path,” in due to all of his discoveries and research.

-Hirsch figures that Ford’s speech towards Dipper is similar if not the same that he gave to McGucket. Ford takes advantage of hero worship - it’s not so much as he needs an apprentice, rather to have someone that’ll do anything he says. (So where are those people that says Ford doesn’t have a mean streak in him? - Editor’s note)

-Upon Dipper rescuing Ford, Jason Ritter laments on commentary, “If only Wendy could have seen that moment...” to which the room explodes with laughter.

(Weirdmageddon Part 1)

-Hirsch explains: “Wendy is the most grounded character in the series, so in this ungrounded scenario, she is able to make the most of it. She can handle just about anything.”

-Wendy’s speech to Dipper was struggled with for a while. It had to be a speech not about Dipper’s self-confidence, but about how he needed Mabel back (which the writers says there’s truth in)

-The live action Wendy and Dipper scene (with Jason Ritter and Linda Cardellini) had lines cut from the final version (Son-of-a-... Editor’s Note)

-The Gideon/Dipper speech represents the full completion of Dipper’s Wendy arc. It’s a real-life lesson that Hirsch says many people in real life still don’t get.

(Weirdmageddon 2: Escape from Reality)

-A deleted scene in the Special Features disc expands on the beach scene, where Mabel zaps Dipper, Wendy, and Soos’s ruined clothing into gaudy swimwear (though Wendy has a cute flower in her hair ala Hawaiian). They go to the beach and Wendy begins to admire the hunky volleyball players, leading to a jealous Dipper.

-Alex Hirsch explains that the fantasies offered in Mabelland aren’t fantasies, they’re easier outs. Wendy’s is teen rebellion rather than facing reality. Soos’s is the dad he always wanted.

-With Dipper, what was originally going to be behind the door was Ford and the offer of the apprenticeship. They would go off on adventures and discoveries, only to stumble upon a now-alone Mabel, growing up in High School, and having a real life. Hirsch axed the idea, believing that Mabelland, and by extension, Bill Cipher, wouldn’t show the downside of any fantasy, rather Dipper would have to discover it himself. For this, the writers had to go back to “the Wendy Well.” (Special note: we at @wendip-week have to use the phrase, “Wendy Well” more often - Editor’s note)

-Earlier versions of the episodes had different “Wendy wants,” including one where we find her writing deep poetry. The writers go on about her fantasy, saying that it couldn’t be a “perfect guy,” because she’s self-realized. But at the same time, they admit that Wendy “exhibits destructive character flaws that she has to get over.” They add, “She really loves that aimless teen rebellion, that it’s hard to turn down all that chaos.” (So, why the hell didn’t they make an episode about that?! And I wanna see Poet Wendy ASAP! - Editor’s note)

(Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back The Falls)

-Alex Hirsch: “Gravity Falls was always meant to have a bittersweet feeling to it.”

-Weirdmageddon was about giving everyone a hero moment. Part 1 was Wendy and Dipper’s. Part 2 was Mabel, and the Mystery team as a whole. Part 3 was the Stan twins and the town united.

-Jason Ritter marvels at the Wendy and Rumble sequence, noting how all the other characters are fighting with machines, and yet Wendy is going at it bare-handed.

-Weirdmageddon was approved to be a made-for-TV movie, but Disney demanded another 3 episodes for regular air. The team declined.

-There was never an official plan for the Zodiac. It was something the team made as a tease, but after seeing fan response, they knew they had to do something with it. Linking Wendy with the bag was a last minute decision simply because of the scenes involving her and ice throughout the series.

-A quick note about the original quote of the Llama, versus the final one given by Larry King, “Llamas are dumb, blonde, beautiful, and they spit!” (BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! - Editor’s note)

-Hirsch is a big believer in visual aid. The Pines twins changed on the inside, and he wanted something to show that on the outside as well. Mabel got to keep Waddles, and for that, Dipper received Wendy’s hat, as a symbol of their friendship.

-Rewatching the scene, Jason Ritter says that he believes Dipper never takes off Wendy’s hat, and is too shy to tell anyone its origins. (”When people ask him, he’s like “Don’t you worry about that...”)

-Alex Hirsch says the switching hats idea came from a storyboarder’s sketch, in which he said, “That feels right.” (Uh-huh. Just a sketch... - Editor’s note)

The Wendy’s note scene was meant to be ambiguous about two things. The first being “Mystery.” It gave Dipper one last question to ponder in his head. (Had to do one last tease, eh? Editor’s note)

-The second was “Endings.” “Did something just die here? Are all these things we love really gone?” HIrsch says not quite. “Endings are new beginnings.”

A few neat points of interest (non Wendip related)

-Jason Ritter is a HUGE gaming fan, where he was able to name almost all the references in “Fight Fighters.” He also played and completed the Gravity Falls 3DS game twice (where Alex Hirsch admits he never has...)

-Hidden in the Double Dipper episode, there is a secret commentary track, where Jason swoons over Wendy for part of the episode, only to be interrupted by his clones (including one that had to camp out for “The Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild)

And lastly, I want to address the new comic, Lost Legends. While it didn’t have a hint of Wendip in it:

(sorry, fam, Wendy making a crack about Dipper wearing a skirt doesn’t cut it for me. And didn’t mean to mooch. @fereality-indy. - I couldn’t find a real scan)

But it does contain two other important pieces of information (besides Mabel getting her just-desserts).

The first is a code that gives the hint, WENDY'S MOM: IN ANOTHER DIMENSION?

Such a thing would explain a ton. One would guess that Wendy and her family believes that her mother just vanished, meaning she could have abandonment issues. (and yes, kids, such a thing can affect how people have relationships)

And to add to the tease, there’s a second hint as well in the first story:

(and thank you, GF Team for giving me another canon point to add to the Protector comic by stating the BES still exists!)

But back to the task at hand, we see that the far right vital has Wendy’s mom’s memories. Is this in conjunction with the above point? Or its own theory?

Hopefully, this plot point is exploring in the next piece of GF related media. All I can guess is this, if Wendy’s mom really is stuck in another dimension, the Pines better pray they didn’t have anything to do with it...

The only other interesting thing to note is that at the end of the second story, Wendy makes an comment about “overthrowing the government,” which kinda sounds like the cut scene from “Scary-Oke” mentioned above. Is it a statement of the politics taught in the Corduroy home, or is it a reflection of current views from Alex Hirsch and the writers? (It’s fascinating either way, IMHO).

So, with everything said and done, I’ll admit, reader, I’m a bit mixed up, feeling wise.

On one hand, Alex Hirsch himself confirmed a shit-ton of Wendy and Dipper info that makes me feel like:

But at the same time, it seems like one of my favorite parts of the show is the one he could care less about - that it’s an end to a means. The closest feeling I can relate to is how the Professor in the 2nd TMNT movie inadvertently tells Donatello that he was an accident.

And I get it, the series is based on the dude’s real life, and that includes nearly every aspect of Wendy and Dipper, rather it be good or bad (or as he describes it, mostly bad). But that’s kinda of why I love it, too, that I can relate to that as well, as I’m sure many of you can. I can say with full honesty that I’ve been both a “Dipper,” where I’ve followed along with a way-too-cool-for-me-girl like a lost puppy, and I’ve been a “Wendy,” too, in which a small ball of wonder looked up at me like I was a gift from God, and I tried my best not to sour or pervert that, and yet, remain honest. It is an interesting story, even if it’s not the main story.

Man, he wasn’t kidding when he said “Gravity Falls was about being bittersweet,” eh? But still, the fact remains: while it wasn’t perfect for ol’ Dipper, at least he wasn’t Patti Mayonnaise-d.

Between the numerous essays and questionnaires I’ve whipped up this summer, I still believe that there is ton of info to be asked and answered, especially involving our non-official favorite duo. We can only hope that the powers that be may want to wish about that “Wendy Well” one day in the future. Nothing is ever certain, and with that, I’ll leave you with some of the truest words out there, straight from Dipper Pines himself (and because I can’t find the damned gifs.)

Until next time.

#dipper pines #wendy corduroy #gravity falls #wendip #wendipweek

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cookiedoughmeagain · 7 years ago

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Haven DVD Commentaries - 2.12, Sins of the Fathers

First of two commentaries, this one with Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn, writers of this episode (and creators and executive producers of the series). I can’t reliably tell their voices apart, so there is not much info on who is saying what, though where I’ve quoted stuff I have tried to show when the speaker changes. The quotes aren’t necessarily exactly word for word. Feel free to ask questions if something doesn’t make sense :)

They start off by saying that they’re recording this commentary a couple of months after the episode aired and in that time they’ve been to comic con and talked to fans and so they have the benefit of feedback on the episode and the whole season.

“We have a lot to say about the finale because there is a lot of mythology in this episode,” and “what was tricky about the finale is that we always have a curse of the week, and what we’ve struggled to do in both of the finales (Sam and Jim wrote the finale for season one too), is that we always have a real affliction show up.” “But it needs to be something simple, that you can get in a heart beat, so that we aren’t spending a lot of time explaining what’s going on, you can just easily follow along while we have all the other things going on with our characters.” So for example the curse of the week for the season one finale was the Chief although it didn’t just feature in that episode, but for this episode the curse is something that’s completely independent. And they decided to have ghosts because they needed those characters to provide some of the back story in an organic way.

They refer to Laura having a board up in the office for two months taking notes before they started writing this episode; “What if we brought people back from the dead?” “Are they zombies or ghosts?” “Are they tangible or intangible?” and how they were really attracted to being able to bring back people we would otherwise never see; people who have already been killed e.g. the Rev. Being able to bring him back “just seemed like gold.”

They talk about Duke and how he was in the first scene of the first episode of the season, talking with the Rev. on the steps of the church, and how they “rewrote that scene about 70 badillion times” but how it ended up where it started; different words but the same ideas where there i.e. establishing an arc for Duke, “Why is he part of this story?” But at that point they hadn’t thought of bringing Simon back in the finale. “We just knew that his father was important, we knew why his father was important, but we didn’t know how we were going to bring that back. But we set it up in the beginning.”

As we see Audrey knock the coffee cup from Dave’s hand, they talk about how they went through various different versions of the coffee cup being smashed or not, “We put it back in, we took it back out,” looking for a way to underline how emphatic she feels in this moment. There was some concern that it might be a bit melodramatic and it wasn’t included in the final version of the script. But it was discussed again on set when they were filming and Emily Rose really liked the idea, as did the director for the episode and so they used it. “And this scene, from the very first time they shot it to the 19th take was awesome. And Emily Rose kills it. I think she in this episode is at the top of her game with this character on this show.”

And they talk about Vince and Dave too, as “such great characters and around the office, Sam and I take some flak for being Vince and Dave, but there’s this thing about them; you know they know stuff. And in this season we’ve explored more and opened more doors to how much they know.”

There is a reference to “we did some interesting things on twitter with that,” and as Vince is giving Audrey the ring, “we wrote this whole twitter story that went to the reveal of this ring. And that ring was chosen for a very specific reason, which I will not reveal now, but it’s not an accident that it’s that ring.”

“Putting Audrey in with these guys it’s reminiscent of the finale from season one where we had the confrontation between Vince and Nathan’s father in the street, where there’s a hint that there’s something going on with these guys that’s bigger than we’re aware of.”

And they also refer to the actors behind Vince and Dave in that scene as “awesome.”

The fact that the Crocker box of weapons includes a throwing star bugs them, “Who kills people with throwing stars?”

And as we see Simon Crocker, “This is my man-crush because that of course is Helo from Battlestar Galatica.” “We were very excited when that opportunity came up,” to cast him. “And for us there was no discussion; he never auditioned, it was perfect.”

And they mention the weird moment they realised they needed to cast someone roughly Duke’s age, because “he died, in front of Duke, at a certain age.” And then “there’s an interest parrallel because here’s the guy who died, facing roughly the same crisis at the same point in his life that Duke is facing.” But at that point there were some concerns about who they might cast because they need it to be someone with “gravitas” which they would have if it was someone older with grey hair or whatever (“a tough guy, maybe a Tom Selleck”) but that “wouldn’t make sense. And we run into that a lot on the show, which is we have a certain thing that makes sense in the rules and the story of the show, but then people are looking for a more visceral reaction.” and how “That’s the thing with genre shows; there’s the internal logic that doesn’t always match what you’d expect.”

As Nathan is about to ask Audrey out to dinner, “This is great; this is Lucas Bryant at the height of his powers. Here he is, he’s trying to express himself with the least amount of dialogue in telling Audrey ‘I want this to go further’. And this scene is so great, because what’s on the page is so minimal, and they didn’t need anything more.” There’s a pause in the commentary as they listen to the scene. There’s a little “See?” in appreciation for what the actors are doing with their minimal dialogue, and then as Audrey says, “We can talk about Lucy,” There is a comment “Yeah, you can talk about Lucy and all that stuff --- with your clothes off!” And then as Nathan stumbles over his “or b-breakfast?” line, there is a comment, “That’s what I’m talking about, right there!” And they add how Lucas is “charming, goofy, hilarious, all of those things, and you just see the tip, tip, tip of that iceberg when he’s playing Nathan.” “It’s really funny; he would be perfectly comfortable in Vaudeville.”

And then at the next scene, “This is Eric getting out of bed and having a drink, which is what Duke does.” “It’s kinda awesome.” “It’s hard to imagine Eric not being Duke. There’s a lot of overlap between the two of them, although Eric is a much more straight ahead, genuine guy by a long shot.” “It’s funny because he plays characters like this … we all have our facets. But he’s really sweet and genuine and he would never do these things.”

They talk about this scene (Simon waving his hand through the whiskey glass) as being a lot fun to write because it’s all about Duke being used to Haven’s craziness “he rolls with the insanity” and yet he has huge amounts of anger towards his father because his father was such a douchebag. Although it turns out maybe he wasn’t a total douchebag, maybe he had an agenda.

As Simon and Duke argue, “The thing about Tahmoh is he’s huge, he’s muscular, he’s terrifying in person; absolutely the gentlest man.” “It’s always that way right? Like Edge.” “And the funny thing is, he’s flying in, playing a pivotal role, giving us pivotal information and he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on. So when I met him I was like ‘First of all it’s unbelievable to meet you because I’m such a fan and two, this is what’s going on.’”

“But he had to give this performance, and we didn’t put scars on him, we didn’t make him this bruiser, because that’s not who Duke is either, although they obviously both know how to handle themselves.”

As we see Audrey and Nathan walking into the graveyard they talk about how it rained on and off all day as they were filming, so it was shot in chunks in between the rain. As we see Kyle throw away his joint they comment that they weren’t allowed to show him putting the joint to his lips.”

Talking about Kyle; “I was a fan of this actor from the Tudors .. in part because of his presence on screen; his eyes just jump out at you.”

As they look into the dug-up coffin “When we shot him, he looked like his picture. All of those facial effects are digital.” “As is the hole in the ground you just saw.”

As they’re back in station talking to the guy who spoke to his dead sister, they talk about how it was a struggle writing it to make sure that this investigative aspect of the plot didn’t step on Simon’s story and the Rev. coming back and … we really worked hard on it and I think it ultimately worked.” and then also, “In editing, some scenes got shifted around because it’s always a juggling act.”

There are comments about how the police station set has gotten bigger and bigger over time, “It’s so cool, there are so many pockets to it, everytime we write something, like somebody died in the bathroom, so they had to build a bathroom and it’s great to see this whole world.

As we see Kyle tapping down Arlo’s grave they say that while Arlo’s is a fake headstone, it is a real cemetary and all of the old graves are real and it’s “beautiful, ill-kept, on the hillside, overlooking the ocean. And those gravestones go back 300 years.”

They talk about how they had conversations about whether to see the Rev. appear, and disappear in some ghostly way, or whether to just have him walk on screen, and eventually decided it was scarier to just have him walk up and then reveal the details later.

As Simon and Duke talk in front of the field of lavender, “When we wrote this scene, I didn’t think about what the field would look like. We just wrote ‘a field’. And thanks to Nova Scotia, it’s a field of lavender and it’s gorgeous.

“Shawn Pillar is always looking for a way to make things more sci-fi-y, and sometimes we push back because we don’t need it in that moment, it’s all about the characters. Sometimes it’s an opportunity we might have missed, and this was one of those. And I’m not sure if it was Shawn, or Lee Rose the director, but one of them said, ‘Why doesn’t he just walk right through Tahmoh at the end.” There is some further discussion which establishes that maybe that idea was in the first draft and taken out because some unspecified person didn’t like it, and then a few drafts later it made it’s way back in. But also they didn’t do it (Simon walking through things) a lot in the first draft of the script, because they weren’t sure how much it would cost to do in production. So they wanted to save it for when it really felt effective. And “having Duke’s father try to get in his way to stop him from leaving, and Duke walk through him, made the point.

As Nathan and Audrey sit practically on top of each other to look at the dead people’s records, “Another scene with the two of them being awesome. When we wrote this scene, we wrote more. And Lee Rose said ‘they can do it with less’ .” “And we were both thrilled, because we weren’t happy with all of it.” “And it’s these pauses and the awkwardness. And the fans really reacted to it and it was great. And the thing is, 25 epsiodes in, you don’t need a lot because these two have so much history.”

They’re a little unsure, but think that the cemetery we see from the air is a different one from that they filmed in.

As we see Nathan telling Audrey about how his Trouble was triggered, “So this is the big story about Duke and the foundation of Nathan’s distrust and dislike of Duke. And people are always pushing us to say what it is between these two guys, and I think one of the things I’m most proud of in this show is that they have this fully fleshed out relationship the two of them.” “It’s not a simple ‘I hate you’ or ‘I love you’ or ‘we’re best friends’“ It’s not just a male banter thing either. “I feel like these guys actually have a real, more tortured friendship, but it’s a friendship. And yet here’s this big betrayal where Duke used Nathan from the start to further his ends. And the funny thing Jim is, we haven’t really seen Duke do that on screen. We haven’t seen him be a total son of a bitch to somebody, especially Nathan. And I wonder if we need to.” And so Jim replies, “I wonder if we need to get Duke’s side of the story at some point too, because it might not be as simple as it feels to Nathan.” To which Sam replies, “Well that’s interesting.” And they mention how the first introduction to Duke we had was Nathan’s tirade about how untrustworthy he was in the first episode, but that things between them have evolved since then “they’ve been through a lot.”

As all of the ghosts walk up to Nathan and Audrey in the graveyard, “We were so happy when we figured this scene out because we figured out a curse, where Audrey’s special skill (being immune to the curses) is actually a liability. And I was amazed because I thought that when we came up with it we would have to really talk people into it, (producers, network, studio, everybody) but everybody kind of got it from the beginning.” They figure this is an advantage of being 25 episodes in because there is enough background that people are more likely to get this stuff straight away. “I’m looking forward to writing season three because there’s just so much foundational knowledge that we don’t have to explain. Or when we explain it for the new people we can do it very efficiently.

They talk about this scene being interesting in the sense of ‘why did all these ghosts come up to them in the graveyard?’ and it’s in the background, the “stuff that only writers would know” but they both agree what it was about was that “they all came to look at Audrey. And who knows what it is that they see with their dead eyes when they look at her.”

They discuss the issues of filming these graveyard scenes in the rain, saying that there are some shots where you can see the leaves getting hit by rain but the actors are under cover so they stay dry. As Audrey, Nathan and Duke are stood talking by the bronco; “this was supposed to be a walk-and-talk, but instead it’s a stand-and-talk,” because it’s raining and they’re under cover their, but they can’t go very far without getting wet, and that’s a hassle for hair and makeup and wardrobe. And they comment that “In order to see rain on screen, it has to be pouring buckets.” “Or lit right.” Normally rain just doesn’t show on camera.

Nathan’s gone off to make his phone call and they comment “This is where Duke is real with Audrey. And this is setting up a foundational thing for their relationship, which is already kind of established, but we’re building on it and building on it, because we really want three relationships going forward into season three. Everybody’s talking about the romantic relationship, and I’m not saying that’s not an element, but I’m just talking about three fully fledged relationships.” “There’s three very different burdens and perspectives running through the series now.”

As we see Garland they talk about how “awesome” it was to have the actor Nick Campbell back, and how thrilled everyone on set was. And how “we always knew that he would be coming back in this way. It ended up being the last episode of the season, but we always knew he was coming back.”

As Nathan and Garland talk, “So this is a huge scene, and Jim, you wrote this scene, and rewrote it and rewrote it.” And Jim agrees that “Everyone had a lot of opinions about what needed to be said between Nathan and his father.” and Sam continues, “This is a huge big deal, the two of them getting together. They’ve had this fractured relationship and then in the last 12 episodes Nathan has risen to be chief and he struggled and fought, and now they have a new relationship. And we find out at the end of the episode [when Vince and Dave disagree about whether they need him back or not] that there is a possibility of him coming back. And if he does come back (and I can neither confirm nor deny) it would be very interesting to see how their relationship changes and evolves.” They also discuss the possibility that, since the ghosts are the result of a curse, there is a question over whether this is really Nathan’s dad that he’s talking to.

They appreciate the line and the actor’s reaction when Garland learns that Audrey shot the Rev. And they both agree that the way Audrey shot the Rev. was “very satisfying.” And there was a line there they took out where someone (Nathan or Duke) says to Audrey that she could have just shot him in the leg, and without even looking at him she says, “Could have,” and just keeps walking. It didn’t make it into the episode in the end because it was felt that it was “a little too bad ass.”

Where Garland tells Nathan he can’t fall in love with Audrey, “And this is the big question, this is the choice that Nathan has to make, because there’s a certain truth to what his father says, which is Nathan’s job is to keep this world together, and being in love with one of the central pieces of it and having a relationship with her is dangerous as hell.” And “There are so many women out there, but unfortunately only one that he can feel. It’s so tragic. I’m so happy we did that to them.”

The mention the rain again; “We shot 91ish days and it rained 67 of them this year,” in comparison to season one when the weather was beautiful.

As Audrey walks by the Rev. they comment that it would have been cool to have had Audrey walk through the Rev. here “I wish we had the budget to pull that off.”

Talking about Simon and the Rev. “It was interesting because in some ways they have the same agenda, and in some ways they have completely conflicting agendas.” And they say how in the Glendowers episode they had wanted to have flashbacks to the 1980s to show the relationships of these people, with dual timelines for the episode. They would have had Vince and Dave younger, “all that kind of stuff.” But it just got too complicated to do, partly because the curse itself was complicated enough to explain that they it made it difficult to add more complicated story telling on top.

Talking about the bronco, “That truck is a big source of production headaches. It only runs when it feels like it and for some reason Lucas is one of only two people who can drive it.” “Which is terribly convenient.”

As Audrey sees the orange paint on Kyle’s wife’s hand, they note that the logic of that receeded into the background a bit because there were a couple of scenes that got deleted, one that they couldn’t shoot because it just kept raining too much. So “that particular investigative thread got pushed to the background,” but equally, “it’s not really missed all that much.”

And they talk about realising that for a lot of people watching, they are not watching closely enough for the details like that to matter e.g. watching the first episode when it aired with a friend and they were excited to watch it but “While they were watching, they were doing 27 things. They were answering the phone, dealing with the kids… and I thought, how does the normal viewer catch everything…. But people usually do catch a lot of stuff; certainly the ones that write on the boards.”

As we see unconscious people being taken into the shed by the Rev.s men; “this was an important point in terms of how brutal can we be here, because we shy away from being too brutal, This isn’t Walking Dead, by a long shot. And so we have all these innocent people about to be murdered.” And talking about how bad that is, but also, “When you look at the mood of America and you see how angry people are on both sides, you can see that a zealot who really feels that they’re doing the right thing could get to this place. It feels more possible now to me in this country than at any time in my life, because there’s so much anger about so many different things.” And “It’s interesting because the arc of this season of dealing with the ‘normal’ people in Haven, with some of them rebelling against the presence of the Troubled in the town, we kept working on what that meant in terms of the bigger story arc and you wind up in this place where you have concentration camps or genocide and that was always troubling to us (no pun intended) because it didn’t feel quite right in modern day America that you would actually go to that kind of place. Which was another reason that this curse worked well for this episode because the Rev being the leader of these fanatics coming back from the dead and appearing to them as though he’s been divinely chosen to come back and complete his mission; you can go one step further. And then the thing with Duke tying into it became an either/or, a way to leverage Duke and give him an out.”

As they’re all assembled outside the shed, “This was a tricky scene to shoot because it’s five pages in one location and that can get really boring to shoot, and everyone was complaining about it. And they’re just standing around, but after I watched it when it was cut together and with the music and everything; there’s so much going on in this scene.” And they add that it helps a lot to have Simon at Duke’s shoulder talking to him, and so in the end it was tense enough that it didn’t seem slow at all, but on the set it was like “how are we going to make these five pages interesting of people standing here talking.”

And they mention the rain again; they had to shut down early because it was raining so much. They’d never shut down early before, but this day there was rain and lightning and so this was shot over two days. And they note that there was no way they could show the ghosts getting rained on, because they’re ghosts, “If they’ve got wet shoulders, then we’ve got a problem.”

“And this of course is setting up the two fathers fighting this war through their sons, and I love that. It shows that Nathan and Duke are fated. We haven’t talked about how much fate there is in all of this.”

As Kyle’s blood soaks into Duke’s hand, they point out that his eyes change colour, but he doesn’t get the rush of strength he did last time. “That’s an essential point, that he got a lot of strength the first time, but after that he doesn’t get super strong, and that was something we’d discussed for a long time.” But there’s still enough going on for Nathan to notice, and “the stakes of this whole game just changed for Nathan.”

They say how much they like Garland’s final lines (“I have a son too, you know. Damn good one.”) “those father/son moments” and that now “the die is cast between Nathan and Duke. “And what’s interesting about this scene is it’s not really about Audrey Parker at all.

As we see the Herald’s offices, “That storefront says ‘Haven Herald’ all the time, year round. I love that, it’s in that town of Chester, and it’s the one permanent set we have that’s not on a stage. Jim, we’ve set up some stuff here that people probably don’t notice, with the Chief and these two guys.” And he talks about loving the actors, “John Dunsworth looks like your accountant, and he’s not.”

And so then we see Audrey in her apartment. “So this is a set we don’t use very much; it’s too bad, it’s a beautiful set. She’s making pancakes, which everybody knows that. That was actually a fishing guide in Minnesota who went on about his pancakes and he kinda reminded me of Nathan, so that’s how that started.”

Then we see Audrey get tasered, “Who tasered her, where she went, all of that stuff, we wrote, and shot, and then decided not to use. And I’m obviously not going to say anything about that, but that actually went some place, and it will still go some place and we’ll reveal that in season three. But I feel bad that we left on that much of a cliff hanger, but this was an action packed episode.”

“So there’s the whistle. That’s actually Eric Balfour’s whistle, he wears it all the time, so we made it part of Duke.” And then we see Nathan confronting Duke, “We were most excited about this scene, in the writing of it, and it was the easiest to write in a lot of ways. We went through a few versions, but the core of it remained the same the whole time.” “Because is it about the two of them and their girl that they share between them, or is it about everything that happened in the scene before between the fathers, is it about the betrayal that they’ve had between the two of them, is it about what is about to be revealed on Nathan’s arm? It could be about any of those things, with these guys. And that is just wonderful.”

“It was a very physical scene with these two guys; both of them in incredible shape, able to do their own stunts.” And when Duke notices Nathan’s tattoo, they point out that it’s fresh, and then as we hear the gunshot, “Alright well that’s out JR Ewing ending, we’ll hopefully pick it up right away when we get back in season three and we hopefully head back into the writers room pretty soon now. Thanks for watching.”

#haven syfy #haven dvd commentaries #2.12 - sins of the fathers #i always start out trying to summarise to write fewer words #but it's actually easier just to write down what they're saying because then I don't have to stop and think about it #so this is looooong again #but some interesting titbits #long post

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leverage-commentary · 6 years ago

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Leverage Season 1, Episode 10, The Juror #6 Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Chris: I’m Chris Downey, Executive Producer.

John: I'm John Rodgers, Executive Producer.

Rebecca: I’m Becky Kirsch, Writer.

Jonathan: Jonathan Frakes, Director.

John: And welcome to The Juror Number 6 Job of Leverage which was filmed late in the season, is meant to be broadcast late in the season, and is really one of our favorite episodes for the entire series. It’s interesting--

Jonathan: Watch the homage to Rear Window!

Rebecca: [Laughs]

John: Is it a Rear Window homage?

Johnathan: Watch this!

John: I’ve noticed--you know what? We’ve done two--this is our second commentary and I’ve noticed how often you use the word ‘homage.’

John and Chris: [laugh]

Jonathan: I was--I started by saying watch the ste- watch the rip off.

John: [laughs]

Jonathan: Here’s the steam. Right?

John: Yeah. Nice.

Rebecca: “Homage’ sounds [much] better.

Jonathan: And then there’s the steaming tea--heat. He goes down.

Rebecca: Oh oh oh oh!

Jonathan: Something bad’s happened to him from taking the drug we just saw him take.

John: Yep.

Jonathan: Scream.

John: Scream. Horror. Remember the--

Jonathan: And Hitchcock cuts to what? [imitating the sound of a tea kettle steaming] Shhhhhhhhhhhh!

Chris: There it is.

John: There you go.

Rebecca: Oh beautiful.

Jonathan: Total rip off.

John: Beautiful.

Chris: Beautiful special effects there.

[Rebecca laughs]

John: It’s lovely. And then the hot in. Which we don’t often see the team coming back from something.

Jonathan: No. I was under strict orders and I used it well, I think.

John: For what?

Jonathan: “Keep them moving.” John Rogers.

John: Keep them moving. Keep them up. Keep them moving--

Jonathan: I said it - then I called the office and said, you know, any of the problem with them talking and walking during all these scenes. As much as you can keep them out of the chairs, be my guest.

John: Absolutely. You know the Walk and Talk, as it’s known in television, is your friend. It really, you know, you need to keep them moving around in this set. Cause the problem is when actors sit, they emotionally sit.

Jonathan: Boy, so true-

Chris: Well also-

Jonathan: [Unintelligible]

Chris: We spent a lot of time in this conference room. And I think, by this time in the season, we were literally, creatively, getting antsy.

John: Yes!

Chris: And that’s why we gave that ‘Keep moving! Just move the camera around--’

Jonathan: Plus the actors like it ,too.

Chris and John: Yeah..

Jonathan: And it gives you a chance at a oner which is always a plus - it helps to make your day, the energy is better.

John: Yeah, it’s always better. Alright, uh, Kirsch!

Rebecca: Sir!

John: Filthy assistant--

Rebecca: [Chuckles]

John: --How did this episode come about?

Jonathan: [Also laughing]

John: That’s her nickname!

Rebecca: You ready for this one? It is! And I, And I ta- I wear it with pride. This episode came about in the room with our seven fabulous writers and we-- I think that, Chris, was this your original idea--?

Chris: Yes, it was.

Rebecca: --In order to have a jury? In which--

John: This was one of the ones that started with an ending and rolled backwards.

Chris: This is, yeah-

Rebecca: I think you are right! It did!

Chris: We didn’t do this very often but I--yeah, I had an ending for this and we worked backwards.

John: And so how did you develop--how did you do the research?

Jonathan: There’s your name, did you see your name on the screen?

Rebecca: I did, I did, it was very exciting.

John: There we go, written by Rebecca Kirsch!

Rebecca: Actually, Chris was a really great help, because I unfortunately don’t know a great deal about the legal system. So I purchased a book called Law 101 and I did some homework over the weekend, which was a really basic way to start things. And then Chris was really good to answer a lot of my questions about the technicalities of the order--

Jonathan: Brent Spiner!

Rebecca: [Laughing]

John: Yeah, Brent Spiner, ladies and gentlemen.

Jonathan: Star Trek.

John: This is the beginning of the Star Trek reunion.

Rebecca: Exactly.

John: And might we add, by the way, that the reason he knows about this. Chris actually used to defend the bad guys on Leverage.

Chris: Yes, yes. In my previous career I was a white-collar criminal defense attorney. So this is kind of bringing it all home for me.

Jonathan: Is that true?

Chris and John: Yes, yes.

Chris: It’s actually true.

John: That’s why I hate him.

Rebecca: Did you not know that?

John: That’s why my deep and abiding hatred of him-

Jonathan: Does he still have the suits?

John: [Laughing]

Rebecca: [Laughing]

Chris: Oh I got the suits.

John: Oh jeez, he got the brown shoes, he got the-

Jonathan: Are you kidding me?

Rebecca: [Laughing]

Chris: I’ve got suspenders, my friend, I’ll wear ‘em, I’m gonna wear it on the set this year.

Jonathan: That is really good information,

Jonathan: Kitty Swink, Deep Space Nine.

Chris: Kitty Swink.

John: Uh, and so, I remember we wound up actually sitting around the table and breaking down the phases of the trial so we could arc the episode -

Rebecca: I think we did, yep.

John: through the phases of the trial actually, and that’s why Aldis at one point says “All I’ve got is my cross-examination,” because at that point in the story we had locked into that.

Rebecca: Absolutely. Who goes first, and what happens first, as well as which role Parker is playing specifically.

Jonathan: The beautiful and talented Lauren Holly. Dumb and Dumber.

Chris: And also Lauren Holly, if you folks remember, acted with Timothy Hutton in Beautiful Girls. And uh-

John: Yes, that’s right.

Jonathan: Yeah, six degrees of separation. She looks great.

Rebecca: And NCIS of course.

John: And our only female bad guy, this season, I believe.

Jonathan: Picket Fences. She’s a great shark. She was great. And this poor guy!

Rebecca: Jeremy. Little Jeremy.

Jonathan: We finally put him in a show.

Rebecca: Jeremy auditioned--

Jonathan: He was in at least two shows that I worked on-

Rebecca: At least two.

Jonathan: --and finally got a role.

Rebecca: And he did a good job. [Laughing]

Chris: He was fantastic.

Jonathan: Beth can handle a close-up, can’t she?

John: [laughing] Yes. And this is one of the times again that we establish that the guys, at least, have formed this kind of proto-brother/father/brother relationship.

Jonathan: And more eating!

Rebecca: [Laughing]

John: More eating-

Chris: They do eat a lot, don’t they?

Jonathan: They do eat a lot.

John: Well, it’s one of the ways that you establish this is their home. I mean it helps bring the emotional resonance of what we do to it at the end of the season - kind of lands.

Rebecca: And how comfortable they are with each other by now,.

John: This by the way, is a nice piece of technical wizardry, because we originally had another type of footage behind Beth Riesgraf in the shot.

Jonathan: No, we were given the NFL footage, but we were not given the feed.

John: Yep.

Jonathan: And then someone wisely staged the actress in front so the actress could have an obstacle - it’s always good to have an obstacle. It’s like, if you can’t have an independant activity, give them an obstacle.

John: [Laughing] Yep.

Rebecca: [Laughing]

Jonathan: And now they have both.

John: So-

Jonathan: They can eat and try to get out of the way.

John: So, there you go, when you come into the scene and you’re like, ‘how will I force the guys to have to deal with her?’ So you put her between them and the object of their desire.

Jonathan: Exactly. And it becomes something else that helps the scene move along. Get the exposition, and the comedy.

Rebecca: And a little bit of football.

John: And snarky British comments from Gina.

Rebecca: Love it.

Jonathan: I love this line actually, about the rugby. I think it’s great. Who wrote that?

Rebecca: She did a good job.

Chris: I think it was…

John: I think that was me, yeah. I went to school in McGill in Montreal and I remember getting my ass handed to me my first rugby game

Jonathan and Rebecca: [Laughing]

John: I wanted to play rugby until I met somebody who wanted to play rugby more.

Jonathan: More, yes. That’s a good line.

John: And this is- this is great. This is one of the- Gina kinda settling into her role on this one, which is really, again, reinforcing the idea that Nate’s not a nice guy.

Chris: No.

John: He’s really very selfish, very perfectionist, very obsessive. Our lead of our show has to be reminded by the thieves he associates with to be a better man on a regular occasion.

Jonathan: Yeah. And setting up the father/son stuff here. This is where Aldis reveals a little more of his hand.

Chris: And it’s a nice dynamic we have where- I guess you kinda get a sense of what Nate’s character would be like as a father because he’s always putting Hardison in the most outrageous position he could be in. Most incredible challenge. You get the sense that he’s the guy that would throw his kid into the deep end of the water.

Rebecca: Cause it’ll teach him character.

Chris: Yeah.

Rebecca: Gotcha.

Jonathan: Do you think that’s conscious or subconscious?

Chris: Definitely subconscious, yeah, yes.

Jonathan: That’s what I think as well.

John: Absolutely. He can’t help but adopt him into that role. Yeah, and this is sort of the payoff to the fact that they’re now feeling obligated to each other. And here’s the thing, earlier in the season, Eliot wouldn’t have gone. You know, he would’ve refused to do this. And with even as much bitching and moaning, he’s still gonna do it because he understands that she’s in trouble. And she’s helped him out- she helped him out on the Two-Horse Job.

Jonathan: He’s gonna take his beer.

Chris: And more drinking.

John: And more drinking.

Rebecca: Absolutely.

John: Nate’s a drunk.

[Laughter]

Rebecca: This was actually the first shot we filmed of the episode, if I remember correctly.

Jonathan: You are so right.

Rebecca: Oh. It was a beautiful day.

Chris: And can we just say that Brent Spiner’s character was originally conceived as nefarious hippie?

Rebecca: Yes he was. Birkenstock wearing nefarious hippie. Granola.

Chris: Nefarious hippie. And uh-

Jonathan: It was supposed to be Jimmy Buffett meets Bill Gates.

[Laughter]

Chris: Yes, exactly.

John: An unholy matrimony if there ever was one.

Rebecca: Exactly.

John: Yeah, the light tables.

Chris: That’s a great- these are great shots here, establishing all the space

Jonathan: This was- we had the crane outside so we just snuck it inside and stole some stuff with it.

Rebecca: Looked good.

John: And the-

Jonathan: This was the well-produced Leverage episode that followed the orphanage, so we overlapped-

John: This is the orphanage!

Rebecca: It’s actually next to the orphanage.

John: It’s next to the orphanage. But this is the same- this orphanage- this evil warehouse. The Den of Evil, we called it.

Rebecca: Den of Evil.

Jonathan: Evil Den of Evil.

John: Evil Den of Evil is actually just over from the tragic orphanage in Belgrade.

Rebecca: Exactly, which we visited during out lunch break and were suitably depressed by the children in their filthy squalor.

John: Yeah, and then you went back and had fun high tech stuff with Frakes and everything like that.

Rebecca: Exactly.

John: And this is a beautiful little bit of set design and production design by Lauren Crasco to establish the Evil Den of Evil. I also love the fact- this kind of influenced the season finale. Seeing the stuff up on the bulletin boards here? It really- we wound up going low tech in the season finale, and there’s something about- video screens are nice, you know, but the clutter...

Jonathan: They look- exactly. Video screens keep- that’s always been the problem now that TV shows and movies use video screens. There’s no sound. There’s no tact- [sounding it out] tactility?

Chris: Yes. And it’s cold. Yeah.

John: It’s very cold.

Jonathan: This also has an homage to the set design from Runaway Jury.

John: Sure.

Chris: Yes.

Rebecca: That’s true.

[All laugh]

John: No, no. I think that’s outright theft, right there.

Jonathan: That’s what I meant.

Chris: Let’s get that out on the table.

John: Let’s slap that out.

Chris: That’s the elephant in the room, here, folks.

Jonathan: If we don’t say it someone else will!

[Laughter]

John: And we’ll talk about chess bit in a minute, but Kirsch, why did we set this in a courtroom?

Rebecca: Why specifically in a courtroom?

John: Yes. Do you remember?

Jonathan: Trick question.

Rebecca: I’m not actually sure.

John: Because we had a courtroom set. This actually-

Rebecca: We did! You’re right we had this from Boston Legal, I believe.

John: Yes, exactly.

Chris: [laughing] That’s right we did.

Rebecca: We had a big, wonderful set.

John: This is the splendor of your big Hollywood life

Jonathan: Is this how those decisions are made?

Rebecca: No, you’re absolutely right I forgot about that. We had the- I think it was a New Orleans courtroom from Boston Legal?

John: Yup.

Rebecca: I think we used the walls and…?

John: We redressed it.

Rebecca: We kinda scrapped it.

John: We wallpapered it really. No we ended up keeping most of it, she just wallpapered the walls.

Rebecca: That’s Lauren Crasco.

Chris: Jonathan, what��s your strategy here? Just keeping the camera moving?

Jonathan: Yeah. This is sort of the half version of the 360s that’s used a lot in Leverage. And if you shoot it enough times you end up with your coverage.

John: Yeah. But there’s a tiny amount of room between you and those screens, how did you…?

Jonathan: Oh man, Dave Connell. He gets his props yet again.

Rebecca: And Gary Camp.

Jonathan: And Gary Camp.

John: Here’s where we establish- this is really where we’ve fallen into the pattern in this show, where we’d figured out how much information the audience needs; how to establish the bad guys very clearly, very cleanly; and to make sure the audience knows at least what agenda A is moving forward in the show.

Jonathan: And we know what they look like, and what they’ve done.

John: Yes. There are definitely times earlier in the season where we are a little too clever by half, and really we were-

Jonathan: And this is the right time in the story to tell it. Right here at the end of act one is-

Rebecca: And this one is actually rather complicated as far as who your bad guy is. The fact that you have two, but one is worse than the other, who’s your man in. I think that it- I think visually it helps show the audience, okay this is who we’re going to first, but we’re really trying to go for Lauren Holly.

Jonathan: It also had an interesting in that she, Beth’s character, was reporting to jury duty in order to continue to fool other people with her alias that was- one of her aliases that was actually given jury duty.

Chris: Yes.

Jonathan: while she went to serve jury duty reluctantly, she found out that the jury that she happened to be on, was in fact corrupt, and that there was a bigger story there that Leverage could help out.

John: Very Rockford Files.

[All laugh]

John: Rockford Files- I love- Rockford Files, season 4 or 5-

Jonathan: Steal from the best, isn’t that what they always say?

Rebecca: The very best.

John: Honestly you cannot overstate the influence Rockford Files had on this show and Chris and I as writers. By season 4- there’s an episode in season 4-

Jonathan: [laughs] by season 4 they’ll be living in a trailer by the beach.

John: In season 4 of Rockford Files, there’s an episode where Rocky- his dad is literally getting mob money in the mail by accident.

[All laugh]

John: Like, WOW, man. And so we really felt like the crossover here is not bad. This is interesting because- if you look at Homecoming Job, which was shot sixth, and wound up being shown second. It’s part-

Jonathan: These are the bad guys! [Laughs]

John: That’s sort of the technique when we really started diagramming and illustrating better, but yeah. This is where we- one of the times we use the technique of we’re not going to tell you what we’re going to do and then do it. We’re going to tell you, show it, tell you, show it, tell you, show it.

Jonathan: I like that.

Rebecca: That’s great.

John: We intercut each sequence and establish-

Jonathan: This girl we loved. Remember?

Rebecca: Lisa Schurga and Norma...

John: Lisa, we celebrated her birthday on our set.

Rebecca: We did. I remember that.

Chris: Norma Michaels who I’ve used many times on King of Queens.

Rebecca: Norma Michaels - that’s what it was.

John: And this is also the first time we realized that really, splitting the screens into threes. Instead of using a bunch of stuff on the different six screens. Set each lengthwise set of screens up as your goal and you can move him left to right through objectives and you can formulate the story through temporally left to right. It helps track it.

Chris: There are these guys. I mean, c’mon, the two of them going through garbage? What’s better than that?

John: There’s nothing better than that.

Jonathan: This is one of the classic two-handers of these two.

John: They’re really great together. And at this point, it really is just roll the camera and get out of their way. At this point in the season.

Jonathan: Make sure you’re shooting in the right direction and let them go.

John: Yeah. It’s- [laughs] bang! It’s such a great bit. ‘Heads up!’

[Laughter]

Jonathan: And you know what? Never been done before.

John: Yeah, that actually is original! The- I do want to give a shout out to-

Jonathan: You know what else is great? The length of that scene.

John: [Laughs] Yes.

Chris: Yes.

John: It’s just precisely long enough to do a bit, yup. I wanna give a shout out to my dad, the speech he gave at the beginning of this scene - how- what chess is? Is word for word my dad teaching me to play chess. And really when we were trying to find a spine for this it was, well, it’s really a chess game, it’s really moves. Apollo had been talking a lot about how each con had very distinct stages. And that came up, that’s my dad-

Chris: It came in late into the episode, too.

Rebecca: It did and it really affected the pace in a great way, I think.

Jonathan: Arguably Gina’s best roleplaying con.

Rebecca: I think she did a great job.

John: Interestingly enough the one she was most worried about. Because she’s British and Indian culture is very big in England right now, and she was very, very worried about doing this wrong and was- she researches all her stuff, but she was-

Chris: I love this scene, too.

John: I love this scene, I love the text.

Chris: The darkness here, I mean the way you use light in it, I mean really gave it such a great- I mean what- Jonathan was that-

Jonathan: I mean it’s simple- it’s a very simple scene again and to Lauren’s credit, we moved everything into the middle of the room so we could actually shoot it.

John: Yup. And this is the hardest working business- office in show business. This is every bad guy’s office in the show.

Rebecca: Yes it is. Absolutely.

John: Move out the lamps, move in the lamps.

Rebecca: Change the decor.

John: And the zen garden- it’s interesting the zen garden - the tiny zen garden on his desk, is one of the LA bugaboos that drives us insane, and so wound up in the episode and allowed us to do the writing in the sand. And she does a great bit of sort of throwing it away.

Jonathan: Yeah.

John: And it’s interesting- it’s cool too. It’s interesting watching a lot of shows- a lot of old shows we cite as references, that are bound by America’s cultural understandings at the time. Where because of globalization and everything that’s in the news, we’re able to expand the scope of our cons. To where an Indian in Mumbai- everyone knows oh outsourcing to India that’s in the news, we get that.

Rebecca: Absolutely.

John: It gives you another tool in the toolbox. And also- there’s Dean right there on the left.

Rebecca: Dean Devlin.

John: But it also allows-

Jonathan: We tried to talk him into playing a part in this episode.

John: Yeah, he lied to me. He tricked me into doing mine in Homecoming and then refused to do his.

Rebecca: Maybe season two.

John: Yeah, maybe season two.

Jonathan: What is he, a producer?

John: Yeah.

Rebecca: He’s a very busy man.

John: He is very busy. Very busy getting people to drink the Kool Aid that you can make an independently produced TV show out of an old dog hospital.

[Laughter]

John: And stunningly occasionally pulling it off. Yeah, and this is my favorite scene in the episode.

Rebecca: It was so much fun.

Chris: It’s great, too.

John: It really is.

Jonathan: Now who’s idea was this? This is a wonderful three hander, it’s a very interesting-

Rebecca: I love the board.

John: This came out of the room, we always wanted Sophie teaching Parker. I think the-

Jonathan: Sophie teaching Parker behavioral things.

John: I think the orange bit-

Jonathan: But the add of Chris- of Christian is a great color to this. Because he can’t bear her.

John: Yeah it’s a trio you don’t usually see. He really just wants to punch her in the-

Chris: He plays irritation so well.

John: This is his attempt to be- [laughs] he is not a good dad. Eliot? Not a good dad in any way shape or form.

Chris: Not patient at all.

John: But this is- if you actually track the Parker acting ark through the series, this is the third beat. The first one is she can’t do it, the second is she can do it as long as she’s in a certain type of character, the third one is Sophie has finally taught her how to do it. She actually moves through a learning experience through the entire season.

Chris: One of the appeals of this episode was putting Parker through jury duty where being around regular people would scare her, and test her social abilities.

Jonathan: So does Parker have Asperger's syndrome?

John: It’s Asperger-y like. I mean really what we’re saying is, that the trauma of her childhood sort of froze a lot of her emotional development. As will happen. Froze a lot of her emotional development at that time. But it’s much more- she’s never lived anything approaching a normal life. And that- so she’s utterly unable to- hey I know high functioning geeks who work in the software industry who are worse off than her, as far as interacting with normal humans. So, I think as long as you’re in a specialized lifestyle, it sort of cripples your ability to act in sort of general groups. You know, hell, one of the reasons I did stand up was to find other crazy people like myself. Lovely bit here with the mustard squeeze. I remember we were trying to gimmick that like mad and were like ‘no, no just have her spray him.’

Jonathan: No just have her spray him.

Rebecca: Just have her squeeze it, yeah.

John: And this is one of those Apollo ones where we were gonna show all of the lifts, but by this point in the season, you know what she’s going.

Chris: Yeah, I mean if you’re going to do the choreography of the lift, you want to make a big show of it. And here it’s just-

John: We know what she does.

Rebecca: And she is so good at it. Beth is so good at this.

John: Yeah. She is very great. Victimizing old women. That’s our heroine. It’s a very mixed bag of moral high ground on our team here. But, actually, talking about what Chris was saying - putting Parker in this situation, one of the things, on every episode, that we try to do, and we don’t always manage to put it off but, the episode really has to have a moment- some anchor to one of the characters. That it’s not just a con that for whatever reason, either the parameters or the con, have some sort of challenge that either challenges one of the relationships on the team or a team member.

Chris: I love that shot too, I love the shot of them all raising their glasses and her framed in it.

Rebecca: They’ve accepted her.

Jonathan: Well it’s her- her character arc, for lack of a better term, is- or her character is developed by virtue of being put into the position where she has to behave in a certain way and has to deliver.

Rebecca: And she rises to the occasion.

John: And that’s the kind of-

Jonathan: That’s John Storey -

John: No it’s - that’s John Storey? Or David? Shaw?

Rebecca: No David Shatraw is in one of the-

Jonathan: No, that’s John Storey. He’s in the Dean Devlin Renaissance - rep company.

Rebecca and John: [Laughing]

John: And that’s also one of those horribly complicated bits of writing where it’s like,’OK, how do we get rid of the other lawyer? You know what? Just call him and offer him a bunch of money!’

Chris: Yep.

John: We don’t really have time for anything else.

Jonathan: Yeah, we gotta get him out of the picture.

Rebecca: We had a scene where Eliot intimidated him out of it. Remember that?

John: Yes.

Chris: Yeah.

John: It was actually taken from a different-

Jonathan: This is great, where she teases the character she’s about to go into.

John: You actually see her start to get into character a bit for a moment there which is not something we usually show. And this is- this is the hats.

Chris: Yeah here we are- this is our- on our soundstage.

John: Yup. and what’s ironic is ,of course you look at this old courtroom set that we have, cause you try to do a show that saves you a little money with an established set, and it’s like ‘oh god we have to really dress it up to sell it’-

Rebecca: Ah, there it is.

Jonathan: Great entrance.

John: -ironically- fantastic entrance. And nice coming up from the shoes, by the way.

Jonathan: Yeah, it was in the script.

[Laughter]

John: yeah, it was in the script. Jesus. Well, thanks for listening to us.

Chris: Most directors don’t! [Laughs]

John: Yeah, well I appreciate it. But, you know, it’s interesting that a bunch of us were on jury duty right after this got called.

Rebecca: That’s true, absolutely

John: We all went to LA municipal courts, and they were all far worse looking than this thing that we were worried about looking too cheesy.

Jonathan: Yeah.

John: They are basements. I also love the quick glad-hand here of just, you know ‘do you trust your government?’ Most people do, ‘all right then you buy me.’ What’s his alias in this one?

Rebecca: Oh- it was from… [Pelican Brief]

Chris: No it’s from Philadelphia-

John: No Philadelphia, Joseph Miller.

Rebecca: Yes, Philadelphia, thank you.

John: Joseph Miller, in continuing the tradition that Aldis- Hardison has an unconscious, or possibly conscious, habit of faking his ID’s to amuse himself, to give himself famous movie names. And there’s almost always, in most of the IDs, they’re linked somehow to famous people. Except that- I don’t think- they make text of it, but he tends to give Nate the names of actors that have played Doctor Who. Which amuses me to no end.

Rebecca: And the fans as well. I’ve seen a lot of people being very excited about that.

John: Yeah. Now this is interesting because I don’t know much about the law, I know a little about statute of limitations on art theft because I had to research it, but that’s it. I’m constantly amazed. And so going to Chris, and there’s so much stuff in this episode that seems insane, but you can actually do it in a court of law.

Chris: Well I- look-

Jonathan: Don’t you violate the sense of truth a little bit here?

Chris: A little bit. But, I have to say, I did speak to an old friend of mine - a colleague - who’s a litigator and who’s been doing it for 12 years, and I ran a lot of the stuff by him and he was- he was on board.

John: Yeah.

Rebecca: Absolutely, we had a great conversation with him.

John: So this is the one- this is one of the ones that’s great, actually, cause you called that buddy who’s in the US Attorney's office and you gave that five second pause and went, ‘holy shit that would work’.

[All laugh]

Jonathan: You could get away with it.

Rebecca: Yeah, exactly.

John: ‘Don’t- don’t tell anyone about this!’ It’s always gratifying when you hear from somebody- like when we faked the MRI. Who was like ‘Oh yeah, that’s actually a good tumor. Nicely done.’

Rebecca: ‘You could absolutely do that.’ Yeah. [Laughs]

John: And this is the little- this little friend beat with Peggy.

Jonathan: This is the vegan meat scene. This is a very nice scene.

Rebecca: This is the tofu scene.

John: Yes. And she’s wonderful- and this is why it’s so crucial to get those daily players that are great, because-

Rebecca: She did a wonderful job.

Jonathan: Oh, we loved her.

John: -you want them to be friends.

Jonathan: Yeah you love them as friends, you buy them as friends.

John: Yeah, Peggy’s coming back.

Rebecca: Oh god, I hope so.

John: Yeah her sidekick- yeah we’re absolutely- well not just for your character payment but also.

Rebecca: Oh do I get one of those? That’s fun.

John: We’re actually thinking about- when I did Jackie Chan adventures the animated show, we eventually wound up using a bunch of the side characters in their own episodes.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And I’m thinking at some point we get all the- like Hurley, Peggy, all the side characters and do like two next year where it’s just them forming a second Leverage team.

Rebecca: Lisa earned she did a great job.

John: She did a great job.

Chris: Now Johnathan, a lot of this episode is us watching people watch other people, how did you-

Jonathan: Yeah, that was part of the prepping, to make sure I understood who-

Chris: How did you keep that all straight?

Jonathan: Who watches the watchers?

Chris: Right.

Rebecca: Exactly.

Chris: I mean it’s all very clear…

Jonathan: Well it’s clear because it was- we discussed it during prep. You know, we all- you know, it was what we talked about a few minutes ago, the idea of a tone meeting. So that you’re sure, who’s on the screen in this scene, who knows what’s being said, who hears what’s being said, and who can’t.

Chris: Right, right.

Jonathan: Probably more importantly, who can’t see or who can’t hear and get this information.

Chris: And you also made good use of using the screens as transitions. So you would go from the actual scene, then you would cut to the screen, then pull back.

Jonathan: Yeah well it begs for it a little bit. And helps avoid establishing shots like that.

[All laugh]

John: What?

Chris: Oh good establishing shot is-

John: C’mon man there’s no crime in that, that’s television, it lets you know where you are. That’s actually- talking to Dean about directing, he says that’s the big mistake young directors make, they don’t let you know where you are. You know it’s an important thing, I would rather use a shot like that-

Jonathan: Some reason that Aaron Spelling had a few shows on in the 80’s and 90’s is he made them use establishing shots and start scenes that way.

John: Yeah, exactly and you knew where the hell you were. And that’s a great transition, punch into the screen.

Chris: Yeah, that’s a great transition.

Rebecca: That’s beautiful; very nice.

John: And it’s interesting, like Kirsch said- I call her Kirsch. I always call her Kirsch.

Rebecca: And if you ever stop I’ll know something’s wrong. I know I’m being fired.

John: You’re being fired at the end of the day, yeah.

Jonathan: These two have great rhythm together. These two-

John: They do.

Jonathan: Over the week we worked together developed a great rhythm. He of course knew everything Gina had done, so he had her entire credits, and…

John: No they’re- It’s interesting because she’s doing a bad guy here, which we don’t usually have. We’re doing that in the season premiere of the second season, actually it’s a little- it’s kind of a cool con we’re working on.

Chris: Yeah.

Rebecca: We wanted her to amp up the evil. We said show Sophie, you know, how ruthless she can be.

Jonathan: She looks beautiful with her hair pulled up.

Chris: Oh boy, she looked great.

John: But that was fun being able to use just enough of what Americans know about Indian outsourcing and everything and kind of, you know-

Jonathan: It’s so nice to see Brent without gold paint on his face.

John: I know.

[All laugh]

John: I don’t- you know what he was great in? He was great in the Dorothy Dandridge story. I really liked that

Jonathan: He’s a wonderful actor.

Chris: Oh, he’s terrific.

Jonathan: You know he’s playing Don Quixote now.

John: Oh yeah, there you are.

Rebecca: I did not know that.

Jonathan: The reprise he’s playing in Man of La Mancha.

John: What’s interesting here is there’s not- the temptation to do a lot of fancy camera crap when two people are talking is overwhelming, but you just parked it on them and- the scenes great, it’s chilling, it’s creepy. That comes from two good actors talking.

Jonathan: That only comes from years of directing, is to learn that you don’t have to do too much.

John: Yeah. Sometimes just let good actors talk.

Jonathan: And it’s great. And the same thing in the editing room. You don’t have to cut around yet, I’m still interested in what they’re saying.

John: Yeah. That’s a big problem you get- when you’re moving the camera, it’s always- the kinda general rule I always use is, it’s movement or performance. If somebody’s talking- if somebody’s working it just sit on it, it’s all right. The audience is [unintelligible].

Jonathan: And also our cameras are moving even when we appear to do close-ups.

John: We do these little slides and stuff, yeah. This was also- the incredibly boring slideshow, this is sort of off of your-

Chris: Yes. I think people accept that in a court case there would be an incredibly boring presentation of evidence, and you buy that.

Rebecca: Absolutely

Jonathan: Quincy! Worked on Quincy for years!

Chris: Sure! Absolutely.

John: Quincy, exactly. 168 slides, I love Kitty- I love Kitty in that shot by the way. She’s so great.

Rebecca: Yeah, she’s so good.

John: And even that was great, because we had brought in- we got Armin first, right?

Jonathan: No I called- I asked during casting I said wouldn’t Armin be great for this corrupt juror? And I said wait a minute, ‘Armin’s married to Kitty’. And we wound up- obviously we wanted up with a female judge to mix it up a little bit, let’s offer it to Kitty too. And it was like a family package.

John: That was great.

Jonathan: Then it became the Star Trek connection. This guy was funny as hell, too.

Rebecca: Excellent job.

Chris: Yeah, he was great.

John: And speaking real Hindi there, which is-

Jonathan: And Gina pretending she understood him, which is…

[All laugh]

John: Yeah she was really great. No, yeah this is one of the few times we bring a mark back to the office.

Chris: Yeah.

John: We dressed it up a little bit, but yeah.

Chris: By the end of the season we’re getting pretty-

Jonathan: This was a good setup too, I was always wondering if the audience would understand- oh no, this isn’t- yeah we we’re gonna reveal the green screen here.

Chris: Yeah, we were gonna reveal it right after this.

John: Yeah. But yeah it was interesting because I had just gone to the CAA where they had the big new teleconferencing wall, it really was- I will believe anything that’s on the other side of that camera, you know? And we do so much set replacement on this show that it would make sense that they have that technology.

Chris: Oh I love that- I love that zoom around.

Rebecca: He did such a great job.

Jonathan: Yeah, that’s that six frames business.

John: And finding that- this guy did a great job.

Jonathan: This guy was great!

Rebecca: He was wonderful, yeah

John: Doing the Scottish accent on the way out was really- it was really great.

Jonathan: That was shameless. Whose idea was that?

Rebecca: It was originally Irish. That was your idea, John, I think.

Jonathan: Just shameless.

John: Yeah. He’s very good, the walkaway. And what’s great is they’re also- Eliot’s running the computer there. It’s one of those little things where we’ve arced his ability to use the computer at Hardison’s- you know.

Chris: Yes.

John: We didn’t do a bit - which would’ve complicated it - which was where Hardison left a bunch of sticky notes on his computer which I loved. But at this point- it’s interesting because this episode started so clean and wound up being so complicated, you know?

Jonathan: We are moving, moving, moving.

Chris: It’s great- great movement. Picking them up on the run, and the camera finally stops right there.

Jonathan: I think- driven by the idea that we think a courtroom drama is gonna be staid, that we had to- all of us were very conscious of trying to make sure everything moved, literally and figuratively, and it paid off.

John: And this is one of the times that they’re too good at their jobs. Which we don’t use all that often.

Rebecca: Exactly

Chris: Oh yeah, I love this twist.

[All laugh]

John: And the smile, and just sign the goddamn papers.

Rebecca: Oh these two guys had so much fun.

Jonathan: ‘Sign on the line before anything changes!’

John: Really great.

Jonathan: This is the part we wanted Dean to play!

Rebecca: Yes it was, yeah.

John: Yes, exactly. But the idea, that if you use real world companies, that it will come back to bite you in the ass is infinitely amusing. And again something we’re going to use a bit more in season 2. You know the little details of the cons- you always wonder how much process does the audience want? And I think that that’s- a lot of it is what you sign up for. That’s why CSI was a big hit, people want to see people get fingerprinted and stuff.

Jonathan: I want to see the stuff, yeah.

John: And for us it’s how do we commit these crimes?

Jonathan: And I think the audience loves that.

Chris: More movement again, you panned across to the-

Jonathan: I lined them up in the order that they spoke. [Laughs] Always a good trick.

[All laugh]

Chris: Then you ended on-

Jonathan: Nate. He gets up.

Chris: Nate as he gets up and you follow him out.

Jonathan: Thank you.

[All laugh]

John: We should bring you back.

Rebecca: Honestly.

John: I was really not gonna bring you back but watching this episode again, I gotta say, yeah.

Chris: It’s a good scene.

Rebecca: We give some screen time to our infrequently used kitchen. Very well stocked with orange soda.

Jonathan: I’m a big fan of the kitchen.

Rebecca: We had a good time filming it.

Chris: Yeah we did.

John: We started using it a lot. It was- it really was- it’s not something that’s kind of in our writers heads, just cause we didn’t- it was a late addition to the set, but it’s a nice intimate-

Rebecca: There were some intimate moments, yeah.

Jonathan: It’s the office version of the water cooler. It’s where stuff can happen.

Chris: And here’s where we are challenging our two- Hardison and Parker, to really bring it home. We have our pep talks.

John: It’s a parallel scene, parallel structure, yeah. Parallel pep talks. And they’re two distinctly different relationships too, you know?

Chris: Yeah.

Jonathan: That’s a good point, the father/son relationship between Nate and Aldis is an entirely different one from the peer relationship that these two are trying to set up.

Chris: Yes.

Rebecca: Absolutely.

John: This is really- and this is something we held back for the season finale. Where the way she locks it in, in the original version of the script, is she confesses Sophie Deveraux is not her real name.

Rebecca: Yeah.

John: And then that’s sort of something we held back for the finale. Assuming you’ve watched all the episodes in a row and now are going back for the commentary, with a Guiness in hand, as you should.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah this is a- we don’t do this a lot.

Chris: No.

John: Sophie, Parker we don’t do a lot and they have a nice rhythm.

Rebecca: They have a really nice dynamic.

Jonathan: That’s the nice thing about these- this cast. There are so many formations or- what’s the word I’m looking for? Not combinations, but in that same- apples and oranges-

John: Permutations.

Jonathan: Permutations, yeah. Where Christian’s in a scene with the two girls - the chemistry’s different.

Chris: [Laughs] I love sending the kids to school. This is great.

Rebecca: The sack lunch.

John: The sack lunch. ‘You’re gonna knock it’; ‘No, no, you’re not gonna-’; ‘You - you’re gonna get hit by a car’.

[All laugh]

Rebecca: Good luck with that.

John: Big guy, you’re gonna get hit by a car. Sorry man, that’s your morning. Boom.

Jonathan: Okay end of scene.

Chris: Oh, beautiful transition.

John: Yeah, the door and then the door. It’s like you think these things through.

Jonathan: Dean’s electric car getting used, so we got a freebie.

Rebecca: One of the few remaining. Oh this was great.

John: Boom. And by the way, one of the great things about Christian Kane is he’ll do his own stunts.

Jonathan: Does his own stunts!

Rebecca: Everything.

John: The bad thing about Chris Kane is when you watch the dailies-

Jonathan: Does his own stunts!

John: And you go ‘oh my god!’

[All laugh]

John: Good fight in this one, by the way.

Rebecca: Yeah

John: Nice. Nice double take down.

Jonathan: Yeah, this is Charlie Brewer. He stages them quick and tight.

John: Which is really the only way to do it. You start doing big and slow-mo stuff and it just-

Rebecca: I just love when he throws him over his back. [Laughs]

John: Yeah.

Jonathan: Nobody sees me right? Nobody sees me with this guy on my shoulders?

Chris: In broad daylight?

John: In broad daylight.

Rebecca: Very early.

John: And we are done.

Jonathan: Okay, those guys are taken care of and I didn’t have to do my hair in the trailer this morning.

[All laugh]

Jonathan: I went for the stocking cap- went for the Jeff cap and I got to the set on time.

John: There you go. It’s actually interesting- the thing you said earlier is, when you develop TV shows, a lot of the times you’ll have a really good idea for the pilot, and you’ll write the pilot, then you’ll have a TV show and you’ll have no idea how to get to episode 100. I will say that it’s our own anal developmental process, Chris and I, is like alright, five characters any one of which can lead an episode, and how many combinations of each of these two or three characters work. If you don’t do that, you just spin your wheels, you’re just a plot machine. And, end of day, the audience really doesn’t give a crap about story. I mean they like a good story, but they’re here for this scene. You know, they’re here to see Aldis do To Kill a Mockingbird. They’re here to see Tim in the funny hats.

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

John: They’re really invested in the characters

Jonathan: Ed Begley Jr.!

John: He’s Ed Begley Jr. He’s doing Ed Begley Jr. here. Closing the internal combustion to digestive combustion.

Jonathan: This is when we couldn’t get the...

Rebecca: The smoke to work, yeah. We had many different methods-

Jonathan: Lunch was creeping up on us.

Rebecca: I was. It was a hot day outside.

Jonathan: I said, “We’ll sell it with sound.”

[Laughter]

Rebecca: I think it was an electric car, yeah.

Chris: Now what exactly is around his forehead? What is that?

Jonathan: It looks like the same piece of [word that sounds like druh-fellen] that she wore in the…

[All laugh]

John: That Parker had in The Wedding Job?

Chris: That’s a special effect folks. That’s a virtual-

Jonathan: I had more people- in the interviews I did the other day, they loved that visual effect.

Chris: Isn’t that great?

Jonathan: They think it’s real.

John: Well it’s one of the few times we cheat.

Jonathan: There’s Quark, from Deep Space Nine. And… who did he play in Beauty and the Beast? One of our wonderful underused character actors.

John: Yeah? Beauty and the Beast I’m trying to remember…

Johnathan: I think he was the third [unintelligible] and that’s his wife, Kitty

John: I also love- I love this moment. I love when, even accidentally - because he gives a shit about this case =- that he’s a better lawyer, you know?

Chris: Yeah.

John: And she’s again, April Webster casting. She’s a great day player; it’s a lovely moment.

Chris: We don’t spend a lot of time with her, our victim, so it was really kind of important at this point in the show to connect with her.

John: Yeah. And to show also, cause this is late in the season, that their relationships with the victims are changing.

Chris: And also we’ve seen Hardison have doubt, that ‘I can’t do this’, and here’s a moment where he kinda realized that he can do this, you know I’ve been doing it all along.

John: Or I have to do it.

Rebecca: And her faith gave him energy to move forward with something that was pretty difficult.

Johnathan: And it was a classic case of art imitating life, too, because this was a wonderful breakthrough for Aldis, who people feel does light comedy and they feel he does this physical stuff-

John: Honestly, after this episode, I’d put him in a courtroom show in a heartbeat. He sells the hell out of this. Particularly the closing speech, by the way, you wrote this. It was great. Chris wrote the closing argument that he’s always wanted to do, like, on his big case.

[Laughter]

John: Like this! This is the one! Does every lawyer really- every lawyer’s got To Kill a Mockingbird in his head, every lawyer…

Chris: Well, yeah, uh, yeah.

John: That was my dad. My dad became a lawyer in his 60’s and he busted his ass for like 5 years to he could get a jury trial, just so he could finally do this speech.

Johnathan: God, Armin’s good value.

John: Yeah. This is great.

Johnathan: The casting is so important when you cast these day players this way.

John: And he’s funny- he’s both funny and grounding.

Johnathan: AND, he’s making the choice to hold onto his story as long as he possibly can, and then try to defend it.

John: Yes. As one would. And that’s the other lawyer freaking out. It’s amazing. It’s very important that everyone stays present in this scene; a lot of times day players will just tend to wander off when they’re not on camera, and you never know when you’re grabbing coverage and that’ll make the moment.

Rebecca: And that was kind of difficult with 12 jurors. I mean, we had to make sure they were all focused as well as

Johnathan: When we were casting the jury, I remember we gave the jurors, each of them, a backstory.

John: Yes.

Rebecca: I remember that.

Johnathan: So that when we cast our extras we would…

Rebecca: I forgot about that

John: So each one of those characters actually lines up the characters that Sophie says when she- the tells that she read.

Rebecca: Absolutely

John: And Kitty, by the way, does a really nice job there being amused and impressed at the same time. That role could’ve easily been harpy-ish. And instead was this, kind of like she was fairly pleased by what he was pulling off. This was a rare hidden fourth act. When we do stuff, we usually let the audience know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. This is one of the few times we give them a little piece and then walk away. And this is your big speech.

Chris: Oh yeah. Well I mean, I think with any closing argument, the greatest ones in the movies - I mean I look at The Verdict or even Presumed Innocent - they’re not about the case, they’re very general.

Johnathan: Yeah, they’re about heart to heart.

Chris: They’re about heart to heart, yeah. They’re all about communicating with the jury.

Johnathan: He was spectacular in this.

Chris: I love this bit.

Johnathan: And he had the support of the cast, he got the support of the writers, it was one of those great days.

John: Look at that, that’s great.

Rebecca: I love that moment between them.

Chris: I love that he ends on ‘some of you are friends’ and you had him end on her, and they had that little moment.

John: It’s nice, pulling that moment out. No, he’s- I love the entire cast, but hiring him at 21? This is a guy with a 40 year career in him.

Johnathan: You won’t regret this, will not regret this.

John: Absolutely. I mean it’s amazing watching this again, because you’re watching without the sound when you do the commentary. And it’s amazing how much of this feels like a fast moving, energetic episode, and so much of it-

Johnathan: We were so concerned that it was going to be too much in court, it’s not too much in-

Chris: We were, yeah.

John: But at the same time in the scenes that were there, we sit for a long time. There’s big speeches in this episode, there’s big talking scenes, and they work, you feel invested in them. It’s interesting how so much of this went from, okay we’ve got a courtroom set-

Johnathan: Wait, let me guess, is Nate drinking?

[Laughter]

John: He’s drinking.

Johnathan: Father/son moment.

John: And as a matter of fact, yes, again, a scene that is parallel to when I did my first stand up that my dad saw me do and he bought me a drink afterwards. It was a big- it was the first time I drank with my father, was that moment. And so really, we’ve turned a horrible brutal addiction into a beautiful sharing moment.

[Laughter]

John: Which is nice.

Chris: Here we go, it’s all on Parker.

Rebecca: Daunting task ahead of her.

John: All on her, yup. It’s interesting how it turns from the- from kind of a constellation show where we have a set standing, and maybe we can limp through this to I think this might be one of my favorite episodes in the season. If you get the right people, and you really commit to it.

Johnathan: Doesn’t it happen like that though?

Chris: Yeah.

Johnathan: Doesn’t it always happen like that?

Rebecca: There was such great emotion in it, there really was.

Chris: Oh look at this!

John: Oh that’s lovely.

Chris: There’s a proud use of that transition where we use that to bridge and show us where we are.

John: She’s starting to tumble to it, it’s starting to feel- and it’s great because really the chess thing did come later. It came like the week before we shot.

Rebecca: It really did and it’s-

Johnathan: Oh really?

Chris: It did it came- I think it came the week we shot. [Laughs]

Rebecca: I think you may be right about that. It was definitely later.

John: I wrote it-

Johnathan: Well everybody wanted to use it too. She wanted to use it in this scene, you’ll see at the end of the show that Nate wanted to use it, it became more than it was intended to be, and as a result I think it bookended it.

John: Well it gave it a spine.

Rebecca: It did.

John: Gave it a nice little spine for the parallel. It’s always hard, because one of the challenges on this show is keeping all five actors alive at all times. And you know you can’t always find five hats.

Johnathan: But this- but you guys have done a good job with that, if you put people in different places, and have them check in, and believe that we can hear them wherever they are. As opposed to- that’s why the scenes in the court- the conference room were so tough. You gotta get out of there, you gotta send them on their mission so you can spread them out.

John: You don’t want to hang out there. You don’t want to hang out there. Yeah and that was the problem to a certain degree in the beginning of the season as we were learning to write the show. Because you’re learning to write- every show you’re learning how to write the first season. You’ve been on a lot of series - you know, the first couple episodes, no matter how clear the vision, getting the working parts up spinning is difficult.

Johnathan: And it’s just as important what works and what doesn’t work.

John: Yeah, yeah. And our whole thing was, ‘Okay, we gotta keep all five of them active so let’s keep them together.’ And it turned out like, no, you gotta split them up.

Rebecca: Split them up, yeah.

John: Two, three, two over there. It really keeps it up.

Chris: Oh here- this is what we call the date with the devil scene.

John: Lauren Holly being delightfully evil here.

Rebecca: Absolutely. She had a lot of fun with it.

John: And really is the crux of the-

Johnathan: This is a good call, Lauren Holly.

John: Yes, she did a really great job on it, she’s a good actor and-

Johnathan: I think this was Dean… yeah. She was good, she was sharp, she was fun to be on set with, and she chewed it up.

John: ‘Oooh that’s a lot of money’ yeah.

Chris: And he plays it so great, too.

John: And what Lauren’s doing here- when you have her, too, which is a little sexy, dangerous, plainly you’re gonna get your hand snapped off you.

Johnathan: That’s her calling card now. That’s her strong suit. It used to be that sort of sweet-

John: Sweet, girl next door, yeah. No, the three- and this is another thing is- constantly on the show we’re constantly struggling with, is okay we’re dealing with obscure financial decisions for a big chunk of the show, how do we visualize it?

Rebecca: How do you do it? How do you make it simple?

Chris: And also how do you make the audience understand, here-

Johnathan: When you can’t have a bucket of money or a big bag. What do you guys like to-?

John: Sack of money! But when we were struggling- I’ll admit-

Chris: And this is our sack of money, the file folders.

John: In Homecoming it’s the envelope switch. The envelope switch- it’s really tricky, I mean you know, and I’ll say we’re breaking second season now, we found out that we’re picked up for a second season, and it’s constantly like what’s our new- what’s our thing? What’s our thing we’re chasing?

Rebecca: Hatbox full of euros.

John: We can’t do a hatbox full of euros every week. We’d love to.

Rebecca: We’d like to, sure, yeah.

John: Yeah, that would be great. But euros are devalued now so they’re not quite as important.

[Laughter]

John: Now, Johnathan I can ask you did you use- did you reference any specific movies or anything? This is a courtroom drama, there’s an awful lot of stuff out there - have you shot this type of thing before?

Johnathan: I have shot- I actually stole from Judgement at Nuremberg, which is- I did a courtroom show on Star Trek and I found that the coverage, the set of moving, pushing, singles, two shots, three shots, that they did in that is the most- that and getting it high and wide. Always.

John: Well that’s the-

Johnathan: Judgement at Nuremberg is a really wonderful courtroom drama and worth stealing from.

[All laugh]

John: Well this is actually where, where the show began is, Chris had the idea to - we’ll steal a verdict.

Chris: Let’s steal a verdict.

John: And what it’s based on, is the wire gimmick from The Sting.

Chris: Right.

John: And that’s the idea that when you announce this stuff, I mean famous trials, particularly when you live in LA, you’re all waiting around the web, and you’re waiting for the verdict to come out, on the web, of what happened.

Chris: Yeah, it was all about our team controlling the early delivery of information, which is the wire scam in The Sting, and how we could use that in the context of the trial.

Jonathan: Oh, so this is what tee’d up the whole show?

Chris: This is the raison d’etre of the show.

Jonathan: Not her being on a jury, but-

Chris: But then we thought how great would it be if she was on the jury.

John: And then the next question immediately was, who would be on the jury? Well Parker would be on the jury, I mean, that’s obvious.

[Laughter]

Johnathan: Right.

Rebecca: Who is least able to work with humans?

John: To con them. Yeah exactly. To work with them.

Chris: [Laughs] His reactions- his reactions are great.

John: He’s so angry. He’s so filled with rage. And this is the ‘zhoom-zhoom’, there’s, like, varieties- we call these the zhoom-zhoom’s by the way, cause you zhoom in and you zhoom out-

Rebecca: Peter Hanson, did a great audition for Jonathan. The Jonathan Frakes song.

John: This day player actually sang a song about you, that’s right. You have to.

Johnathan: For the future. For anybody who’s listening.

[All laugh]

John: Don’t try that, that’s not gonna work.

Johnathan: It doesn’t hurt.

John: What? You’re saying you’d actually take that?

Johnathan: I- I hired the guy!

John Alright.

Johnathan: I asked all of you. I said do I hire this guy who sang a song about me? And you all said yes.

Rebecca: He was passionate.

John: He was passionate.

Rebecca: He had fervor.

Chris: Here we go, here’s our two chess players. Going at it-

Johnathan: Who never meet until this moment.

John: Nope.

Rebecca: And this was Tim’s idea, right here.

John: Boom.

Johnathan: Boom, and… he’s got it.

John: And, by the way, there’s a very subtle thing there. By giving her the white king he’s basically announcing his presence as the black king. It’s kind of one of the little things- the chess metaphors that goes through the season.

Johnathan: Pulled back for the burger.

John: There you go.

Rebecca: Eliot’s got his beer.

Johnathan: It pays off the vegan jokes from earlier.

John: Yeah, it’s like we know what we’re doing.

[Laughter]

John: Also, I like the bad attempt at parenting Nate does here. Aldis is- Hardison’s learned the entirely wrong lesson from this particular thing.

Rebecca: Exactly.

John: Although, I’ve never sure if he learns the wrong lesson or he’s just yanking-

Johnathan: But Hardison comes into this scene thinking that I really can do anything I want to do.

John: But by-

Johnathan: And then Nate’s like, ‘that’s not what I meant!’

[Laughter]

John: He means by stealing and by grifting. He doesn’t-

Johnathan: Yeah, he doesn’t mean by becoming a doctor or a lawyer, nothing honorable. This is a very good scene, actually.

John: Yes. It basically says that no matter how- it’s interesting because this is meant to be - it’s this, to rehab, to the season finale. This is meant to set that, for whatever the journey they’ve gone on, they are now a family. A broken, weird family, but a family. So that’s why we can do really really horrible things to them in the season finale and you feel like you’re tearing apart, at this point, a family that you’ve become invested in.

Johnathan: It’s nice that they held on- for instance, Christians character, holding onto this thing about how he feels about Beth is just great.

Chris: Yeah, it’s great.

Rebecca: Really has value.

John: Yeah. It’s- they- you know this is the part in the credits where you get to say whatever the hell you want so, Kirsch?

Chris: Anything you wanna add?

Johnathan: Congratulations!

John: It’s your first episode. Say hi to your parents?

Rebecca: Thank you. Hi mom and dad, and Paul and Paul [Laughs]. And thank you guys for giving me this opportunity because this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

Chris: Thank you.

Johnathan: Oh c’mon, take that one back.

[All laugh]

Rebecca: Oh, come on! I had a great time.

John: Your boyfriend just proposed to you, that’s like horrible!

Rebecca: That’s true! And the episode’s coming out tonight, so it was good timing

John: Well there you go.

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Elliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 1 #Episode 10 #Season 1 Episode 10 #The Juror No. 6 Job

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