#tldr it's at least a 4.5 of 5 for me lads

[beingfacetious]

of course I watched all of Lev Red over the weekend so a few overall thoughts 

all with the caveat that I’m Brand-New Here in that I only finished the original series earlier this year lol

the thing about Leverage is that it should be all but impossible to mess it up. They love each other and they do clever crimes and that’s the show. There’s more to it than that, obviously; the cast chemistry is so good and the writing is so good and there’s a ~Vibe that’s very Leverage-specific. but the new episodes would’ve had to find a really creative way to stumble to be bad imo. 

and they did not! I wrote a couple days ago that it felt like there was a shift after episode 2, and I still think that—eps 1-2 felt like a (REALLY GOOD) transition between old Lev and Lev Red—but I also think it was intentional and tbh necessary. it would’ve been worse to act like nothing was different (frex, like, essentially revamping the old title credits with hitter hacker etc. and just putting “hacker” with Breanna). Hardison is also my favorite so I kind of went in with a little dread, like what if the Hardison-shaped hole is too big? but ultimately it wasn’t. Nor was the Nate-shaped hole imo! They both got really nice sendoffs (hopefully less permanent for Hardison) and their presence was felt across these eps. episodes 3-8 felt like Leverage to me. a couple of those felt like really good Leverage, and only one of them felt like potentially skippable-during-rewatch Leverage. I mean, that’s pretty great! 

I have a lot of expectations for certain shows, esp. plot-driven shows—like, the Strong Female Lead of your contemporary noir show should not have to endure increasingly worse trauma to stay interesting! and also she should be a decent detective—but for Leverage, my expectation is that it makes me happy while I’m watching it. and it did! it does! Leverage is like comfort food made with a few ingredients you actually do always have lying around. it’s a fierce love but it’s an uncomplicated love. so. there. the end.