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party-gilmore · 3 years

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This is still just a half formed thought but @pebblesrus got me thinking bout The Pool Scene and Eliot viewing his body/safety as something to physically exchange for that of others, combined with the commentary about how Eliot was counting the seconds Hardison was without air, like

There's still the thrum of angry tension stretching out from Hardison between them through the night, during Flores's call, on the way in and through the airport... Eliot isn't avoiding Hardison's angry gaze, but he's not seeking it out either. It burns under his skin, a hot coil of discomfort and the sinking sensation of having ruined something unless he manages to make things even.

At some point midflight, Hardison gets up to pace near the bar (because it might have been last minute, but he's NOT gonna make the team fly coach - even though he's still upset with Eliot and may have thought about it for a minute). Eliot follows a few seconds later and catches Hardison on the way back, quickly shoving him into the small lavatory and locking the door behind them.

"Man! What the hell! If you don't get your hands off me, I-"

"One minute, nineteen seconds." Hardison stops flailing against Eliot's grip around his wrists and just... stares, incredulous.

"...what?"

"You were without air for one minute, nineteen seconds."

"...you were counting." It feels a little like a question, although it isn't. Not really. Eliot's grim expression softens often imperceptibly. Hardison would've missed it if they weren't crammed so tightly in the small bathroom. Eliot answers the non-question anyway, voice uncharacteristically gentle.

"Course I was."

Hardison tumbles that around in his head for a bit. Of course Eliot was counting. Probably to know when it was too dangerous anymore to stay in character. Hardison knows how important it was to gain Moreau's trust at the time. In his head, he knows that. Knew it, even then. He was just... so afraid, at almost drowning, and angry at the secrets Eliot was keeping... but he was counting. He would've gone in for him, if he needed. Blown the whole damn thing.

Yeah the situation just sucked all the way around, sure, and yeah Alec's still a little pissed - why wouldn't he be! He's got the right! - but Eliot was counting. That means even though he'd had to put Hardison's life at risk, he was willing to risk even more - his own safety, the entire con - to pull him back out if needed. That was something, right? That was still-

-Hardison's too busy turning the pieces around in his own head to notice Eliot shifting his grip from Hardison's wrists to his hands. Tugging them closer. Pulling them up.

Alec snaps back to the present when his fingertips graze the warm, flushed skin of Eliot's neck.

"What-"

"One minute, nineteen seconds." Eliot suddenly presses Hardison's hands tight around his throat, guiding his thumbs to the appropriate hollows beneath his jaw.

"You... you can't be fucking serious!"

He tries to pull away, but Eliot's grip holds fast.

"Damnit Hardison," his growl comes rough, grating, as he puts pressure on his own windpipe through Hardison's palm. "You were right! Okay? I risked your life. For one minute and nineteen seconds. So that's what you get. Just... just do it, man! Get it over with, then we're even!"

"Even-... man, do you not realize how fucked up this is? I'm not... I'm not doing this!"

With a growl, Eliot tears his hands away from Hardison's, and Alec snatches his newly freed palms back to his chest. Eliot clearly wants to pace, but can't in the cramped room, so he settles with carding his fingers through his hair.

"Then what the fuck else do you want from me, man!" His voice already sounds ragged, even with how short of a time Hardison (or rather, Eliot by way of Hardison) was pressing around his throat.

"I just wanted you to be honest with us! With me!" Hardison slumps back against the far wall, anxiously rubbing his jaw as he tries to find the words. "Alright, look, I get it, what you had to do at the pool. I do. That doesn't mean my being upset about it is just gonna... go away!"

"I know that!"

Hardison flinches as Eliot slams his fist against the side wall. He knows the strike wasn't meant to be pointedly 'at' him, that in such a small space there's not a whole lot of room to safely lash out in when feeling cornered, but it was still too close to him for comfort. Eliot clocks the flinch, and for a moment the frustration on his face morphs into a clear expression of the guilt he's been masking since the pool.

"I... I'm sorry. I didn't... fuck, I'm sorry," he pulls away, shrinking in on himself like he does on the grift, trying to consciously make himself seem smaller. "I just... I just don't want to have ruined us, man. Whatever is we've got... you and me, this team... I just wanna fix what I broke. I want us to be good."

"We are good, man," Hardison cautiously steps forward. He thinks to put a hand on Eliot's shoulder, but that's too close to his throat at the moment, so he goes for the outside of his arm instead. "You don't gotta... let me hurt you to make things even. That's... I don't know where the hell you learned that, but I don't like it. I'm not gonna do it. You just... you just gotta let me feel my feelings for a bit, okay? We'll get Moreau, and that'll feel fucking great, and have a little party, and everything will be fine. "

Eliot looks up at him and the ragged, raw desperation in his gaze about knocks Hardison back against the wall.

"...that's it?" Eliot's almost laughing, with a dry sarcastic bite behind his tone that makes him sound unhinged... well, more unhinged than usual. Although, he did just ask Hardison to choke him, so Alec figures we're not exactly working with the usual state of mind here.

"It's that easy, huh? You just... say we're good, and we're good?"

"Uh, yeah." Hardison shakes his head, tightening and loosening his grip on Eliot's arm in what he hopes is a soothing pattern. "That's how normal feelings work when somebody you care about pisses you off. You talk your shit out, it hurts for a bit while it heals up, then you're good. I don't know who fucking taught you you had to pay for-"

Oh. Oh but then it hits him. The dots finish connecting and he's looking down at Eliot, who's been strung tight and volatile as a clumsily stripped live wire ever since they closed in on Moreau, and in that moment Alec knows who taught him that.

He steps in close, carefully taking the back of Eliot's neck in a gentle grip, and ducks slightly to even out their gazes. Eliot’s whole body is tensed so hard he's almost shaking with it, but his eyes start to lose their sharp edge with Hardison's easy hold.

"I need you to hear me, Eliot. If I say we're good? Then we're good. No strings attached, no games, no doing any 'favors' for me first to prove any kind of loyalty or whatever. You know I don't play that shit. Yeah? You hearing me, man?"

Eliot's body starts to lose a bit of it's tension. A hesitant nod starts, but stops early. Hardison's seen Parker do that before, when she's too nervous to fully commit to a new idea even if she wants to, so he softens his tone and backs up a bit like he does with her.

"You hear me, babe?"

"I hear you," the reply is soft, almost embarrassed, and Eliot's eyes dart away. Hardison let's him go, indulging the gruff 'pretending to shake off the touch' Eliot does a second too late to be any kind of believable, and respectfully ignores the clearing of his throat and wiping at his eyes.

"We, uh..." Eliot turns to the door, fidgeting with the handle for a moment. "So, we'll talk. In San Lorenzo. When it's done?"

"When it's done."

Affirmation granted, Eliot darts out of the room. Hardison takes a few more minutes. Washes his face. Processes all the data thrown at him in the past few minutes as much as he can before filing it away for later. For 'when it's done.'

BONUS:

I feel like later, when they have their actual talk and Moreau is dealt with and both parties are a little more calm about it, Eliot is still like okay, I hear you, I understand that you don't need this to feel like we're square... but I do. Please.

And this time, knowing a little more of the whole story, Hardison is more comfortable accepting that like you know what, okay. If this is what you need, now that we've talked it out in a much less charged scenario and I can trust that you're in (more of) your right mind about this, okay. So long as you know I don't need this, that this is for you, and that if you need to stop early you swear you'll tell me.

Eliot probably rolls his eyes a bit at that like c'mon not even a full two minutes of getting choked out? He's had to go [absurd amount of time] without air in [equally absurd situation] in [obscure country], he'll be fine.

So Hardison sets a timer, and gently presses Eliot up against a wall, hands wrapping round his throat, Eliot's hands around his wrists - the deal is that he holds on for as long as he's good, if he let's go then so does Hardison - and he starts pressing in.

The whole scene is far softer and more intimate than either of them expected. They keep crazy intense but somehow still gentle eye contact almost the entire way through - the only exception being when Eliot's eyelids start to flutter a bit near the end, his grip loosening but not letting go - and when the time's up Eliot almost doesn't want Hardison to let go. He didn't even know that was a Thing for him. It had never been like that before, and like he said it's hardly his first time being choked... but something about trusting Hardison with that level of control... it makes him realize he maybe likes it a little too much. Putting his actual life in Hardison's hands in such a very physical, tangible way.

It kind of scares him, to be honest, how easily he'd be willing to let him do it again. And thinking about Hardison always leads to thinking about Parker, and thinking about Parker always leads to thinking about Parker's hands, and he realizes that he'd even trust "I hang off buildings by my fingertips" hand strength Parker to do it too... maybe even gets excited at the idea of it...

...and realizes he's well and truly screwed.

#eliot spencer #alec hardison #eliot spencer x alec hardison #precursor to the #leverage ot3 #Moreau's mindfuckery

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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Just as I was about to go to sleep last night, I got a brain flash that went basically "something something flashback episode thiefsome themes???" so now in the light of day let's re-examine. This still isn't anything too polished, but... I think there's some interesting stuff to be found here.

Putting it under a tag so it doesn't clog up peoples' dashes too much, but the gist is that their roles actually represent their relationships/desires at each respective point in canon quite well, and it's giving me some thoughts about what a possible flashback with Hardison/Eliot would look like.

In the van Gogh Job, we get flashback Parker/Hardison. Obviously it wasn't them and the names are different and all but I'm just gonna call them f!Hardison and f!Parker because it's easier.

f!Hardison is brave, clever, determined, and deeply in love

f!Parker is loyal, comfortable, just as deeply in love, but terrified

Their flashback story is a cautionary tale as much as it is a romance. F!Hardison shares so many traits with Hardison himself, and f!Parker is a clear representation of current Parker. They make no bones about it, the parallels are extremely obvious and are even what makes the guy start telling Parker his story in the first place. Parker loves Hardison but she has found a place to belong in the team (flashback town/roller rink) and is afraid of what will happen if she disturbs that status quo by getting into a relationship with him. She's too scared of losing him (flashback to her racist dad/his buddies killing or hurting him, modern to the possibility of death mostly) to take the step to actually be with him, even though they both know she wants to. I love that there isn't any hint of her doubting his feelings or that he will remain devoted in either flashback or modern; the focus is entirely on her own fears for him and how she would handle that, not ever of him in any way.

Regardless of the timeframe, it's clear that (f!)Hardison loves her and will respect what she is willing to give him, even if that means leaving her. In the flashback, f!Parker still loves him and saves his painting in his honor for the rest of her life, remaining loyal to him despite never seeing him again. None of the emotion is in question at all, and it's clear that if she is willing to give it, her faith in him will be completely justified.

The episode basically just acts out Parker's fears (puppet-style?) and demonstrates to her that even though she would be fine if she doesn't take the leap - she'll be so much happier if she does. There's no guarantee of a happy ending, but Hardison is still himself and that means that before that ending comes at the very least, she will be happy. (Much like Sophie's beautiful speech to her.) Parker was already beginning to ease into a relationship with him, and this episode doesn't exactly drive her to jump in headfirst, but it's clear when we watch her reaction to the story what she will choose. She's going to build up her courage, but she's going to take the risk.

Now, given how transparent that episode is on their pairing, I kind of wondered what would happen if I look at the one that pairs Parker/Eliot's flashback selves: the D.B. Cooper Job.

f!Parker is understanding, supportive, loyal, and gives him a place to belong

f!Eliot starts out doing something bad for the sake of someone he loves, is drawn to her, and later feels wracked by guilt and seeks redemption by helping others

The focus in this one obviously isn't on the romance. It isn't even on either of these characters, so much as it is on Nate and his flashback self. But the parallels between modern and f!Eliot are still pretty apparent, if a bit watered down in that f!Eliot has no intentions to hurt anyone and in fact takes pains not to do so.

But as far as pairings go, I think what they do between these two is pretty interesting. Their flashback characters are drawn to one another, feel a kind of understanding and recognition that they can't quite explain. It's why f!Parker stops him before he jumps and never gives him up, it's why f!Eliot trusts her in the first place and why he shows up at her door after it is all over. I think this is a really nice parallel to the way Eliot and Parker understand one another and have this connection that is different from the rest of the team.

The other thing I like a lot is that in this episode, f!Parker is the steady support. She represents the home f!Eliot longs to have, even if she isn't the one who eventually offers him the chance to help others and make his own redemptive efforts. In fact, him working with f!Nate starts out for selfish reasons and only later evolves into a place where he feels he belongs. That's another obvious parallel to the Eliot we know, but the Parker in this episode is a little less immediately recognizable. Sure, she's an incredibly loyal person and will obviously not care overmuch about crime or whatever but mostly it's harder to see her as much in that role.

But I think she serves much the same role here as f!Hardison in the other episode. Though modern Eliot isn't hearing this story and making any resolutions based on it, the casting still represents their relationship. Parker is growing steadily into the position of leader/mastermind, and at this point she and Hardison are openly together. She is someone who understands Eliot on a very deep level, and she is coming to be the person who is his rock. While I'm not discounting Hardison's importance at all, Parker more closely fits the role of the person who encouraged him to take the job in this flashback. She's the one who, only three episodes later in Rundown, verbalizes a promise to change together. She (and also Hardison) represent the home Eliot craves to have, the belonging and support necessary for him to grow and to do good in the world. What's more, f!Parker is accurate in representing her side of things as someone who wants that for him. She wants to invite him in, wants to support him even if it's from a bit more of a distance at first (pre-relationship) but would absolutely welcome him inside as soon as he shows up at her door (once he's ready, she will bring him into the thiefsome).

And Rundown shows us that in action, again only three episodes later. Not in the sense of canon thiefsome, but Parker and Hardison are absolutely supporting Eliot leaving his darker past behind, changing with them for the better - and not just getting away with his own hands clean, but doing the extra work to help others (going after the guy who tried to hire him instead of just leaving town; again when they realize how serious the situation is but stay to fix it). The episode even ends with Eliot literally throwing away the crutch that would allow him to walk on his own, and pull them both in to support him instead. He's in the middle, he's deciding to join them even if he could get by alone, it's all representative for them welcoming him into the relationship too. (I headcanon something went down between them here but it isn't all cleared up relationship-wise until the Toy Job, but either way the themes are there!)

So with this in mind... The flashback with Hardison/Parker focused on Parker and her fears/decision to enter into a relationship with Hardison. Similarly, the flashback with Eliot/Parker focuses more on him and his desire to join the relationship. For both of them, the episode represents a shift in their relationship with one another, something not entirely unknown before, but a step that is challenging for them personally. Still, this step leads to greater happiness and growth.

All that in mind... what would a Hardison/Eliot episode look like, if we got it in Redemption? I'm getting into slight spoiler territory here, so leave now if you haven't seen the first few episodes.

Okay, so since we've had more focus on Parker, and on Eliot, this episode would focus most on Hardison. It makes sense as well for his role in the new series, because while Parker and Eliot are a little more stable, Hardison is the one entering a challenging new period of his life that is difficult but helping him grow.

I don't have any kind of full plot figured out, but here are some things I think we might see:

f!Eliot is supportive, confident, and believes deeply in him

f!Hardison is bold, struggles with self-doubt, and upends his own life in order to change the world for the better

I think Eliot's role in this flashback would be smaller, but he'd love f!Hardison deeply and the focus would not be on their relationship developing, but on the challenges it would face as f!Hardison embarks on... whatever it is. It has to be something f!Eliot knows he cannot do, and maybe even something that might mean the end of their relationship (though much like the van gogh job, the love between them is never in question).

I've seen people mentioning a Stonewall flashback episode for these two before, and that's possible. But another thing we could see is f!Hardison working against racist laws or something. Whatever the case, he needs to be doing something that benefits many, many other people, and it needs to put him at personal risk. I'm not entirely sure on what would be holding Eliot back from helping in the same way - it may just be as simple as f!Hardison gives amazing speeches and inspires so many people, while f!Eliot just doesn't have that skill. Maybe he is sick. Maybe, their relationship does end up attracting violence, and he gets hurt (doesn't even have to be their romantic relationship, if we're going a race angle and setting this episode further back, it could just be an open friendship with their romance kept secret. the themes would still be there). Whatever the case, f!Hardison has to leave Eliot behind.

And yeah, this has already happened in canon. We're already here. But if we wanted this episode to happen, I think it would be possible for the themes to still be relevant and the challenge to still be there for Hardison's character, if something brings him back to the team. If something goes down and he isn't there, and it terrifies him that he wasn't there, and he has trouble leaving again even though his work isn't done. Or if he organizes something on his end of the world that goes horribly wrong somehow. Sometimes it's not the first step that's hardest, it's keeping on even after the first big challenge. No road is free of bumps, after all, so Hardison might well think he's fine at first but start having doubts even after things have been going well for a while.

That is where you can bring this episode into play. That's where you start - f!Hardison is already getting involved in activism of some kind, but his own fame brings about negative consequences or something unrelated happens, and it scares him and makes him consider giving his work up. The episode can be bittersweet, with them never reuniting, or it can have a happier ending where he returns and f!Eliot is still waiting for him. But it's important for Eliot to represent a home that Hardison is already comfortable in, and one he has to leave in order to help others (however temporary the leaving is). And we need to see him away from the team, thriving and growing and improving so many peoples' lives in ways that never would have happened without him - both in the flashback, and in the modern part of the episode. In fact, Hardison doesn't even need to actually be physically with the team at all in the modern part of the episode. It can be more like the Broken Wing job, where we get hints at what they are doing but the focus is entirely on him and his struggle.

Of course, I have no idea how this would tie in to a modern heist. But maybe the format could be changed up, if we focus more on Hardison outside of the team. I'm sure there's some way this could be worked. And I think it would do really well in completing the trio of thiefsome episodes, and giving equal emphasis on all three of them in each one.

#leverage #leverage meta #leverage redemption #thiefsome #leverage ot3 #leverage spoilers #my meta #do i ever expect to get this hardison/eliot flashback episode? no. but i can still dream #i have to go to dinner so i don't have time to read this over for spelling errors or messups of any kind really. sorry for any of those!

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some-little-infamy · 4 years

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Dance With Us

(3x02 The Reunion Job - Coda Fic) (Read on AO3)

Eliot doesn’t care that no one bothers to respond to him once the mission’s over. He’s out of the office, he got to take his frustrations out with a few deserving human punching bags, and he’s fine. Let them have their fun… he had his. This is what he does. He doesn’t need all that.

He definitely doesn’t need to keep dwelling on how he heard Hardison ask Parker to dance before he pulled the com out of his ear and went back to Nate’s. He had plenty of those moments of his own back in actual high school, let the nerds have theirs now if they want. Whatever.

The problem is: the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that they were never moments he cared about. Even now, names and faces and, well, other assets, blended together in his memory, not worthy of any real distinction. Much like every other aspect of his life, it was always about the challenge, about the conquest, and then moving on. It never meant anything.

He definitely doesn’t need to dwell on the implications of that line of thinking, that if he were there with Parker or Hardison it would’ve meant something.

Half of a six-pack later, Hardison and Parker get back first.

“Where are Their Royal Highnesses?” Eliot asks, eyebrow raised when Hardison closes the door behind him.

“Couldn’t pull them away from their adoring fans,” Hardison quips. “So we left them for a few extra dances. Something tells me they didn’t even notice.”

Eliot lets out a ‘humpf’ sort of noise, because Nate and Sophie aren’t the only ones wrapped up in themselves tonight. Parker and Hardison haven’t stopped sharing these quick, knowing glances since they walked in, and even though it’s barely been a full minute Eliot’s had more than enough of it.

Grabbing the handle of the six-pack to take his last 3 beers with him, he’s surprised to feel Parker’s hand reach out with a firm grip around his wrist. “Thought you were going to show us how it’s done, Mr. ‘I’m The One Who Went to School Dances’?” she says.

“What?” Eliot asks, tensing instinctively when the lights dim, only for an almost disco-ball effect to project from the television screens on the wall accompanied by the opening chords of a slow rock ballad.

“You aren’t getting out of dancing with us that easily,” Hardison elaborates. Parker’s already leading Eliot by the wrist, which she still hasn’t let go of, over to where Hardison stands waiting expectantly.

“Us?” Eliot repeats, eyebrow raised.

“Well, on the way back we argued over which one of us would get to dance with you, and I won, but I also accidentally made Hardison cry so I felt bad and we agreed we’d just all dance together.”

“I did not-” Hardison starts, but one narrow-eyed glare from Parker has his lips snapping shut instead.

Hardison slides his right arm behind Parker’s back and holds his left hand out for Eliot to take. Parker holds her right hand out to do the same, and Eliot just stands there looking between them as if this must be some sort of joke.

“I don’t need your pity dance,” Eliot says, unable to find it in himself to feel anything other than defensive. That had to be it. He knows he made a few comments over the comms about no one checking in on him but he meant for them to sound sarcastic… maybe more of his actual disappointment bled through than he thought.

He knows he doesn’t quite fit in here. Nate and Sophie have their cat and mouse game history. Hardison and Parker have their secret spy stuff, with covert hacking and undetectable break-ins. All he has is violence and a short fuse. He’s the muscle, and if they didn’t need him he would’ve been gone a long time ago. He’s fine with it. Really. He doesn’t need this. He doesn’t even want it.

Except that doesn’t explain the way his heartbeat rises more staring down Hardison and Parker than it had fighting off guys twice his size earlier.

“I don’t pity anyone,” Parker says, motioning more exaggeratedly with her hand now, shoving it forcefully in his direction to take. “It’s the three of us. Always. Out there, in here. Doesn’t matter.”

The way Parker says it is the way Parker says anything - blunt and honest, which is the only reason why Eliot doesn’t doubt her words. It’s the reason instead of going back to his beer Eliot shrugs off the gray hoodie he still has on so that he’s left with just a tan flannel and his red-orange undershirt for better mobility before holding his hands out to take Hardison and Parker’s.

There’s a slight frown on his face at the immediate realization that his hands, rough and calloused, are such a stark contrast to the smooth, soft skin of the ones holding them… but even Eliot can’t frown for long when he looks up to see Hardison grinning like a damn fool and Parker giving that excited little half-smile he normally only sees her with before she’s about to jump off a building.

Without another word, they’re moving, perfectly in sync from the first step, in a three-person waltz that shouldn’t work as well as it does.

It’s perfect. Which is why he has to say something and ruin it, before something else does, not trusting the moment to last.

“This is a little ridiculous,” he points out. “No one waltzes at school dances.”

“Oh? Would you prefer something else?” Hardison asks, dropping Eliot’s hand. For a second Eliot is convinced that he did exactly what he set out to do - kept the people he cares about at arm’s length - and is surprised at the immediate disappointment he feels at succeeding. A moment later Hardison brings his hand back up to grab Parker’s, stepping closer so that Eliot is now sandwiched between them, Parker pressed against his chest, Hardison against his back.

They’re a comforting weight on all sides of him as they slow in pace down to a gentle sway back and forth. The knot in Eliot’s stomach over the assumption that he fucked everything up dissolves as quickly as it formed.

“Better?” Parker asks, her eyes searching his face to read his reaction, to make sure that it’s honest. He knows that if it isn’t, if he really wants to push them away and end this - whatever this is - he could do it and she’d let him. One hint that he doesn’t want this and she’s gone. They both are.

It’s tempting. Old habits die hard and this job would be a hell of a lot easier to do if he didn’t let himself get too attached in ways he shouldn’t be… then Hardison leans his head down just enough to rest his cheek against the back of Eliot’s head while they sway and the little stutter Eliot’s heart does tells him it’s a bit late for keeping himself in check as far as attachments go.

“Better,” Eliot agrees.

In fact, when Parker tilts her head to rest her cheek on Eliot’s shoulder, the three of them moving just a little bit closer in the process, Eliot might grudgingly admit to himself it’s the best he’s felt in a long time.

#leverage #eliot spencer #alec hardison #parker #eliot x parker x hardison #listen i don't know what this is and I've never written them before #but i just left that episode with a lot of feels #and I want some OT3 love #so here we are #elle writes a few deadbeat lines

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

#leverage #leverage redemption #leverage spoilers #leverage meta #my meta #this turned into a BIG ol ramble #i planned to write like a couple of sentences for each point but noooo

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

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what do you make of Eliot's pre-show reputation for working alone? it makes sense for Parker and Hardison, who've always worked that way, but Eliot has a history of working as part of a team in various contexts

Yeah, it's definitely interesting! Really, Sophie never gets that label of 'always working alone' (and in fact later we see her bringing in Tara, which supports that she has friendly contacts still). It's just Parker, Hardison, and Eliot. And like you said, it makes complete sense for Parker, and even Hardison's hacking is just typically more suited to be done alone even if he is a social guy on a personal level. Eliot is different, given his history.

One thing I noticed a while ago, which is also interesting, is that Eliot's job by its very nature depends on other people. Sophie, Parker, and Hardison all steal what they want - as retrieval specialist, Eliot had to be hired. That's not to say he never just took something he wanted, necessarily, but his role majorly depended on people a) knowing of him in the first place, b) trusting his reputation enough to hire him, and c) being able to get in touch with him to hire him. I highly doubt he was handing out business cards left and right, so he had to have a network of contacts to at the very least pass his name along as an 'I know just the guy for the job' kind of thing. In fact, we see him bring in a friend on a con early in S1, and he is in contact with/does jobs for old military contacts throughout the show. (Once again, in the first episode Parker and Hardison were successfully recruited for someone else’s job, so it's not like that never happened for the others. But the general trend was that they picked their own heists; Eliot was hired on by other people.)

So we have a guy here who has a history of working on teams, a reputation as a loner, and yet still actively works for people who he has to keep on good enough terms to keep hiring him. How did that happen? In my opinion, it all comes back to Damien Moreau.

Eliot's timeline goes through some distinct phases:

Rural teen with a relatively poor family, I think they mention he played football; very all-American.

Joined the army with "a flag on his shoulder and God in his heart" or however that quote went.

Highly trained military operative involved in very classified operations.

Working for Damien Moreau.

Working solo as a retrieval specialist.

Leverage.

It's easy to track him through 1-3. He was recruited into the army with promises of heroism and glory, excelled at what he did, was eventually disillusioned. Getting from there to Moreau is a bit more of a jump, and likely didn't happen immediately. Given how protective Eliot gets over people he's working with, and how vigorously he hates betrayals of trust from his team, I think it's not unreasonable to assume that part of the reason he left the army had to do with whatever unit he was in getting very hurt. Likely in a way that made him feel he failed to protect them; maybe he was the only one who made it out of one specific situation. Maybe just a bunch of people he worked with got whittled down, or maybe it wasn't anything so deadly but he saw how little their lives mattered in the grand scheme of those in charge, saw how amoral the missions he was given were, and it was more of a gradual slide into illegality. There's also the detail that as he got into more and more classified work, he might be less and less likely to have a large group of people he could talk to/be a regular team with. Either way, I think Moreau didn't completely hire him straight out of the army, but there probably wasn't a tremendously long time between him leaving that group and joining up with Moreau.

*I originally thought Eliot didn't meet Toby until after he left Moreau, but a helpful anon corrected me on that! 'In the French Connection Job he says to Nate "I was out of the service and working for my 2nd PMC", doing wetwork.' He 'should've' killed Toby but instead stayed with him for months, 'learning how to cook and how to feel'. It certainly seems like he had gone some degree of numb after his experiences in the army and even since leaving it. His second private military contract/company... still implies he was working for organizations of some sort, though I get the impression he wasn't sticking around for terribly long times. Still, even if he then works solo retrieval type gigs for a while, I don't think he was nearly as insistent on working alone/had such a clear reputation about it, not yet.

Eliot no longer believed that he was doing good. He'd lost his naive patriotism and seems to have lost his religion for the most part as well. He didn't trust the system, but for the most part he still seemed to have faith in individuals. He still kept in touch with some old colleagues, he'd learned from Toby; he still wanted to be a part of something, even if that something couldn't be the US Army. He's a self-motivated criminal now but he still isn't averse to working with others.

Then comes Damien Moreau. Whether you read their relationship as romantic or not, it was undeniably important and personal. They knew one another well. Damien even still liked Eliot years after he'd left. There's good evidence for them having an emotionally abusive relationship where Moreau took advantage of Eliot's tendency to do things for those he cares about (I reblogged a great meta on this a little while ago). But essentially what we see here is that in all his time working for Moreau, no one else made such a strong impression on Eliot. Moreau definitely seems the type to play favorites and emotionally distance Eliot from other goons - Eliot isn't just another goon after all, he's the best. He's worthy of Damien's time and attention and specific assignments that only Eliot can be trusted to get done right. Whatever process of estrangement Eliot's superior skills may have begun, Moreau quickened until there was only one person who was the most important to him. Eliot didn't just work for him as a part of some vast criminal network by the end - no, he worked directly for and with Moreau himself. He was part of a team of two for all intents and purposes, regardless of how often he may have cooperated with others on specific jobs (though I suspect that got less frequent over time as well).

And when Eliot realized how deep he'd gotten, how terrible he'd become? He left, and left Damien Moreau specifically behind. Maybe he took a break for a while, went underground... it certainly doesn't seem like he had a conversation with Moreau and resigned so much as he just ran. And when he returned it was as a solo act. What this tells me is that not only did his time with Moreau break Eliot's trust in himself, it broke his ability to trust others. Not everyone necessarily, but in a working capacity. It probably was not the first time he'd experienced betrayal (in some form or another, his time in the army definitely qualified) but it was the most personal. Eliot trusted and liked Moreau - and he did the worst things in his entire life for him.

He couldn't repeat that. He couldn't leave himself open to getting sucked in like that again. And what's more, at this point he really didn't need to. His skills were such that he could get the job done himself (and had perhaps even honed those more solo skills while working for Moreau), and doing so meant that he never had to leave himself vulnerable to someone else like that again. He didn't have to be responsible for someone else getting hurt, and he didn't have to accept that he'd put someone else in charge of who he hurt. Eliot starts being more careful not to permanently injure or kill people, starts getting more selective with his jobs, and makes it a requirement that he works them alone. He still has to accept jobs from others, yeah, but he has ultimate control over what jobs he does accept, and if he operates purely on a freelance basis without getting too involved with any one client, then he can avoid the emotional entanglement that lead to such horrific loss of judgement in the past. It's hard, because he is naturally drawn to other people... but Eliot thinks that letting no one in is by far the safer option for everyone involved. He still builds relationships with others in order to get his name out, and may do repeat work for certain people, but no one is going to own him anymore. He is good enough that he can afford to set the terms like that; when he keeps getting the job done the word will spread that even alone he is worth the money. Eliot relies only on himself and any relationships he has are necessarily shallow. Professional, brief. This extends even to friendships (that seem to involve infrequent contact for the most part) and romantic relationships (he has plenty of sex but doesn't get emotionally close to anyone, does not fall in love). He is alone - in fact he is emphatically and outspokenly alone, because he doesn't want anyone to get their hooks in him like that ever again.

(*Doing jobs like this also limits the likelihood, especially in the beginning, that he's going to end up working for Moreau again in any real capacity. As time passes and Moreau doesn't attempt to bring him back too hard, that may become less of an issue in his mind, but it could certainly be a perk at least as the start.)

Then of course we eventually come to Leverage. It's been a while since Moreau. Eliot has built a solid reputation for himself - and he is being offered a LOT of money for a job that promises to be fairly quick. At this point, he probably feels like maybe he can trust himself as part of a team again without getting too sucked in - he will just keep it to one job and go his own way afterwards. It'll be fine.

...And then he immediately gets sucked in, bonds right away and wants so badly to stay. But even then, it's because of Nate. Eliot knows Nate, trusts him to be the 'honest man', is certain enough of Nate's moral compass that it's okay to get drawn in if Nate is the one making the plans. If it weren't for him, Eliot would have walked right away. Eliot was never going to allow himself to be ruled by others again... but Nate isn't like any of those people, he is a good man. Eliot can trust him not to lead him into anything too morally wrong, and in fact the work with Leverage is a way to bring some good back into the world. Not redeem himself, that won't ever happen, but under Nate's leadership Eliot can do something good for once. He doesn't want to stop.

By the time he moves past trusting Nate's judgement so much, he already trusts and loves the whole team. Parker and Hardison especially, so now he has to stay to keep them safe... even from Nate's plans sometimes, when he gets drunk and reckless. Eliot is secure in his role as part of a team again - and he probably was very lonely without one for all that time. It's not really in his nature to work alone long-term. And a key difference this time is that everyone else gets just as invested as he, and there's a good balance of power and respect unlike all of the more hierarchical teams he was in before (army, Moreau, they would have clear command structures - hell, even high-school football has a captain and a coach). Nate is nominally in charge but they talk back to him and lead where they have the most expertise. They dedicate themselves to him as much as he to them, they change together. And they change for the better, together.

#leverage #eliot spencer #leverage meta #my meta #anonymous #replies

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