Rewatching The Pilot And Watching How, When He Sees How Much That Score Made Him, Eliot's Tucking His

every time i see someone call kirk and spock the oldest ship, i'm filled with the urge to go "hmm actually the holmes and watson girlies have been here for a hundred years now", and i refrain because i know the natural conclusion of this game is gilgamesh and enkidu

first rule of fandom is everything goes back to destiel

second rule of fandom is everything goes back to kirk/spock

third rule of fandom is everything goes back to holmes & watson

fourth rule of fandom is everything goes back to achilles & patroclus

Thinking again about the discussion around "The Fractured Job" rewriting Eliot's backstory and undoing the original series' implication that he was abused by his father. It's a 100% valid read that's supported by the text, but it's also worth noting that it wasn't intended by the creators (at least John Rogers, who's been pretty vocal about it).

From "The Tap-Out Job" commentary:

John Rogers: “And there is—you know, a lot of people look at this one, and ‘Order 23,’ to think that maybe Eliot had been abused or something as a child, and it’s—that’s facile. This is just a guy with a relationship with violence. He’s beaten up, he’s been tortured, he’s a guy who has learned bad things can happen to you and this is how he internalizes it.”

From "The Order 23 Job" commentary:

John Rogers: “And it's also interesting to see how fans react to any sort of storyline like this, where they just assume you're trying to reveal something about the character’s past or some sort of subtle hints that we’re laying in. It’s like no, Eliot doesn't like guys who beat up kids. It's not—I mean there's plainly other stuff going on that Christian chose in order to base his acting around…”

(Thanks to @leverage-commentary for the transcripts)

I find it interesting that in 2009/2010, he devoted commentary time to debunking this. What that tells me this interpretation was prevalent enough to seem worth addressing (probably because they didn't do themselves any favors with how they told their story, leading a huge chunk of the audience to the same conclusion...)

hi excuse me kristin cashore is working on FOUR books rn ??

what do we think they are 👀

"Neal plays the tycoon to lure in his victims, and then cons them out of thousands of dollars."

Leverage Redemption S03E06 The Swipe Right Job.

guess who ended up drawing a comic of an entire scene from Artificial Condition

The Swipe Right Job (S03E06) LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION (2021—)

can't believe the plot of leverage is literally 'man gets hired to be a project manager for Crime and then is forcefully adopted by the employees he doesn't want'

okay pro tip: leverage is a really great show for when you're dealing with stress about the world, capitalism, politics, corruption in general... it's the ultimate comfort show to me, and I know I'm going to be watching a lot of it today as we wait for things to happen.

however.

today is a really bad day to watch the episode where they steal an election.

okay no but now I'm really thinking about it, right

it's canon that Maggie had no idea IYS denied Sam's cancer treatment, that's the only reason she stayed friendly with Blackpoole. So au where instead of letting his life fall apart, putting together the team, and then taking down Blackpoole, Nate decides to echo current events and just. Fucking shoots his boss.

and Maggie has no clue why.

maybe he succeeds, maybe he doesn't, either way he goes to jail for this (he was not planning to get away with it). And Maggie's just lost her son, now her husband's an (attempted) murderer and in prison, she's on her own and has no answers for any of this.

So she goes looking.

she might not directly have Nate's contacts and experience, but he had to have talked about these cases, she knows who a few of these people are through him. But she also has her own connections through the art world - like, Parker and Sophie at least have to be talked about by appraisers, collectors, people who work with the things they steal. And she has Sterling, who while still probably not helpful for breaking the law at least likes her more than he likes Nate and might be able to get her some more information. Like why the fuck Nate did what he did.

And she's not a mastermind, she's not Nate's level of manipulative and three steps ahead of everyone else, but she doesn't need to be. She's smart and charismatic and quick to put pieces together (the fucking button camera scene). So. She figures it out.

And then she has to decide what to do about it.

She's not going to be able to exonerate Nate - he shot a man in broad daylight and fully admitted it. She might be able to break him out of prison if he's up for being on the run, but that's a matter of hot debate between the two of them right now. (She could totally do it, especially with the team, she and Sophie are just waiting for him to stop being overprotective.)

(side note: nate's face when he finds out his ex wife and international criminal not-technically-an-ex are running a team together while he's stuck in prison? priceless)

but what she can do is protect other kids like Sam. Seek out corruption, find the people being hurt, and with her team, stop the people responsible from ever doing it again.

she just needs to create a little bit of leverage.