S02.E01: The Debutante Job

[tessaray]

Release Date: November 16, 2022

Description: TBD

[DearEvette]

They haven't missed a beat.

Very nice Hardison heavy episode.  I swear Aldis Hodge give Hardison such a personality.  It is a joy to listen to him banter/argue with Elliot and Breanna. Also his working class British accent is great.

We got a Dammit Hardison!

The sight of Parker as a giant crawfish running to hug Hardison was my first big giggle of episode.

A nice callback to one of Sophie's earlier personas, Charlotte, the Duchess of Hanover. 

Breanna looked gorgeous dressed up as an African Princess.  Very much looked like the character Vanessa Bell Calloway played (as Eddie Murphy's  rejected princess) from Coming to America.

Good to have the show back!

[Llywela]

Hmm. For me, it's a shame they went with a 'London' episode for the first one back - as a Brit, I always find it so painful when they try to do 'England'. (I know the King George Job is loved, and it is fun, but it is also painful). They just can't fake it accurately. The locations look wrong. The interiors look wrong. The names are wrong. No one on the writing team understands how the peerage works, still (no, a duchess is not royalty, although royalty can be duchesses). And so many painfully fake accents (looking at you, airport check-in clerk girl and Met detective, urgh)

Breanna looked stunning in her princess outfit and hair. I love having Hardison around with the rest of the gang, even if we can only have him now and then. I enjoyed the aging rocker and another glimpse into Sophie's many-storied past (Kiki!).

I'm glad to have the show back.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Llywela

[AnimeMania]

The team pulls Harry back into the fold to help a journalist investigating the corrupt president of a small eastern European nation. But when the journalist is grabbed, our team has to infiltrate a London Ball to extract him.

Edited November 16, 2022 by AnimeMania

[P2C2E]

Aldis Hodge is one beautiful man.

[Prevailing Wind]

A Beadazzled Taser!  I love it.

[Maelstrom]

Woo hoo, Leverage is back! Watching this show always makes my day, and having new eps is a cause for celebration.

A solid first ep back, and I'm happy for however much Hardison we can get. I really liked seeing him and Breanna interact more, since we got relatively little of them together last year. Last year's Card Game Job gave Parker a nice chance to recognize that Breanna had outgrown being just "the little sister", so it's fitting that Hardison gets that revelation this year. Though their sibling dynamic hasn't necessarily had much chance to develop onscreen the actors do so beautifully with it that I fully believe the two of them grew up together. I don't know whether Aleyse Shannon rehearsed with Aldis much or practiced on her own or if it's just natural, but she imbues Breanna with so many of the same mannerisms and speech patterns and little quirky touches that Aldis/Hardison has that it's absolute perfection. I can just picture little Breanna following Hardison around Nana's house trying to be just like him. Yet watching her find her own strengths and make a place on the team that's all her own is so much fun. It's not often the "replacement" character is as good as the original in their own way.

And that superhero stylin' is really working on Aldis. 😎

Sophie having a much more methodical approach to leadership so far is interesting, and while I'm not completely sold on the idea yet (being a drama queen is in her DNA, lol, I'm not necessarily sure she could switch it off even if she wanted to) I trust that this show will develop her character arc as the season progresses. They've never failed to do so with any of the characters, which is one of the things I love most about this show. I do find it believable that officially being The Leader would put a little more mental pressure on her, hence coming at the jobs with a different approach. At any rate, it's always nice to see Charlotte Prentiss, Duchess of Hanover, make an appearance. And we got to meet yet another artist Sophie acted as muse to!

In a related note, seeing Eliot geek out over something and Hardison being grumpily indifferent was a fun spin on their usual dynamic. Though, of course, the thought of messing with Eliot's sandwich continues to strike fear into the hearts of everyone except Hardison. Classic.

Other fave callbacks beyond The Sandwich: Parker's love of puppets, the bedazzled pretzel on Hardison's phone, Parker's caterer name badge being Alice, Hardison complaining about the smell of truffles and Eliot snapping that they built an entire job on truffles. (Sophie's truffle hippie remains one of my favorite of her personas).

I have never seen the name Todd spelled with an H, lol. Loved that Parker didn't know how to pronounce it.

[marceline]

It's obvious they knew how much we missed Hardison. They brought him back in the best way.

I need to know all the details about Eliot's sandwich. It looked like bread instead of an everything bagel.

I'm still amazed that we're getting new Leverage episodes. I never imagined this.

On 11/17/2022 at 7:25 PM, Maelstrom said:

And that superhero stylin' is really working on Aldis. 😎

It is.

Edited November 20, 2022 by marceline

[DoctorAtomic]

Parker was dressed as the Thirteenth Doctor in the first picture when Hardison was trying to put up the presentation. Breeana's hoodie was programming languages. My closed captions even had 'Tohd'. 

Wyle did a great job playing reactions shots to Sophie when she showed up as the lawyer. 

I like Sophie and Wilson; good dynamic. 

I never saw why Sophie *needs* to be the lead. At this point, it could easily rotate as expertise dictates. 

[Slovenly Muse]

I'm so glad this show is back! It just never fails to make me happy! And getting Hardison is always a bonus!

I do get a kick out of the opening credits EVERY TIME with the silhouettes showing everyone's skills, and Harry's is, apparently... turning around. I legit chortle every single time.

I will say, as much as I love Breanna and was glad to see her hold her own here with Hardison around trying to be the big brother, I do think she played a valuable role in the first season as the newbie. These sorts of con/heist shows ALWAYS eventually encounter the same problem (looking at you, Hustle!), which is that after years of watching these characters get out of extremely tight situations using almost superhuman levels of skill, it becomes really hard to build tension in an episode. What could possibly be happening that this highly-skilled team can't gain control of? And if everything seems to be going wrong, OF COURSE it's a fake-out and they planned it this way all along, because they're just too good to leave themselves open like that. Establishing stakes and creating tension and uncertainty, from a writing perspective, is just too hard, and eventually the show becomes predictable or stale. This is why I was glad to see Breanna and Harry come in last season as genuine newbies. They had some skill, but they were actual real wildcards, and maybe they COULDN'T handle the situations they were in, and maybe they WOULD need rescuing, or make a dumb mistake and endanger the plan... I thought it was a really brilliant way to reintroduce some of that tension into the storytelling! So, this episode, establishing Breanna as being a worthy successor, who can even outdo Hardison at times, felt like a bit of a misstep. It was lovely for the character, but I'm not sure it's the best for the overall dynamics. It was so fun to watch her learning the ropes last season! Let her keep learning! And yes, Harry still feels like a newbie, but he's so inconsequential that it doesn't really matter what he does. Breanna typically has a lot more resting on her shoulders.

Man, I'm so happy that this show is still going, and that it is still delightful. The last season of the original run was starting to wear on me, but the reboot has managed to recapture the magic, and I am in!

[DoctorAtomic]

9 hours ago, Slovenly Muse said:

These sorts of con/heist shows ALWAYS eventually encounter the same problem (looking at you, Hustle!), which is that after years of watching these characters get out of extremely tight situations using almost superhuman levels of skill, it becomes really hard to build tension in an episode.

They also eventually build up effectively infinite resources too. 

[blueray]

I'm glad this show is back. I wasn't sure about having it immediately jump into a con that is somewhere else (England) and wasn't sure if I cared for the "con"? Actually they weren't really conning him they just needed the proof that he stole the statue and to get the journalist back. But I did enjoy seeing the characters again. Though one question, where did Parker go? I mean she was there as a server but once Elliot & Hardison got into the elevator she just disappeared from the story until randomly popping up at the end back in the US. Did I miss something?

[andromeda331]

I love this show and so happy it's back. I'm happy that Hardison was in the first episode. I really missed him last season. I do still love Breanna and Harry additions. It was really great seeing Breanna's and Hardison's sibling interactions. Hardison seeing Breanna as more then his little sister. I love Hardison not helping out Eliot while he was fighting the guy. I miss their relationship too.

A nice call back to Charlotte Prentiss. I loved Breanna's outfit as Princess. She looked great. 

Always happy for a Scrooge McDuck reference.

Bradley helping out Hardison and Eliot about the car battery. I like Hardison thanking him and sorry that happened to him.

[aradia22]

The accents were ALL over the place this episode.

If you're going to make me choose between Breanna and Hardison, Breanna will lose every time. 

"The plan is I'm a Swiss banker with narcolepsy."

Sophie being the muse of an aging rockstar was a fun way to work Brian May and the London basement thing

I know the budget isn't high but that "debut" being a dinner party at home was lame. The $5000 dress was also cheap as hell. They did better going minimalistic with Sophie though I can still tell how cheap all the costumes are.

The Tohd jokes got very silly. OK, episode. I feel like they forgot about Bradley for much of it to focus on the jokes. There wasn't a lot of actual conning.