Leverage Classic - Past Seasons Discussion

[Raingirlkm]

John Rogers is heading up a Magnum P.I. sequel. Seems it is focused on his daughter. I'm a little surprised it's not a Rockford sequel given John's love for that show. I hope it does well. It was disappointing when The Player met it's end prematurely.

[fastiller]

[fastiller]

From The Frame-up Job (just finishing on Ion):

Sophie: That brain of yours is very, very sexy.
Nate: Oh, thank you very much. How about the rest of me?
Sophie: It’s a little beat-up, but... It has its charm. 

Edited November 13, 2016 by fastiller

[Gigi43]

Also from the Frame Up Job:

 

Sterling, listing why he could arrest Nate and Sophie kind of hilariously whining, "how about being annoying and crazy."

They reply at the same time : Nate: "That's not a crime!" Sophie: "That's not fair!"

 

Not a quote but Eliot's whole reaction to the"blogger dad" picture Hardison use in The Toy Job (though I feel robbed of not knowing how that picture came to exist.)

[Gigi43]

I watched The Beantown Bailout Job on Ion today, and I know I've seen some of the same posters here and on the Person Of Interest thread so I feel like sharing how when watching Kevin Chapman's scenes, my mnd has wandered off to "what names would Fusco call the team?"... and how he could probably repurpose some of Reese's for Eliot.

[MargeGunderson]

Watched The Office Job yesterday. Peter Stormare (as the German documentary filmmaker) is one of my favorite guest stars. I don't know how the other actors didn't break character and laugh. 

[fastiller]

@Gigi43 - I will have to think of Fusco's nicknames for Team Leverage. I do have a much longer post rattling around my head that talks about the similarities between the two shows. 

[fastiller]

Papadakalis!!!!!!!

[Gigi43]

I look forward to reading that. There are similarities.

[Spaceman Spiff]

On ‎7‎/‎31‎/‎2016 at 8:38 PM, Commando Cody said:

I don't see a cast in other roles topic so I'll post it here.

I was watching the team choice awards and the two guys who are in the TV series Lethal Weapon were on stage. I know Damon Wayons but I didn't know who Clay Crawford was. Then I looked at him. It's Mr. Quinn. 

I have been binge watching the dvd set during this winter hiatus and picked on this as well. He looked better here, clean shaven and in a suit, he plays Riggs too slovenly.

I have been listening to the commentaries as well this time through. Rodgers consistently repeats himself.

Parker is broken, Nate is not a nice guy, Kane has great comedic timing, Kane does a lot of his own stunts, Aldis is great at exposition, you can't see rain if it isn't backlit, Gina is gorgeous, the villain doesn't consider himself a villain.

For the people who love The Office Job, is it because you also enjoyed the series The Office? I never liked that show so The Office Job is low on my list of likes.

I also don't see any similarities between Leverage and PoI (aside from a great ensemble cast) 

[MargeGunderson]

My love of The Office Job is mostly due to Peter Stormare, the talking heads with the crew, and the small jokes (the ongoing missing sandwich issue between Hardison & Eliot). I did watch The Office but wasn't a big fan of it; I think The Office Job is funny without The Office callbacks (but it's fun to spot them).

I'm also doing a rewatch and just started season 3. I really dislike the actress who plays the Italian. She's so terrible that I find her such a distraction in every scene she's in. 

[Gigi43]

1 hour ago, MargeGunderson said:

 

I'm also doing a rewatch and just started season 3. I really dislike the actress who plays the Italian. She's so terrible that I find her such a distraction in every scene she's in. 

 

I'm 100% convinced she was only hired because at the time she was with George Clooney, who even was producing a show on TNT. She was terrible. 

 

I never got into The Office so I can take or leave the Office Job. I'm a sucker for Eliot/Hardison fun so I lIked the sandwich bit and Parkers cards were fun but Sophie was annoying. 

[Commando Cody]

One of my favorites episodes was The Office Job. I never watched the TV show, The Office, so I wasn't comparing it. I like the humor in it. 

[joanne3482]

Over the weekend I rewatched the one with Hardison in the coffin and it made me wonder... when exactly did Hardison and Parker get together? I remember them separate (but with chemistry) and I remember them together but I don't remember when it became a thing. (It kind of seemed like a thing in the episode with the coffin, but then the next episodes don't really seem like they're together and they're mad Sophie and Nate were together). 

[fastiller]

I think that Parker acknowledged to Alec that she was ready for a relationship with him at the end of The Big Bang Job (S03E15) when they're disembarking from the train and she says she's in the mood for pretzels.  Pretzels had been their own shorthand/code for a relationship.

[MargeGunderson]

I don't think they were really together until the beginning of the last season when Parker announced they were dating. 

[jenrising]

It's a bit weird. The pretzels thing happened and then there's a kind of shift like they're together, but then Parker says they're officially dating in the final season premiere. But in the episodes in between, there are signs that they're... something. 

[andromeda331]

I agree, I think they started dating in season five. But were something in season four. Parker told Hardison she wanted to meet his Nana and was ready for pretzels. But Hardison was asked in Boys Night In if Parker was his girlfriend and he answered that he didn't know. Eliot later told him he thought Hardison was slow playing it with Parker.

[ChelseaNH]

I think it comes down to:

• Season 4 -- testing out if they can be in a relationship
• Season 5 -- actually being in a relationship

[MargeGunderson]

35 minutes ago, ChelseaNH said:

I think it comes down to:

• Season 4 -- testing out if they can be in a relationship
• Season 5 -- actually being in a relationship

That's how I interpret it as well.

[joanne3482]

Ok. Thanks! I miss some episodes when they rerun on ION.  I'll have to hit netflix (although now that I think about it I avoided the Big Bird Job because I think the first time I watched it I wasn't that impressed by it.) 

[fastiller]

I do think they did a very good job of the 'slow burn' with them.  This isn't the first time I'm saying this: the show did romantic relationships so well. Parker/Hardison and Sophie/Nate should be taught in TV writing school.

[MargeGunderson]

31 minutes ago, fastiller said:

I do think they did a very good job of the 'slow burn' with them.  This isn't the first time I'm saying this: the show did romantic relationships so well. Parker/Hardison and Sophie/Nate should be taught in TV writing school.

I agree, especially Sophie/Nate! There is a scene at the beginning of the episode where the team has to help Parker beat the Steranko system where Nate feeds Sophie a bite of something he's cooked - the banter and subtext is delightful. They had terrific chemistry together.

[Loandbehold]

Aldis has a small part in Hidden Figures. I highly recommend the movie. 

[MargeGunderson]

I watched The Big Bang Job (season 3 episode 15) last night and there was another Parker/Hardison hint. The team prevented Damian Moreau from buying a bomb and in the process Parker and Hardison jump on the top of a train.  As they get off, Parker says something about wanting pretzels that was clearly meant by Parker and clearly understood by Hardison to mean that Parker was ready to move things forward. Forgot all about that!

[lizzyp]

On 1/5/2017 at 7:15 PM, Gigi43 said:

 

I'm 100% convinced she was only hired because at the time she was with George Clooney, who even was producing a show on TNT. She was terrible. 

 

I never got into The Office so I can take or leave the Office Job. I'm a sucker for Eliot/Hardison fun so I lIked the sandwich bit and Parkers cards were fun but Sophie was annoying. 

I have to defend Sophie a little bit, because I was lucky enough to get to spend a few years in England as a child- the character she was using for her workshops was a dead on compilation of some kids show hosts. 

I agree with everyone about the Italian.  She was consistently bad, and her accent was so thick that you'd have thought it might cover some of that up but actually made it even worse.  I've never listened to the commentaries, does Rogers talk about her at all?

[MargeGunderson]

The Italian wasn't able to pull off acting when she was speaking Italian. She was so wooden in her delivery.

[ChelseaNH]

On 1/18/2017 at 11:01 AM, lizzyp said:

I've never listened to the commentaries, does Rogers talk about her at all?

Yes, and he's complimentary.  They say a couple of times that they were going for a 70s spy movie thing.  Not sure which movies were their model, though.

[Hanahope]

1 minute ago, ChelseaNH said:

They say a couple of times that they were going for a 70s spy movie thing.  Not sure which movies were their model, though.

About the only one that really comes to mind is Bond, and perhaps she was just supposed to be the pretty 'bond girl'.

[Rinaldo]

More in the 60s than 70s, there were other spy movies, short-lived series or one-shot, that usually featured a shapely foreign-accented lady. Sometimes she was even the main spy, as in Modesty Blaise (Monica Vitti), from a comic strip. There were Our Man Flint and In Like Flint (James Coburn), stuffed with spy-girls of varying national origins. That Man from Rio starred Jean-Paul Belmondo and Françoise Dorleac. And of course the more serious ones starring Michael Caine. It was quite the popular genre for a while.

[Driad]

For shapely foreign-accented female spies, don't forget Natasha Fatale!

[Commando Cody]

I watched The Rashomon Job again tonight.  An ad I saw during the break was for Shrimp Fest at Red Lobster. 

[andromeda331]

19 hours ago, Commando Cody said:

I watched The Rashomon Job again tonight.  An ad I saw during the break was for Shrimp Fest at Red Lobster. 

No way! Talk about perfect timing.

[MargeGunderson]

You mean sea roaches, right?

[andromeda331]

Zero juice, that's the British for shrimp, we have different word for a lot of things, its a bit stupid isn't it?

[fastiller]

& my plea

[Watermelon]

Hardison got a SAG Award!

[MargeGunderson]

In The Office Job, about Parker: "she has the nuclear winter inside her." 

[fastiller]

[Crs97]

We are doing a rewatch (Thanks, Netflix!), and I still am loving everything and everyone but Sophie.  Wow, is her character annoying!  Nate just a few years earlier had a wife and son he loved.  He loses everything when his son died. He still is clearly grieving.  He clearly still loves Maggie, always calling her his wife.  All Sophie seems to do is get mad that he doesn't love her back.  She makes him feel guilty for it.  She begs him to leave her be to sort herself out, then gets mad that he didn't follow her when he actually did travel to London to beg her to come back.

For all her talk that Nate thinks he is better than they are, she is the one who is so holier than thou.  They treat her like she is the heart of the team.  She isn't.

[ChelseaNH]

I don't see how Sophie made Nate feel guilty.  She didn't tell him that he had to lover her; she didn't tell him to do anything at all except let her run her own life.  When Nate went to London, he asked Sophie to come back for the team, not for himself.  He wanted to return to the way things were before, but Sophie had already decided that she didn't want that.  So his argument was basically "Give up what you want so I can have what I want."  Unsurprisingly, that didn't work.

BTW, Sophie's realization was that Nate was too messed up to be in a relationship.  In Season 1, The Snow Job, he says that she knows him, and she says that she knew him two years ago, but he's changed.

[Crs97]

YMMV.  In my opinion, her getting upset whenever he calls Maggie his wife and yelling, "ex-wife!" is annoying and pushy.  She has been making references to the unfairness of people having to wait and Nate's reaction is always one of guilt.  She sent him away in London, fine, but then whined to the rest of the team that he had a good thing and didn't chase it when it left.  His life fell apart only a few years ago; yet she makes it all about her.  I didn't like her during the first run, but started watching again figuring I would have a fresh perspective, only to discover I still can't stand her.  Frankly, I think I liked Tara better.  At least if Tara had stolen the two Davids she would have owned up to it and not acted like a victim when she got called out for conning the team.

[Hanahope]

Man, I miss this show, these days more than ever.  Can you imagine some of the plotlines they could cull from current events?

[ChelseaNH]

People used to say that the villains were so over-the-top, and now they'd be like, "Oh, that's so lame, what about so-and-so?"

[andromeda331]

Its funny that's what people said about the villains. Didn't Devlin base a lot of the villains after real life criminals?

[fastiller]

Devlin did indeed base the villians/plots on real life events.

I think they pretty much foretold many of the events we've seen since the show went off air.

[scriggle]

John Rogers has said they actually toned the villains/crimes down because, even though they were based on real life, they feared they would be seen as too over the top.

[andromeda331]

So did anyone read about the North Korean missile and think Eliot?

[fastiller]

[DittyDotDot]

I've spent the last few weeks watching Leverage for the first time--down to the last three episodes and kinda putting off ending this little journey--I decided to watch it mostly because I started watching The Librarians recently and fell in love with John Rogers on the commentaries; thought I should see what else the guy has done for shits and giggles.

It's so funny now, but I didn't think I'd make it through the first season when I started. It just seemed like the premise couldn't hold up for many episodes before I got bored of it. Boy was I wrong. Even though there is a ton of hand waving and suspension of belief, the show managed to stay fresh and entertaining throughout its run, IMO. 

Wow, did they not strike gold with this cast, or what? I can't say I'm a fan of any of the actors, but all of them together is magical. They not only had great chemistry, but it feels like they were having the time of their life making this show. I love that.

I think I might rewatch the whole series from discs now; I think I NEED the commentaries and such. ;)

As a little sidenote: As a former resident of Portland, it was really fun spotting some of the locations and thinking about how much Portland has changed--or not--since I moved away. They did a great job of disguising the city at times and it was really fun when they just had them move there in the final season and not have to disguise the city anymore.

Edited April 24, 2017 by DittyDotDot