itsaverydistinctiveblog

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yknow the leverage crew’s plans are always at least a little off the shits and slightly morally dubious and hey that’s what makes them fun or whatever but like. they really just went with some full scale psychological warfare in the episode with the fake pandemic thing

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alec hardison : 

- faked being a lawyer and actually won a case that was declared open and shut by all parties involved

- managed to stop a plane crash from miles away, while posing as a long-term employee in a company (and actually had everyone believe he’d been working there for years) 

- played one of the most difficult violin solos magnificently (even if you take nate’s hypnosis into account, which i don’t, he wouldn’t have been able to do it if he didn’t already have the talent required) 

- forged a historical document so brilliantly it fooled an expert

- hacked the smartest and most efficient security system in the world to save his teammates, with a laptop he found in the back of his truck. in a SINGLE DAY.

- took control of an airport control tower by faking a tornado alert 

there are so many more instances of hardison being an actual genius who can adapt to any situation and do seemingly impossible things quicker than anyone. i love him SO much 

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Eliot on Hardison’s brew pub purchase for ronandhermy.

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Beth Riesgraf as Parker in Leverage: Redemption (2021—)

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Say what you will about redemption but the character premises for the two new leads absolutely slap. "Hardison's 20 year old hacker little sister who grew up with the highlight reel of leverage decides to join and learns the gritty details that were left out of storytime" and "guy who would probably be a mark under different circumstances decides to Do Better and get kidnapped into the team about it" are both objectively funky ideas.

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Leverage 2x15 - "The Maltese Falcon Job"

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You're right and you should say it.

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Leverage AU where the first episode never happens but Nate becomes a vigilante anyway, on his own. (at first)

Here’s the thing:

Nathan Ford, IYS, has a reputation in the grifter’s world. An honest man, they say—a man who will do the right thing more often than not, who can be trusted to honor his word. And there’s a respect attached to that, because even if he’s wearing the wrong color hat, he’s at least committed to it, good at it.

But a reputation also means that he’s known, and the shit that went down with his son is common knowledge, at least in the right circles. It means that even those in the thieving community are just a little pissed off for his sake.

So they—“take pity” isn’t quite the phrase. That underestimates him and overestimates your average criminal’s benevolence. But there’s a group of them who suspect he didn’t hunt them as fiercely as he could have, who know turned the other way because sometimes the law and ethics don’t quite overlap. And what else are they supposed to do, when they hear that The Nate Ford has flipped, and is attempting to carry off major cons that require at least a team of five?

They do try to stay in the shadows at first. As a favor, to his pride. (And if there’s anything Nate still has a lot of, it’s pride.)

”What the fuck,” Eliot snarls at a whisper, trying to stuff himself into a utilities closet and almost tripping over some asshole crouched on the floor with a laptop perched on his knees. “Shut up,” the geek hisses. “I’ve got five seconds to override the security system before Ford turns a corner—”

“Eliot Spencer,” Eliot grunts after Ford has turned the corner and they’re in the clear.“Hardison,” the geek says with a grin. They shake hands awkwardly, given that there’s a mop-bucket between them.)

They don’t mean to keep working together, but it’s easier, nicer to have someone who will bring the coffee, rig the building with spy tech or fight off the ex-Mossad guys who turn up. Someone to complain with, about Nate Ford’s persistent insanity, how they enable it, and deliberately not talk about why they keep coming back, all the same.

(Eliot is slowly colonizing Hardison’s Nana’s kitchen. He calls her “ma’am” in that Oklahoma drawl and she goes fluttery, it makes Hardison roll his eyes, and bite down on a smile.)

Three of Nate’s jobs later, the security system suddenly goes offline and there’s a sound like a delighted scream. Both Hardison and Eliot freeze. “You saw that, right?” Hardison asks, staring out the window, eyes wide. “Blonde girl just went hurtling off the side of the building, tell me you saw that.”

(It takes a few more jobs before they can coax her into sitting down for a meeting at the nearby diner.)

Her name is Parker. She’s cagey as hell, but she eats an impressive amount of pancakes, and apparently loves jumping off buildings. And jewelry. Not for wearing, just for stealing.

“Awesome,” Hardison breathes, grinning at her. She lights up in the reflection of it, the moon to his sun.

(Which makes Eliot—-                               well. he’s never liked metaphors.)

A couple others come and go, cycling through the group (”No, Parker, we are not calling ourselves ‘Fordites’, we’re not a cult.”) but it’s mostly it’s just the three of them, following Nate’s plans from the shadows. Making them work.

“Oh no,” Sophie Devereaux—she’s not going by that name yet, but eventually—says, when she sees their little cabal of part-time Robin Hoods. “This won’t do.”

Hardison, Eliot, and Parker trail behind her into the bar, and then watch, wide-eyed, as Sophie Devereaux gives Nathan Ford the haranguing of his life. He’s drunk, they’re pretty sure, but his eyebrows creep up inch by inch until she finishes with a beautifully enunciated, “SO THERE.”

Nate eyes the three of them, who are trying to look very busy studying the floor, their hands, or the walls of the bar. “So you have names?” he asks, probably just to make Sophie splutter.

It’s strange, to be in the same room as he does this, the four of them arrayed around him. To actually have him catch Parker’s eye and smile, very slightly, as he says, “we provide….leverage.”

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Breanna once said:

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leverage is so fucking funny. man manages to find the most mentally ill and neurodivergent group of thieves on the market + an even more mentally ill guy whose literal job description was trying to chase all of them, and forces them into a found family speed-run by trying to blow them all up. they lowkey stage a full fucking country wide coup and are like eh 🤷 just another wednesday. this might be a fun place to vacation tho i guess. sophie shows up to her own funeral twice. they're so good at convincing people of their shit that they make a guy's body start reacting to an illness he doesn't have because it isn't real. go completely out on a limb and basically hand this one guy a new password for his computer so they can get into it and he goes with it. parker and hardison have straight up just "fake it 'till you make it"d into the fbi without even attempting to cover their tracks beyond just These Two Guys. half their clients never asked to be their clients and don't know they're their clients, and the other half are random people who find them who fuckin knows how, meanwhile no government agency can track them down without selling their soul to sterling. they make a point to have a dramatic scene w a Big Bad Shadowy Government Guy who doesn't actually get caught or brought to justice or anything telling them he's going to hunt them all down, and in any other show this would probably earn at least a minor arc later on but he literally never shows up again. an entire season finale hinged on a cake and a bunch of clams. they accidentally made eliot a celebrity not once, not twice, but three times. parker blew up her foster parents' house when she was like. nine. and it's hardly a footnote. hardison is just casually an artistic prodigy but it's only ever brought up for the most background of background gags. eliot's biggest beef with parker and hardison for like two and a half seasons is that they won't stop making weird food with lasers and refuse to realize they can't make a decent beer to save their lives. sophie's immediate response to being shot is to call her shooter a wanker. there's a character who has literally killed a man with a mop and they had the audacity to only put her in one episode.

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Leverage parodying The Office was 10/10 much better than The Office

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Leverage Redemption + wolfpupy tweets

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"I don't think you're gonna do it. You didn't kill the man responsible for your son's death."

Leverage S04E18 The Last Dam Job.

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