#The Broken Wing Job

[leverage-ot3]

[independent-fics]

Nathan Ford Being a Dad™ Parallels

Leverage (2008-2012):

04x16 The Gold Job

05x05 The Gimme a ‘K’ Street Job

05x08 The Broken Wing Job

[qwanderer]

Thought: Parker asking what the bear does in broken wing job raises so many questions about what Bunny does

[aardvaark]

Ok so... What's your story for what the rest of the crew was up to during the Broken Wing Job? Who were they after, what happened with the monkey, etc.

ooh this is such an interesting question!! i know i’m gonna give a ridiculously long answer and i’m just gonna have to apologise in advance. there’s a tl;dr in bold at the end! also, disclaimer that i understand it was just meant to be a noodle incident and i respect & enjoy the choice to never reveal what actually happened. the ambiguity and whatever your brain makes up is more fun than any canon answer for something like this. but theorising can be a lot of fun too and i love to piece together the info we DO get!!

well, what we do know about what happened:

sophie grifted a curator to get a statue of a golden monkey

they also needed an actual live monkey: a snow monkey/japanese macaque. which are fairly common in japan, so it’s like extra weird that they’re not stealing some rare or highly sought after animal yk?

eliot had to fight someone (standard tbh) but he seems to have had time to prepare, like either a private meeting turned south or an organised fight

somehow sophie seemed to be receiving a medal and hardison was dressed as though he was a decorated japanese soldier at the same event, also receiving some kind of honour.

sophie & nate burned something at the end, something that nate didn’t know if sophie would be comfortable burning.

eliot met emperor akihito, who didn’t want eliot around his granddaughter (seems like eliot flirted with her or she flirted with him, considering their reactions).

it’s in tokyo, japan - which is unusual for the team. the vast majority of their jobs happen in the US. when they go to other countries or interfere with international politics, it probably starts with a client in the US. eg the san lorenzo job happened bc they were already pursuing moreau, the stork job (in serbia) happened because of american adoptive parents, they interfere with another country’s politics in the scheherazade job bc of a journalist in the US, etc. so i think this probably somehow *started* with an american client and became international.

you made me go through john rogers’ blog to get more info, which is extremely evil of you because i always get sidetracked like 50 times on that blog and end up with a thousand new theories and character thoughts lmao. but from the blog:

VERY interesting information. in the rashomon job, the monkey statue is what eliot was supposed to "retrieve" from north korea for his client, and when he failed to do so, that client sent hitters after eliot and then made him steal the dagger of aqu’abi to make up for the statue. in the two horse job, a flashback to north korea in 2005 has people yelling at eliot "where’s the monkey?!", and since the rashomon job happened around 2005, that monkey is probably the same monkey statue. in other words, this goddam statue has been eluding eliot for YEARS. also, evidently, it must be very valuable and highly sought after.

unfortunately i can’t find the podcast but im thinking "money" makes a lot of sense and that maybe i don’t want to know what her answer was lol. anyway, somehow the con led to gaining cash that they felt it was best to destroy rather than give to the client or keep as "alternate revenue". i guess it was dirty money or perhaps just too easily traceable.

SO!

a US client somehow led to a job in japan where they got a valuable monkey statue and a real monkey, were awarded for something, fought someone, and then burnt a pile of money.

i’m gonna say the fact that there’s a real monkey and a monkey statue is not a coincidence… did they paint the real monkey gold and get it to attack someone who thought it was a statue?? did they claim the statue had come to life??

tl;dr - my best idea is that eliot heard through the grapevine that the statue that had been giving him trouble all those years had surfaced in japan. an old friend of eliot’s tells him that some Evil Guy TM (the episode’s mark) is trying to blackmail him & other retrieval specialists/thieves into retrieving it. the team decides that they will go undercover to steal it and put an end to the saga for good. so they all have to get cover identities and grift because they’d usually do a heist but parker is out. sophie eventually grifts her way into getting into whatever vault the statue is in, then they sell their mark the statue and are paid with lots of cash, they let the mark tell everyone he has the statue, then switch it with the real monkey to make the mark look like a liar or like he was imagining things etc. then they also expose tons of files on other Evil Guy stuff the mark has done.

the mark, however, is so high profile that he was in the same circles as the emperor, and the team had to meet him during the con. when the emperor hears that sophie(‘s alias) took down that Evil Guy who was exposed for lots of evil stuff, he awards sophie and hardison for their efforts. which is a whole thing, because obviously they’re now having to make sure their fake identities hold up under national/international scrutiny - classic "accidentally did so well that we caused ourselves more problems" leverage moment. somehow they pull that off successfully though.

i think the live monkey was released into the wild or returned to a sanctuary, cause i don’t think they’d harm an animal. i believe there’s a snow monkey animal park in japan, maybe it was released there? as for the monkey statue, it seems like it’s too dangerous to keep or even give to someone. like, eliot’s been attacked over it a couple times, you couldn’t give it to anyone who isn’t prepared to get into fights and be hunted down for it. maybe they placed it somewhere hidden in the animal park with the real monkeys.

um so yes this is ridiculously long now and i realise that it’s weird to like, cite sources on this fandom ask lol. but there you go! thanks so much for the question, i had a lot of fun trying to draw connections and figure it out!!

[chungledown-bimothy]

They're doing a lot of establishing the team being able to work without Nate. I love it, dgmw- especially this episode.

But I'm increasingly concerned for Nate's survival of the finale.

[werewolfsmile]

Okay, what is under Parker's shirt???

In The Broken Wing Job, there's clearly something around her waist but under her shirt, most visible when her back is to the camera. My first thought would be her lockpicks? Cause she tends to keep them on her person all the time. But they're really not necessary for this episode and certainly not for these scenes. So is this just Beth being that dedicated to the role that she wears the lockpicks 24/7? Is it something else I'm missing entirely? I saw this on my last watchthrough and can't stop thinking about it.

[amazzyblaze]

"The Broken Wing Job" doodles

[arretoskore]

Still dying to know what the hell was going on in Japan during the broken wing job

[blog-of-reaction]

Parker and Amy are now friends!!! Parker is making more friends and she is being awesome and I love a Parker centric episode hell to the yes.

[richardsphere]

Leverage Log: The Broken Wing Job

So this season's possible fourth episode whose title may be indicitive of an aircraft theme. (DB Cooper, First Contact, Very Big Bird being the others).

Look when they started shooting in a city that, aparently has an airplane museum. Using more plane-related sets makes sense logistically and financially. Playing with the opportunities provided there. Nonetheless, I hope very much it isnt aircraft themed. Maybe the broken wing just refers to like, an actual injury instead?

Maybe the client finds an injured bird, or its a metaphor being "grounded" by an injury? Like maybe this is one of those "1 teammate is stuck at home" episodes, like the one where Hardison overslept because of WOW. (that one had an aircraft too now that I think about it.) My metaphorical money is on "client was grounded, and the plan is to ground the Mark". But I guess we'll see. --- Cold open features the Crew. Thats odd. (i know technically the DB Cooper one also featured Parker. But she was wearing a mask so it could be a dramatic reveal. This one just goes right out and shows Nate frame 1)

Parker's got a bad leg. Wing identified and the crowd goes wild!!! Unfortunately "someone's stuck at home cause injury" is one of my least favourite types of excuse for a bottle episode. (which is usually the doylist reason such a plot is written.) I mean they can be funny, but they tend to overstay their welcome. Either that or everyone's schedules were just very busy for a month or two so they got them all together in a hallway in a hotel for 1 scene and paid Riesgraaf overtime. But these types of episodes are usually Budget or Scheduling motivated is what im saying. --- Quick google says an ACL is one of the ligaments in the knee. Parker better listen to Hardison or the next thing she'll be stealing is Archie's Cane. --- Episode introduces us to the Brewery Staff with a little get-well-soon bear. So it might actually just be an excuse plot to introduce us to a secondary/tertiary cast of characters for the season. (8 episodes into a 15 episode season is perhaps a bit late to do that.) --- Ok so we have a bunch of subplots couple where the girl thinks the boy is cheating. (my bet: Secretly planning to propose or something, hence being away more often for badly explained reasons.) Romeo and Juliet, (end up together, hopefully without double-suicides) "chicken Parm Jerk" who always orders the same thing, takes a single bite and sends it back. (Thats a verry specific behavioural patern. Feels very "Anton Ego" "if i do not love it, I do not swallow". Probably a secretly sympathetic backstory. "Loved it growing up, but it never tastes like Mothers Recipe" sort of deal) V&K, probably the episodes dedicated marks, (very pushy and specific about having the window seat. My bet is they're watchers/lookers for a gang. Either that or casing the security at whatever building is across the street) So they offer 4 coffees, and V (i think its V) takes 2 coffees outside. That means they have cohorts outside. Parker's anger that Hardison didnt wiretap the shit out of their lair-front is hilarious. --- Avoiding eye contact with Amy specifically. (I dont think i saw them lift their hand to block sightlines when they were getting served by another server earlier in the episode when they got the 4 coffees.) Amy's dad wants her to "inherit the family business", a business that is apparantly broad enough that "what is the family business" gets answered with "what isn't the family business". Amy's dad is a large corporate mogul and she's a valuable potential hostage. They're not casing the building across the road, they're casing Amy. Writers thought they could trick me with a feint but im onto them! --- V is smarter then K, (or at least more experienced) Professor Parmesan is fiddling with a thing on his finger (probably a ring, but i cant see it probably). Loved the recipe as made by a deceased wife, not a dead mom. --- Camera zoom in on the map. (IRL security camera's dont work that way. They tend to be shitty. But knowing Hardison and the importance of keeping this multi-billion dollar stock-manipulation enterprise afloat, he'd have sprung for actually good camera's and extra large storage servers. So im gonna say this is one case where the "enhanced zoom" is justified) --- Ok you're telling me that Hardison, in an attempt to set up a place where no cops or FBI would ever show up even by accident placed their front-operation across from a pawnshop full of potentially valuable antiques, a bank and a fucking jeweler. Are the writers fucking kidding with this? Like putting it across from one of these 3 would be a stretch given Hardisons goals in aquiring the Brewpub, putting it on a crossroads with all of these is character assasination on the writers part.

Hardison would not have bought a brewpub located at this crossroad. --- Amy getting really sus of Parker (who she knew was in a French prison) knowing so much about the psychology of a robbery.

"Okay i've got to ask, Is any of this illegal" --- Sid might actually be cheating. (sucks). But i guess Parker's gonna send that picture to his girlfriend. Romeo and Juliet both play the violin,

Parmesan is a doctor. 2 coffees with a tracker, trying to find "O" (the numbers are unknown, but my bet is on time, based on them all being multiples of 5, not one of the second digits being above a 6. I assume the leading 000 is to disguise the nature of the numbers) --- Oh, America aparently has special licensed plates for disabled people. Good to know. Also Parker has leveled up her Social Awareness enough that she now realises that telling Amy how she recognised it was definitly a getaway vehicle would be bad.

"you know what to do and I know how to walk... no offense." Great line 7/10. (cant really go higher then that on a line with no overall importance. Still its a good line) --- Amy's reaction to inadvertantly telling her Employers Girlfriend they've been lazy. (Good for her this entire thing is a front. You'd literally keep your job without customers) ---

Ah the good ol "Watson you're a genius!" trope, (its a classic. I love it.)

Oh no, is she setting Romeo and Juliet up with people who arent cheat and the ex. (which means something? I suspect cops like in the Bottle Job)

--- Oh V using the glass as a mirror, cunning. --- And the kidnapping gone wrong is underway. Dates were cops, Doctor Parmesan is a badass.

V spots the camera's. ---

Parkers beats the guy single-handed (or more like single-legged). Dr. Parmesan is gonna find a new food, one that can bring him joy instead of grief.

Zombie Movienight.

[somestorythoughts]

Rewatched The Broken Wing Job and now i’m thinking about how a few episodes before that Eliot taught Parker about Feelings in Food and now she’s looking at this guy order the same thing over and over and not eat any of it and digging around finds that he litterally just lost his wife and understands that sometimes the feelings in food are painful and sets about arranging things with the staff to help him find a food that gives him happy feelings. Just because.

[these-modern-times]

My love for the The Broken Wing Job episode of Leverage knows no bounds. I freaking love Parker so damn much, she’s an awesome badass. She’s also an incredibly sweet baby angel.

[ricopop]

Would you let him into your house yes or no. anyways i thouvht itd be cute if he was a mailman. okaayyy bye

@superbellsubways

[independent-fics]

Tell me why after “The White Rabbit Job” and Sophie asks Parker “Are we good” and Parker looks at Eliot? With Hardison’s hand on her back too but the three of them standing opposite Nate and Sophie just gets me every time. The check ins with each other already showing how much of a unit they are as Nate and Sophie are preparing to move on.

[chungledown-bimothy]

We're only gonna get confusing no-context snippets from whatever going on in Japan, huh?

[crowtits]

currently going insane watching The Rundown Job. cause of death 21:52 Eliot with his hand on Hardison's neck (shoulder?) and gazing intensely into his eyes calling him the smartest man he knows