#the underground job

[tracing-lines-in-the-infinite]

I love rewatching Leverage.

Started rewatching The Underground Job for some Eliot content and instead remembered that Parker is often taking notes when grifting - both in preparation and during. She was writing out a script for herself and in redemption we finally got to see it develop into using notecards to classify any possible interaction!

Also this is the first time I realized that the kid Eliot meets in the mines is the same kid whose birthday it is about to be when the mine exploded. Making him 14 two years prior (its unclear if he was turning 14 or 15)- which means Cory is only 16/17 years old... hence why the miners always try to keep him as far from "the action" as possible.

When the mine owner complains about how the union demanding workers be paid fairly and have safe working conditions is destroying the business Sophie and Hardison both let their disgust show- they both break!

Parker (or Hardison) keeps a pillow and blanket in Lucille so that Parker can take a nap after too much social interaction [which is now inspiring me to bring a blanket( or maybe a comfy sweatshirt) to my office so I too can nap after too much interaction]

Bonus!

Parker's observations of Pierce:

Image ID: Hardison holding a notepad to camera that says (in all caps):

Learned more on Pierce today, after hours of undetected observation:

She looks right to left...

Opens office door with right hand, answers phone with left...

Blinks 15 times per minute...

Uses hand sanitizer more than 10 [times] a day...

Has 2 cats...

/End ID

There's another shot where she wrote "Smells like Bubbles!" with Bubbles underlined. And Hardison apparently touches his chin every 2.5 minutes.

[claudia-kishi]

leverage rewatch (81/?)

[amazzyblaze]

"The Underground Job" doodles

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 3, Episode 10, The Underground Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Marc: Hi, I'm Marc Roskin, Director of The Underground Job.

John: I'm John Rogers, Executive Producer.

Chris: I'm Chris Downey, Executive Producer. And I guess standing in for our two writers.

John: Yes, Melissa Glenn and Jessica Rieder are unfortunately unable to do the commentary. However Chris developed this episode with them so he will catch-

Chris: I'm gonna be both of them.

John: He's gonna be both of them. He's wearing a pretty little smock dress just to commemorate that. Great episode, a ton of fun, and very relevant. Of course it is inspired by the- one of the many disasters, mine disasters in America.

Chris: Yes.

John: And it was a little shocking when we started doing research on how easily safety- you can flaunt the safety regulations in this industry.

Chris: Yeah, I- you know, Jessica and Melissa are great at really digging in on a subject.

John: Yup.

Chris: It all started season one when they did the Two Horse Job, and we sent them into the world of horse racing, they befriended a jockey.

John: They went and lived at the- yeah at the stables for a week. Right.

Chris: And I believe they befriended a coal miner for this one.

John: Yes, they called the coal miner and got- all that banter from the opening scene is directly from him. Marc, how the hell did you do that?

Marc: We dug a hole in the side. We had a black up- a black in the back so it's just the entrance, just the side of a hill.

John: So the entrance was built on the side of a hill?

Marc: Yeah, it’s all fake. We had a CG explosion there, we did have a little propane mortar just to give us something to start with.

John: Well that's actually a good point, is what do you need- I know you guys do that all the time is to have like a little starter explosion. Is that to map the light? or what is that for?

Marc: Yeah, it’s to give the artist something to start with. And this time, you know, Dean just wanted it bigger, bigger, bigger. It's also a little more costly to use gas when you do explosions. You know, it’s more permitting,, so we used propane and then we just enhance it. But unfortunately that day we had a nice rainy day to open with.

Chris: Yeah, it sure gave nice atmosphere.

Marc: Nice, yeah.

John: Yeah.

Marc: Yeah, and they gave us full use of all the mining equipment like the skids and dump trucks; it was great.

Chris: Now Marc, did you look at- were there any movies, or any influences that you had when you were going into this episode and knew you were gonna do coal mining? Anything sort of interior?

Marc: Yeah, it was- well at first it was just looking at pictures, you know, with our production designer. And just going through what type of coal mines do exist, and how are we gonna create one with our frankenstein set which is used in numerous episodes?

Chris: Right.

John: That is over on- if you've been on the tour seen Con Con on the DVD you know that's over on studio E; that’s our other sound stage and it has been a hospital, it has been FBI offices, it’s been-

Chris: The vaults.

Marc: Antiquities rooms.

John: Antiquities vaults. 

Marc: You name it.

John: Yes exactly and this time we turned it into a mine for this one.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Because apparently you can't bring equipment down into a real mine.

[Laughter]

Chris: And I have to say Marc, I know I said this before, but this to me is my favorite of your episodes. I thought this was a really cinematic-

Marc: Oh, thank you.

John: Really? Oh interesting.

Chris: Yeah, I mean, you know. I liked this even more than Tap Out and that’s saying a hell of a lot. I thought this came out fantastic.

Marc: What I loved about this, you know, after shooting and editing it, there’s no fat to this episode.

John: Yeah.

Marc: I mean the girls did such a great job writing it, we had such a good production quality, and our guest stars were fantastic.

John: Yeah. There is an acting moment Bruce Davison does later which is generally one of my favorite acting moments in the whole series, all three seasons up to this point.

Marc: And Annie Fitzgerald playing Deborah Pierce. Everything just clicked, and you just never felt like “is this scene gonna make it?”

John: Yeah.

Chris: Right.

Marc: Because every scene was important, and there was a little bit of everything for everybody. 

John: No, good- a couple good con elements. And this actually was also born of- you finally got your Mission Impossible episode. Like you're ‘trapped in a subway’ episode.

Chris: Well we did a little bit, and the other thing is, you know, we talk about classic cons and you know, now that we're done season three, one of the all time classic cons in history is salting a mine. And it, you know, typically was done during the gold rush where, you know, people would put gold dust in a, you know, a prospectors pan and sell the worthless land. 

John: With- with a shotgun.

Chris: Or salt the, you know, an empty hole, yeah with a shotgun. And the challenge here was how do we contemporize it? And more importantly, since we were starting with the premise of a mine owner, how do you find a way to sell a mine owner his own mine? How do you salt a mine he already owns?

Marc: Right.

Chris: So that became, you know, a big challenge. But I love that we’re able to do one of these classic cons that we've never done before.

Marc: Yeah. Well what's also great about this, and you'll see as the episode goes on, every cast member has something to do in the con, and no one is just sitting in a control room.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Right.

Marc: You see Gina and Aldis get to play a part here. You know, Tim follows right in. Christian with the relationship with the boy who lost his father. And Beth as well, when she has to befriend Deborah Pierce.

John: Two bad guys. Two bad guys always give you a lot to do- 

Marc: Yeah.

John: But plotting it's a nightmare.

[Laughter]

Marc: Right.

John: Because, you know, you have to come up- these episodes already burn two or three cons or heists an episode, you have to double that when you have two bad guys.

Chris: And you have to make them really distinctive and different. 

John: Yeah.

Chris: I mean this may sound-

John: We actually struggled with this; we didn't originally have two in this.

Chris: We didn't really have two, yeah. But I think that one of the real research stories we had, there was some element to the two.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Well, yeah the idea that the way that these mine guys dodge having to pay for all these improvements is just keeping stuff tied up in the appeals process. 

Chris: Right.

John: And that led us to, you know, who could help him in that situation? And Citizens United had just gone through, so the whole idea that you could, through a shell company, donate pretty much anything you wanted through a PAC- 

Chris: Right.

John: -to a candidate without worry about the individual donation limit was just- that was great. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: And some people said we got a little wrong. We don’t- we didn't quite explain what this guy was doing properly, which was putting it through a PAC.

Marc: Right.

John: And we actually had a fairly- we won't say who it was, but we had a guy who could viably run for president’s lawyer on the phone, and he-

Chris: During the research for episode one.

John: Episode one, exactly.

Chris: 301.

John: And he took us through the whole difference between campaign fund and PAC. And took us through the rigorous ways the government makes sure you cannot cheat in a campaign fund, and how PACs are basically giant slush funds.

[Laughter]

John: That you can do anything with. This was a lovely sequence, by the way.

Marc: Yeah, these are nice moments when Sophie gets to coach Parker. 

Chris: And then look, I love the con character that Parker came up with here. It was sort of a very nice, specific sort of southern belle.

Marc: Right.

Chris: Eager intern, who didn't need the money but just was willing to do whatever it took to work for the candidate.

John: I mean yeah, some of that was in the script, but a lot of it was Beth landing it. 

Chris: Yes.

John: Landing that. You know, finding that voice and- yeah. And also, nobody quite writes Parker like the wonder twins. I mean, they really nailed the whole not quite understanding-

Marc: They really do.

John: Parker not quite understanding the goal of the grift, and why she's bad at it.

Marc: And the other thing that the wonder twins are great at, and sometimes it's complicated when you're shooting, but when you see the finished product, their flashbacks are very intricate.

John: Yeah.

Marc: But they really hit home during the story. And all of their episodes are really gifted with the flashbacks.

John: Yeah. No, they've done- yeah this one- they all fly, what are we saying. 

[Laughter]

John: They are all bears to break, they've all got four plot lines and- yeah. It's not exactly just find a body in Central Park and then move on and figure out who killed them.

Marc: But it was great, that little notepad that she had as Sophie plays here and pays off at the end.

John: Yeah, exactly. And introducing her in the mirror, nice idea. Whose idea- did you come up with that?

Marc: Well yeah, I mean- it was scripted that she's rehearsing in a mirror, so we just played into that a bit.

John: Oh, I did not remember that. No, coming up with that shot, that was nice.

Marc: And this is the building that was used on many times, the city hall building in downtown Portland.

Chris: Oh, yes.

John: Portland always doing their best to make us feel welcome. We actually kick the mayor out for this. Is that- wait this is the mayor's office from the season finale!

Marc: Exactly, it was Richard Klein’s office.

John: Season 2 finale.

Chris: Oh it is, boy that's pretty good. 

John: Yeah.

Chris: People are paying attention at home.

John: We stared at that for a long time. I recognized that bookshelf.

Marc: This was a fun scene.

John: No, she does a great job. And it's kinda- been kinda fun, I mean it's tricky because Beth is such a charming person.

Marc: Right.

John: It's been fun having her play Parker as someone who's bad at it. But you can look at the arc of her grifting abilities, and she'll never be good at it, but she's gotten better. You know what I mean? She's worked through it, yeah.

Chris: Yeah, there's totally an arc to it. And, you know, as the show goes into season 3 and 4 and beyond, I mean, it's credible to the audience that she will get better and better in her limited way.

John: She'll always have a fatal flaw, you know. 

Chris: Yes.

Marc: Yeah.

John: She always never has some little thing. But this was great, shooting- now how'd you light this? How'd you get the spotlight to do the lighting there?

Marc: This was Dave, Dave Connell and Neil. They gave the rocks an overall blue feeling, and then we just wanted to have as many, you know, source lights with headlamps, or hanging lamps, or oil lanterns, just to break it up a bit. And this young kid, Colton Lasater, did such a great job, and this arc really, really pays off.

Chris: Yeah, I mean-

Marc: Gives some weight to the episode.

Chris: Yeah in the story breaking process, you know, we’re always looking at which character in the con gets over invested in it. And sometimes that plays out comedically, and sometimes it plays out dramatically.

John: Yeah.

Chris: And you know, seemed to make sense that the one character that would have a personal connection to mining would be Eliot. And you know, we sort of established his protective nature of young people in the show.

John: Around kids, yeah. No, this is nice also the- and the frustrated look, thats-

Marc: Right.

John: This was nice, this was a nice- and they did make a lot of progress this year but it was good to kinda reset that they’ll never be really comfortable with them no matter how long they work together.

Marc: Right.

John: Too much talking!

[Laughter]

John: And a kicky little wrap on Hardison there, that's a nice scarf. Yeah, I'm trying to remember how we came up with what was in the mine? Was that just- that was the girls?

Chris: Which one?

Marc: The coltan? The girls came up with the coltan?

Chris: No, I’ll take a little credit. We actually- Alana Binker, our casting agent, is very good friends with a woman who’s an activist who wrote a book about the Congo. And I wish I remembered the name of her- her name and the name of the book, but it's a book that's out right now. And we were talking about what's going on in the Congo, and the- not just conflict diamonds but there's conflict minerals that are tied up in these horrible abuses. And one of them is coltan, which is this element that- a metal that is used in every microchip cell phone in the world.

Marc: Right.

Chris: And it sorta made sense that if you were going to try and con a coal miner into believing that there was something valuable in his mine, you would want to take him out of his comfort zone.

John: Yes.

Chris: So his comfort zone is coal.

Marc: Right.

Chris: So let’s convince him that there's this thing that's valuable that's sort of exotic. And that's where coltan came in and it also makes sense that if there was a domestic source of coltan, it would make sense for the audience that this would be something that an American company would want.

Marc: Right.

John: Yeah, and the- I'm sorry, I was distracted for a moment from the giant faux bows on the front of both of those outfits.

Marc: They’re fantastic.

Chris: Sorry, my long rant about coltan.

John: No, I was just saying Nadine Haders did another great job, and it's like those dresses are perfect and not over the top, but yeah. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: No, that's the thing when we talk about - you never know what's gonna pay off on the show. That's one of the reasons that we have writing stuff. You never know who read what that's just gonna toss in-

Chris: Yeah!

Marc: Look at all that red, white, and blue.

John: Yup. And your great fake mine there. So is that just a frame?

Marc: It- we built it in. So it goes back about thirty feet. So in that opening scene when we had all the miners coming in and out we were able to get the camera back and see some distance.

Chris: That’s great. But it's an actual mine? I mean-

Marc: No, it's a rock quarry.

Chris: It's a rock quarry, ok.

Marc: It’s a rock quarry, we just dug into a side. This is an actual mobile trailer that we had dragged out and set up there. And then just dressed it. This is actually the Carver Cafe, which is from Twilight so when we were shooting this scene, and had all our production gear, all these people came because they thought we were filming.

[Laughter]

John: They thought we were filming Twilight.

Chris: Oh that's not a good thing.

Marc: I think Gina is fantastic in this scene.

John: Yeah, well I actually- this is one of my favorite American accents that she does before the con is revealed.

Marc: Right.

John: And then when she flips, it’s just perfect. It reminds me a little of the pilot, actually, the Nigerian scam. The voice she does.

Marc: And Tim was really influential in blocking of this. He really helped out a lot. And then they just went for it. 

Chris: Bruce Davison is so great.

John: I know it's really- it is one of those guys where it's like, ‘And you don't have an oscar, why?’ You know? 

Marc: Right.

John: He just had great performance after great performance.

Marc: Yup.

John: And he just grounds them. I mean, this is really tricky. We wanted to take this episode fairly seriously because, you know, the mine thing is serious. You know, you don't want to seem like you're making light of people's tragedies, so you need someone who can play a villain but would be utterly grounded. And Bruce was available, and he's a friend of the company, and he's great. 

Marc: He's fantastic.

John: I mean, he's charming as hell, you believe him, you believe in the relationship with Pierce. No, it’s- big win on this one with Bruce Davison.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And again, also making sure he seems reasonable. The villain is never a villain in his own head.

Chris: Right.

John: He's just a man trying to, you know, make a dime, or do a good thing, and he really conveys that.

Marc: Here's Gina saving me an insert, as she did in the previous shot with the card.

[Laughter]

Marc: Thank you, Gina.

John: Thank you.

Chris: Those of you budding filmmakers saving an insert is hours-

John: Well that's usually a second unit guy's problem but, yeah. Yes, that is a big deal. And now- and by the way, because we're a con and heist based show we do a lot of inserts on screens and information to make sure everyones tracking everything. Most shows do not do the number of inserts we do, in any way, shape, or form.

Marc: That's correct.

John: No, they just- the actor waves an object past the screen and tells you what's on it and you just move on. We're full service here. Look, and I love watching this with the sound off because just watching Bruce sorta modulate his performance. You can tell confrontational, then amused, then, you know. When you cut back to him here you'll start to see him get hooked in, but he's never boring, you know, he's never not making a great choice.

Marc: And I love using Gina in these scenes. And the twins use her well cause even in Double Blind with Michael O'Keefe, was the Gina mano y mano.

John: Yeah.

Marc: That sets it up. 

John: And you know, trying to touch the hair, that's a lovely bit.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, I mean it's interesting, you think at some point you'll get bored of just having these scenes where Sophie seduces the mark. No. As long as the mark’s always different and the con’s always different, it's a little competence porn. It's like watching Parker break into a safe; you’re never tired of it.

Marc: Right.

John: Or I'm never tired of it.

Chris: No? And you know here you get, you know, two grifts going on simultaneously that have a different tone to them.

John: Yes.

Chris: And yeah, I mean it's true, there's so many threads to this story, inside the mine, you know.

John: Yeah, it's three storylines. And then, you know, this great little bit about politics. I mean, Pierce doesn't see herself as a bad person. Pierce is a politician. I mean, you know, there's interesting stuff now they're trying to talk about campaign reform, and they can't get it off the ground because even though everyone who runs for office hates raising money, they're better at it than everybody else so why give up that advantage, you know?

Chris: Yeah.

John: And this is the- oh burying paperwork on a busy person's desk. This was- we had originally a much more complicated bit for this that wound up going away. The bit with the box.

Marc: Right.

John: Yeah. Turns out just sliding stuff into people’s piles is a lot easier. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: And that's it, like watching Bruce there, he's not furtive. You know, this spiking a competitor is just something you do, this is part of his work day, may as well be on his iCal.

[Laughter]

John: And down.

Chris: There it goes.

Marc: Buried.

Chris: And by the way, I think you certainly buy that a busy attorney general has a desk full of paperwork.

John: Yes.

Marc: Absolutely.

Chris: I don’t think there’s any stretch there.

John: Who is he calling on this? 

Marc: Gina.

John: Oh there you go, Gina. Going back to Gina. God, this one just flies.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Gina looks great in this one, by the way.

Chris: Yeah.

John: I love that trench coat. That's just- yeah.

Marc: There's just no fat in this episode, it just really moves. 

John: The-

Marc: And a lot of different locations.

John: Yeah. And I'm trying to remember what- besides salting the mine there's another classic con we reference in here and I cannot remember for the life of me. Yeah, cause we wound up having to stack this one pretty deep.

Chris: Well it kinda, you know, by the end it becomes a gaslight.

John: Yes! That's right. Oh we're always trying to do the gaslight episode; we can never do it so we spot welded it in.

Chris: Yeah, yeah it is a little bit. The not the- we may be burning it by saying it right now, but, you know, the classic Mission Impossible in the fallout shelter.

John: Yes!

Marc: Right.

Chris: That's the fallout shelter episode.

John: You’ve woken up and everyone’s in like the tattered clothes.

[Laughter]

John: You know, charcoal on their face, this is the end of the world. I think they look through a periscope? The periscope that shows them the post apocalyptic earth. And it's not cool gamer world post-apocalyptic earth either, it's very depressing. 

Chris: And by the way, a very simple way to show a test here.

Marc: That’s right.

Chris: Test tube and the colored water.

Marc: Scrape, scrape. Colored water.

John: Yeah it's pretty- everyone knows what green is.

Chris: Yeah.

John: But again, this is another thing that shows you this research gives you a story. Trying to figure out how you salt the coltan, the girls had done so much research they found out that's what you do to keep the dust down, you know, they had a full file.

Chris: Right.

John: Of, you know, just the life of the mine. And then we dove in there for the story ideas.

Chris: Boy that mine looks great.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Really, I mean-

John: They built that how fast? Two, three days?

Marc: You know, like every show episode they don’t get many days.

John: Well sometimes you get a little more time on B because we’re over on A, but yeah.

Chris: And that, you know, credit to Paul Bernard, our line producer, too. 

John: Yeah, cause it was getting hairy by this point.

Chris: Well no, but I think just when we- you know, sometimes when we’re in the writers room and discussing things, you know, we’ll spike stories early in the process if we think there's no way we can do it, and he right off the bat, we said “We wanna do a coal mining episode.” He said “Oh, you know, it’s just like Eight Legged Freaks.” Which is a movie the company made.

Marc: Which I think we had more set than they did almost. I mean-

Chris: Really?

John: Oh really?

Marc: Becca, our production designer, and Randall just gave us so much with turns and chambers and then we, you know, we used one little tunnel just- and we just changed the background a bit.

John: Well that's the great thing about that, that frankenstein set is built to be corridors. So as long as you put another right hand in it, you have no idea where you are.

Marc: Yeah, they give us more than we ask for. And this, Dave just lit beautifully.

John: Yeah, this is gorgeous.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Half a million bucks. It is amazing- it’s always amazing to me when you get down to local politics how little money it takes-

Chris: Yeah.

John: To swing these races.

Chris: Well you had that great line about how much it costs to buy a senate seat. Less than a house in-

John: It's blown now because of the mega millionaires who ran this year. But at the time it was the average senate campaign cost 8 million dollars.

Chris: Right.

John: And the average house in sort of the ritzy section of Beacon Hills is 10 million. 

Chris: Right, yeah.

John: Yeah, buy a Senate seat cheaper than you buy a house.

Chris: I also like- is this where we set up the lunch pail?

John: Yes.

Chris: That's another great little moment. 

John: Great little character beat. 

Marc: Yeah.

John: Great little physical artifact. If there's any- yeah. If anyone's reading- pardon me, if anyone’s listening to these and they're thinking about trying to do television or anything. It's tricky, you can fall into words very quickly, and then- just remember it's a visual medium. Using props, using physical objects to link storylines is crucial. It- also because the audience doesn't have to process it, they recognize it.

Chris: And it helped in a story point later because then he sees-

John: He knew where he was.

Chris: Knows he's in there when he sees the lunch pail.

Marc: That’s right.

Chris: And I think the idea here, that his dad had been in the explosion, I think was kinda late to the writing process.

John: Yes it was. Yeah, we were trying to figure out how to link him, and then I think we were just going over the dialogue and the act was already written, which was the kid’s birthday party. And wound up making it that kid.

Marc: But it also- it was- put it well cause it gave Eliot a little stinger.

Chris: Yes.

John: Yeah. There's a lot- and also the thing I like about this, too- and we try to lock on this - Eliot’s not gonna send this kid to Harvard.

Chris: Right.

John: You know, it’s make your life a little bit better, that's all you can do.

Marc: Right.

John: Conceivably, you know. We try to do that a lot, it’s like give people the next thing up.

Chris: And we are not saying that- we don't make a statement that coal mining is bad and we need to bring organic farming to this community. 

Marc: Right.

Chris: I think it's pretty set early on, coal mining is how they make their living and they just want it to be safe.

John: And that was important, when the girls called the- they’re women now, we should stop calling them girls even though they are our baby writers. When the young women, when the wonder twins, called their coal mining source that was a big concern of his, you know. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: Everyone makes us look bad and they're like “No, we're gonna show it's a valuable part of the American economy; somebody has to do it.”

Chris: Oh, they’re so great.

John: Oh I love this scene! Love this scene so much. Because they're playing the sexual subtext here and the audience doesn't know it yet.

Marc: Right, no.

John: You know, and that's a little flirty look. I mean, you know, it makes sense when you go back and watch the second time.

Chris: What do I know Annie Fitzgerald from? I feel like is she- I mean, boy Bruce Davison- 

John: Yeah.

Chris: Did a ton of stuff. 

John: She's done a lot of television. I mean, you know, American television has its own sort of, you know, it’s like British theater in the 40s, it has its own collection of just really great actors who are kinda kicking around from show to show.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Oh that’s it. The beat where he goes, ‘Here we go’, and then dials the phone. What was that? That was a- we couldn't have scripted that in a million years. It was just really- a great moment of duplicity, and just that you saw the moment where he decided to do it.

Marc: Right.

John: And it was kind of almost sexual, it was just a weird choice.

[Laughter]

John: Oh great, in the elevator!

Marc: In the elevator! We went for it.

John: Nice.

Chris: That’s great.

John: Moving background.

Chris: Yeah, could've been a little static shot.

Marc: All in the city hall building, and Gary got in there with her, did a couple runs.

John: He’s pretty close to her, yeah; you have to be close to her. I think also this was the original act break. I think we cut out on this.

Marc: I think so.

John: Yeah.

Chris: I think there was a little trim here, yeah.

John: Yeah, there was another- the first scene in the next act is the act break or something like that. Cause I remember that- I remember- this is, you know, also people don't know, not only do you have to do the number of acts that the network asks you to do- they have to be certain lengths.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And so we have a traditionally short fourth act. And so you have to- sometimes we shoot the show and it's like oh that not where that commercial’s gonna go, and you have to jigger it a little bit.

Chris: Another tricky story point here was because we knew that we were salting the mine, and then we were gonna ultimately trap them in the mine and do our gaslighting. The question- the challenge was, how are we gonna get him in his own mine-

John: Right.

Chris: -at that moment when he's already decided to blow it up?

Marc: Right.

Chris: You know, that was a bit of a tricky writing and plotting that we-

John: We originally had him call and tell him that he won Yankee tickets, that he could collect at his own mine.

[Laughter]

Chris: Exactly. 

Marc: This is a great location that we never shot at. It was like a private club-

John: Is this the golf club from Tap Out?

Marc: No, it’s a private club in downtown Portland. And it's been there for years, and they just gave us so much free rein in the place.

John: Gorgeous. Oh and picking them up on the stairs and bringing them down.

Chris: That’s great.

John: That's a nice shot Marc.

Marc: This is nice to see both of them in the con playing their parts.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Which we don’t- again, just because we're very new at having Parker's character do the grift, we haven't really had a chance to do before.

Marc: Right.

John: And that also there's- if you go back in third season and watch the Parker-Sophie scenes, that when there's just the two of them and you compare them to the first and second season, you can see that evolution. And you can actually see that comfortable emotional vibe that they've set up. You know, from a writing standpoint Parker is the happiest that Sophie’s back. 

Chris: Right.

John: Yeah.

Chris: No, no, I mean, it's a pairing that we don't do enough.

John: Yeah.

Chris: The two of them. Because I guess story-wise-

John: They have different skill sets.

Chris: Yeah, yeah exactly. She's usually, you know, dangling from a building.

John: Rigged up. Yeah, exactly. 

Chris: But it just occurred to me that this is another party scene that is similar to the one in Double Blind. 

John: Yes.

[Laughter]

John: We all have- there's only so-

Chris: Champagne flute party scene.

John: There's only so many places to put- you know, if we oppress the man, the man hangs out in champagne parties, you know! 

[Laughter]

John: That's where he hangs out, that's where you gotta go.

Marc: Yeah.

Chris: That was another thing, too, with this episode in sort of conceiving it, was to give it a, at least in a political setting, give you kinda an upscale, rarified world that you could juxtapose with the grittiness of the mine.

Marc: Mine, yeah.

Chris: Rich swells, as we like to say.

John: Rich swells. Lush, rich swells. 

[Laughter]

John: 1920s types. Also late to the party, the fact the attorney general is a woman.

Chris: Yeah. Well part of-

John: That was- we started with a woman because we were like, we haven't had a female villain for a while, and there's a whole rash of- when we did research, for whatever reason attorney general is a big, sort of, upscale position as female politicians enter the race.

Chris: Yeah, that's true.

John: It tends to be- a lot of them are female in America.

Chris: But as a practical matter, also, you know, it’s hard when you have two bad guys that are- sort of have equal weight. 

Marc: Right.

Chris: You don't want the audience to be confused. You don't want two guys that look similar and the audience is saying, “Wait a minute, is that the mine owner, or is that the attorney general?” 

John: Yeah.

Chris: If you quickly decide that it's two genders, then you're pretty safe.

John: And then we had them sleeping together.

Chris: Yeah, and then that opened that up as a storyline.

John: When we talk about it, it makes it sound really chaotic how we write these things, but actually it's a well-oiled machine.

[Laughter]

Marc: Well-oiled. But it's also- when you shoot these scenes, you have to shoot both sides of the conversation twice. 

John: Yeah.

Marc: I mean, here we were at the party, we were in the mine, we were in the van. So you really do it- and you have to pay attention to so many things of how you shot that scene, which way was Hardison looking, which was Eliot looking.

John: Yeah, then again that's something we do that not every show on earth does. 

Marc: Yes.

John: I mean we actually match eyelines across locations.

Marc: Right.

John: That's crazy.

Chris: Right. Well, but it helps, right?

John: It makes a difference when you have three people on intercoms.

Chris: Now how do you keep that- I mean, do you keep that straight Marc? 

John: That’s Suzie.

Chris: Do you have a pad or-?

Marc: I mean there are times that I will do it and there are times I won’t, but yeah, Suzanne will keep a score.

Chris: Keep score.

John: That's our script supervisor, and you know, we’ve talked about this job before, that's the person who keeps track of every shot and all the continuity on set.

Marc: Yes.

Chris: No, I think it makes a big difference. I mean, you wanna get- when people are in different locations you wanna get- feel like they’re talking to each other.

John: Yeah. We tend to intercut simultaneously more than other shows do, so we kinda-

Chris: I like them when they're walking in different directions, too. I like when one’s walking downstairs and one’s walking upstairs; I like all that stuff.

John: I like motion. I like to see things moving on the screen. No, lovely scene, lovely little screw you scene between Annie and Gina.

Marc: Yes.

John: The ever present American flag pins. Always amuses me.

[Laughter]

Marc: Always good to have those.

John: Yup. 

Chris: Oh!

John: That’s a great shot.

Chris: What a great shot!

Marc: Oh yeah.

Chris: What a fantastic- these are some of the things that just make- that's a cinematic shot right there.

Marc: Yeah.

John: And it gives you depth, real depth.

Chris: Yeah!

John: I mean, look how far back on set you can see.

Marc: All those practical lights.

John: Yeah, and now this makes it look huge because he looks like he's in a different location.

Marc: Right.

John: Yeah, and this was the- this was a variation of the reveal the con bit. This was like the implied double-cross. It’s-

Chris: Right.

John: We’re deep into con world at this point.

[Laughter]

Marc: These guys did such a great job with this. 

John: Yeah.

Marc: Tim- I mean, Tim was all over this scene.

John: Yeah. He plays- well this is the character he kinda enjoys the most, is this kinda surly asshole, is really the only way to say it.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And he'll be the first to admit that's what the character is. 

Marc: Yeah.

John: But yeah. It's a little Jimmy Joe Meeker.

[Laughter]

John: It's a little- you can go back to the Rockford touchstone.

Marc: There's the lunchbox he saw.

Chris: There's the lunchbox!

John: Oh shit now I've gotta go kick somebody’s ass with a pickaxe. 

[Laughter]

John: He might not be thinking that but, you know.

Chris: We make a contract with the audience. I feel like when we send Eliot into the mine, I feel like the audience says, “When is he gonna fight a guy with a pickaxe?” 

John: Yes.

Chris: And if you don't give them that, I feel like we've broken our contract.

John: We have not necessarily delivered that which we promised to deliver. And that was-  there is the card- the various cards on the wall of things Eliot hasn't fought with.

[Laughter]

Marc: Right.

John: That was fun. And the in the King George-

Chris: Bowling trophy? No, he's fought with a bowling trophy.

John: King George: belt fu. Belt fu is something I've been wanting to do for a while.

Chris: Oh look at that!

Marc: This was fun to do.

Chris: That was great.

John: So how'd you do that?

Marc: Air mortars. The guys pretty much took their own fall.

John: Wait, that's Bruce and Tim?

Marc: Well we had stunt guys do it, and then they would- then they took a crack at it. And that rock pile, we had some come down and then Mark Franco and company added more rocks.

Chris: He's our special effects-.

Marc: To really establish that they are closed off.

John: Yeah.

Marc: But this is great. I mean, these guys just got down and dirty and wanted to play it. You know Tim was ready to play it down and dirty. It was great.

John: And also this was- I remember this was a bear. I was working on that other episode and came in and you guys were wrestling what this was. We don't usually lie to the audience this blatantly.

Chris: Yeah.

John: We have to- and that was the trick, we dont lie to the audience, so how do you write these scenes so that they are concerned because they've lost contact with Nate, but you can read it as concern for the fact that the mine has collapsed?

Chris: They’re in a collapsed mine.

John: Super- I remember long conversations about that.

Chris: Yes.

Marc: This is just another- the same hallway that we just redressed with some other things.

John: Put a minecart in.

Marc: And changed the background just to give us new locations.

John: And- yeah.

Chris: Oh that's great.

John: That's another great shot, look at that.

Chris: Look at that shot.

John: And then- did you- are those digital? No, you stacked those.

Marc: Those are stacked foam, yeah.

John: It’s- yeah, the two- you’re looking at two great actors just having an enormous amount of fun with these scenes.

Marc: Yeah.

Chris: Now you're waiting for him to do math. How much air is there in here?

John: And I'd actually prepped that movie, remember?

Chris: That's right! That's right.

John: I had prepared to direct a movie that wound up not going, but one of the conciets was two guys trapped in a safe. And I had to do the math on cubic air. And so that was again, that's why you have writing staff, you never know who's got a note in their notepad. Yeah, and then all this, the tone of the confrontation scene went up and down a lot.

Marc: Right.

John: Yeah, how crazy would she get. And then when Annie really plays it in control, which is great.

Marc: Well, that's like Parker’s so naive about it. And Sophie totally gets it and uses it to her advantage in the con.

John: Yeah, just like a knife. Just twisting it in. That was also another thing, the- how they had not heard that before. I forget what we were talking about. We were talking about the fact that they just have people whose job it is to go through wire taps. Just the hours and hours and hours of wire taps. But when you were a lawyer you had done some of that.

Chris: Oh, sure. 

John: Because they regularly recorded phone calls in these places.

Chris: Oh, in brokerage houses. Phones are always recorded, and those are all kept.

John: Yeah. Somebody has to actually go through that stuff. The great Bourne fade.

Chris: It might've been- there was a good disappear here. I feel like in some early version she decked her.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, I think we had that originally and then were like eh, is it a punch? Is it a- and then Gina doesn't really punch.

Chris: She doesn't really punch.

John: In the season finale she hits somebody with a champagne bottle. But that's good. That gives her an edge.

Marc: Yeah. This guy was great, he was a local actor. Geno Romo. And he wanted to do his own stunts.

John: Oh, that's great.

Marc: And he tried out with Kevin, and he was great! Because Kevin said, ‘he's not trying to impress me.’ You know what I mean?

Chris: Right, right.

Marc: Cause that's when actors get hurt.

John: Yeah.

Marc: And he worked with Christian, and I said “Christian are you up for it?” He said, “Yeah, he's got skills; it's gonna be a great fight.” So-

Chris: Now how long-

Marc: So we had two actors, we had Christian and Gino doing their actual fight.

Chris: Now how long did it take to film the pickaxe part? I know it was done in pieces, right?

Marc: It was done in pieces, so probably half a day over all.

Chris: Wow.

John: And then the oxygen saturation stuff is from, again, the research. You know, being able to talk. And that's the other thing, and Chris, you're always on about this cause you used to be a journalist. If you're writing your spec script or writing your movie or whatever. Just call people!

Chris: Yeah!

John: Just cold call them. Nine times out of ten they love to talk about their job.

Chris: People- no matter- rule of thumb, no matter what people say I hate my job, they love talking about it.

John: Yeah.

Chris: And here we go, now he’s just got a bat.

John: Now he's lost the- that's actually a lesson-

Chris: Oh I love that shot, too.

Marc: Yeah that's a good commercial break.

[Laughter]

John: I think was the commercial break intended-

Marc: Yeah.

John: And then when you actually like timed it out- that's a 13 minute act four, we can't do that. Yeah. That's not gonna work. And here we are now trapped in the classic science fiction story, The Cold Equations.

[Laughter]

John: Other people might phrase it differently, but I always go to The Cold Equations.

Chris: And just he's so great at just- you totally buy all the things he says here.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Cause he sees his life ending. He's just got that fatalististic vibe to it and then he's just able to turn it on. Turn on the menace.

John: Well, and that's the Nate character. It's important, it's always tricky when you're trying to get these confessorial scenes. If you ask another character a question, and they give you the answer, that is boring. And they wouldn't fall for that.

Marc: Right.

John: If you argue with them, and you get exposition as refutation, it feels organic.

Chris: Yeah.

John: You know what I mean? That was also- that was tricky, too, hitting him with the board.

Marc: Yes.

John: Cause outline- we did a reset. That's right, I forgot we did a reset at the end of this. Just to-

Chris: You know, sometimes people were getting a sandwich and they missed it. You gotta make sure they understand what's going on.

John: I like a reset!

Chris: I like it.

John: Here's the thing, I think it was also we didn't want to- if we're gonna cut back to this, you didn't want to think that Bruce Davidson is in the other part of the mine beating Nate to death. Like, just taking the two by four to him.

[Laughter]

Chris: Yes.

John: I think that was also- that was, originally we had him strangling him. And it was like, well why wouldn’t you just not stop strangling him?

[Laughter]

John: Like oh, oh yeah.

Chris: Right how do you con somebody-

John: Into not strangling you. Yeah. that's no, hit him, hit him with the board. This is great. This is of course the scene in the The Lathe of Heaven where he is imagined- he has dreamt that he is a lathe- that's really obscure.

[Laughter]

John: It's like eight people who are gonna get the Lathe of Heaven reference.

Chris: I'll take Ursula K Le Guin for 200.

John: Take Bruce Davidson's minis series when he was 20 something for five hundred, Alex.

Marc: That's a great shot by Gary Camp.

John: That's a beautiful shot.

Marc: A little 360 steadicam.

John: Where the hell- wait where's the crew? What the-

Marc: They're hidden!

John: They're hidden. We do- when we do those 360s we hide behind trees and trucks.

Chris: Yeah, that's right.

Marc: Another great flashback sequence that the girls wrote-

Chris: Oh! Look at that!

Marc: This was cool. That was Gary running through the whole mine, so that's actually the full length of the set from beginning to end.

[Laughter]

John: That's great. Oh man, I did not know that. Oh yes, and Eliot screwing with Hardison.

Marc: Yeah.

John: A lot of fun.

Chris: And you know, I think-

John: And to see the little look he gives just for a second before he does it.

Chris: That’s great. Yeah. And to make sure showing you don't need a giant bomb in a mine. A mine is-

John: A mine is a bomb waiting to happen.

Chris: It's a bomb waiting to happen.

Marc: Right.

John: Now that- remember, I worked on the natural gas pipeline-

Chris: That’s right.

John: When I quit university. And yes the ever present threat of just blowing up sometimes. No, this was- oh and this was the header. Yeah, the flashbacks in this one are tough.

Marc: Yes. 

John: There's a lot of story in these flashbacks.

Marc: You really gotta wrap your head around these when you're shooting them.

John: We’ll try to give you easier ones for next year, there you go.

Marc: Perfect.

John: Do the ones in real time where there's no flashbacks. Like Rashomon, something easy like that.

[Laughter]

Marc: Right, yeah.

John: Yeah. 

Marc: There's the X of course, that we set up.

John: Oh yeah. And it was interesting, too. You do a lot of this in post. The flashbacks have to have different luts on them. They have to have different lights- different color schemes so you understand you're not happening concurrently and they happen in the story.

Marc: Right.

John: No, this is a nested flashback.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah, this- he actually changed locations in the flashback, this is tricky.

Marc: Oh, yeah.

John: We’re in three different places. And both light comedic exposition and dramatic ‘you're gonna die’ exposition. Aldis Hodge does it all.

Chris: Yeah.

Marc: That's right.

John: He conveys urgency.

Marc: Our M.A.S.H. speaker.

Chris: And here's your undoing. Oh that's great!

John: Oh the zoom around.

Chris: Great zoom around too!

Marc: Give them a little something.

John: Yeah. And then push in, do you do a push?

Marc: I think that was done in post.

John: There you go. There's the push. 

Marc: There it is.

John: Yeah, the world’s just kinda closing in on her. We don't mention-

Marc: And this of course, now we're back in the car.

John: Yeah. What, like four minutes later? I don't always like-

Chris: Yeah, wow that's right, they've been in the car for a while!

John: This is like a four minute flashback.

Chris: What's the deal? Is the battery running out? Did they leave the lights on?

John: No, remember Inception! Time is different in your dreams! So, you know, you have more time in the flashback.

Marc: Always good.

Chris: What a great gloat!

Marc: The make them suffer look!

John: Yup.

Chris: Look at all the different looks we got on this gloat.

John: The villain must suffer, we must have the gloat. Disdain.

[Laughter]

John: Rage.

Marc: Another flashback.

John: And now! We do a flashback in the gloats! Oh my god! This is brutal! God, no this one is tough. I can't believe we pulled this one off. Yeah, and the whole- and again this was crucial, you know, how you move money around and just spook her into hiding it.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Yeah, no- and that's a big thing is that it all boils down to Irene Adler, really. You just have to scare somebody and they'll give up the information that you need. Move it somewhere safe. Yeah, multiple gloats. And also a little victory moment for Parker.

Marc: Yes.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Very nice. Very nice the- you know, she's learned a new job skill.

Marc: That's right.

John: Won't be using it all the time, but yeah.

Chris: Tomorrow's women. That's right, a little- just a little throwaway line seemed like the thing to sell her con.

John: Her character.

Chris: Now this is something we never do on this show. I remember this was like a late addition to the script, just a little character-y moment here.

John: Yeah.

Chris: And it's great. I mean it’s, you know, in a show this packed and busy to find a little time for this.

John: That's what I said in the Rashomon commentary, I love watching them just hang out in the bar cause that's what they talk to each other like when they're not on the job.

Marc: Right.

John: This is- the vast amount of Hardison/Parker interactions actually sound like this.

[Laughter]

Chris: Right.

John: You know, when they're not doing urgent stuff, you know. 

Chris: Yeah, ‘smells like bubbles.’

John: She's kinda spaced and he's trying to figure out the hell- smells like bubbles, yeah. And the- touch the chin a bit.

[Laughter]

John: That was great. And it all rides on his reaction there.

Marc: This scene was great.

John: Yeah. Well he plays it with the right amount of betrayal.

Marc: Yeah.

John: It's like what? Clark, you're Superman?

Marc: It’s very-

Chris: Yeah.

Marc: Gary giving us a 180.

John: Yeah. Just land into it rather than pop into the cut. No, it's nice. It- this was a great location.

Marc: Oh, yeah.

John: This is the rock quarry?

Marc: Yeah, same place.

Chris: Is it raining right there?

Marc: No, this-

John: Man it rained a lot during this episode.

Marc: It rained a lot. But when we first set up that mobile trailer, we actually had to pump out the surrounding area cause it was about a foot of water.

Chris: Wow.

John: And camera-

Marc: But they were great!

John: Camera and power cords don't really-

Marc: The rock quarry, they were giving us all- ‘you want this tractor?’ They'd move things, they gave us everything we needed.

John: Well it was like in The Three Days of the Hunter. 

Marc: Yeah.

John: The national guard- the reserve, pardon me, the state reserve guys they really gave us everything we could possibly want.

Marc: Exactly.

John: And hence we were able to bring filthy Hollywood money to their state. It’s a great relationship.

Marc: And it was in close proximity.

John: Yeah. Really nice.

Chris: And now we get-

Marc: This is our little closer with Timothy Whitcomb and Tim and Christian.

Chris: Now due to the miracle of receivership were able to-

John: Oh receiver- sweet receivership.

[Laughter]

Chris: We were able to both make our victim whole again, our client, and actually bestow the title in some way to the- instrument of their acting.

John: I learned more about corporate bankruptcy on this job than I could possibly ever want to know. 

[Laughter]

John: Various and sundry conditions and states wherein, and yeah.

Chris: No, but I think it's also a result of research and-

John: Yeah, it's based on that company- down in Central America, the auto company. The guys who took over their own plant.

Chris: Yes.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Yeah. Evidently doable. Not always heard of-

Marc: Yeah.

John: But, you know. The stories where the workers take over the means of production? Not a big play in America.

[Laughter]

Marc: This we graded darker in here, cause this was shot on one of the clearer days.

John: So you had to match the rest of the rain.

Marc: But of course we did the exterior-

John: And it's raining.

Marc: And it's raining. This is the shot where Dean goes, “how come you get all this moving gear?”

Chris: Oh, I know, look at that!

Marc: Mine is back.

John: And pull up to reveal the mine! Oh.

Marc: People are back to work.

Chris: And a perfect, you know, we started it on the mine, there's people coming in and out and exploding, and now they're going into a safe mine.

John: That's American work right there.

Chris: Beautiful bookend.

John: That's America at work.

Chris: Beautiful piece of work.

John: I think you’re our most patriotic director, Marc.

Marc: I am.

John: More shows should hire you to combat the liberal agenda.

[Laughter]

Marc: Amen.

John: That was Underground Job, stay tuned for a lot of great episodes and Marc Roskin thank you so much for giving us this episode. It was great.

Chris: So great.

Marc: Thank you, my pleasure.

[hotchocolateandpillowforts]

Currently watching The Underground Job and the fact that Parker can't tell the difference between sex noises and workout noises is just confirming my bias that she's asexual.

[ladyphlogiston]

Watching Leverage with my daughter

Parker: Ooh! I got it. She- she mixes her blue pens With her black pens, in the same cup. Like, mixes them together.

Sophie: Yeah. Parker, I'm looking for something that someone might find weird

Daughter: to be fair, mixing black and blue pens is pretty weird

Me: if you ask me, using blue pens is pretty weird in the first place. Blue pens are wrong.

[renew-leverage]

LEVERAGE REWATCH MARATHON : The Underground Job - Streaming today

It’s Sunday, Leverage Marathon folks, time for another episode!   This week we’re watching the 10th episode of season 3, The Underground Job - in which Parker misunderstands what she hears, Hardison understands but doesn’t want to, Sophie incites jealousy, and Eliot helps a young person make their best life.  Watch the episode with us on our Sunday Leverage Marathon discord server and post all about your feelings, thoughts, comments, anything &  everything.

Come  on in, say hi to your fellow fans, get comfortable.  We’ll be starting in about 15 minutes at 3:35 PM Eastern U.S. Time - sorry for the short notice!

[haloburns]

man... itd be nice if people figured out how to mimic mountain accents properly. your georgia peach accent doesnt do it, babe, sorry

i get it, mountain accents are harder to mimic and a good one is hard for TV because it requires so many soft and slurred sounds but cmon man... just ONCE id like to hear a good mountain accent

[anglerflsh]

everytime I mention the type of job I'd like to have (archivist) people tell me that literally no one on earth wants to do that which normally would be annoying but. you don't want to sort documents? to preserve things from the past? do you not like excel sheets and burocracies? my best friend burocracy?? sad

[aceoflights]

I just love how Eliot will immediately bond with every working man type character and immediately take every child under his wing

[libelelle]

Underground: The triplets finding out about Tails’s fear of lightning

I JUST NEEDED TO DRAW THIS. I NEEDED TO DRAW THIS THATS WHY IT TOOK SO LONG

it probably happens a little while after Tails joins them. Everyones getting settled in with their new routine and their new brother. Then one night, a storm rolls in. Manic and Sonic (up late) hear some weird noises. Sonia wakes up and the three of them go to investigate. they find Tails all curled up and terrified. so naturally they make him tea and comfort him and help him through the night, being the fantastic siblings they are.

[whalesharkstho]

my fav part of sonic underground is sonics emo ass siblings

[claudia-kishi]

leverage rewatch (82/?)

[leconcombrerit]

Getting out of my semi-eternal slumber to share this priestess Lauren redraw. Old version below yay

[rezmeiseno]

“A favorite color, Vanny?”

[puppianqueen]

obligatory springfest theme joke