I've Probably Watched Too Much Leverage, Because A Man In Campus Cop Uniform Came In To Ask Questions

There's so many characters that I'd love to make an appearance, but for this question I'm going to have to go with Dr. Hannity from The Inside Job.

Her whole thing is that she sees a potential catastrophe that no one else is prepared for, but instead of saving lives, she focuses on manufacturing said catastrophe to make money.

Imagine what she could do if she used her skills for good! She just needs a little more exposure to ethics and caring about other people, which she could totally get during her stint in prison, and then she could reappear as the Harry Wilson of agriculture development.

Who would be the most interesting Leverage villain to have gone away to prison for 10 years and reformed before making a guest appearance in Redemption?

The Swipe Right Job (S03E06) LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION (2021—)

THAT IS A HANUKKIAH IN THE BACK OF THE LEVERAGE SET

is someone Jewish

please let this fuel the Jewish!Hardison fans

I love Eliot’s hair so much, because it’s so unpractical for his line of work. A buzz cut would be so much better, no hair in your face, nothing for an opponent to grab onto. I strongly believe that Moreau had rules around hair, much like the military and that it was one of the first choices Eliot made after breaking free. That it means a lot to him. Like the first time his hair has grown too long after he leaves, he goes to cut it again and he’s standing in front of the mirror and he suddenly realizes he doesn’t want to, then that he doesn’t have to. Maybe standing in front of that mirror happens earlier and makes him realize he doesn’t want to do any of this anymore.

Leverage 1x8 - "The Bank Shot Job"

Leverage 3x16 - "The San Lorenzo Job"

Leverage: Redemption 1x2 - "The Panamanian Monkeys Job"

Leverage: Redemption 3x7 - "The Shakedown in Clone-Town Job"

hi excuse me kristin cashore is working on FOUR books rn ??

what do we think they are 👀

I hope fifteen or twenty years after redemption ends we get another reboot of leverage in which Breanna leads a completely new crew who only ever heard of the original leverage team as heros of legends.

And they tell stories of them like they are mythical figures.

They tell stories of Nate Ford and Sophie Devereaux, how they chased each other across the world before joining sides in the middle to bring together the first leverage team. (They have the Old Nate painting in the current headquarters. Everyone in the new team knows without a doubt that is Leverage Founder Nathan Ford.)

They tell stories of Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer and THE Parker, the trio who can make anything happen, who made this organisation into what it is now, the patron saints of every leverage team. If a job goes really sideways, they will come to save you, you don't even have to call them. They know.

(The stories range from mildly simplified to wildly inaccurate. Breanna finds this whole mystification fascinating to see, she even kinda gets it on some level, but it's also really weeeiiird. that's just his brother and his insane partners. She just gifted them matching plushies the other day. (She does know where they live and how to reach out to them but she never ever in no way would ever call them for a job. She can do this without them dammit) (but of course they'd still come out once or twice in every season sorry breanna i need my cameos dammit))

Throughout leverage we see multiple different people driving the team/groups. Parker with the "I was taught to run from the cops", Sophie with the "taxi driver in Istanbul (citation needed)", Eliot with "I am getting us there in 5 minutes or less"... So what is your headcanon for how they decide who drives? Does Nate have a specific set of criteria where he picks who drives? Do they argue about who drives?

well, a lot of places they go, they need minimum two vehicles: hardison's van for tech (i think its only got two actual seats, though im sure people have had to sit in the back & get thrown around lol) and at least one car for other people/general driving. hardison tends to drive lucille so thats one down. if eliot's around to drive, he's probably driving the second car. if not, then nate, then sophie, then parker*. when hardison isn't driving lucille, he's probably as likely to drive as nate or sophie. and when tara's there, i doubt she has driving privileges lol.

in s1, i doubt they're carpooling much. like, they'd drive from their homes to the hq to the job themselves, and only go in the same car to do some quick task. later, they treat nate's apartment as home base and are frequently there for very little reason lmao, so thats when they actually have to plan more about who drives. obviously it heavily depends on how many cars are required and who's doing what. but. it seems like it's often nate driving with sophie as passenger, eliot driving himself or with parker as passenger, and hardison driving himself or with parker as passenger.

*detailed explanation of their individual driving under the cut:

parker is a genuinely great getaway driver, so her skills are useful in that type of situation... but i think 99% of the time, when they're not requiring a quick getaway, she is BANNED from driving. sophie even said so somewhere in s3, i dont remember exactly. canonically she can drive perfectly normally too (eg her driving with tara in the s2 finale) to be fair. she just doesnt want to lol. the stuff she has in her own car (both useful items and "decoration") is somewhat disturbing and very confusing. a lot of it is sharp. or a chemical hazard.

sophie drives sometimes but her driving can be... questionable, occasionally (ie big bang job). the (alleged) fact she learnt to drive from a taxi driver in istanbul seems to imply she didn't learnt to drive later than most, when she was traveling a lot? her attitude of "if i'm doing my job right, the mark just turns off the alarm for me" makes me think she'd apply the same logic here and would've done more hitchhiking & public transport than driving when she was first starting out, but over time got herself a car and learnt to drive because its kinda a safety thing in her line of work (need a getaway). all this to say, she can drive and she might have a nice car but its not her priority, you know?

nate drives sophie, some mix of her thinking its chivalrous and him having some ingrained ideas about male gender roles, but also just personal preferences. and a little bit because hes seen some of her questionable driving choices. once they're together, this changes to a more even split. also nate is def a backseat driver (like, regardless of who's driving/their skill level) and has been kicked out of a car at least once.

hardison is also mostly fine to drive or not drive like sophie. he'll bicker with eliot about who drives but mostly that's just an extension of their ongoing bickering saga. every time one of his lucilles gets exploded or whatever, he has a period of mourning and takes a couple weeks before he'll let other people drive the next incarnation of lucille - and to be fair thats usually because one of them was responsible for killing lucille.

eliot doesn't let other people drive his car (unless its absolutely necessary for a con - see: the boost job). he only begrudgingly lets people IN his car because SOMEONE spilled slushie all over it one time and yes he will continue to bring that up a decade later, hardison. i think being around the team has made him become one of those people who has strict rules for being in his car lol - no food/drink, no leaving anything in the car that doesnt have to be there. obviously the team break these rules all the time.

and the definition of what is a "necessity" and can therefore stay in the car is a BIG ongoing debate. some items of interest on the "necessity" list: gift wrapping paper, one (1) shiny thing, a gaming console, chloroform, a neatly packed bag of spare clothes, at least one dress hanging up with a dust cover, 3-5 CDs (which must be individually approved before being added to the car and only one of which can be christmas-related), spare reading glasses, cables that eliot annoyingly can't veto because he doesn't understand that stuff enough to argue, aluminium foil, and a pack of hair ties.

some things that have been BANNED: food & drink, glitter (there was an incident), nail polish (there was more than one incident), most tech stuff ("that's why you have lucille!"), secret money stashes, anything considered priceless by art experts, "surprises", and live animals.

i would love a road trip episode where most/all of them are taking turns driving and are stuck together in a vehicle for ages. also i now have the urge to go through the series and actually chart who drives.

lol thank you very much for the ask and ik the length is crazy but i hope this is a good answer haha.

god. it’s eliot fucking spencer.

because it always has been eliot spencer.

eliot, who let himself be tortured, who resisted torture, in a situation he could get himself out of in five minutes, because they were torturing homeless veterans.

eliot, who only counts himself as saving someone’s life two and a half times because that half time he was the one sent to kill him.

eliot, who was willing to take down a billion dollar corporation, who begged nate to do everything he could, because of one guy with a hardware store and one near-closing grocery store.

eliot, who offered to kill a man for parker in less than a breath because she asked, who broke his rule on killing because nate could take down his biggest demon, who ran toward a bullet because he knew parker could take care of a city-killing virus.

eliot spencer, who started this season stabbed and bleeding, who was told someone didn’t want him to keep taking hits meant for him.

eliot, who was tired and just wanted his own bed.

he wakes up every day and acknowledges that he still has work to do.

and he never, ever, needed convincing to take down a corrupt mayor who was running drugs in his town. he knew that it needed to be fixed, what needed to be done to save the town, that this is the worst of it. he wanted more time. to do it right. so the surprises wouldn’t happen.

and if you’re looking at it, really looking, i think, parker doesn’t try to convince him to stay.

she knows he’s in.

because it’s who he’s always been.

Headcanon: Eliot can ballroom dance as well as any professional. Better, in some instances. And no one knows this until they have to work a con at a dance studio that's a front for trafficking. He has to compete, which adds another pseudo-celebrity persona to his identities.

Of course this naturally also results in him acquiring a ton more fangirls - and fanboys! - because a) hyper competent dancing is HAWT and b) he's going to be in a male ballroom dance competition outfit which... well, I'll leave y'all to try Googling that and picture Eliot in something like it. #AHEM

So poor Hardison is on full time social media/attempting to control the hype duty while also trying to do the digital stuff for the actual job AND making sure to needle/mock/jab at Eliot at every possible opportunity... until the team actually sees their hitter, their punchy grump-up artist, dancing in one of the competitions and. Well. It's basically a Scheherazade moment that nearly blows the con because hey, this grade of dance is supposed to be emotive, right, and they're all gawking so hard they nearly miss their marks.

The fact Eliot refuses to actually acknowledge how good he is, just growling and stomping off when someone tries to actually compliment him, only adds to the effect.

Nate meanwhile is in Actual Hell because let's set this theoretical episode in early to mid S5 as, of course, Sophie just LOVES the idea of "going dancing" and is thoroughly miffed that her newly sort-of s/o can barely do a basic waltz. Bonus points if she suggests, in either or both of their hearing, that Eliot could maybe teach Nate some moves to help.

Only later it turns out the only person who Elio has actually volunteered to teach some steps to is Parker, firstly because she's competent enough to actually follow along, and secondly because that way she can take Hardison dancing on one of their date nights, which of course leaves Alec melted into an absolute puddle because he's essentially just an enormous ball of squish in the shape of a boy.

And we fade out the episode as Parker and Hardison head for their night out while Sophie is trying to teach a purposefully-failing Nate some basic steps, seeing Eliot in the kitchen of the brew pub humming to himself and, secure in the moment of being entirely unobserved, execute an absolutely perfect reverse fleckerl with a bowl and whisk as his only partner.