I think overall it's very important to remember that Nate is NOT interested in trying to bring down the whole system. But boy oh boy, when Moreau says "If we couldn't move money just because it was dirty, the world economy would collapse," that is the face of a man who's very suddenly considering that the correct answer might be THEN LET IT BURN.
YEAH, actually. I did not initially think it was that deep, but…
Seasons 1 & 2 he has very little reason to stop and think about what this all means in the big picture. He never feels like he’s fully committed to it, and although he’s certainly trying to do good, he’s mostly just doing what FEELS good.
Season Three rolls around, he’s made his decision, he’s committed, 100%, which means he has to actually think about the reasoning and drive behind it. AND at the same time, he gets thrown into this Moreau thing, which, for the first time, really starts to drive home how none of these bad guys exist in a vacuum. It’s all interconnected, it’s all systemic, and yeah, maybe that DOES mean the whole system is the problem.
So yeah, I think Moreau is the first domino. But I don’t think Nate has a whole plan here. Because he needs a second, much bigger domino: Latimer, explaining to him that Leverage is just a market control. This has always bothered me because Latimer is RIGHT and that isn’t directly addressed. But Nate’s just not quite ready for it yet, because Season Four is a whole reassessing process, including the reassessment of “hmm something is very wrong with how i’ve been doing things, maybe i should just kill people?” So he kinda has to work through THAT before he gets to
Season Five: Yeah, what he’s doing isn’t enough. AND maybe he isn’t the one who can fix it. Because even now that he can see what needs to be done, he’s too mired in his own experiences — he’s still the Honest Man, here meaning he’s the one who’s been an active and complacent participant in the system. So even knowing that it’s wrong, he can’t fully visualize and commit to making it right. But he can set the stage for the ones who can.
And maybe the person who can do the most to fix it is the one who has very few preconceived notions about how the world is supposed to work. The person who has had to do the most work to learn for herself what’s right and wrong. The person who now cares very deeply about the things she’s learned through experience are right, and who doesn’t give a fuck if that lines up with the way things are “supposed” to work.
They don’t need the honest man anymore. They need the thief.
