#leverage elliot

Everyone

Submission reason:

Original Leverage had excellent character, story, found family, etc. 10/10 all around. In the reboot, the stories are less interesting (several of the cons feel like they could be done with half the cast, like a lot of them just aren't doing anything a lot of the time and it feels overcrowded) and the characters all feel a lot flatter? For example: Eliot. The most haunting scene for his character in the original is when the rest of the team learns he used to do work for Damien Moreau, the super evil guy they're currently trying to take down. We get this interaction: Eliot: The worst things I ever did, I did while working for Damien Moreau. Parker: What did you do? Eliot: Don't ask me that Parker. Because if you ask me, I'm going to tell you. So don't ask me. We never find out what he did. There is a strong implication it involved killing innocent children, the families of targets he was hired to take out. There may have been more. We don't know, and that's what makes it such a chilling moment for his character- whatever it was it was bad, so bad that it doesn't need specifics. In Leverage: Redemption, we get a scene where Eliot is captured by evil security company lady (I don't remember exactly who she was, but one of the main bad guys). She injects him with a drug that is described as making it easier to bring up traumatic memories somehow? and triggers a traumatic memory by saying "Operation Kansas". We then see footage of Generic War Flashbacks (with no detail as to what that actually was or any stake we should have in it, we're just told "it's traumatic"). He also starts branching out a lot more from the team looking for romance (and struggling with it) which is a lot more depressing than where he was at in the original (the team is his family). Granted this probably has something to do with Hardison's actor not being available and not wanting to focus too much on Eliot and Parker's relationship lest that read as cucking the black man, but it does weaken the found family of the original (it has a bit of the vibe of "we're growing up and growing apart" when the original was "broken people finding strength and community in each other"). They also don't seem to know what to do with Sophie exactly- in the original, she was the heart of the team. There's a line one of the others has about how they trust Nate to come up with the plan, but they trust Sophie to make sure they're all okay. For a lot of the show, this is more focused on Nate than the others because he's the most off-the-rails, so with his character gone there's a gap that isn't really adequately filled.

The support relationship she had with the trio is also weakened because in the time since the first show they've all become even more competent and successful without her, so her taking on a teaching role with them feels weird (they mostly do this with Parker, which has the awful effect of making her seem less competent than she did in the original). Her relationship with Harry works the best in the new show, but since Harry's problem is entirely born of lack of experience/competence with this sort of crime, she can't really play off him in the same way as the others- it's all very teacher-student. It was also established in the original that she's a grifter, and she's not actually interested in running a team so making her character the leader after she's been out of the game for years feels out of place. And Parker. Beloved Parker. She's Word of God canonically autistic, and it was done SO WELL in the first series, which makes the massacre in Redemption so much sadder. Parker's arc in the original series involved her learning to open herself up to the world after closing off so much of who she could care about due to repeated trauma throughout her life. She shows so much growth throughout the series, and ends up implied to be the leader of the team after Nate and Sophie leave. She's weird and kooky but this isn't a flaw and it doesn't detract from her competence as a thief and teammate. And while she does struggle with certain things (grifting especially because of the social component) she does learn and improve with the help of the team. And then in Redemption, there's just. an enormous backslide. She's been at least co-leading teams around the world with Eliot and Hardison for years, but when Sophie comes back into the picture she gets implicitly demoted (it's not emphasized, but Sophie being promoted to solo leader implies it) and within the team dynamic, she is paralleled in skill level to Breanna, Hardison's 20-something sister who just joined the team (for comparison, Parker should be mid-30s at this point and has been doing this sort of crime for over a decade).

Still, Parker is put in the same category as Breanna; that is "good at her specialty, trying to be better, still has a lot to learn". She maintains her character growth from the original in regards to opening up and caring about others, but her skills and competence feel a lot lesser- despite the fact that years have passed offscreen where presumably she'd continue to learn. Ultimately she comes across as much more childish and immature which really does not sit right with the wonderful autistic representation she was in the original. Harry and Breanna I have less to say about because they are new for the reboot, but I think they also could be done a lot better. Harry's entire thing is that he used to be exactly the type of Evil Guy the team would take down but he's had a change of heart and wants to fight for what's right. And like, he did do a lot of evil fucked up shit! But the extent to which the other characters will like. Rub his face in it? Feels excessive.

Maybe this is just me having a lot of thoughts on "how to effectively de-radicalize someone" but like. For example, there's a point where they're deciding how to run a con and he offers some information as to how these guys work (I don't remember specifics unfortunately) and the rest of the team is like "Oh. And how do YOU know that? Right, because you were EVIL. 😒" when like??? He was literally already acknowledging that? And constantly shaming someone for their past when they are actively trying to improve is bad practice. As for Breanna... I want to like her. I do. And there are a lot of good things about her character. But they also kind of make her a Millennial Mouthpiece at times, where like she just expresses the opinions that Kids These Days and Our Generation have without any weight behind them. There's an episode about Fake Magic the Gathering where she gives a big speech about kids who didn't feel like they fit in, but there's nothing personal about it, so it ends up feeling empty. Character building in the original was heavily focused on specific personal details and experience, and she doesn't really get much of that which takes away a lot of potential depth. Also I would be remiss if I did not highlight this comparison because it's a big part of why I had to stop watching the reboot: In original Leverage, there is a scene where the con has spiraled out of control, and Hardison and the mark were caught on a US army base with a camera. The team is trying to figure out how to get them out without blowing the con and Hardison says "Damn the con! I am a black man caught on an Army base with a video camera! I am going to jail forever!" They manage to get him out safely, having him stall so they can break him out without blowing their cover. But that one line highlights the fact that his race does put him in more danger than the others in that scenario, and the show knows it. Even if it doesn't play out, the awareness is there. This is one of many cases in which this is emphasized. Redemption has an episode, The Great Train Job, where the mark is the head of a group of white nationalists. Breanna is one of the teammates on the train, and there's a point where she says she's going to try something and Eliot reminds her to be careful because she's in more danger than the rest of them. This is the sum total of acknowledgement of that danger, aside from some quippy lines about the evils of white supremacists. A few key things: Also in this episode, while Sophie is grifting the mark, he comes onto her very strongly in a private train car, getting way too close to Actual Sexual Assault for comfort, in a scene that was genuinely unpleasant to watch. In the original, while the stakes were often high, there was never the fear of "they're really not going to make it" or even "they're going to experience something genuinely horrible" (beyond like, "getting shot" level of injury). This situation for Sophie was new and unexpected, and because of that I no longer trusted the show not to cross another line. And because they highlighted the racism present on the train (by having the white man remind the black woman about it, which isn't inherently bad but I don't love it), I spent the entire episode on edge waiting for something bad to happen to Breanna. Nothing did, but fundamentally I did not trust that. The quote from Hardison, among other scenes, did make me feel safe in the understanding that the writers knew the gravity of the situation and would tread carefully. But the casualness of the line with Breanna, coupled with Sophie's awful scene in the same episode did the opposite. This is less of a character complaint and more of a structural one, but still.

Propaganda:

A lot of my gripes with Redemption are about the show as a whole, so idk how well this fits this poll, but the characters are a huge part of that because it's such a character driven show. Anyways I'm genuinely curious to see how this does because I am so strongly pro-original and so strongly anti-reboot, but I have the impression that a lot of people really like the reboot.

"We Provide Leverage"

I don’t even think I remember seeing it written down

Surely it has been & I guess I just autocorrected it in my head to have two L’s hahaha anyway now I know & I’ll try & spell it with just one L

But on the bright side you all knew what I meant & found the post anyway so it all worked out haha