Leverage: Second David Job picspam, and show love
I'm going to talk about Leverage for a little while, since I can't sleep and people are only upsetting me. It may be obvious that Leverage is currently the show of my heart (if not you may not have been paying attention). I finished watching S2 last week and the end wrecked me. I'm glad I don't have to wait as long as everyone else did for the resolution. It hit me in the good and bad places, and I get entirely what they were doing, but there's nothing in S2 that I love quite as much as the first, say, ten minutes of The Second David Job (the s1 finale). There's not actually a lot of anything I love as much as the feelings of the first ten minutes of The Second David Job. I'm not sure how many times I've rewatched it now.
So: The Second David Job. Follows on from the previous ep, and an important job gone wrong.
We open on the moment of crisis mid-way through the con: Nate with a gun on him (also a nice callback to the previous ep). This is a fairly common move for Leverage (as it's fairly common in con-type stories) but it's well-done.
Cut to three days ago, Sophie looking at artworkAnd Parker looking at security
Eliot in a suit, checking the guard rotasHardison wearing a hard-hat, looking furtive.
In short, despite the dramatics of the previous episode, the status quo looks to have been restored and the team is working together on one con. Then this happens:
Sophie spots Parker, and is surprised.Parker is also surprised (and more than a little annoyed.)
Hardison and Eliot are also surprised to see each other.Eliot is his usual brand of pissed-off/protective when Hardison can't see that he's about to get noticed.
Parker decides to rescue Sophie "Run now, talk later"While Eliot employs his own methods to get Hardison out.
One glorious running shot. With no clue what they're running to, no plan. But all going the same direction anyway. Even though they were all doing their own jobs solo, without knowledge of the others, when the crisis hits, they all run the same way.
Then dad pulls into frame for the rescue with "Need a ride?". And looks round, before driving off, as if to make sure all the kids are strapped in.
Cut to HQ, everyone but Nate bickering over why they were there, and what happened last time. Lots of overlapping dialogue and nothing getting resolved.
And then Nate goes 'ooooh' and everyone stops.They start talking, first to him, then to each other, forgetting the fight, working the con. Nate backs away and watches them.
Team brings all their separate knowledge to the table, but can't put the pieces together. Nate: "Grifter, hitter, hacker, thief. You're all trying to solve your version of the crime instead of just trying to...solve the crime. There's a reason we work together."
See, that's what I love best about the show. That's the show I'm watching. I like con-stories (the first Ocean's remake; White Collar) - I like shiny and cool set-pieces and dialogue and it's okay if the plots don't always quite hold together. Because the show that I'm watching is the show where five people who have always worked solo grudgingly build a family. The show only says this out loud a few times, and I can only think of Nate saying it at the one time when things have already gone as bad as they'll get. But it makes it explicit in the text all the time - the way things are framed, and the visual shorthand - it's really obviously mom, dad and our three genius messed-up kids.
Which is problematic if that's not the show you're watching, because then you just have this screwed-up older white guy telling everyone else what to do and witholding information and sometimes being bad at the leadership part. It's problematic even if that is the show you're watching, because Nate is not the best example of a TV-Dad substitute. I'm entirely in love with Nate, and Tim Hutton as Nate, and even I can see that. He's a problem.
Because sometimes it isn't happy families. Sometimes Sophie isn't there to say, "let me talk to Nate alone for a minute". Sometimes Nate's drunk and stuck in a plan and he shouts and the other three just sit there and watch him. They go quiet and scared and we jump to visual short-hand for children of an alcoholic. And I want to shake him and say "remember how much more awesome it was when you were going on jobs with Parker for some reason, and telling her stuff in a cute Dad-imparting-wisdom type way, and looking out for her? And she was teaching you new things, and everyone was teaching each other new things and no one was drunk and out of control?" I like the rescues. I like that they're family, and that Eliot shows Parker how to fight and Alec shows Eliot photoshop. That Parker finds something to run to instead of from; that Alec keeps on trying to build them a home, no matter how many times they have to leave; that Eliot continues to be really aggressively protective, denying it the whole time.
And I love that they're all bad actors, really, except Sophie. Nate always plays the same character - he's always the obnoxious loud jerk being used as distraction. Eliot, strangely, has a great line in kind of cowed kids under Nate's character's thumb. (Or the muscle, or sometimes both at once). Hardison and Parker aren't allowed to do anything that requires adlibs. Sophie mostly gets stuck with the charming-woman type roles but there's a subtlety to them where they're different characters, not all the same one. I had the harder time with Sophie in S1 because I was never sure where she was coming from or what she was thinking, and then in S2 the show used that as part of her arc. So that I get why she's pissed off - why they're all pissed off - at the end of The Maltese Falcon job. Because he didn't trust them and he used them and he turned her rescue into part of his setting himself alight to save them all.
Nate's interesting to me because there are ways in which he's a genius wrangler - trying to point all these people in the right direction - and ways in which he's an obnoxious genius himself and needs someone to keep him in line. He deals in big pictures and small details and he doesn't always realise that being right doesn't mean you're going to win. He is not an unknown quantity in western media, and I love everyone else on the show, but I have this weakness for the leader-guy. I could blame my own Daddy-issues (namely: my Daddy is awesome, and no one else will match up) or ways in which I find responsibility compelling in fiction. And sacrifice, because I'm an atheist but I was raised Christian and 'greater love hath no man' sticks out. But I do need to work it out, as I have four different Leverage WIPs at the moment and I'd like to finish one of them, without offending people whose opinions I respect.
I have the probably kid-fic one because I'm allowed one sappy comfort fic. Then the racebending one. And then I may, may have started on a sexswapped team one because it keeps poking me with vignette-bunnies ever since it was mentioned to me. There doesn't seem to be a plot, but I'm not sure if it matters. I still haven't officially signed up for Leverage big bang, but I probably should since that one almost does have a plot, I've been thinking about it so long.
At the moment I'm thinking about the fundamentals. In an AU, what needs to the stay the same for it to still be the show I love, and what problems can I poke holes in? Right now my issue is: I also love Nate in the racebent universe, and I love Natalie-Nate. The thesis is that the universe would treat these characters differently than the canon. Which clearly it would - but I don't know if they would behave differently, or whether it's wrong to argue that they would be more justified to behave in a way which is problematic when it's a white man doing it. For me, in the grand courtship of Natalie and whoever Sophie becomes, Sophie's behaviour then becomes less sympathetic in S2, and I'm more on Natalie's side. I'm not sure that's the right way to be going about this! It ceases to function as a critique and becomes more - there's an interesting story about a woman here, but she's not either of the fascinating woman canon gave me. (Plus I think Sterling is inappropriately attracted to Natalie, and that's also a problem. A hot angry-sex problem, perhaps, but a problem nonetheless.)
... and we've established that writing is hard, and that it should be thought about properly. Revelations all. I'm done. /rambling.
This entry was originally posted at http://blackeyedgirl.dreamwidth.org/135816.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
So: The Second David Job. Follows on from the previous ep, and an important job gone wrong.
We open on the moment of crisis mid-way through the con: Nate with a gun on him (also a nice callback to the previous ep). This is a fairly common move for Leverage (as it's fairly common in con-type stories) but it's well-done.
Cut to three days ago, Sophie looking at artworkAnd Parker looking at security
Eliot in a suit, checking the guard rotasHardison wearing a hard-hat, looking furtive.
In short, despite the dramatics of the previous episode, the status quo looks to have been restored and the team is working together on one con. Then this happens:
Sophie spots Parker, and is surprised.Parker is also surprised (and more than a little annoyed.)
Hardison and Eliot are also surprised to see each other.Eliot is his usual brand of pissed-off/protective when Hardison can't see that he's about to get noticed.
Parker decides to rescue Sophie "Run now, talk later"While Eliot employs his own methods to get Hardison out.
One glorious running shot. With no clue what they're running to, no plan. But all going the same direction anyway. Even though they were all doing their own jobs solo, without knowledge of the others, when the crisis hits, they all run the same way.
Then dad pulls into frame for the rescue with "Need a ride?". And looks round, before driving off, as if to make sure all the kids are strapped in.
Cut to HQ, everyone but Nate bickering over why they were there, and what happened last time. Lots of overlapping dialogue and nothing getting resolved.
And then Nate goes 'ooooh' and everyone stops.They start talking, first to him, then to each other, forgetting the fight, working the con. Nate backs away and watches them.
Team brings all their separate knowledge to the table, but can't put the pieces together. Nate: "Grifter, hitter, hacker, thief. You're all trying to solve your version of the crime instead of just trying to...solve the crime. There's a reason we work together."
See, that's what I love best about the show. That's the show I'm watching. I like con-stories (the first Ocean's remake; White Collar) - I like shiny and cool set-pieces and dialogue and it's okay if the plots don't always quite hold together. Because the show that I'm watching is the show where five people who have always worked solo grudgingly build a family. The show only says this out loud a few times, and I can only think of Nate saying it at the one time when things have already gone as bad as they'll get. But it makes it explicit in the text all the time - the way things are framed, and the visual shorthand - it's really obviously mom, dad and our three genius messed-up kids.
Which is problematic if that's not the show you're watching, because then you just have this screwed-up older white guy telling everyone else what to do and witholding information and sometimes being bad at the leadership part. It's problematic even if that is the show you're watching, because Nate is not the best example of a TV-Dad substitute. I'm entirely in love with Nate, and Tim Hutton as Nate, and even I can see that. He's a problem.
Because sometimes it isn't happy families. Sometimes Sophie isn't there to say, "let me talk to Nate alone for a minute". Sometimes Nate's drunk and stuck in a plan and he shouts and the other three just sit there and watch him. They go quiet and scared and we jump to visual short-hand for children of an alcoholic. And I want to shake him and say "remember how much more awesome it was when you were going on jobs with Parker for some reason, and telling her stuff in a cute Dad-imparting-wisdom type way, and looking out for her? And she was teaching you new things, and everyone was teaching each other new things and no one was drunk and out of control?" I like the rescues. I like that they're family, and that Eliot shows Parker how to fight and Alec shows Eliot photoshop. That Parker finds something to run to instead of from; that Alec keeps on trying to build them a home, no matter how many times they have to leave; that Eliot continues to be really aggressively protective, denying it the whole time.
And I love that they're all bad actors, really, except Sophie. Nate always plays the same character - he's always the obnoxious loud jerk being used as distraction. Eliot, strangely, has a great line in kind of cowed kids under Nate's character's thumb. (Or the muscle, or sometimes both at once). Hardison and Parker aren't allowed to do anything that requires adlibs. Sophie mostly gets stuck with the charming-woman type roles but there's a subtlety to them where they're different characters, not all the same one. I had the harder time with Sophie in S1 because I was never sure where she was coming from or what she was thinking, and then in S2 the show used that as part of her arc. So that I get why she's pissed off - why they're all pissed off - at the end of The Maltese Falcon job. Because he didn't trust them and he used them and he turned her rescue into part of his setting himself alight to save them all.
Nate's interesting to me because there are ways in which he's a genius wrangler - trying to point all these people in the right direction - and ways in which he's an obnoxious genius himself and needs someone to keep him in line. He deals in big pictures and small details and he doesn't always realise that being right doesn't mean you're going to win. He is not an unknown quantity in western media, and I love everyone else on the show, but I have this weakness for the leader-guy. I could blame my own Daddy-issues (namely: my Daddy is awesome, and no one else will match up) or ways in which I find responsibility compelling in fiction. And sacrifice, because I'm an atheist but I was raised Christian and 'greater love hath no man' sticks out. But I do need to work it out, as I have four different Leverage WIPs at the moment and I'd like to finish one of them, without offending people whose opinions I respect.
I have the probably kid-fic one because I'm allowed one sappy comfort fic. Then the racebending one. And then I may, may have started on a sexswapped team one because it keeps poking me with vignette-bunnies ever since it was mentioned to me. There doesn't seem to be a plot, but I'm not sure if it matters. I still haven't officially signed up for Leverage big bang, but I probably should since that one almost does have a plot, I've been thinking about it so long.
At the moment I'm thinking about the fundamentals. In an AU, what needs to the stay the same for it to still be the show I love, and what problems can I poke holes in? Right now my issue is: I also love Nate in the racebent universe, and I love Natalie-Nate. The thesis is that the universe would treat these characters differently than the canon. Which clearly it would - but I don't know if they would behave differently, or whether it's wrong to argue that they would be more justified to behave in a way which is problematic when it's a white man doing it. For me, in the grand courtship of Natalie and whoever Sophie becomes, Sophie's behaviour then becomes less sympathetic in S2, and I'm more on Natalie's side. I'm not sure that's the right way to be going about this! It ceases to function as a critique and becomes more - there's an interesting story about a woman here, but she's not either of the fascinating woman canon gave me. (Plus I think Sterling is inappropriately attracted to Natalie, and that's also a problem. A hot angry-sex problem, perhaps, but a problem nonetheless.)
... and we've established that writing is hard, and that it should be thought about properly. Revelations all. I'm done. /rambling.
This entry was originally posted at http://blackeyedgirl.dreamwidth.org/135816.html. Please comment there using OpenID.