I Found Cool Stuff -- Chapter 14: Leverage
I'm having a hard time finding a clip for this that really captures the whole show, so I'm settling for one of the recent commercials for it. Better than nothing.
LEVERAGE is the Heist Movie and Con Movie, distilled to the essence and made into an ensemble television show where at least one major con is run every episode. In many ways, it's a Robin Hood story, about a group of not-exactly-reformed criminals working together to take down the powerful and corrupt who would make life miserable for the average fellow.
It's got some of the best character dynamics I've seen in awhile, and I should also mention for all of my fellow geeks that this show is run the most awesome role-playing game session you've ever heard of.
The core of the team is Nathan Ford (played by Timothy Hutton), a former insurance investigator whose son died when his employer refused to pay for necessary treatments. To say that this made Ford a tad bitter would be a gross understatement. He was never a criminal himself, but he understands the criminal mind and methods better than most lifetime crooks do. He's the team's mastermind.
Alec Hardison (played by Aldis Hodge) is the team's hacker and gadget-maker. He's also a confirmed geek, at one point showing up late for a con because he'd been up all night before on the launchday for "Wrath of the Lich-King" on World of Warcraft, and using his hacking skills to get the best possible torrents of Doctor Who episodes. He's only a mediocre con artist himself, but his tech skills are second to none.
Parker (Beth Riesgraf) is insane. She's a classic thief, able to crack any safe, infiltrate any vault, pick any pocket. Did I mention she's nucking futs? Socially inept, and said by the show's writers to very likely be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and she absolutely loves being a criminal. She loves the challenge of these "robin hood" jobs even more.
For a con, you need a grifter, or face, and for this crew, that's Sophie Devereaux, played by Gina Bellman, perhaps best known as one of the regulars in the original UK version of Coupling. She's an absolute chameleon, disappearing into different roles and accents and personas at the drop of a hat -- but only when she's doing a con. She'd like nothing more than to be a professional actress of stage and screen, but unfortunately, in those venues, she SUCKS. Painfully.
And when the team gets into trouble, they have their hitter, or "retrieval specialist", Eliot Spencer, who many might recognize from Angel as Lindsey, the lawyer going back and forth between good and evil, played by Christian Kane. Eliot's job is to hurt people when things go wrong, and be the escape route that never fails. He's very, very good at his job, and takes full advantage when people underestimate him and think he's nothing but a hard-hitting thug.
All these characters would be right at home around a gaming table, and that's deliberate -- one of the show's creators is John Rogers, avowed geek and writer of several D&D 4th edition works, as well as the recent BLUE BEETLE comic from DC, which sadly has been cancelled.
This show is fantastic. Great action, great character drama, and cons that are just intricate enough to keep the audience guessing without becoming confusing and overcomplicated.
It airs on TNT on wednesday nights, and they're about to wrap up their second season, and a third season is already in production. It's been a very successful show for TNT, and I'm hoping it'll be on the air for a good long time to come.
Enjoy!
LEVERAGE is the Heist Movie and Con Movie, distilled to the essence and made into an ensemble television show where at least one major con is run every episode. In many ways, it's a Robin Hood story, about a group of not-exactly-reformed criminals working together to take down the powerful and corrupt who would make life miserable for the average fellow.
It's got some of the best character dynamics I've seen in awhile, and I should also mention for all of my fellow geeks that this show is run the most awesome role-playing game session you've ever heard of.
The core of the team is Nathan Ford (played by Timothy Hutton), a former insurance investigator whose son died when his employer refused to pay for necessary treatments. To say that this made Ford a tad bitter would be a gross understatement. He was never a criminal himself, but he understands the criminal mind and methods better than most lifetime crooks do. He's the team's mastermind.
Alec Hardison (played by Aldis Hodge) is the team's hacker and gadget-maker. He's also a confirmed geek, at one point showing up late for a con because he'd been up all night before on the launchday for "Wrath of the Lich-King" on World of Warcraft, and using his hacking skills to get the best possible torrents of Doctor Who episodes. He's only a mediocre con artist himself, but his tech skills are second to none.
Parker (Beth Riesgraf) is insane. She's a classic thief, able to crack any safe, infiltrate any vault, pick any pocket. Did I mention she's nucking futs? Socially inept, and said by the show's writers to very likely be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, and she absolutely loves being a criminal. She loves the challenge of these "robin hood" jobs even more.
For a con, you need a grifter, or face, and for this crew, that's Sophie Devereaux, played by Gina Bellman, perhaps best known as one of the regulars in the original UK version of Coupling. She's an absolute chameleon, disappearing into different roles and accents and personas at the drop of a hat -- but only when she's doing a con. She'd like nothing more than to be a professional actress of stage and screen, but unfortunately, in those venues, she SUCKS. Painfully.
And when the team gets into trouble, they have their hitter, or "retrieval specialist", Eliot Spencer, who many might recognize from Angel as Lindsey, the lawyer going back and forth between good and evil, played by Christian Kane. Eliot's job is to hurt people when things go wrong, and be the escape route that never fails. He's very, very good at his job, and takes full advantage when people underestimate him and think he's nothing but a hard-hitting thug.
All these characters would be right at home around a gaming table, and that's deliberate -- one of the show's creators is John Rogers, avowed geek and writer of several D&D 4th edition works, as well as the recent BLUE BEETLE comic from DC, which sadly has been cancelled.
This show is fantastic. Great action, great character drama, and cons that are just intricate enough to keep the audience guessing without becoming confusing and overcomplicated.
It airs on TNT on wednesday nights, and they're about to wrap up their second season, and a third season is already in production. It's been a very successful show for TNT, and I'm hoping it'll be on the air for a good long time to come.
Enjoy!
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