Reasons to Love: Leverage

In these times where the powers that be are rich, selfish, and more self-centred than a gyroscope, it's good to see the downfall of their fictional counterparts. There's also the sequel series, Leverage: Redemption that I'm currently working my way through, so I'll stick with the OG series.

The rich and powerful, they take what they want. We steal it back for you. Sometimes, bad guys make the best good guys. We provide... leverage.

Those are the words in the opening sequence of every episode except the premier. An opening sequence that introduces us to each member of the crew and what they do by their criminal archetype. The hitter, the hacker, the thief, the grifter, and the mastermind.

The Hitter: Elliot Spencer. You'd expect most "muscle" archetypes to be big, bodybuilding brutes who occupy the same space as antique furniture. Jar head haircuts and sunglasses and guns. Elliot's the opposite of that in every respect. Yes, he has muscles, but they're working muscle. He's the shortest member of the crew. He has long, luxurious locks. He even defeats the Powerhouse trope by having his intense relationship with food being cooking it. Dude's a gourmet chef.

Despite his general aura of savagery and repeated "Damnit, Hardison"s, he's so very soft with kids. Hell, he's a kid magnet. A kid in a desperate situation sizes him up in a picosecond and thinks, Hey, this guy is meaner than my tormenor but also giving off safety vibes. I can go to him. And those kids are right, every time. There's even one episode where Spencer notices the abused kid of a cop. Once made fully aware of the Blue Shield around that sort of thing [ACAB], he manages to sic Federal Forces on the scumbag. Very poetic.

Plus all his fight scenes are fucking historic.

The Hacker: Alec Hardison. What you expect about a hacker is a small, skinny, under-attractive white nerd who "well actually"s everyone. Again, they go for the exact opposite of that. He's tall, handsome, and black. He's still a massive nerd and that's a lot of his charm. He's the gadget man, the guy who looks to technology first and old school, later.

If he likes you, he will build a robot to make your work easier. He has ways to use any system against the people trying to screw with you with it. He also has an ego roughly the size of Eurasia and that's his fatal flaw.

As for his nemesis? Will "Shut up Wesley" Wheaton. It's such a good laugh.

Fun fact, the actor portraying Alec Hardison, Aldis Hodge, is a horologist. He makes watches. Pretty damn nifty watches, I might add.

The Thief: Parker. Just Parker. No other name is ever revealed and that's the fun of it. Think of the kind of person who creeps into places or pickpockets out of habit. Parker's a petite blonde you could easily imagine as a cheerleader. In fact, she worked with cheerleaders for an episode. However, Parker is distinctively Autism Coded, and does not understand how to people.

I love her.

She'd rather dodge lasers and crack safes than talk to a stranger. Her version of "please don't touch me" is sticking a piece of cutlery into the unwelcome hand. She has such a direct way of dealing with obstacles that I wish I could get away with. She also whoops with joy when jumping off a building and is a chaos gremlin after my own heart.

The Grifter: Sophie Devereaux. She moonlights as an actor and is actually terrible on the stage. When she grifts, though, she can be three different people in an hour in the same place and only change her hairstyle to do it.

She can play innocent like a virtuoso, slip from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again in a change of attitude. Her actor, Gina Bellman, must have loved doing this role. Who wouldn't love the chance to be a different person every week?

There's a running gag regarding Sophie's real name, which is also never actually revealed. At this point, I'm thinking that the rest of the crew decided to put one over on their Mastermind.

The Mastermind: Nathan Ford. Former insurance agent who saw exactly the kind of people he's targeting in the show. His backstory being a legalised crime that is very relevant in this modern era - murder by medical insurance. His kid needed something the insurance denied and died about it. That's what turned him to crime.

That, and the Nedry guy from Jurassic Park.

He's the brains of the entire operation and, eventually, the tutor that guides the others into thinking their way around a heist. There's not just a Plan B... there's also plans C through Z, and some of them involve the death of a crewmember.

The finesse of his plans is always revealed in flashbacks, when the magic trick is exposed.

Unfun Fact: His actor, Timothy Hutton, has been involved in a scandal. The details are unclear, but the production team killed his character off for Redemption. Suffice to say that he was a very naughty lad and he hasn't got away with it.

The entire show is still bloody amazing and I love it. Try it sometime.