Its called growth, Your Honor.

Leverage S01E02 The Homecoming Job/Leverage Redemption S02E13 The Crowning Achievement Job.

(Part 2 here!)

It’s once again called personal growth, Your Honor! (With added confirmation from Parker.)

(Part 1 here!)

Leverage S01E10 The 12 Step Job/Leverage Redemption S02E04 The Date Night Job.

Pilot:

Finale:

some tag appreciation bc I'm glad we're all on the same page-

op: #that's GROWTH baby!#pilot: yeah you're on your own bye#finale: i will die a thousand deaths before i allow them to come anywhere near you#lone wolf to pack-bonded

@wewringmagicfromtheordinary: #and hardison and parker aren't even worried#they know eliot will protect them

@sleepingwithdragons: #god Eliot putting himself bodily between them and the threat#not even the center of the hallway#he moves DIRECTLY in front of Hardison and Parker#I love the way he loves

@the-tomorrow-road: #i LOVE this contrast#how he walks in front of the two of them to sheild them in the finale#pilot he does his job and then is like 'nope we're blown i'll just punch my way out soz bye' and yet#and YET#character growth#see?!??#see

@feuer-bluete: #the change kills me#eliot is not just turning around to face the bad guys#he is also moving so he stand between the bad guys and parker and hardison#if you want to get to them you have to go through him first#till my daying day#gosh i love them SO MUCH

@away-ward: #i love how hardison doesn't even look up in the second one#obviously eliots gonna do what eliot does and it'll be fine#because 'that's what i do'

@stuff-n-n0nsense: #that's growth baby!#pilot: yeah you're on your own bye#finale: i will die a thousand deaths before i allow them to come anywhere near you

"I was alone then. I'm not alone now, okay?"

okay but are we ever going to talk about how in the rundown job parker, parker is the one to basically profess wedding vows

not hardison, the softie who has been head over heels in love with the other two since day one. who pack bonds and never lets go.

not eliot (although his declaration comes later), who underneath all that hard exterior has a soft heart. a man who will lay down his life for the ones he loves.

parker

the girl who was lost and alone, broken, without any real family when the show started. who took a long time to fully trust anybody. who took years to feel comfortable enough for a relationship

yet here she is, in the middle of a possible biowarfare attack, professing what are basically wedding vows to eliot

and it’s not just her she’s talking about either. “for better or worse, we change together.” we. her, hardison and eliot. they change together. because they are a unit, a trio- three people bound by some wordless connection that is so strong that it’s implied that whatever they do, for better or worse, they do it together

I always see it like this. Hardison is... Stable. He's the good mostly typical boy who fell in love and built very (relatively) normal relationships.

Parker, once she gets there, is IN. She's full on in this family do there is no die or try. She would be the first to say it out loud bc Hardison couldn't push and Eliot can't take.

Eliot can pledge himself and does, but can't take the things, even on offer. He has to give himself to them (due to whatever, trauma and our personality).

#listen parker is so precious to me and her arc over the course of the show is everything#she has the tallest thickest thorniest walls of anyone on the team at the start#and she hides behind the fact that everyone thinks she’s crazy#but she was never crazy! she just has so many defense mechanisms and unpickable locks on every unhackable wall#but she learns to trust them and to be herself with them and come into her own as mastermind#op you’re right and you should say it#parker meta#parker learning to lean on Hardison and eliot specifically is the most beautiful thing via snakedeath

#i've been thinking about how much more comfortable breanna seems in 1b #and i keep coming back to this scene #because we see her interact with sophie plenty in 1a #even spend time together just the two of them in the van or at hq as they oversee the rest of the team in the field #but this scene just feels different #i think part of it is that sophie seems more comfortable #she's been masterminding in 1a but this is really a step back into her comfort zone of directing #and that naturally helps breanna relax around her too #but i think it's something deeper than that #because at the start of the series breanna must know of sophie from parker and hardison's stories #knows that sophie is charismatic and clever and an excellent grifter #and most importantly she knows that sophie is hardison's family #that he and parker and eliot all love this woman #breanna comes into the crew knowing that sophie is /important/ to them #that her opinion matters #that she is family #but breanna doesn't know /her/ #so breanna joins the crew knowing she needs to be on her Best Behavior #knows that's what you do in a new home - be good and quiet until you know if you're safe to be yourself #and i think this is the moment breanna starts to feel comfortable with sophie #starts to trust that sophie is someone she can be herself around #because prior to this scene the only hint breanna gives in front of sophie that she's gay is her speech in the card game job #poignant for those who get it and easy to brush off for those who don't #and we don't see the crew interact with any other textually gay characters #but the bucket job starts with a gay kid asking sophie to help him #to help reward a man who made him feel safe and loved when he was scared #and while breanna could be thanking sophie for giving her and the crew what they're asking her for #i think it's much deeper than that #because the way breanna looks at her #the weight she gives the moment before she says thank you #something she says she's bad at just a few episodes previously but she feels strongly enough to do now #breanna is watching sophie and it's a little in awe #and at first i thought it was about seeing sophie in her element #and i do think that's part of it #but the way breanna swallows before she can work up to the thank you #the way her eyes are misty with emotion #the relieved and open smile at the end? #'thank you for doing this for us' means 'thank you for helping scared gay kids like maurice and me' #'for helping us by rewarding our safe space' #'for believing we /deserve/ a safe space' #i think that she's thanking sophie for seeing the value in what robert blanche did for him #for kids who felt alone the way she did #and i think this scene was so important because it was the moment sophie became safe to her #the moment she stopped fearing that she would cause a problem with her brother's family #the moment she stopped worrying that she would have to choose between being part of the crew and being herself #and after this scene we see her start to be more open as a lesbian /specifically/ in front of sophie #sharing her conclusion about the identity of stella's love #bonding with stella in front of sophie #telling sophie she found emily cute and even asking how to deal with that in the middle of a con #and each time sophie was quietly supportive #not making a big deal or prodding but nodding and smiling and offering gentle advice #breanna started to get to know sophie in 1a #but i think this is the moment she started to think of her as family #the moment she started to feel at home

i wanna talk about this scene. i love the way parker and eliot just start having the conversation on their own and completely forget about the others. it just shows how better they got at understanding each other and working with each other. and i don’t mean just the two of them. even though hardison is not explicitly mentioned here, i somehow feel like his presence is very loud in the subtext of this scene. i think this is a glimpse into how the ot3 functioned as a team over the past years and just thinking about it makes me so happy. i can imagine them working a job, all of them being on the same wavelength and barely having to speak about their plans out loud because they just know so well what they need to do. i can imagine it’s strange for them to include others sometimes because they got used to each other. sophie doesn’t seem surprised about it, but poor newbies

I also love how Sophie accepts she’s going to be on the outside of the ot3. She may not get what’s going on entirely (see her conversation with Elliot at the end of this episode) but she knows the three of them are a team. She knows what it means that it’s been the three of them together for nearly a decade. And mostly importantly: she trusts them to get the job done, together. It doesn’t have to include her, she knows they know that they’re doing.

It’s the clear and natural progression from how they were already starting to be able to communicate like this in the original series for me, especially in s5. I mean..we had an Entire episode show casing just how cohesive a unit they already were before Nate and Sophie left. Plus all the little conversations Eliot and Parker have without even opening their mouths.

Sophie already knew how close knit they were before the split, she’s seen all of it before just maybe to a lesser extent…and now after almost a decade of pulling jobs, putting together other crews (probably in a similar fashion to how they were, ya know minus the betrayal part), training/mentoring/Rasing those crews, it’s only Logical that they’d be even closer and even better at reading/communicating with each other. And now she (Sophie) actually gets to See that progress in motion and at work instead of just brief flashes of it from when they’d come to visit- invited or no. They are Family after all.

After all…in a lot of ways these are her and Nate’s /kids/, and now she gets to see them All Grown Up..and through/in that, flashes of Nate. And maybe in that way, it hurts a little less every day. Nate’s not /here/ but he’s not gone either.

In a way, Sophie is a lot like an audience Proxy:

big rig job review: it’s a good old fashioned christmas episode!!! with parker’s obsession for xmas rising to new heights like never before!!! also (spoilers) it’s Sophie saying “I have people working to stop this, but one of my team is on that truck”. she is maybe for the first time ever giving an honest answer to a new acquaintance while on the job, and she shares it with someone who understands the work she does (they’re BOTH DISPATCH they both WORK TO MAKE SURE THE PEOPLE THEY CARE FOR GET HOME SAFE AT THE END OF THE DAY) and understands the loss they’ve both suffered. and she is honest! without thought or hesitation! she is trusting someone!!!!! GROWTH

The foreshadowing of Mastermind Parker

I remember I was a bit surprised watching s5 final scene where Parker essentially takes the mastermind role (probably because I wasn’t paying attention). Since then every time I rewatch I’m unconsciously trying to find clues, not in s5, where there’s even an episode about it (The Broken Wing) but in earlier seasons.

The Nigerian Job: There’s this scene at the beginning where she asks Nate how does he know how many guards are there, and he tells him to count the haircuts. Parker responds with “I would have miss that.”

And it seems small, but I think it’s interesting to note that she’s the one always learning these little things from Nate. If you compare it to, say, Hardison trying to figure out in The Real Fake Car Job how Nate knew everything would happen like it did, it tells you how they perceive the mastermind role: Parker sees Nate as someone who can teach her skills she doesn’t know, while Hardison sees the Mastermind as someone all-knowing that controls everything, and has perfectly effective and intricate plans for everything, like a puppet master.  When in reality you can tell Nate improvises things most of the time, even if he does have back up plans to fall back into.

The Bank Shot Job: Parker explains to Hardison how easy it’s to rob a bank like that, displaying in her plans something that Nate teachs Hardison in The Gold Job: the best plans are simple and effective.

This also ties with something she says later to Hardison in s2.

The Bean Town Bailor Job:

As a thief, she has to be able to unravel complex locks and security mechanisms all the time. Nate’s great at getting inside the bad guys’ heads and bringing them to their undoing. (As an aside, I like the fact that the show let us know that Sophie was perfectly capable of leading the cons if she wanted to, because she’s also great at manipulating people).

And if she applies the locks=people thing to the plans she makes, it’s not unexpected that planning a con and planning a theft would be quite similar to her.

Another point: as a thief pre-Leverage, she was always at more risk, not because she wasn’t capable of defending herself, but probably because she had to avoid security guards and the like, and because she wasn’t the best at social interaction at the time. Where Sophie would make the mark open the door, Eliot would barrel through any barrier and make himself an exit and Hardison would simply hack something, or not be in a place where he could be caught.

Parker would have had to make contingency plans every time she went to steal something. It’s also because she’s great at improvising, and adapting, which she hones over the years working with the team.

The Three-Car Monte Job:

She plans/analyses how to rob banks on her weekends, as a hobby. It’s like Nate and Sophie’s past-time being  solving murder mysteries. Parker loves that kind of thing and she’s great at it.

The Rashomon Job: She’s the one that gets closer to stealing the dagger, and only loses it because she accidentally drops it and someone (cofsophiecof) took her duffle bag by mistake.

(Transcripts taken from here)

This feels like a rather incomplete post without any useful conclusion lol But my point is, or what I was trying to prove to myself at least, is that from the begining Parker was the best candidate to the mastermind role. 

There is so much great foreshadowing before the last season!!

Some moments that stand out to me:

- season 1 in the Wedding Job thought on her feet to save the mark and salvage the plan when Sergei was about to kill him

- season 1 by Juror #6 she’s already learned enough to be able to recognize when there’s another mastermind in play and gets the team to take the job

- season 1 The First David Job she came up with a plan on the spot and stole a Michelangelo with tin foil, ice, chewing gum, and making out with Hardison

- season 2 The Fairy Godparents Job on the spot coached Hardison through the heist while outwardly speaking to McSweeten (after having planned that particular apartment heist for her to do herself)

- season 2 helped Nate with a lot of the overall planning for the Iceman job, serving almost as an assistant mastermind because she had the skills to break into the safe and the knowledge about diamonds and safes

- season 3 The Jailhouse Job she created a jailbreak plan that would allow Nate and Billy to escape (not her fault other people are too lame to crawl out along the heating pipes)

- season 3 The Inside Job planned the heist of the building that had a Steranko and even Sophie noted that it was almost as neatly planned as one of Nate’s and in the end it was through her plan that they successfully got the blight (then Nate’s plan got them safely out)

-season 3 The Boost Job Nate left her entirely to her own devices to get herself and Hardison into the car thief crew so she did (this is one of many small moments where Nate trusts her to make her own plan to complete a necessary part of the overall con, like he sets these little tests for her to have her plan a part of the con by herself)

That’s just things I can think of off the top of my head in the first 3 seasons but there are just so so many little things peppered throughout the show. They had planned from Day One to have Parker be Nate’s protege and that is something that’s clear throughout the show. So many little tests he gives her and smaller duties for planning in the cons that he gives her more than any of the others, without ever saying to her that he’s training her to replace him. It just gets more obvious as the show goes on and he gives her more and more responsibilities, coming to a head in season 5 where he’s got her planning the entire con with him.

*heart eyes* @filibusterphil omg!!! Thank you so much for this additions!! And I completely agree that Nate trusts in the later seasons to make the best decisions, because Parker is a great problem solver.

Also adding your tags because they’re on point:

Another one that popped up in my head after reading this:

 The Ten Li’l Grifters Job: When Parker figured out the house was a great maze and found the blueprints by herself.

Another thing that I just thought of is that Parker is the one that implies (very vaguely) from the very first episode that she wants to learn from Nate.

Parker: I’m really good at one thing—

Nate: Parker.

Parker: …only one thing that’s it, but you, you know other things and-and I can’t stop doing my one thing, can’t retire …