I was gonna leave this in the tags but you know what, no, I have Thoughts and the tags aren’t big enough.
Because you know, some of this is probably just that despite the fact that the crew is dangerous and vicious as all-get-out toward marks, they are still fundamentally good. They don’t hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it.
Sterling is a contrary arrogant competitive morally gray bastard and anything but nice (not that the rest of the crew is particularly nice either), and he is not particularly kind, but that, I think, is something he can respect. At the very least he knows that he can rely on them to help him in situations where he’s helping or saving someone who wouldn’t be a mark.
And–you know–Sterling isn’t… bad, per say. He’s an antagonist, certainly, morally grey, definitely, and he’s helped some bad people, but we’ve never necessarily seen him try to really truly hurt someone who didn’t actually deserve it. Lawful neutral, I think, not lawful evil.
He is selfish by degrees but has also been shown to have a capacity to really and truly love someone. His daughter clearly loves him: she steals quotes from him, she proudly refers to everything he’s taught her, she hugs him tightly when she sees him and goes out of her way to help him. She is clearly more than capable of thinking for herself and has plenty of outside influences. If there were good reasons for her to hate him, she would–but she doesn’t. Sterling isn’t a perfect father, but he isn’t a terrible one either.
Then there’s the time when he goes to Leverage to help Maggie, and yeah, he benefits heavily from their help, but I honestly think there’s still a level of caring there. I find it difficult to believe he doesn’t still have some sympathy and care for Nate after they were so tight for so long. Yeah, they’re rivals now, but even then they have fun with the banter. They like pissing each other off in a way that rings less of I want to see you die and more in the it’s fun antagonizing you way.
More than that, it’s a challenge. They’re both remarkably intelligent people. It’s likely hard for them to find someone to match wits with. Antagonizing one another is fun; winning, however, is proving themselves. They sharpen each other’s minds. That’s probably one of the reasons why they were friends in the first place. Frustrating each other (elevator scene, anyone?) is just a fun side benefit. Given that they’re both highly competitive and arrogant individuals, however, they’re willing to play with much higher stakes than most people.
And again: their relationship isn’t really I want to see you die and suffer. Hell, I think Sterling was mostly angry at Nate because he saw Nate essentially throwing his life away. If he did care for Nate–and we can reasonably conclude that he did–it probably hurt to watch that. At the very least it robbed him of a friend who could properly challenge him.
In a way I think he was happy to see Nate picking himself up. He seems to take no small amount of delight in taking down Nate’s old boss in The Second David Job, and okay, that’s probably mostly because it wins Sterling lots of bonus points at his work, but I’d bet it was also satisfying to see Nate and Maggie getting revenge.
Then there’s the crew. Because, look, Nate does something pretty awesome with the crew: he turns them around. Now, he shouldn’t be given too much credit for that. It was their choice to be good. It was their choice to turn their lives around and help people instead. But it would have taken much longer–if it would have ever happened–for them to make that choice on their own. Nate opens the door and gives them the opportunity to see what doing good feels like. He is the catalyst.
And Sterling? Sterling admires that despite himself. (Given how he sees the crew, I imagine he does give Nate a little too much credit, but eh.) Yes, he’s lawful neutral, yes, he’s someone who doesn’t necessarily care about who wins and who loses, but again: we never really see Sterling try to hurt someone. Prove himself, yes, get things for himself, sure, but several times he’s on the right side of things.
Interpol certainly isn’t all good, and there’s corruption and such. But a lot of what Sterling does is still helping people. Leverage is all about helping people. In some ways, their goals align. There’s little reason for Sterling to pull them down when they’re doing his job for him. Hell, I think you could make an argument that the crew sort-of-accidentally shows Sterling the “doing good feels good” thing.
Because what I always come back to, in the end, is that last episode, The Long Goodbye Job. We spend this whole series watching Sterling with the crew–first actively trying to sabotage them, then later going to them for help (albeit for selfish reasons), trusting them with his daughter (because he knows that they are good, but more than that, he knows that they are good in that they would always save her no matter what he’s done), working alongside Nate and Sophie to solve a murder mystery even in the midst of messing with each other–all building up to that last encounter.
And what does Sterling say, when he thinks Nate got the crew killed? (The crew of ridiculously talented, intelligent, and most importantly kind people who helped Sterling even after he’d backstabbed them?)
“You bastard. You would get them killed for that. You’d risk everything, for that.”
He’s angry. Not because of what they tried to steal, but because of two things:
Sterling cares about the crew. He cannot stand to see them dead. They are good people, and they have helped him, and the world will suffer greatly at the loss of them.
And Sterling cares about Nate.
“You’d risk everything, for that.”
Nate’s built this life for himself, built this crew of helpers, of avenging angels, this supportive family who has carried him through the worst times of his life in a way that Sterling never did. (Does he regret that, do you think? Regret not being there for Nate?)
He has all of this, and when Sterling sees that he has taken this horrible risk and fallen because of it, he’s angry not because of what the risk was, but about Nate’s choice to hurt himself again. He sees his former friend making choices that hurt himself, and he is angry because it hurts to see Nate hurting like that.
Sterling is an antagonist, but at the end of the day he is much like the crew: he cares about his friends and family, even if he’s shit at showing it. He’s arrogant and selfish and flawed as hell, but he isn’t interested in watching the world burn for his personal benefit. He’s still interested in justice and keeping the world at large safe.
Sterling is not like their marks. He cares.
Because, see, Sterling wants to see the people in the Black Book burn just as Nate does. He just sees a different side of it.
”The world’s economy would never stabilize, with endless parades of bankers being led around in chains. The system has to work. The guys who used to run it have to keep running it.”
Lawful neutral, right? (Or lawful good: there are arguments to be made here for both.) He believes that the best way to keep the world safe is by enforcing the laws and keeping the system stable. Nate, of course, has suffered the consequences of that system, and has approximately zero worries about messing with it if it helps people.
And at the end of it all… he sees what Nate’s doing. He changes his mind. He’s seen Nate suffer those consequences, he’s watched people hurt because of the system, and when he realizes what they’re doing? He helps them. Again: he won’t watch the world burn for his benefit.
Sterling doesn’t prioritize his personal desires above them and their mission for good. No, he helps them get away with it. He wants to see the people in the Black Book get their just desserts, and… well.
“[Nathan.] You and I are not the same. We don’t believe in the same things.”
Like I said. Sterling sees order as the solution. Nate doesn’t. But he lets Nate get away, because he may not like Nate much but he wants to see him happy. He recognizes the value in what Nate is doing, and he agrees with the result, even if he doesn’t agree with the method.
Whether you take that in a romantic way or not is up to you. But one thing’s for sure: Sterling is a damn good antagonist and an even better character, and his arc is a fantastic examination of different ideals and the many opinions on how to get to the same goal… and, at the end, how to find a compromise to reach that goal.
Above all, it means that the crew will come for Sterling. It means they care. They might have different ideas on how to help the world, but they can agree that the world does need help, and they are more than smart enough to recognize that even if they don’t like each other’s methods, those methods are still effective in their own ways. So Sterling will back them up, even if he doesn’t like them, and the crew will help him when he needs it, even if they’re reluctant and irritated about it.
And if they somehow find a way to get past some of those differences and trust one another and find a friendship… well. It wouldn’t be the first time, now would it?
