leverage

classic why is parker and eliot so close to each other compared to everyone else during the debrief moment (answer: they are in LOVE)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the way they make each other LAUGH 💀

true love is all these ridiculous little faces at each other during this little bickering. i love them? i love them.

so is the lonely hearts job secretly an ot3 episode... not for significant ot3 moments but for how it highlights all these sweet moments between the three sides of the triangle, like, look at how much silliness and joy they bring to each other's LIVES.

also, eliot's smile is absolutely over how he's about to cook the most stupidest order of steak ever, but he will do it because he LOVES hardison.

the polyam transqueer lewks: monotone edition

I still can't get over how Eliot and Hardison do their "secret" handshake- even though Eliot is miffed that Hardison ate his sandwhich.

I still can't get over how Parker calls Eliot "Sparky," and he's scared enough to rip open his apple- because he actually thinks Parker somehow got a razor blade in it.

I still can't get over how Eliot tells Hardison that he won't help him if he goes to far with "Ice Man," and when Hardison calls him out on it- Eliot blames Parker.

I still can't get over how Hardison comes to Eliot when he needs help brushing up on wine.

I still can't get over how Parker goes to Eliot when she's looking for something to love and he teaches her to love food.

I still can't get over how Parker is allowed to poke and push Eliot.

I still can't get over how Hardison riles Eliot up and it's just reflex for Eliot to say; "DAMNIT Hardison."

I can't get over how they became a little family all on their own.

ooh, the fact that sophie uses the name of lady charlotte prentice during "the lonely hearts job" is EXTRA good now with the added context from leverage: redemption

they're fighting grifters who did exactly what sophie did. lacie had the exact same problem that sophie did. their client, who sophie calls a romantic and wants to believe loved his wife? sophie had a husband who was the exact same way

op's tags: #IT'S GOOD IS WHAT IT IS#the best reveals are the ones that recontextualize what came before and make them more delicious#and the astrid reveal did that BEAUTIFULLY

today in Leverage Thoughts That Make Me Sad- it's canon that eliot has a much better than average memory, and we see this in a few ways:

if you've rewatched the show at all or pay attention to eliot specifically in any scene, you'll notice that he observes people very closely. i think this goes back to a hyper-vigilance he's cultivated through his days in the military and doing wetwork- probably especially in working with moreau. if your circumstances are that difficult to navigate, and if you can only really depend on yourself, of course you're going to notice and remember details about people. you'd have to develop that skill, to have the knowledge to give yourself options if you ever needed to escape suddenly.

also, for eliot's job in retrieval, he had to be a successful grifter somewhat often, so it makes sense that he'd find it important to both notice and remember small details about other people in that setting as well. cultivating that skill with people, with lying and charming, was a survival instinct.

all of this is to say- eliot has always done this, remembered little things about people, in service of his own survival (he's loaned out the skill to others, but you can argue that work is based in a survival instinct too... anyway). during the course of leverage we start to see him using these skills not only to protect other people, but to make them happy too. while he's risking his life every day to protect the team, he's also using his excellent memory to do things like buy parker a fucking plant that does something and say it's from hardison!

he wants to go beyond simply protecting them, he loves them and wants to show it- but he won't take the credit. eliot doesn't believe he's worth loving. he doesn't believe he'll ever be actually loved back, let alone loudly, by parker and hardison.

so he lets the credit be on hardison, he talks to them both and gives them advice about each other, he tells them in the rundown job to get on a plane out of d.c. so he can take whatever's coming himself. he pushes them away, towards each other, because he wants them to be happy and he thinks they will be happiest not knowing him that deeply.

but he also couldn't bear not being in their lives, not standing with them every day and protecting them from harm- so he puts his body, his memory, his mind in service of them, every single day. just... always from a distance. and he thinks he's doing it for them, to protect them, but he's doing it for himself out of fear of rejection. because he doesn't think he's good enough, worthy enough, of love. and that's so fucking sad.

eliot ‘buys parker a plant he knows she’ll like to be from hardison’ spencer: that means i would be thinking about you and parker, which i never do

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

You wanna get sad about Eliot Spencer? Consider the part in The Experimental Job where he’s being asked about the people he’s killed:

Then consider this exchange with Sophie from The Lonely Hearts Job:

Now consider this line a couple chapters back in my WIP that’s been stuck in my head:

Writing that line made me realize the exchange in The Lonely Hearts Job can almost be read as a callback to The Experimental Job and I am having feelings about it.

(Thanks to When Darkness Falls for transcripts and the folks on Sunday Leverage Marathon Discord for reminding me which episode the second excerpt is from)

the scene where eliot got parker a venus fly trap and sent it from hardison????? im screaming

leverage appreciation week day five — favorite outfit

yes, he looked at sophie's reaction to the white roses, but this is his expression as he watches parker's reaction to her carnivorous plant. the intensity as he tracks whether he read parker right. is. so much.

in the lonely hearts club job leverage asks the question "does romantic love exist?" and answers it by having eliot buy parker a venus fly trap on hardison's behalf, expecting no recognition and revealing eliot remembers a throwaway comment parker made on their second job together.

we all know this.

but was anybody going to tell me hardison already had a browser window open looking for restaurants to buy eliot in portland in response at the start of the episode immediately after that? or was i supposed to figure it out on a rewatch all by myself?!

op's tags go HARD

#AND TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR. I *CALLED* THE BREW PUB AS A RESPONSE TO THE VENUS FLY TRAP IN MY NOTES. THE PHYSICAL NOTES I TAKE#WHENEVER I WATCH LEVERAGE. I JUST DIDN'T REALIZE IT WAS THIS IMMEDIATE#my notes literally go girls/boys night out job 'parker is the only one playing 4d relationship chess so far. when does hardison join in &#what makes parker sure enough to push eliot more or is it just inevitable eliot's a part of the relationship conversation p&h have btween#seasons?' and then the lonely hearts job immediately afterwards is like. romantiv love exists. look at this very meaningful gesture eliot#made on hardison's behalf. answering the how does hardison clue in and what makes p&h confident enough to push question at the exact same#time. and then in the gold job. 'portland restaurants'. being searched. i swear to god.

Our show is about a group of broken people who, when they come together, form a kind of dysfunctional family. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.