it remains so so fun to me that near the end of the cross my heart job (with a kid in danger and very personal stakes) nate tells eliot to take someone's gun with them in the ambulance and eliot doesn't even hesitate.

my memory's a little hazy, but… big bang job aside, last dam job aside, does eliot even do that? pick up a gun without immediately taking the ammo out, and with the possible intention to use it? I really don't think he does.

and we don't even see how it goes. by nate's count the villain's got one more contingency plan in place and we don't even see what it is. we skip straight to the hospital like nothing much happened. and maybe it didn't.

I do think the team would look more rattled if eliot flat out shot or killed someone in front of them. and, y'know, I like and respect the spirit of the canon, the rules they like to follow - that the good guys pretty much win, that nobody drops the idiot ball, that no innocents die on their watch, that the team doesn't outright kill anyone - so I'm inclined to say nothing big happened in the time we missed. but sending a warning shot past someone's ear, or even just shooting out some tires, might not be that big.

and sitting in that ambulance with the gun in his hand keeping an eye out for dangers, running through possibilities, his hands shaking slightly with the possibility that he'll have to do what he's good at again, because nate told him to, and because it's for a good cause, and if he can save a kid to help make up for it all he will--

that, to my mind, is very possible.

and that [mean voice] is what's so fun to me.

(and if he was calm in the moment? if he was focused and methodical and nate's order and the kid's life in the balance carried him through the situation until he had time to unpack what it meant later? that's almost worse.)