In the third episode of the second season of Leverage, I ACTUALLY UNDERSTOOD THOSE STAR TREK REFERENCES AND I’M VERY PROUD OF MYSELF. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Leverage.
Trigger Warning: For nonconsensual drugging, mysophobia, and child abuse.
Holy shit, this show is so good.
Revenge
You know, I don’t want to ignore that there’s an uncomfortable element to some of these cons, particularly in how often the Leverage team are willing to drug someone. That’s a personal issue of mine, I know, and I’m aware that it probably doesn’t bother a lot of people. Having been drugged before, it’s not an experience that you necessarily want to remember. And yet, I don’t find myself triggered or grossed out by the drugging that happens here, and I wanted to talk about that. The show operates within these revenge narratives, and so I end up finding it meaningful that the team takes these people who normally get away with their crimes, and it forces them to be accountable for their actions, often through violence, manipulation, challenging their sanity, or other means. Which, in another context, I’d feel more apt to complain about! I don’t like a reliance on drugging as a plot point in general, and I’ve certainly criticized it before.
So why doesn’t this upset me as much as it normally would? I don’t know that I have an answer, to be honest with y’all. I think that Eddie Maranjian is designed to be the kind of character who is unapologetically heinous, like many of the antagonists on this show. He represents such a common and recognizable scumbag that it’s almost like the show acts as catharsis. It gives us an outlet for our anger and rage where we normally don’t have one, particularly since people like Eddie get away with their crimes all the time. Investment fraud is shockingly popular in my country (and I imagine it is all over the world). The rich get access to things that those below them will never have, like that posh “prison†Eddie was going to be sent to. So I watch this show, and I feel a sense of pleasure watching these people get their due, knowing that in the real world, they often don’t.
I don’t know that I have an actual point beyond this, haha. I’m conflicted, and I wanted to bring up the topic because I think it would be interesting to discuss.
The Con
This felt like one of the most complicated cons the show had given us so far because there were more parts than there were team members. It’s a closed-room scenario, except… it’s in an entire hospital where any number of variables can upset their plan. And while Nate and Hardison come up with ways to combat possible changes to their con, a great deal of tension rests in the inevitable moment when this will all fall apart. They’re on a limited schedule to manipulate Eddie into revealing where he hid all the money he stole from his clients, and on top of that? They’ve got to also con two federal marshals and a hospital staff and a security guard, and that’s just ridiculous.
At least on Eddie’s part, I didn’t really doubt that Nate, Parker, and Sophie would be able to trick him. They utilize Eddie’s mysophobia (commonly known as germophobia!) against him so that his mind fills in the blanks, believing that he’s actually catching a disease that’s utterly fake. And holy shit, I don’t know where Melik Malkasian came from, BUT HE’S SO GOOD AS EDDIE. He’s able to be an utter scumbag one second and then frightened for his life the next. But it’s all the other parts of the con that make this particular case so hard to control. I mean, THE ARMENIAN MOB TWIST WAS WILD. I didn’t see that one coming. (Neither did Eliot, hahaha. KEEP YOUR EARBUD IN.) Again, bravo to the writers, who have kept me guessing for sixteen episodes straight without me once figuring out how the Leverage team would pull this off.
Randy
I suppose I find it a tad ironic that in my last review, I spoke about how Eliot clearly views the world in a dichotomy: there are those who cause injustice, and there are those who are the victims of it. He is fine being a human punching bag in order to deflect the hits that normally fall on those who are on the receiving end of them. This episode furthers that idea, since he’s able to recognize a vulnerable person in an instant. Now, this could either be because he himself knew what this experience was like or, as I suspect, he’s able to care and empathize easily. Like, I’d need more information on Eliot’s past to be able to say that he was definitively abused, since I’d feel uncomfortable stating otherwise. At the very least, Eliot has a clearly defined moral system that recognizes perpetrators and victims, and he knows that Randy is powerless against his abusive father. It’s so obvious to Eliot that even amidst a ruthlessly complicated con, he cannot ignore the suffering of that kid.
Look, as someone who’s been a victim of numerous types of abuse, both physical and emotional, it means a lot to me to see someone like Eliot fighting for people like me. I didn’t have anyone to turn to as a kid, so I guess this is like wish fulfillment for me. It’s a fantasy where the knight in shining armor saves me from what happened to me. Hell, that’s the main dynamic of this show, isn’t it? But in Eliot’s case, the writers are refusing to portray him as some violence-obsessed meathead. There’s a tenderness to him that roots his behavior. It grounds him in responsibility and accountability, namely in how he accepts his own power and makes others realize his own. He knows that he can help Randy, both by threatening his father and sending the marshal to speak with Randy. He does it because he feels responsible; not for what happens to Randy, but to stop it from happening again.
I appreciate that. More than you know.
The video for “The Order 23 Job†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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