In the eleventh episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>, the team discovers a case in the bar they use to meet clients. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of alcoholism<\/b><\/p>\n
Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n
Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.<\/p>\n
A bottle episode that is also a heist. ALL IN ONE. This show is somehow granting my every wish for fiction. REPEATEDLY. Oh my god, I love this so much!!!<\/p>\n
The Bottle<\/b><\/p>\n
Look, I know that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a production reason for bottle episodes existing. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re meant to save a show money, often mid-season, so a script is produced that utilizes a set that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already built and easily accessible. But holy shit, this process has given me so many fantastic episodes of television, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Balance of Terror\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spin the Bottle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on\u00c2\u00a0Angel<\/i>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on\u00c2\u00a0Breaking Bad<\/i>, \u00e2\u20ac\u015317 People\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on\u00c2\u00a0The West Wing<\/i>, my favorite Tennant era\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>episode \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Midnight,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that giant homage to\u00c2\u00a0The Thing<\/i>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ice,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d located in the first season of\u00c2\u00a0The X-Files.<\/i>These are all different takes on the same concept, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Bottle Job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d presents us with another idea: Could the Leverage team pull off a con within the building they work in, but do so in 90 minutes?<\/p>\n
OH, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S JUST SO GOOD.<\/p>\n
The Cons<\/b><\/p>\n
There are two cons and a heist set into this episode. Mark Doyle, the despicable loan shark who preyed on the marginalized and downtrodden of Boston, tries to claim a debt at the wake of the man who owed him. If that weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bad enough, his work in the city is also disgusting. THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME HATE HIM MORE. So it ends up being a lot of fun just to watch the team manipulate him on this basis alone. (Again, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t escape the notion that this show is one giant power fantasy for someone like me. Do you know how badly I wish I had the Leverage team to get revenge on my first boyfriend? The terrible district manager who framed me for stealing and got me fired, causing me to drop out of college? THE MYRAID OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE WRONGED ME AND NEVER BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT THEY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122VE DONE?<\/p>\n
No, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want this to be real because I have the hots for Hardison. No. Nope, not at all. It has nothing to do with him being shirtless in this episode.<\/p>\n
n o p e<\/p>\n
On the Job<\/b><\/p>\n
Can we talk about the serialization of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i> once more? Too bad, gonna do it. There is one massive punch in the stomach in the middle of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Bottle Job,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and without Nate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s journey in season one, it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean anything. But the moment when Mark eggs Nate on to drink with him (so that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not betting against a sober man) is HEARTBREAKING. Nate is on a job, and his cover absolutely matters if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to pull off the con against Mark Doyle. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure the rest of the team knew this, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disappointed. My gods, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, seeing the disappointment spread across their faces was NOT EVEN REMOTELY OKAY. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure all of them were worried that this would be the start of another bout of drinking, and unfortunately, Nate\u00c2\u00a0did<\/i> drink a lot in this episode. I can hope that he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t drink any more, but what if that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the case?<\/p>\n
I admit that this is where my familiarity with alcoholism disappears. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to stop multiple times before going sober. I drank until I had a traumatic experience, and then I went cold turkey out of fear. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never even craved alcohol since I stopped. So I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what this experience is like for Nate. I want to believe that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got enough willpower to refrain from relying on alcohol again, but he might also be hurting because Sophie isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t around. (Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t to say that him drinking again is her fault, of course.)<\/p>\n
THIS WAS TOO PAINFUL.<\/p>\n
Little Things<\/b><\/p>\n
On the opposite end of the spectrum, there were a lot of little moments within this episode that made me so happy. First of all, Eliot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ability to throw a bullseye on darts without looking??? WHAT??? Or how about Parker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perfectly timed kick to the face in the Doyle headquarters? Or Hardison\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spin as a weatherman? OR TARA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S EVERY SECOND? Holy shit, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d meet a grifter as good as Sophie, but Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL, TARA IS SO GOOD. Baby Nate Ford!!!! Oh my god,\u00c2\u00a0so precious<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Utterly fantastic episode, friends. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just so impressed with the consistency of this show. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not easy to maintain this kind of energy and excitement time after time, but this show does it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a blast to watch, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got me rethinking television itself. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so used to watching sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre shows that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pleased I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten to watch another show that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s based entirely on our world. Sure, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a fantastical premise at times, but it feels so real to me.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Bottle Job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – Mark Does Stuff is now on Facebook<\/a>! Feel free to Like the page, which I’m running myself, for updates and SILLINESS. In the eleventh episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage, the team discovers a case in the bar they use to meet clients. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Leverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[625],"tags":[626],"class_list":["post-4463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leverage","tag-mark-watches-leverage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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