In the twelfth episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>, the team is forced to work with their nemesis in order to help Maggie. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of transphobia and alcoholism.<\/b><\/p>\n
Jesus christ, THIS SHOW.<\/p>\n
Let me start off with my sole criticism of this episode: that joke Hardison made about Internet brides lying about being women\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 nope. This is not a joke anyone should be making, and the fact that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made so casually here is really disappointing. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even explain it away as a necessary part of the grift. If you are unfamiliar with this harmful act, I suggest that you do research on the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153trans panic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and how this leads to the physical harm of trans people, mostly trans women of color, most of whom are black. This very same \u00e2\u20ac\u0153panic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that the person hid their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d gender from someone \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is often used by bigots to defend their assault and murder of a trans person. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what this joke invokes: the idea that trans folks are lying about their gender in order to deceive people.<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my place to explain this further, so I suggest you read up online about this from folks far more qualified to talk on this topic than I.<\/p>\n
Maggie and Nate<\/b><\/p>\n
Ugh, my heart hurts so much watching Nate make these decisions, and\u00c2\u00a0now<\/i>, I find that his journey with his alcoholism is a lot closer to what I went through. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ashamed. He hides alcohol in his coffee, though in this case, everyone knows he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing it. Virtually no one knew what I was doing. But I understand the act. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier to be in denial this way, and Nate moves through this entire episode in denial of what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s truly going through. Maggie\u00c2\u00a0tries<\/i> to get him to talk about it, but Nate finds it easier to surround himself with work than to be honest.<\/p>\n
OH, NATE. His relationship with Sophie is practically non-existent. (Notice how Sophie urges \u00c2\u00a0Eliot and Hardison not to reveal that they were talking to her.) Then, when he swoops in to save his wife from a complicated heist that she is framed for, he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even tell her the truth. Oh, and if he was even remotely entertaining the notion of being with her after all this? SURPRISE, SHE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ACTUALLY DATING THE MARK. Oh my god, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, things just kept getting worse here! But I wanted to see how Nate reacted to this, given what had happened in his life in the past year or so. Unsurprisingly, he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly deal with all of this well. Good lord, those early scenes with Maggie were so uncomfortable! (Bless Tara Cole, because ALL OF HER FACES WERE PERFECT. I love that she bonds with Maggie in a few minutes and is utterly uninterested in Nate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mangst. Yes, that is a combination of man + angst. MANGST. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 75% of the plot of\u00c2\u00a0Supernatural<\/i>, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re curious.<\/p>\n
Eliot<\/b><\/p>\n
ANYWAY. I did want to briefly acknowledge how satisfying it was to see Eliot act as the group leader once Nate was kidnapped. It was great seeing him step into this so quickly upon realizing that\u00c2\u00a0this<\/i> was his speciality. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a thrill in watching these characters come together in practically no time to do what they do best in order to pull off a con. And shit, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, this one was a doozy, given that Hardison had to hack a set of elevators while Parker had just fifteen seconds to switch the bomb and the Faberg\u00c3\u00a9 egg case. SO GREAT, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL.<\/p>\n
Sterling<\/b><\/p>\n
Few tropes excite me more than villains\/antagonists being forced to work with the good guys. (Shout out to\u00c2\u00a0Avatar: The Last Airbender<\/i>, who may have my favorite version of this.) Sterling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s role is not passive here, and I appreciated that the writers came up with a plan that kept him in the action. Of course, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of humor derived from this, especially since Sterling can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop commenting on EVERYTHING. But the writers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever ignore that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be friction between him and the Leverage team; sure, most of that comes out through humor. However, this episode is a great example of the subtle serialization present in\u00c2\u00a0Leverage\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>that makes watching this show an unending treasure. You would not get an episode as exciting as this one without the story built around Sterling.<\/p>\n
AND NOW IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S GOTTEN EVEN BETTER. Holy shit, Sterling works for INTERPOL??? That can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly good for the Leverage team, can it? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see Sterling permanently joining the Leverage team at any point; he works much better as an antagonist. SO WHAT IS IN STORE FOR HIS CHARACTER NEXT?<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so weird watching two shows with him on it, by the way.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Zanzibar Marketplace 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 twelfth episode of the second season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage, the team is forced to work with their nemesis in order to help Maggie. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Leverage.\u00c2\u00a0<\/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-4471","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\/4471","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=4471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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