In the ninth episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>, I WASN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T READY. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sweet mother of god, what an episode.<\/span><\/p>\n Just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Three-Card Monte\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deliberately disruptive. The brilliance of Christine Boylan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s script is layered, yes, but I love that it never lets us get comfortable. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always some threat or chaotic twist laying just around the corner. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re led to think from the start that this will probably progress like most of the other cons; hell, this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the first time the show had used the mafia. So, I (wrongly) assumed that this would be a con used against another mob mark.<\/p>\n And then Nate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father shows up.<\/p>\n Like\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EVEN THINK HE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122D BE A CHARACTER THAT COULD BE ON THE SHOW. And then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tom Skerritt and IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO PERFECT. But this is not a loving reunion, and the show tries to make it one. What we get to witness is a deeply confusing and complex con, one where Nate has to con his own father into thinking he is a criminal so that Nate can then betray him. Understandably, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a difficult thing for\u00c2\u00a0anyone<\/i> to pull off. However, once Nate realizes what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at stake and who is involved, he does his best to convince the team that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fine taking his own father down. Does he succeed at that? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think so.<\/p>\n But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll touch on that later. I wanted to talk about how this episode does a wonderful job of explaining Nate Ford better than perhaps any episode before this. While backstories have given these characters depth over the course of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>, I feel like what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Three-Card Monte Job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reveals about Nate is crucial to understanding him. The brief glimpses we get of Nate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first time in the back room of McRory\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s are frustrating, namely because we see what sort of dynamic there was between Nate and his father. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no emotional, sappy montage here where Jimmy Ford teaches his son everything he knows.<\/p>\n No, Jimmy Ford berates his son. He goads him into the same scam over and over again, and then he insults him for not immediately realizing he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been scammed. WHILE HE IS A CHILD. The fact that a father could have expected their child to be a ball of cynicism is a nightmare in and of itself. But I was far more concerned about Nate, and it makes perfect sense to me that he\u00c2\u00a0would spend the remainder of his life trying to be the polar opposite of his father. Why would you want to emulate that??? The Nate that we see today is influenced by the path his father sent him on years ago.<\/p>\n Of course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the reasons this con is so hard to watch. Like I said, Nate has to con his father into believing that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being a dutiful and respectful son. Which is something that most people would\u00c2\u00a0want<\/i> to do anyway, you know? But the context of it all fucks it up. Even in hindsight, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m supposed to trust! After Nate helped Jimmy steal those plans, I honestly thought that Jimmy had\u00c2\u00a0a modicum of respect for his son, but he was always waiting to double cross him anyway, right? Nate was just a means to an end for the man, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think he ever could have been fully accepted by Jimmy.<\/p>\n So where does that leave Nate? Was he now more willing than before to turn his father over? Maybe, but when it came down to it, he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it. I loved that moment when Parker arrived to extract Nate and she\u00c2\u00a0knew<\/i>. She knew that Nate couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t turn his father in, and she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t judge him for it. She looked sympathetic towards him. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something each of these characters understood, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. They all knew that this was too deeply personal for Nate, and<\/i> they all would have supported him whatever choice he made. In this case, he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pull the trigger, both literally and metaphorically. I feel like there was a lot left unsaid here, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part of why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so haunting. Why did Nate spare his father? Why send him out of the States? Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Jimmy most likely harm someone else once he got settled? I suppose that is possible, but I think Nate couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t treat his father as his father once treated him. Jimmy insists at the end of this episode that Nate is more ruthless and cruel than him, but he leaves out an important bit of context. To\u00c2\u00a0whom<\/i> does Nate direct his ruthlessness and cruelty, if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really there?<\/p>\n He expends that energy on people who\u00c2\u00a0commit injustice. So no, Jimmy Ford, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think Nate is like you at all. He has much better aim.<\/p>\n Shout out to Parker, by the way, for picking up a new habit: sarcastically repeating Eliot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lines back to him. May it continue to flourish.<\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Three-Card Monte Job\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a> In the ninth episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage, I WASN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T READY. 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-4529","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\/4529","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=4529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of\u00c2\u00a0The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
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\n<\/a>– Please check out the\u00c2\u00a0MarkDoesStuff.com<\/a>. All Mark Watches videos for past shows\/season are now archived there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"