In the tenth episode of the fourth season of Leverage<\/i>, Sterling asks for help from Nate. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Goddamn, I LOVE THIS SHOW.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Con<\/b><\/p>\n LIKE??? A CON WHERE STERLING ACTUALLY ASKS FOR HELP? A SUPER IMPOSSIBLE HEIST THAT BRINGS PARKER AND HARDISON CLOSER TOGETHER? NATE BEING AN INCREDIBLE CHESS PLAYER AND NOT HAVING TO CHEAT IN ORDER TO BE SO GOOD AT THE GAME????<\/p>\n This is a doozy of an episode, framed by the surreal moment at the beginning: James Sterling, coming to Nate, and asking for help. Even when we learn what his true intentions were, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t negate the fact that Sterling truly\u00c2\u00a0did<\/i> need Nate and his team. Initially, though, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re led to believe that this is an issue of international security, since a nuclear engineer is about to sell a delicate weight to some terrorists from Kazakhstan. The story itself felt a little flat, which I should have realized was a clue about Sterling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s real intentions. Still, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a story about terrorism in the Middle East; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly groundbreaking.<\/p>\n But that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really end up being the focus of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Gambit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the literal and metaphorical game of chess that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at the heart of it. The writers consider each member of the team as a chess piece\u00c2\u00a0while<\/i> they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re also having Nate play chess against a number of competitors at a tournament that Robert Livingston is hosting. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a layered episode when you think back on it, especially once you consider that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really Sterling who was playing the chess game.<\/p>\n Still, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about the components of this, because I have THOUGHTS.<\/p>\n Nate<\/b><\/p>\n I know I said this on video, but HOLY SHIT, I loved that Nate had to\u00c2\u00a0actually<\/i> try to beat a lot of these players instead of relying on a con. While Sophie\u00c2\u00a0did<\/i> help him a couple times, that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean he was a terrible chess player. His match against Olivia? So exciting, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all! I knew that something was awry before that climactic scene, but seeing Nate use the Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Gambit? That was my clue that something\u00c2\u00a0else<\/i> had truly transpired before my eyes. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t surprising that the Leverage team had walked into a trap, but I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t figure out what had actually happened until it was spelled out to me. BRAVO,\u00c2\u00a0LEVERAGE<\/i>.<\/p>\n So can I assume that the name that Nate gives Sterling is Latimer? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna do that.<\/p>\n Eliot<\/b><\/p>\n Why am I so amused by angry Eliot? Why does it fill me with such joy? Why am I so entertained by his need for revenge?\u00c2\u00a0What have I become<\/i>?<\/p>\n Parker \/ Hardison<\/b><\/p>\n Truthfully,\u00c2\u00a0this<\/i> is my life now. This fucking show made me tear up because these two goobers used a\u00c2\u00a0Dance Dance Revolution\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>gamepad to slow dance on. It rendered me a mess.\u00c2\u00a0I shall not recover.<\/i><\/p>\n Why is that, though? Why am I so affected by this pairing? I think that, in general, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a sad sack of emotions anyway, so it takes very little to set me off. But as slow as the Parker\/Hardison ship has moved, it is\u00c2\u00a0real<\/i>. The show knows how to move it forward without relying on us catching on to subtext. What really gets me, though, is the tenderness. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the respect. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s watching Hardison openly acknowledge how new and difficult this journey is for Parker and refusing to rush her through it<\/i>. He knows that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s used to being on her own, and that means he needs to confirm to her \u00e2\u20ac\u201c both out loud and with his actions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got her back. I appreciate that because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a caring, thoughtful thing for him to do. It shows all of us that he is willing to spend as much time on this relationship on Parker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s terms.<\/p>\n And what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more romantic than giving someone a bright pink parachute so they can base jump off the second tallest building in the world?<\/p>\n Sterling<\/b><\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think we\u00c2\u00a0ever<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0knew much about Sterling\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s past, did we? Like Nate, the audience learns about his past family from this episode. The man had a wife and still has a daughter, but his life took him away from them. What happened? What did he do? It was kind of surreal to me in that scene to realize how similar Sterling and Nate were. Both of them are so far from where they started when they worked at I.Y.S. How much of that is due to their own egos? Their ambitions? What have they sacrificed along the way?<\/p>\n I REALLY WANT ANOTHER STERLING EPISODE BECAUSE I NEED TO KNOW SO MUCH MORE ABOUT HIM. I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty damn incredible that halfway through the fourth season, this show can still surprise me like this.\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>, how are you so good?<\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Queen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Gambit 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 tenth episode of the fourth season of Leverage, Sterling asks for help from Nate. 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-4587","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\/4587","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=4587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4587"}],"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":"