In the thirteenth and final episode of the first season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>, Nate reunites the team by announcing to Blackpoole that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to steal the two Davids anyway. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Leverage<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so happy that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m watching this show, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n
I spend so much time talking about a lot of very personal and upsetting issues through this blog and that other little one I run. I enjoy doing it, and I\u00c2\u00a0don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t experience regret when I think about how much I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve shared about my life. One of the big things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve wanted to do with the Mark Does Stuff world is to validate the personal connections we have to fictional worlds because I feel like that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s demonized or ignored when we talk about critical analysis. It can be so terribly analytical and cold and academic most of the time, and there is a value in how personal experience informs the way we consume media. So that means I feel compelled to talk about a lot of things that may seem shockingly personal. I\u00c2\u00a0want<\/i> to explain why something delights me or infuriates me without solely relying on theory!<\/p>\n
And that also means that with the nature of what y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all get me to watch, I often talk about things that are\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 upsetting? Distressing? Uncomfortable? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an understatement, of course, \u00c2\u00a0particularly about some of the more triggering things I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve discussed. But I still enjoy it! I never want to feel like I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t talk to y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all or go in-depth about shit like this.<\/p>\n
And yet, there is a joy to watching and writing about\u00c2\u00a0Leverage<\/i>. I know this point may seem strange given that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve started to write more about my experience with alcoholism, but I love that this show is so\u00c2\u00a0happy<\/i>. I love that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fun. I love that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a deliberate optimism in these stories. And goddamn it, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I am so thrilled that a great deal of the tension here is literally about this ragtag band of thieves BECOMING FRIENDS. THAT IS LITERALLY THE POINT OF THIS ENTIRE EPISODE BECAUSE THEY\u00e2\u20ac\u2122RE ALL REALIZING THEY ENJOY ONE ANOTHER\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S COMPANY AND THEY DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW HOW THEY CAN LIVE WITHOUT THE OTHERS AND\u00c2\u00a0THIS IS A DREAM COMING TRUE RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES<\/b>.<\/p>\n
It means a lot to me.<\/p>\n
So! I did want to address some of the fascinating ways the writing staff keeps this show feeling so fresh and exciting. While the show normally follows a case-of-the-week format, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually a\u00c2\u00a0lot<\/i> of serialization that happens from episode-to-episode. Would this episode pack such a punch if we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have multiple episodes about Sterling? If we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about what IYS did to Nate? If Sophie hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t challenged everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loyalty and trust issues? If we hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen the Leverage team scatter before, only to return again? These things\u00c2\u00a0matter<\/i>, and if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been reading my shit for a long time, you know that I love it when writers care about the stories they tell. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much respect\u00c2\u00a0mixed in with the humor. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funny watching Sophie stumble through her terrible apology, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a huge scene because all of those people\u00c2\u00a0want<\/i> the group to stay together. They want this to work because they need it, even if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not saying it in those words. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m imagining this! Look how conflicted they all are at the end of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Second David Job.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so sure they can spend three months away from one another. That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t negate their pasts as thieves or as complicated people with their own desires. But it shows us that over the course of this season, there is some affinity between the people of Leverage. (And holy shit, Parker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s line to Hardison about looking hard for her\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S UNPACK THAT and then pack it up again and board this ship because I HAVE NEVER WANTED SOMETHING TO BE CANON QUITE LIKE THIS. It actually hurts??? What has this show turned me into???)<\/p>\n
And lord, this particular con is so great. I love that they include Maggie as part of it, and like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Two-Horse Job,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not Nate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prize\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by the end of the episode. She may respect him more for what he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s suddenly swooning over him, ready to declare her love all over again. Maggie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s presence\u00c2\u00a0is<\/i> an emotional aspect of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Second David Job,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also here to build tension. Sterling knows she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up to something, so we spend a great deal of this episode wondering when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to put all the pieces together. Hell, I thought I had this all figured out, too. I was so certain that someone was hiding in the sarcophagus! But the brilliance of this heist is that there never was a heist to begin with<\/i>. Technically, nothing was ever \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stolen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It was simply moved downstairs to give the appearance of theft. It fits with Nate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ultimate goal because he never wanted money from Blackpoole or IYS; he just wanted to ruin the man who ruined his life. Plus, I found it very clever that Nate turned Sterling against Blackpoole instead of taking down Sterling as well. It felt like a subtle confirmation on Nate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s part that he knew they couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beat Sterling at his own game, at least not in this con. It was much better to turn him into an ally \u00e2\u20ac\u201c temporarily, of course.<\/p>\n
Gods, that was such a satisfying season of television. There was not one episode I disliked; the characters grew as people; the villains were all believable enough that they fit into both this fictional world and our own. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the more rewarding things about this show. It makes me want to believe that someone could do this in real life. I suppose that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of sad, to think that we need a force like this in our society to right the wrongs done to people who are otherwise swept under the rug. That makes this show a fantasy in some respects, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hell of a lot of fun to experience.<\/p>\n
I cannot wait to watch more.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Second David 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 thirteenth and final episode of the first season of\u00c2\u00a0Leverage, Nate reunites the team by announcing to Blackpoole that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to steal the two Davids anyway. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Leverage.<\/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-4431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leverage","tag-mark-watches-leverage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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