Leverage: reflections
Aug. 7th, 2021 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett[Spoilers up to episode 3 of Leverage: Redemption, but we haven't watched further yet so please try not to give spoilers in comments!]
We found this episode deeply frustrating, for two main reasons: firstly, it feels like a lot of the motivation underlying the writing is Getting In The Joke/Reference (rather than actually Exploring And Developing The Character), and secondly, having stayed up late Intensely Discussing This after watching it, we're pretty sure that a couple of minor changes would have made the whole thing much more satisfying for us.
Physics bullshit I can tolerate (gas! BOAT CONSTRUCTION!), and even I can put up with Eliot knowing fuck-all about first aid -- those all feel like canon-consistent incompetence. But. The characters. This is actually hitting uncanny valley for me, I think, in the same way that because my ability to recognise people keys heavily off voice and body language, people I know when intoxicated wind up uncanny valley for me. The characters have the same names and the same (more-or-less) hair and they move in more-or-less the same ways and, yet, they are not who I'm expecting.
Starting at the end: that argument, between Parker and Eliot. I don't recall any other instances of Eliot growling at Parker like that and then flouncing off. They've known each other for over a decade now, and been living together most of that time, and -- look, if Eliot were actually upset about the cake getting eaten Parker wouldn't've, and if he isn't then that's not the tenor of their interactions, and if Parker were just going to steal his cake for shits and giggles then Eliot would be retaliating with a ludicrously high-security fridge.
Just. This entire interaction was so clearly a call-back to Hardison nicking Eliot's sandwich out the fridge (WHICH WAS ALSO IMPLAUSIBLE, just to be clear, because BREAD DOESN'T KEEP WELL IN THE FRIDGE, but that's in the category of "physics bullshit" and I am therefore prepared to overlook it), and Eliot's growling and storming off was so clearly the place where the writers wanted to get in a DAMN IT, HARDISON, and just... apparently they just didn't adapt, at all, for the set of characters they had?
(Relatedly, that's, what, twice in two episodes that Eliot uttered the phrase "it's a very distinctive--"? After saying it, what, about once a season in the first series? It feels like he's being written as a pastiche of himself to me, it really does.)
At the start of the episode, on the topic of another catchphrase, the way Parker and Eliot treated Sophie around "Let's go steal..." was... ow. In the previous episodes it felt like they were being gentle with Sophie, encouraging her to do this thing for her sake; in this episode -- the criticising her for doing it wrong felt, in contrast, like they were actually unhappy with her for not Filling A Defineoxfamd Role for them. It felt like they cared more about The Role and its relationship to them than they did about Sophie, and that's an odds with both the original series and the first two episodes of this one, and... ugh.
I don't think it'll come as any surprise, though, that the thing that upset me most was Breanna and how she's being treated. She's someone with whom the team clearly has a pre-existing mentor-type relationship. And, leaving aside the issue that a paralytic that acts like that wouldn't leave her still capable of talking (grouse grouse grouse) and would be super difficult to get the dosing right on (... grouse...): either, right, either they're blithely assuming she's a drop-in replacement for Hardison with no further oversight needed, in which case holy fuck their judgement is bad, or they're deliberately giving her Fake Jobs to keep her occupied, without being upfront about it, in which case their... judgement is differently bad and they're horrible people. (Ahem.) Regardless, they're not at all taking care of her the way Hardison expects them to, or the way they have in the past.
The thing that really Upset Me about this, though, was Breanna's proudly showing up to give the presentation and being all "I followed the money! :D" and having them tell her... that she didn't, because apparently she's flexible and smart and determined and... willing to give up at the first semi-dead end, whereupon the adults do absolutely zero meaningful follow-up with her that we're shown, all of which culminates in trying to impress them all by stealing something valuable and well-protected with absolutely no preparation and inevitably getting caught. (And I'm sure I'm missing some of the details, because it's over a week now since we watched it and had this discussion, but. Bear with me.)
Here's our fixit, in sketch outline: Breanna knows that hitting a shell corporation dead end isn't good enough. She knows she's stuck and she knows she can't see the next steps and she's embarrassed and she's resentful and she winds up running herself ragged... when one of the grown-ups finds her crying with frustration, quite possibly at 4am, and she's bristly and defensive and...
... that is when they have the "you're part of a team. you can come to us for help. you get to rely on us too." conversation. That's when they talk to her about how important it is to eat and hydrate and sleep. That's how she fucks herself up trying to impress them, in a way that doesn't involve her wildly overestimating her own capabilities and flat-out ignoring clear instructions, and that's an opportunity for mentorship, damn it.
I think I'm enjoying the version of this show I'm rewriting in the privacy of my own head. I'm less certain about the one that's actually made it onto the screen.
We found this episode deeply frustrating, for two main reasons: firstly, it feels like a lot of the motivation underlying the writing is Getting In The Joke/Reference (rather than actually Exploring And Developing The Character), and secondly, having stayed up late Intensely Discussing This after watching it, we're pretty sure that a couple of minor changes would have made the whole thing much more satisfying for us.
Physics bullshit I can tolerate (gas! BOAT CONSTRUCTION!), and even I can put up with Eliot knowing fuck-all about first aid -- those all feel like canon-consistent incompetence. But. The characters. This is actually hitting uncanny valley for me, I think, in the same way that because my ability to recognise people keys heavily off voice and body language, people I know when intoxicated wind up uncanny valley for me. The characters have the same names and the same (more-or-less) hair and they move in more-or-less the same ways and, yet, they are not who I'm expecting.
Starting at the end: that argument, between Parker and Eliot. I don't recall any other instances of Eliot growling at Parker like that and then flouncing off. They've known each other for over a decade now, and been living together most of that time, and -- look, if Eliot were actually upset about the cake getting eaten Parker wouldn't've, and if he isn't then that's not the tenor of their interactions, and if Parker were just going to steal his cake for shits and giggles then Eliot would be retaliating with a ludicrously high-security fridge.
Just. This entire interaction was so clearly a call-back to Hardison nicking Eliot's sandwich out the fridge (WHICH WAS ALSO IMPLAUSIBLE, just to be clear, because BREAD DOESN'T KEEP WELL IN THE FRIDGE, but that's in the category of "physics bullshit" and I am therefore prepared to overlook it), and Eliot's growling and storming off was so clearly the place where the writers wanted to get in a DAMN IT, HARDISON, and just... apparently they just didn't adapt, at all, for the set of characters they had?
(Relatedly, that's, what, twice in two episodes that Eliot uttered the phrase "it's a very distinctive--"? After saying it, what, about once a season in the first series? It feels like he's being written as a pastiche of himself to me, it really does.)
At the start of the episode, on the topic of another catchphrase, the way Parker and Eliot treated Sophie around "Let's go steal..." was... ow. In the previous episodes it felt like they were being gentle with Sophie, encouraging her to do this thing for her sake; in this episode -- the criticising her for doing it wrong felt, in contrast, like they were actually unhappy with her for not Filling A Defineoxfamd Role for them. It felt like they cared more about The Role and its relationship to them than they did about Sophie, and that's an odds with both the original series and the first two episodes of this one, and... ugh.
I don't think it'll come as any surprise, though, that the thing that upset me most was Breanna and how she's being treated. She's someone with whom the team clearly has a pre-existing mentor-type relationship. And, leaving aside the issue that a paralytic that acts like that wouldn't leave her still capable of talking (grouse grouse grouse) and would be super difficult to get the dosing right on (... grouse...): either, right, either they're blithely assuming she's a drop-in replacement for Hardison with no further oversight needed, in which case holy fuck their judgement is bad, or they're deliberately giving her Fake Jobs to keep her occupied, without being upfront about it, in which case their... judgement is differently bad and they're horrible people. (Ahem.) Regardless, they're not at all taking care of her the way Hardison expects them to, or the way they have in the past.
The thing that really Upset Me about this, though, was Breanna's proudly showing up to give the presentation and being all "I followed the money! :D" and having them tell her... that she didn't, because apparently she's flexible and smart and determined and... willing to give up at the first semi-dead end, whereupon the adults do absolutely zero meaningful follow-up with her that we're shown, all of which culminates in trying to impress them all by stealing something valuable and well-protected with absolutely no preparation and inevitably getting caught. (And I'm sure I'm missing some of the details, because it's over a week now since we watched it and had this discussion, but. Bear with me.)
Here's our fixit, in sketch outline: Breanna knows that hitting a shell corporation dead end isn't good enough. She knows she's stuck and she knows she can't see the next steps and she's embarrassed and she's resentful and she winds up running herself ragged... when one of the grown-ups finds her crying with frustration, quite possibly at 4am, and she's bristly and defensive and...
... that is when they have the "you're part of a team. you can come to us for help. you get to rely on us too." conversation. That's when they talk to her about how important it is to eat and hydrate and sleep. That's how she fucks herself up trying to impress them, in a way that doesn't involve her wildly overestimating her own capabilities and flat-out ignoring clear instructions, and that's an opportunity for mentorship, damn it.
I think I'm enjoying the version of this show I'm rewriting in the privacy of my own head. I'm less certain about the one that's actually made it onto the screen.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-08-08 07:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-08-09 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-08-09 09:14 pm (UTC)Thank you for saying!