“Why, so they can arrest Hardison’s ego?” – Eliot, on the state police coming
Leverage felt slightly off to me tonight after the last few spectacular episodes, but revisiting a traditional heist was a good move on the part of the producers. Some of the complaints we’ve been hearing in the comments here at CliqueClack have been things like Fray’s “we’ve reduced a team of brilliant thieves and masterminds to the A-team,” and Ivey’s “there seemed to be some fun missing out of the last several episodes [until “The Top Hat Job“]….”
While, like Ivey, I have loved the last couple of episodes, I felt like tonight’s did backslide a bit. I’m just not sure why we can’t have killer quotes and zippy flashbacks in all the episodes… but instead of complaining, I want to address the brilliant move that was the heist.
What better way to get the viewers to revisit who these people are and why they are together than to stick them smack in the middle of a traditional heist. We were reminded of the clever and accomplished thief that Parker is, the ruthless muscle that Eliot is, and well, the behind-the-scenes guy that Hardison should be. Yes, he’s been serendipitously successful in the past as an undercover guy, but it was pretty funny that he oversold his character without Sophie’s guidance this week.
Because the Leverage powers-that-be brought us back to the roots, I’m giving them a pass for the lackluster moments in tonight’s episode. A few other tidbits will make me forget the blah, too:
What do you think — was the heist a good move?
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Sep 02, 2009 @ 22:57 EST5EDT
I still love this show … I like it when the episodes are a bit uneven as it doesn’t get too boring.
I think the problem with season 2 is that there is no over-arching story that they are following. Nate’s child’s death was a pretty powerful storyline and how he was coping (or not) with it.
That is what is missing from this season IMHO …
*POST AUTHOR*
I think the Sophie storyline is supposed to be the overarching story this season, how she doesn’t even know how to be herself anymore, yada yada. It could end up being great, but for now it seems like a contrived way to hide Gina Bellman’s pregnancy and it is nowhere near as strong as Nate’s story last season.
I’ve been up and down about the show mixing up the roles for the past few eps. On the one hand, I miss seeing Hardison as the straight-up hacker, Sophie as the straight-up grifter, and Parker as the straight-up thief, but I figure they’re continuously changing the roles this season so we won’t get bored. I missed the first 5 minutes so I don’t know why Sophie wasn’t there, but I loved seeing how crucial she is to the team.
Last week, Hardison’s evil Star Trek clone revealed that all of his team was afraid of Sophie. Although S2 did an episode showing Sophie couldn’t fully handle it as the head (although we saw her do so at the end of S1 without difficulties), it shows that Sophie is still the brains behind the brains or the glue/core for the team, whether the team is afraid of her or relies on her.
I would love to see a show showing everyone back in their proper place, but I’d also love to see a team up with their mirror images and maybe an ep with Sophie at her ice queen cruelest.
Sophie is taking time off after last weeks scene with her & Nate at Sophie Devereaux’s grave marker.
Just finally caught this episode, and Deb and Gordon are completely right. Its not that the episode’s themselves were off, its that the arc of the whole season isn’t as compelling as the first season.
The irony is that last season, I didn’t even realize how everything was linked together until the season was over. It was a testament to how well crafted and subtle the development was. I was just enjoying how everything was and then BAM! I realized how well threaded those episodes were once they were over.
Now, its completely different. The show, frankly, is a little lost, at least from my point of view.
The good thing is, that despite that trouble, Leverage is still an outstanding show. I’ve mentioned before how much I love the trio of Kane, Hodge, and Riesgraf, but this season, it really has been Riesgraf’s Parker that continually steals scene after scene.