Update Wtf Guys

Okay, I'm thinking about the Murderbot TV show again, and how I would adapt it, and we're going to be robbed if we get anything less than a cold open to a scene of some obviously cheezy space drama, maybe an Overdramatic Human Woman In Green Facepaint overdramatically sobbing as she confronts a Generic Action Hero like "It's...it's your baby!!!" *cue three different angles of Generic Action Hero's shocked and surprised face* Generic Action Hero opens her mouth to respond, but we don't hear her voice, because her words are drowned out by a sudden roaring sound coming from offscreen. The audience gets jump scared by lashing tentacles that seem to whip across the screen, in front of the window where we were watching the space drama, and the camera zooms out until you see that the window was floating in front of MB's face, as MB stands on the edge of a crater and the survey team pokes around down below. A giant, tentacled space monster is emerging down below, the survey team is screaming, Overse is getting picked up and tossed into the air, on a trajectory heading straight for the monster's gaping jaws...

Everything slows down. The sound mutes. MB swears and launches itself towards the monster. The camera shakes and warnings blare and flash across the screen, but we don't see much of the action, because the camera swings in to focus on the floating window where the space drama (Sanctuary Moon. It's Sanctuary Moon) keeps playing, on mute, while Murderbot's voiceover delivers the line: "I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites..."

so I know I'm not the only one who saw the United Healthcare news and immediately thought of Leverage

but my thought process was, if Leverage was involved, they wouldn't have been the ones to kill the CEO. not their style. so I'm imagining Leverage in the middle of this whole con to destroy the CEO when out of the blue someone else comes in and just murders him.

hardison: so i did all that *insert technobabble hacking nonsense* for nothing??

eliot: no offense to the shooter, but if we wanted him dead, i could have killed him so much cleaner and made it look like an accident. amateur move.

did no one else think Mr. Romance Novel Heartthrob was a little too perfect? he’s a vet and a fire captain and runs the bnb and is the only good one on the town council and is hot and kind and- like no one’s actually LIKE that in real life. this is the kind of character eliot would play in a con. I get that this is sophie’s little hallmark fantasy but I did spend the entire episode waiting for the other shoe to drop with this guy.

It cracks me up that one of Sophie’s main assets in season 5 is her improv group that a) never asks any questions and b) is always down for any and all shenaniganery. Who are these people. Why are they here. I love them.

theories about why sophie claims she can’t play pool in leverage redemption:

she doesn’t really like being the pool player in cons so she just pretends she can’t play. i have the same theory about how she canonically went to pastry school and yet we’ve never once seen her help eliot in the kitchen: why would she let him know all that when she could keep getting eliot’s homemade meals without doing any work?

Sophie Devereaux (the alias) can’t play pool. but sophie (the person) can.

rashomon job part two: they all once ran into each other pre-leverage on a pool-related con, sophie is the only one who realises this, and she’s decided to avoid jogging anyone’s memory. she remembers how much they butchered her accent last time, she’s NOT giving them another opportunity.

the story of how she learnt to play pool that good can Never Be Told.

if the team knew she could play really well, they’d want to compete with her every time they went to a bar with a pool table. but when sophie’s at a bar, she just wants to have a drink and relax. this would have especially been a problem back in og leverage when nate’s condo/their HQ was literally on top of a bar with a pool room. so she just "can’t play". oh nooo, too bad, oh well, time for a glass of wine :)

making stuff up randomly = grifting practice session. she can’t let her skills get rusty!

in the job we saw in those flashbacks of her pool failures, she decided that her grift persona for the job should be incompetent at pool, despite that being very inconvenient. much in the same way she decided that the ridiculously valuable emerald necklace was something her persona in this episode would wear. she committed to the bit way too much and everyone got pissed at her so she had to pretend that she really is that bad at pool and it wasn’t just an acting choice (no one understands her artistic vision 😔 *dramatic sigh*).

it’s the reverse of her acting skills: she can only play pool when she’s playing for real, as opposed to how she can only act when it’s for a grift.

she will eventually make a bet with someone on the team about something, and whoever wins a game of pool wins the bet. it’s an extremely, unnecessarily long con she’s pulling, almost certainly for a petty reason. maybe she’s gonna ask parker to give her the stanley cup back lol.

lying is simply her hobby. god forbid women do anything.

I love Eliot’s hair so much, because it’s so unpractical for his line of work. A buzz cut would be so much better, no hair in your face, nothing for an opponent to grab onto. I strongly believe that Moreau had rules around hair, much like the military and that it was one of the first choices Eliot made after breaking free. That it means a lot to him. Like the first time his hair has grown too long after he leaves, he goes to cut it again and he’s standing in front of the mirror and he suddenly realizes he doesn’t want to, then that he doesn’t have to. Maybe standing in front of that mirror happens earlier and makes him realize he doesn’t want to do any of this anymore.

people who dont experience it cannot comprehend how awful executive dysfunction is. I WANT to do the task, i have the resources TO do the task, i will feel better having DONE the task

but i cant fucking do the task

Found Family Battle (Finals)

Thinking again about the discussion around "The Fractured Job" rewriting Eliot's backstory and undoing the original series' implication that he was abused by his father. It's a 100% valid read that's supported by the text, but it's also worth noting that it wasn't intended by the creators (at least John Rogers, who's been pretty vocal about it).

From "The Tap-Out Job" commentary:

John Rogers: “And there is—you know, a lot of people look at this one, and ‘Order 23,’ to think that maybe Eliot had been abused or something as a child, and it’s—that’s facile. This is just a guy with a relationship with violence. He’s beaten up, he’s been tortured, he’s a guy who has learned bad things can happen to you and this is how he internalizes it.”

From "The Order 23 Job" commentary:

John Rogers: “And it's also interesting to see how fans react to any sort of storyline like this, where they just assume you're trying to reveal something about the character’s past or some sort of subtle hints that we’re laying in. It’s like no, Eliot doesn't like guys who beat up kids. It's not—I mean there's plainly other stuff going on that Christian chose in order to base his acting around…”

(Thanks to @leverage-commentary for the transcripts)

I find it interesting that in 2009/2010, he devoted commentary time to debunking this. What that tells me this interpretation was prevalent enough to seem worth addressing (probably because they didn't do themselves any favors with how they told their story, leading a huge chunk of the audience to the same conclusion...)

can't believe the plot of leverage is literally 'man gets hired to be a project manager for Crime and then is forcefully adopted by the employees he doesn't want'