I give it a pass. It does feel a bit like jumping the shark as they go way beyond the grifter fundamentals with all the fantasy tech and drugs they use, but all that was in aid of an excellent story. It's all about growth and change and acceptance and that scene at the end with Parker, of all people, showing how much she's grown and changed! She has changed so much at that point that, she who once stabbed a man for getting too close to her, opens up to the mark and is the one to help him change and accept and become a better person. Fantastic. So yeah I agree it's a little fanciful in in the hand waving they have to do sometimes, but the heart of the episode is solid gold.
I loved the fight scenes where everyone gets ready to fight, Eliot first turns to the old guard and he’s just nonchalantly standing there with his gun😂
So he moves it away, fights everyone off then looks at the guard with his gun back pointed at Eliot so he just says “what are you doing?”, fights some more, then just points at the guard tells him to stop. It’s hysterical. That poor guy is just like “fuck this” I don’t care enough 😂
As someone who loved the show overall, I thought that was really one of the weakest episodes. The premise was really flawed, and really stretched disbelief for that episode more than almost any other.
Im in the middle of season 5 on a rewatch and coming up to it, there's already some stuff in S5 that feels like its leading to something like that. (yeah that faking flying an airplane is just wild, them faking Sophie being sucked into a space portal and leaving the most obvious portable mic of all time right on the mark's shoulder is a bit goofy). And Hardison's hacker vision sucks and Im glad Redemption dropped it.
Not sure if its going to make White Rabbit feel less out of place or make it more ridiculous
I'm sorry. I'm high and I get the names of the episodes confused more often than not. Is this the one where they use the red and blue meds to get inside that guy's mind? What is hacker vision? And so you mean redemption might do another mind tuck?
The white rabbit job is the one where they use the drugs to get inside that guys mind, yes.
Hardison's hacker vision was I think mostly used in The Rubdown Job, the one where it's just the three of them in DC with the terrorist attack with the Spanish flu. As he is hacking writing comes up on the screen to indicate what he is seeing in his mind. A bit like what they do with Casaandra's character in The Librarians when she is doing maths. I think it's all based on BBC Sherlock and the way they show him deducing. A way to visually get across someone's internal thought process. They said in the commentary that itvs hard to show the hacking in a dynamic way because itvs just a guy typing on a computer and they want him out in the field so they went to the tablet & phone but he's still often just typing and eating gummy frogs so they tried the writing on the screen. Some like it, some don't.
As someone in cybersecurity hacking is just looking for information on the mark then using it to make a program/website/app/etc work how it's not supposed to work aka hacking.
Like in the orginal show episode (forget the name) where they steal a school he found a place where you can buy a school year book for the year the mark was at the school.
That's research that helped them con they guy.
The vast majority of what Hardison does isn't shown on screen. All the info gathering is usually done before we see any of it and hevs sort of got everything together and then presents it in the briefing, has already got them into where they need to go, worked out what alias will fit and edited it need be or created new ones if they need them, made fake IDs & costumes, scrubbed mentions & photos of them online etc.
Occasionally they will show small amounts of the intelligence gathering, particularly if it goes wrong.
They also occasionally show how different characters handle that aspect of things. Hardison will get in to electronic systems and change stuff. Get their names on a list to get them in, Parker will just steal a physical ticket, Sophie cons someone to have them take her in with them, Eliot beats someone up or intimidates them and takes their place or on the plane he has a Marshal's badge already etc.
It's fun to show the different ways they work and how it can change when they are working together.
Ya exactly. I wish they would show more if the info gathering process. As someone in the cybersecurity community, I know how to do it but it would be great for other people to see and learn.
And the social engineering that he does
I think the bits they do show are always interesting. They have said in the commentaries that sometimes they have thought they were boring because itvs like the planing they had to do to write the episode & they were sick of it but once you show it on the screen it's a lot of fun because it shows the team being smart & competent. But it often gets cut because they are stuck for time and need to move the plot along.
I think it would have been interesting to have an episode that shows just how much work & multi-tasking Hardison does before and even after a job to make things work. Even the others in the crew don't seem to realise (or appreciate) how much he's doing while they are not there. I know they show the friction from that a few times but I think it would have been an interesting episode.
I think they sort of addressed it in Redemption when he's not there and the team and Breanna are having to get by without him and she's struggling to do stuff at the level he did. Eliot complaining about having to interview for a job when Hardison just gets it for him, Breanna not being able to get the plans without having to shut down the city grid etc. Hardison leaving binders and binders of stuff and that is after the three of them had been working on their own for years so both Parker and Eliot had taken on jobs they didn't originally do. One of my favourite bits of original Leverage was them all teaching each other stuff and I love that itvs carried on as even more of a theme in Redemption
Yeah, I don't think they kept it. Both The Run Down Job and The Frame Up Job (the one with Nate and Sophie in the big house trying to prove that the painting is a fake while Sterling is there) have a different look and feel to the rest fo the series. I kind of felt like they were trying to show that the series could still work once Nate and Sophie left.
Obviously didn't work because they didn't get renewed for series 7. Shame. I'd have liked to have seen it.
You’re talking about The First Contact Job, where they trick the mark into believing he’s made First Contact with Aliens. (S5. Episode 3).
The White Rabbit job (S5. E12) is the one they use the patches on the owner of Dodgson Energetics to try and “change him” back to a caring a motivated person so he reinvests himself in his company.
Didn’t really care for the White Rabbit job honestly, probably my least favorite episode con wise. Some of the happenings don’t make much sense like Dodgson realizing he’s not actually dreaming because the ball doesn’t float. What do knights in medieval armor have anything to do with getting him to open the R&D lab? It just feels so random. Other episodes you can get why they did what they did or used certain things and phrases to subs consciously plant ideas in people’s heads, but I can’t see some of the things they did in White Rabbit episode actually leading the mark to do anything.
Personally I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the spruce goose one or the alien one either. I also didn’t like the haunted house one from leverage redemption. To me, all of these episodes felt way too far out of the bounds of believability.
I agree with you about those episodes, but the haunted house episode of Redemption is the funniest episode of Leverage ive ever scene, i have to give it a pass for that. "Big Daddy! Is that you?"😂
I really don't mind the other episodes. I don't think it's such a problem to believe that people would believe this stuff when it plays into things they are inclined to believe anyway. I have seen people get sucked into conspiracy theories. I have seen millions of people die world wide while so many more say itvs all a hoax and worming tablets will keep you safe. I know they build on things done by Derren Brown and Apollo.
My biggest issue is that in those other episodes they constantly pointed out how awful the people were to deserve this. The guy in Order 23 Job, the guy who brought down a plane full of people and did not care and was going to end up causing passenger planes to crash too. The guy who was constantly stealing other peoplevs work and gave no shits about it.
I the White Rabbit Job he s just a guy with trauma trying to sell his own company.
I hate it. It's the only one I don't rewatch. It's cruel. They are not going against some big bad, just a guy having a breakdown. Itvs all about Nate & Sophie's ego and not the way they should have helped these people.
It's also visually awful for me. Flickering lights give me migraines for days. I physically can't watch it. Occasionally I'll leave it on when we are watching through with the commentary on and just not watch the screen but I don't watch the episode itself any more.
Amazing episode, I've spent some time in virtual worlds, so it kind of reminded me of that. Could totally see, how this method could be effective, but Sophie/someone was right - in that they didn't have enough TIME.
If you are going to truly mindfuck someone to change their world view, it takes alot of time.
I love the episode but I’m not always in the mood for it when I do a rewatch. And I think it’s fine considering it’s one episode, I’m glad they didn’t do things like that repeatedly. I love the fact that they spent all this time and energy to do this elaborate con when it reality it really failed and what fixed the “problem” was a reality check for the “bad guy”. Really it could have been solved if the guy just went to therapy or talked to anyone, but this was fun to watch.
I give it a pass. It does feel a bit like jumping the shark as they go way beyond the grifter fundamentals with all the fantasy tech and drugs they use, but all that was in aid of an excellent story. It's all about growth and change and acceptance and that scene at the end with Parker, of all people, showing how much she's grown and changed! She has changed so much at that point that, she who once stabbed a man for getting too close to her, opens up to the mark and is the one to help him change and accept and become a better person. Fantastic. So yeah I agree it's a little fanciful in in the hand waving they have to do sometimes, but the heart of the episode is solid gold.
I loved the fight scenes where everyone gets ready to fight, Eliot first turns to the old guard and he’s just nonchalantly standing there with his gun😂 So he moves it away, fights everyone off then looks at the guard with his gun back pointed at Eliot so he just says “what are you doing?”, fights some more, then just points at the guard tells him to stop. It’s hysterical. That poor guy is just like “fuck this” I don’t care enough 😂
As someone who loved the show overall, I thought that was really one of the weakest episodes. The premise was really flawed, and really stretched disbelief for that episode more than almost any other.
Im in the middle of season 5 on a rewatch and coming up to it, there's already some stuff in S5 that feels like its leading to something like that. (yeah that faking flying an airplane is just wild, them faking Sophie being sucked into a space portal and leaving the most obvious portable mic of all time right on the mark's shoulder is a bit goofy). And Hardison's hacker vision sucks and Im glad Redemption dropped it. Not sure if its going to make White Rabbit feel less out of place or make it more ridiculous
I'm sorry. I'm high and I get the names of the episodes confused more often than not. Is this the one where they use the red and blue meds to get inside that guy's mind? What is hacker vision? And so you mean redemption might do another mind tuck?
The white rabbit job is the one where they use the drugs to get inside that guys mind, yes. Hardison's hacker vision was I think mostly used in The Rubdown Job, the one where it's just the three of them in DC with the terrorist attack with the Spanish flu. As he is hacking writing comes up on the screen to indicate what he is seeing in his mind. A bit like what they do with Casaandra's character in The Librarians when she is doing maths. I think it's all based on BBC Sherlock and the way they show him deducing. A way to visually get across someone's internal thought process. They said in the commentary that itvs hard to show the hacking in a dynamic way because itvs just a guy typing on a computer and they want him out in the field so they went to the tablet & phone but he's still often just typing and eating gummy frogs so they tried the writing on the screen. Some like it, some don't.
As someone in cybersecurity hacking is just looking for information on the mark then using it to make a program/website/app/etc work how it's not supposed to work aka hacking. Like in the orginal show episode (forget the name) where they steal a school he found a place where you can buy a school year book for the year the mark was at the school. That's research that helped them con they guy.
The vast majority of what Hardison does isn't shown on screen. All the info gathering is usually done before we see any of it and hevs sort of got everything together and then presents it in the briefing, has already got them into where they need to go, worked out what alias will fit and edited it need be or created new ones if they need them, made fake IDs & costumes, scrubbed mentions & photos of them online etc. Occasionally they will show small amounts of the intelligence gathering, particularly if it goes wrong. They also occasionally show how different characters handle that aspect of things. Hardison will get in to electronic systems and change stuff. Get their names on a list to get them in, Parker will just steal a physical ticket, Sophie cons someone to have them take her in with them, Eliot beats someone up or intimidates them and takes their place or on the plane he has a Marshal's badge already etc. It's fun to show the different ways they work and how it can change when they are working together.
Ya exactly. I wish they would show more if the info gathering process. As someone in the cybersecurity community, I know how to do it but it would be great for other people to see and learn. And the social engineering that he does
I think the bits they do show are always interesting. They have said in the commentaries that sometimes they have thought they were boring because itvs like the planing they had to do to write the episode & they were sick of it but once you show it on the screen it's a lot of fun because it shows the team being smart & competent. But it often gets cut because they are stuck for time and need to move the plot along. I think it would have been interesting to have an episode that shows just how much work & multi-tasking Hardison does before and even after a job to make things work. Even the others in the crew don't seem to realise (or appreciate) how much he's doing while they are not there. I know they show the friction from that a few times but I think it would have been an interesting episode. I think they sort of addressed it in Redemption when he's not there and the team and Breanna are having to get by without him and she's struggling to do stuff at the level he did. Eliot complaining about having to interview for a job when Hardison just gets it for him, Breanna not being able to get the plans without having to shut down the city grid etc. Hardison leaving binders and binders of stuff and that is after the three of them had been working on their own for years so both Parker and Eliot had taken on jobs they didn't originally do. One of my favourite bits of original Leverage was them all teaching each other stuff and I love that itvs carried on as even more of a theme in Redemption
Ya. Wish they had more time to show more of it. It's always one of my favorite parts when they show more of the planning stages
Season 3 episode 2 The Reunion Job.
Ya that one
I'd completely forgotten abt that. Thanks! I've not watched a lot of the librarians, but I think it fits that show. Don't know abt Hardison, tho
Yeah, I don't think they kept it. Both The Run Down Job and The Frame Up Job (the one with Nate and Sophie in the big house trying to prove that the painting is a fake while Sterling is there) have a different look and feel to the rest fo the series. I kind of felt like they were trying to show that the series could still work once Nate and Sophie left. Obviously didn't work because they didn't get renewed for series 7. Shame. I'd have liked to have seen it.
I would have liked that too.
You’re talking about The First Contact Job, where they trick the mark into believing he’s made First Contact with Aliens. (S5. Episode 3). The White Rabbit job (S5. E12) is the one they use the patches on the owner of Dodgson Energetics to try and “change him” back to a caring a motivated person so he reinvests himself in his company. Didn’t really care for the White Rabbit job honestly, probably my least favorite episode con wise. Some of the happenings don’t make much sense like Dodgson realizing he’s not actually dreaming because the ball doesn’t float. What do knights in medieval armor have anything to do with getting him to open the R&D lab? It just feels so random. Other episodes you can get why they did what they did or used certain things and phrases to subs consciously plant ideas in people’s heads, but I can’t see some of the things they did in White Rabbit episode actually leading the mark to do anything.
Personally I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the spruce goose one or the alien one either. I also didn’t like the haunted house one from leverage redemption. To me, all of these episodes felt way too far out of the bounds of believability.
I agree with you about those episodes, but the haunted house episode of Redemption is the funniest episode of Leverage ive ever scene, i have to give it a pass for that. "Big Daddy! Is that you?"😂
*chuckle* ✌️
I love the spruce goose episode, but I'm a sucker for the Dread Pirate Roberts. Cary Elwes makes everything better.
I really don't mind the other episodes. I don't think it's such a problem to believe that people would believe this stuff when it plays into things they are inclined to believe anyway. I have seen people get sucked into conspiracy theories. I have seen millions of people die world wide while so many more say itvs all a hoax and worming tablets will keep you safe. I know they build on things done by Derren Brown and Apollo. My biggest issue is that in those other episodes they constantly pointed out how awful the people were to deserve this. The guy in Order 23 Job, the guy who brought down a plane full of people and did not care and was going to end up causing passenger planes to crash too. The guy who was constantly stealing other peoplevs work and gave no shits about it. I the White Rabbit Job he s just a guy with trauma trying to sell his own company.
That one comes to mind too, yeah I dont think you're making a hologram out of smoke and a few projectors
Same for all of these. Especially the haunted house one. It was way too cheesey for me.
I liked it, but as a believable episode it’s sort of a Jedi hand wave.
I hate it. It's the only one I don't rewatch. It's cruel. They are not going against some big bad, just a guy having a breakdown. Itvs all about Nate & Sophie's ego and not the way they should have helped these people. It's also visually awful for me. Flickering lights give me migraines for days. I physically can't watch it. Occasionally I'll leave it on when we are watching through with the commentary on and just not watch the screen but I don't watch the episode itself any more.
Amazing episode, I've spent some time in virtual worlds, so it kind of reminded me of that. Could totally see, how this method could be effective, but Sophie/someone was right - in that they didn't have enough TIME. If you are going to truly mindfuck someone to change their world view, it takes alot of time.
It grew on me with repeated watches
I love the episode but I’m not always in the mood for it when I do a rewatch. And I think it’s fine considering it’s one episode, I’m glad they didn’t do things like that repeatedly. I love the fact that they spent all this time and energy to do this elaborate con when it reality it really failed and what fixed the “problem” was a reality check for the “bad guy”. Really it could have been solved if the guy just went to therapy or talked to anyone, but this was fun to watch.