In less than a month, my most anticipated media of the year will be debuting on IMDB TV and I will get my beloved Leverage team back in my life with new content. It’s something I have not let myself think about too much because I will reach an unfunctional level of excitement and I am an adult with things that need to get done. I watched the original show at the start of 2017 and knew by the 2nd episode that I had found something that would stay with me forever and since then, have been very loud about my love for the show on both Twitter and Tumblr. This is a post that is four years in the making and now that the show will be getting a second life became something I needed to write so I can drag as many more people into this fandom with me as possible.
So, starting extremely basic. Leverage is a heist show. It is a modern day Robin Hood-esque band of criminals who steal from the rich and powerful for the benefit of those they have harmed. That means we get 77 episodes (plus 16 new episodes this year!) of heist goodness along with the catharsis of seeing bad people suffer the consequences of their own greed and callousness. It is a glorious fantasy that has only continued to be more compelling as time goes on, especially as it becomes increasingly clear to anyone paying a modicum of attention that it normally doesn’t happen that way.
It’s a show that understands the world it was created in but also says that we don’t have to accept it as it is. John Rogers, the creator and one of the two showrunners for the original, described it as “an uncynical show made by cynical people” and he’s not wrong. The targets and their crimes are all at least loosely based in reality, sometimes after being toned down because the actual crime was too unbelievable for television. As a result, there’s an anger that simmers under the surface of the show. It exposes our broken systems for what they are but never in a way that feels hopeless. It is a show about taking back power and doing what you can to make the world work a little closer to the way you want it to work. It is driven by the belief that change is necessary and the hope that it can be possible, even in small ways.
It finds a really wonderful balance between a fun heist-of-the-week show (which would still have made it a solid show, this team of writers understands grifting and cons extremely well) and having something to say if you’re willing to look beyond what we’re taught this format should be. It loves the fact that it’s largely non-serialized and especially as the show goes on, revels in getting to play with format and structure. But what makes this show continue to stand out is that it understands that nothing matters if you don’t care about the characters. That they shouldn’t just exist to make the plot happen. That it should be them driving the story, not being wildly steered around at the whims of a story that doesn’t fit.
Continue reading Why You Should Watch Leverage (and Leverage: Redemption)