Leverage Analysis - Parker and the Family Dynamic

As a fan of the TNT show Leverage, I have a peculiar contention - one that will make little sense to anyone who is unfamiliar with the show, so if you fall in that category I suggest you first watch an episode or two before reading the rest.

Ready? Okay, good.

The characters of the show, and the people involved in making the show, often discuss the familial nature of the five main characters, that is, Nate and his crew. If we were to break down the family dynamic, certain roles are more obviously filled than others. Nate is clearly the father figure in this family, and Sophie is the mother. Eliot is the eldest child, a mature yet passionate son. The other two are somewhat more difficult - Hardison and Parker. You see, since the two share romantic tension, we must accept one of three possibilities: their relationship borders on incestual, the "family" metaphor breaks down if it is considered too deeply, or one of the two characters is not part of the immediate family. Assuming the first is absurd and the second is too boring to put in a blog post, I shall now defend the third. Hardison or Parker is a "child" of Nate and Sophie, and the other has been grafted in.

My immediate thought, when I first considered this, was that Hardison is the outsider. After all, he is the only member of the crew who is not white - one glance at the crew would suggest that he is not blood-related, which could carry to the show's family metaphor. He is also the only member of the crew whose past and personal life have not yet been dealt with more than briefly, and three seasons have passed.

But consider Parker. Parker is the only one who goes by a single name. Her foster father has appeared on the show, and initially, he seems angry about her joining this new family, saying he'd made her a perfect thief and Nate ruined her by allowing her to become a "good guy." She acts truly strange in comparison to everyone else. In promotional materials for the show, she is almost always set apart from the rest of the crew. The DVD sets for both the first and second seasons of the show each have four discs, and each disc features a different member of the crew, but never Parker - she is the face of the special features. Finally, Eliot and Hardison fight like brothers.

So, my contention is this - in the family that is Nate's crew, Nate is the father, Sophie is the mother, Eliot is the older brother, Hardison is the younger brother, and Parker is the girl who is with Hardison, and has become included in the family but does not quite belong yet. Thus ends my analysis.

7 Reasons Why Leverage Is An Awesome Show

My hands-down favorite television show is Leverage. I know it is my favorite because I like to watch at least one episode every day that I have time. I don't watch a lot of television, so this is incredibly unusual for me.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Leverage, the premise is as follows: Four professional criminals - a hacker (Alec Hardison), a grifter (known as Sophie Devereaux), a hitter (Eliot Spencer), and a thief (Parker) - are brought together for one job, and an "honest man" named Nate Ford is brought in to coordinate the job and to keep them in check. When it's over, they find they have a taste for working together, and they decide to find jobs helping good, average people whose lives have been destroyed by evil rich people and corporations. The average people can't do anything to save themselves, and the people who hurt them are usually outside the law for one reason or another, so the Leverage crew comes in to provide, well, leverage.

So why do I love it?

1. I'd hang out with all five main characters. Normally, in shows, books, and movies, there is at least one main character who is annoying, or hateful, or otherwise generally detestable. I like House, for instance, but I don't care for Taub or Cameron. Yet with Leverage, I'd go for coffee with any member of the crew, any time. I do admit, Parker is my favorite. She's a total weirdo.
   
2. There's minimal drama. The characters have a family-like dynamic, except they probably get along better than any normal family. Leverage isn't based on drama. Occasionally it hints at romantic tension between Nate and Sophie, or between Parker and Hardison, but it's a minimal aspect of the show - just enough to keep it realistic. This keeps the show focused on the jobs, instead of on "feelings" or whatever.
   
3. They switch roles fairly regularly. They all have "their" job, the skill that makes them useful to the crew - but sometimes, for various reasons, they have to switch jobs. Sophie wants to try taking Nate's place, or Hardison misses a flight and has to verbally walk Parker through the hacking, or they need a guy to be the grifter and Eliot takes the role. This job-switching keeps it even more interesting.
   
4. It's more than schadenfreude. Honestly, who doesn't want to see the bad guy get what he deserves? But often in the process of a con, they discover that a lot more people are getting hurt than their client, and that taking down the bad guy will actually save a lot of lives. They aren't just Robin Hood. They're also a sort of stealthy Justice League.
   
5. It's got humor, and not stupid humor. Leverage is a funny show. Besides the usual interaction between chill-guy Hardison and the high-strung Eliot, there's also the time Parker pretended to be Björk in order to infiltrate a studio.
   
6. The crew solves problems and puzzles on the fly. I'm a sucker for stories about smart, skilled people, and the crew is entirely that kind of people. If they find a wall, they make a door, or they go in through the ceiling. If their plan fails, they come up with a new one, even if time and physics are against them - for, as Sophie once put it, "chance does seem to bend itself to [Nate's] bizarre machinations." They come up with creative solutions to unexpected problems in minimal time, and that is, to me, the most exciting kind of show.
   
7. The characters have a bizarre kind of freedom. What makes their creativity possible is that they are essentially unhindered by the law. They don't have to think, "What am I allowed to do?" They only have to think, "What will work best here?" It definitely makes "thinking outside the box" easier, since they essentially removed the box by working outside the law. It's not a good idea for normal, real people, but it makes a wonderful television show.