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.