LEVERAGE #417 "The Radio Job" Answer Post

Jumping to this one so you can mix and match with the finale tonight.

The finale is always a bruiser.  We're running tight on time and budget, we've burned a LOT of the  the new research on the previous eps -- 16 of the in this year, a whole season's worth plus one.  For a variety of reasons, our staff timeline is tight; our writers start about two months later than most cable shows for the same number of episodes and the same shooting date.

Also, our original plan for Latimer was just feeling ... eh.  It worked, don't get me wrong (and is very, very similar to what we wound up with), but it wasn't landing. Dean had locked in "consequences" as the theme for the year.  That resonated with everyone who heard it, gave them a little frisson of anticipation.  But the planned payoff was a little too brainy, not enough heart.  

In the end, it was a matter of sitting down and thinking "What are the consequences?  What is the worst consequence of Nate's growing anger and arrogance?"  That answer is simple -- he gets blindsided.  Taken out at the knees with horrible consequences.  And we'd done the prison thing.  Which meant somebody had to die.

All this was very fluid when I had to run up to Portland for production reasons.  Two days later, when I returned, the room had it. (Sidebar -- the room breaks stories.  I know that I have some lovely fans on Twitter, etc. that give me way too much credit.  The room breaks the stories)  Chris had pitched Jimmy Ford's death to Dean, and it absolutely worked.  The only issue was -- we didn't have a matching story.  At which point two things happened roughly simultaneously.

1.) Knowing we needed a "Jimmy's in over his head" location, Chris put it to the room.  The next morning former Filthy Assistant and at that point Scrappy Staff Writer Rebecca Kirsch (@BeckyKirsch) showed up with a fistful of information on the Patent Office (including the oh so real Invention Secrecy Act).  This tied in elegantly with ...  

2.) ... Dean, asking me in his office "If this was really the last season, really, who's the villain?" Without hesitation I said "Victor Dubenich."  Which I think we all kind of knew anyway. 

At that point we broke both halves in the room, tuning them to fit Dubenich ("Oh, hey, patent fraud!  That's a clue!  Oh, hey, bomb in a warehouse!  That's a clue!") All to get us to that nice little moment where Nate, outside the patent building a.) realizes who's behind all this and b.) he's probably already too late.  

This story folded in with something we'd been talking about addressing in the room: the end.  The end of the show, the end of the characters, the end of the characters careers.  In particular, what's it like to retire in Crime World?  What would it like to be Jimmy Ford, forced to the sidelines? And in a meta-sense, we're all getting to the point wehre some of our friends have retirement issues with their parents. You think getting your Mom to give up her driver's license is bad?  Try getting a master fixer to give up the game.

There was a bit more fine tuning when we got to the location -- the offices/cubicle farm available for the Patent Office were attached to the glass walkway building, so that needed to be written in.  The final escape went through about three different pitches based around location.  Once that was all settled, we dove into the casting.  We knew Tom Skerrit was coming back, which was great, as he and Tim have lovely chemistry.  Then we moved to Agent Powell --  and Dean pitched Michael Pare.  At which point we all went "... what?"

Turns out Michael's been living in Europe, working over there.  He and Dean are Moon 44 buddies (as is Leon) so Dean tossed him out as the Square-Jawest of Johnny Square-Jaw federal agents.   We cast him, he came in that first day, and did one of the hardest things I've ever seen an actor do: He played that character without a drop of irony.

It would be irresistible for most actors to play Agent Powell -- who is plainly trapped in Die Hard without even realizing it -- without a wink and nod.  Just a little "I know this guy is a goofball" twist in the delivery.  But no, Pare played it like Agent Powell was the lead in the Incredibly Sincere CBS FBI Show that just happened to glance into the iceberg of the Leverage-verse.  An absolute goddam pleasure to work with.

The only thing more enjoyable was the first time Kane did his John McClane voice.  Where a throwaway bit became something truly great.  (My favorite part of that, btw, is the little wince he makes after the first statement, the little "Did I overplay that?" moment.)

Unlike most finales, 417/418 didn't intermingle much on the schedules.  Most of 418 shot first, then we did 417.  The van phone conversation was the last sequence shot for the year, FWIW.

Right, 152 questions, I'm sure you cover most of the good stuff.  Let's dive in.

@athlios: Apologies if you've answered this before, but how long was Jimmy in jail? Did he know Maggie? Sam?

He did about a five year stretch.  He did know Maggie and Sam, but wasn't that close to them.  Some of that was his own nature, a lot of that because Nate kept him at arms length. Don't think that's not screwing with Nate's head.  Nate's mother died just after Sams birth, btw.

@firelizardkimi: I just had a thought, not specifically about this episode, but about the future of the show: If the crew is moving to Portland for next season, then does that mean we won't see any more of Bonnano or Lady Cop (whose name I never remember)? That will be so sad. I love them.

That's Val Lundrum playing Detective Grayson.  And hey, cops move too.  We'll see.

@Esser-Z: I saw the end coming, but man was it awesome. More of an I WAS RIGHT moment. And heeey, I recognized that music during the time travel montage. Did you have to pay for that?

If you listen closely, it's not exactly the music you think it is.  Thanks, Joe LoDuca.

@Nekussa: I am looking forward to the guest stars for next week. I do hope there will be at least one that was NOT shown in the previews, as I would love to be surprised.

Heh.

@ebony71: How hilarious were the Die Hard references. Christian did Bruce Willis proud. Did he enjoy being John McClane for the day?

Answered in the excellent Leverage10 podcast in more depth, but yes, he totally dug in.  Kane's a very talented comedic actor.

By the way, I say "excellent" about the podcast not because we're in it, but because it was the brainchild of one of our assistants at Electric, Paola, and hosted by another assistant, Kayla.  Developed and executed on their own initiative.  Go Scrappy Assistant SuperTeam!

@Ally: Oh my God. All I can say is, why must you make me wait until next week? Questions:

1. Time machine: Ledger, orange box, or Parker fantasy?
2. Why didn't Homeland Security buy Sophie's story?
3. Has Eliot been on a police force before? He seemed to have the agent pretty convinced that he was a badge. 
4. If the team or the goons didn't activate the motion sensors, who did? I was just confused there. 
5. Will next week's episode pick up where tonight's left off, or will there be a time gap between them?

6. Where did Hardison get the bow tie? Or did he have it on before? 

1.) We had a very amusing discussion on set that day of what sort fo time machine there would be (hence the "it's more of a portal" line from Kane).  Who knows what lurks in the Suppressed Inventions Warehouse?

2.) Because they were just a little more thorough.  That story was going to fall apart in hours anyway, this was just accelerating the timeline.

3.) No.  Military, but has dealt with authority structures his whole life.

4.) Victor alerted the police.  Nobody set off the motion sensors.

5.) Enough of a time gap for Nate to fly to a certain prison, and arrange a chat ...

6.) He found it in the warehouse. 

@JoellaBlue:  1.) Are the actors individually miked? We can hear sounds like hmmm, and grunts and growls (Eliot of course), and gasps that just seem too soft for a boom mike? Or have boom mikes gotten that sensitive or do the actors have to loop in those sounds as well? 2.) When do you begin filming season five and do you know yet the start air date of season five. We need to see you steal Portland and a time machine (for Parker) and a classic car show (for Eliot) and.......

1.) Both boomed and miked. We then go back and individually fill in whatever didn't quite work.  Our sound department this year, btw, has been truly excellent in some very adverse conditions. Big win for that department in Season 4.

2.) Season 5 starts airing shooting first week of March 2012, not sure about an air date (EDIT: Thanks for the catch, kids).  And we're already developing one of those pitches you mentioned.  Nice pyschic flash.

@cappadocious: What edition of D&D are you playing? Because 4e ain't no old school, man.

Ah, I'm going "pen and paper" old school vs. "video games" new school, rather than divisions within the pen &paper world. And although I enjoy our 4e campaign, my system of choice is Savage Worlds.

@AMHS: What happened to the people expecting the million dollars?

What happens to most people expecting free money: they are disappointed.

@AdamC: Still not sure where the company name mentioned in the van fits in.

No tie-in to the original plot.  Was just a way of showing Nate still knows everything there is to know about all their old marks.

@Anonymous/Tracy:  .... I got nothin'.  Thanks for watching the show.

@Hugin: Chaos is the only hacker the team's confronted with that level of skill, I can see why they'd call him if they really need a second hacker. And Artie Leech is on good terms with the team, he's a perfect backup thief. But Quinn? Elliot's on good terms with both the Israeli woman from season 2 and his hitter buddy from Boy's Night Out, pulling in a bad hitter instead of either of those seems like an unnecessary risk.

"Why him" will be revealed in the opening Act of 418.  There's a reason.

@Guru: I suppose the obvious question is: what was the thinking behind the decision to kill Jimmy?

Well, it was either him or Maggie, and you people would have rioted and murdered me if we killed her ... in this episode, anyway.

@Calla: 1.) Parker says that maybe Jimmy used the time machine to go to 1962. Why that year? Is that the year Nate was born? 2.) When the building blew up how close was Tim (or his stunt double) to the building? I think you've mentioned a couple of times on the DVD commentaries that your people are often positioned a little closer than they ought to be ... So, how close was Tim (or his double) to this explosion? A completely safe distance? Much further than it looked? Or about as close as you usually let them stand because it's worked out okay the last few times you've done it that way?

1.) She picked the date totally randomly.

2.) All of our stunt doubles are a safe distance away.  On the DVD I usually talk about how even though we're clear, it feels like we're too close, because nobody ever really expects that pressure wave of heat to hit them.  There's never any shrapnel in that wave, but it's a very alien, disconcerting feeling.  Your lizard brain gets very alarmed.

@Tabby: Nineteen sixty-two? And Parker saying that the question isn't 'where', but 'when'? Please tell me that was an intentional Community/Inspector Spacetime reference.

Unintentional, but what the hell.  It's now Canon that both Doctor Who and Inspector Spacetime exist in the  Leverage-verse, with Parker being a bit more of an Inspector Spacetime fan and Hardison leaning on Who.

Which means Community is real in the Leverage-verse.  Rock on.

@Ruby: I'm as big of a Sophie fan as the next person, but there seem to be some strong hints that she's a manipulative psycho. I was watching the episode from the first season where they all go to Russia and Parker stabs the guy with the fork. Well, in that episode, Sophie says she "doesn't leave [her] personal life to chance". Implying that she carefully orchestrates every interaction she has with everyone, whether they're friends or marks. Every time she bats her eyelashes at Nate or banters with the crew, she's grifting (or so my theory goes). Is it possible she's more sinister than she seems? Or was the finale of season one as far as you're going with that possibility? Either way, she's great.

Shit, you figured out the end to Season Five.

Just joking.  But I think it's fair to say one of the reasons we beat up the Nate and Sophie relationship so much in the last four years is that it was about two people learning to let go of control -- and like any addict, that kicks in some nasty withdrawal symptoms.  There are some long-term plans in play; as I've mentioned before, the last two scenes of the series finale have been written since first season.  We'll see what you all think of them when the day comes.

@Anonymous: 1) The Inventions Suppression/Secrecy Act thingy - ledger or black box? (I want it to be ledger, yet I have a bad feeling it's probably not ...)

2) Who is Parker's favourite Doctor?
3) So is it canon now that, since the Three Days of the Hunter Job, Eliot has just continued to screw with Parker's head about conspiracy theories? Loved all the sibling beats between them this episode, btw - my favourite relationship.
4) Just a behind-the-scenes type question, I know you guys write each season finale as if it could be the last (really like that, btw), but knowing you've already been renewed for another season, does that influence how you write the finale? Take other finales for example - the team splitting up, or Nate going to jail - did you already know how you were going to fix them, or was it a case of "Well, crap" when you got back to the writers room? Every Leverage season opener has made my list of favorites, so I wondered how much planning went into them.

1.)  As noted, real.

2.) Patrick Troughton.

3.) Eliot has an ... odd sense of humor.  Yes, that's a running gag.

4.) Nope.  It could still be the last.  You never know what could happen in TV, as our friend on Eureka recently, tragically learned.  Also, that attitude gives closure to the year as a whole, so each year feels like its own mini-arc.

@allyone: 1) How was the phone scene in the van filmed? Was the whole cast there? Was someone reading Jimmy's part to Tim?

2) Eliot letting Nate go into the archive room along - was that Eliot's read on that moment or does that signify that Eliot's overall trust level of Nate is increasing?
3) In your answer post to Inside Job, you wrote: "Nate would not find being a manipulative sonovabitch contradictory to loving someone enough to die for them. It'll become clearer when you meet his father ..."Does that mean that you guys had this particular ending in mind for Jimmy when you introduced him?
4.) If so, did you ever consider letting Jimmy live, so we could see him interacting with the team? My one real regret is that we never got to see Skerritt interacting with any of the rest of the awesome cast.

1.) Whole cast was in the van.  It's what we shot last for the year, a very intense sequence.  Our Line Producer Paul Bernard was reading the Jimmy lines.  To a great degree, though, that's a Hutton acting moment, right there, bringing chops to what's effectively a monologue about his father.

2.) Mixed.  He wasn't happy about it.

3.) We toyed with killing him in "The Three Card Monte Job", actually.  We didn't have this end, but we knew he ended badly.

4.) Nope.  He served his Story Purpose ably.

@Lily: there was one thing, although how to ask this without spoiling anything from the episode (although it seems like at this point, people should've seem it)... there seemed to be an assumption with the "nate's not here" phone call at the end that Nate would in fact be present. I get why the goal was for him to be there. But how was the Big Bad accounting for the rest of the team? You might be able to take out Nate Ford, but that's just going to set Eliot and Parker on your ass. (And Hardison and Sophie, but Eliot and Parker are scarier). Was there a plan for handling the rest of the team that we didn't see? Or is the Big Bad thinking of the team as just another group of thieves who don't have loyalty to each other?

The idea was that Nate would bugger off and handle this alone -- which was the right guess, by the way. He didn't count on the loyalty/tenaciousness of the team.  Once that was factored in, trust me, there was plenty of muscle scattered around that warehouse.  It would have played out differently if they'd seen the team approaching.

@Famous4it: I have just one question! Parker got the time-machine... What from when does she steal first? 

A moment.  A very, very important moment, from not that long ago.

@Anonymous:  cannot imagine anyone (without a death wish) just watching a bomb timer count down to zero, so I don't understand why Jimmy did not run as fast as he could, as soon as he realised the situation, even if it seemed hopeless, to try and put distance and/or objects between himself and the bombs.

Jimmy Ford was a 70 year old man with a concussion, granted, but there was more to it than that.  First -- he just got hit smack in the face with the fact that, yeah, he was too old for this game.  He'd been outplayed.  Second -- if he gave Nate any hope at all that he was trying to escape, he couldn't keep Nate from trying to get into the warehouse.  Go out with a little dignity, you know?  Choosing to face your death calmly, without panic, that's a pretty decent thing for a man to do. I think Oona in the Comments handled this pretty completely.

@VideoBeagle: 1.) I never got a clear idea of what a "Radio con" is. 2.) I enjoyed Elliot being insulted by the quality of thugs sent after him.

1.) A Radio Job is using transmission/lack of info to run a con.  Its a variation of "the Wire". 2.) It's also one of my favorite character beats.  No idea why, it just tickles me every time we do it.  Mostly Kane's very reasonable, patient explanation.

@Carl: Did seeing what happened to Nate have any affect on Hardison and him wanting to become a team learder one day? seeing how people will always be after you.

No, that was about Nate's personality, not his position.

@Nekussa: My inner conspiracy theorist says Jimmy Ford ran out the back door at the last second and is just letting the world think he's dead. :)

Dead.  Dead, dead dead.

@Amakusa42: Nate ford's crew pulls a job, and Sherlock is hired to figure out who did it. Does he figure it out? and can you beat the Grand Moff(et)?

Oooh, that is not something I'd want to tackle.  I bet I could take Moffet in a straight up con script, but his meta-structure is unspeakably good.  I'll land on meet, fight, team-up.

@Anonymous: Was Parker's fantasy time machine a re-purposed Steranko scanner?

Jesus, you people are good.  Yes.

@Lydia: 1. How long has the "bring back Dubenich" card been on the wall?

2. How did Dubenich know that Nate would refuse to work with Latimer, thus setting in motion the plan to use Jimmy as bait to get the team in one place?
3. The scene with where Nate was taking pictures (was that Beth's camera?) of the patent building and Eliot and Hardison showed up behind him had a very 3 Card Monte feel... was that intentional?
4. How different/alike is the building's security system compared to the Steranko from the Inside Job?
5. Why didn't Eliot tape the thugs a little tighter to that pipe? It seems like he made it somewhat easy for the head guy to free himself (love how pissed off he gets about second rate thugs).

1.) Since first year.  It doesn't hurt that Saul's a friend.

2.) Jimmy was Plan B, form the Plan A offer in "The Lonely Hearts Job".

3.) That's a Dean directing trademark.

4.) Not even close. A Steranko would have shut them down cold.

5.) Hey, nobody's perfect.

@EllenZ: Was there a scene cut about Lucille, or has she been warehoused in Virgina since last year's finale?

They drove her down overnight, stashed her nearby.  That could have been clearer.

@kta: So did you steal the shot of Hardison holding back Sophie and Parker from Brannagh's Henry V when the Herald holds back the women? It looked balanced and blocked the same way. Not to denigrate your directing/camera work/acting...It was a fabulous shot in any case.

I don't think Dean blocked it similarly intentionally, I think it's just a matter of classic blocking echoing each other.

@Anonymous: I think I remembered at some point Rogers said that this season we would find out what the worst thing Eliot ever did in his entire life was. 

I said you'd get an idea of it from "The Experimental Job".  You'll never find out what it was, explicitly.

@SueN: 1.) Rogers, I do have to ask: Whose idea was the duct tape? Is there a list (or wall of index cards) of household items the writers would like to see Eliot weaponize? 2.) Also, when we see the flashback to Nate sending Jimmy back to Ireland, it's cut. In the flashback, we go directly from, "Logue. Your mother's maiden name, how sweet" and immediately to "I'm proud of you, son." So, was there a reason (other than for time) the sequence was cut? Losing all that "I'm proud of you because you're even more a manipulative bastard than I am" kind of changes the Nate-Jimmy dynamic.

1.) Jeremy Bernstein pitched that in fight in "The Cross My Heart Job" and it got cut because the set didn't accomodate the bit.  The Eliot fights tend to firm up after Kane and Kevin Jackson have seen the sets. 2.) Cut for flashback time.  We didn't want to break the exterior scene rhythm with too long an interior scene.

@Anonymous: how much character development do you do before the show airs? I mean, did you know that Nate's father was a kind of street thug when you were developing the pilot or did that idea develop orver time?

We know what kind of people they are, how they talk, what they did for a living, how they got into CrimeWorld what they do, etc, but we're very light on detailed backstory.  I find it tends to be more constraining than not.  Jimmy Ford was brought to life, after all, when Tim looked at that stool in the bar a certain way in "The Bottle Job" and we thought "... oooh, that's a story we want to tell, whatever caused that look."

@Miette: Didn't really catch why all the lights suddenly went on when Nate walked in. Why is that? Automatic? :\

They were indeed automatic.

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Okay, that's all for the first half.  See you tonight for the finale.  Have fun!