Kung Fu Monkey

Drone Swarm

2012-02-01T08:20:00.000-08:00

I would once again like to remind our Robot Overlords that I have always been a supporter of Robot Marriage.

For a cheerier morning -- what GOOD things do you think you could accomplish with a Drone Swarm?

The Post I Wish I'd Written on SOPA

2012-01-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

FWIW, another Hollywood content provider who understands the Internet explains very, very thoroughly why SOPA/PIPA are very, very bad pieces of legislation attempting to solve a very, very poorly defined problem.

It is worth noting that under SOPA, as written, this blog could be summarily shut down without notice or appeal. I've talked about Torrent software, and people in the Comments have linked to Fan Vids. The full story of this actually happening already -- no "hypothetical" -- under the far mor lenient DMCA is here.

Oh, and my flame bait for the day:

Any screenwriter who thinks he loses more money to piracy than to Hollywood studio accounting is a child.

(Yeah, somebody got a participation statement last week ...)

There. Go nuts.

LEVERAGE #417 "The Radio Job" Answer Post

2012-01-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

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. But 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.

*********************************

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

LEVERAGE #418 "The Last Dam Job" Question Post

2012-01-15T07:07:00.001-08:00

As always, coulda been the last one. Questions, reactions, and speculations for Season 5 in the Comments.

LEVERAGE #417 "The Radio Job"

2012-01-08T17:43:00.001-08:00

Why is this question post late? Because I'm playing Dungeons & Dragons, that's how old-school I roll. NO SPOILERS ON THE EARLY SHOW COMMENTS.

LEVERAGE #416 "The Gold Job" Question Post

2012-01-01T19:33:00.001-08:00

Sorry about tat, got all tied up reading Sanderson's Mistborn. Go ahead and ask you questions, I'll see what I can do to amuse you.

LEVERAGE #404 "The Van Gogh Job" Post-Game, Part 1

2011-12-29T18:53:00.001-08:00

... or "The Little Sidebar that Grew."

It's very easy to assume (and very satisfactory to play into the illusion) that TV staffs have these grand strategic plans for their season-long arcs. Some do; John Wells runs an infamously efficient ship based around an ironclad development/writing cycle for each script. The season arcs for each character are laid out on a big board, each development point pegged to specific episodes. I have never seen it, but hear it is both inspiring and terrifying. There is a reason he is, if not the King of Television, one of the Archdukes.

Those types of shows are essentially shows about emotions. People in conflict, or breaking down. End of day -- as Wells et al have nimbly shown -- you can drop a conflicted group of humans into any high-stakes setting and reap the entertainment crop of angst. Breaking Bad is about temptation and sin -- Walter didn't have to make Meth. But the drug world is a great, high-conflict/high-risk crucible for an amazing staff of writers to use to show what happens, how a man breaks bad. Joss Whedon's shows are about identity, responsibility, family and failure -- it doesn't matter what setting he's in, it's just that sci-fi allows one to create extreme circumstances so to best draw out extreme choices and extreme consequences.

And then there are shows about systems. Specifically, systems in conflict, or breaking down. Law & Order is the platonic example, although most mainstream crime procedurals live somewhere in here. Disorder has come, sickness has come, corruption has come, and we crave the system to be set right. We are there for the riddle, the puzzle, the "click" of the solve. "Ahh, that's the solution." "Ah, clever."

I am not saying there are only two types of television -- and even these two are very crude models. But I would say that these two paradigms dominate. Even co-mingle. One could call it the Squee/Clever Continuum. All viewers and writers fall somewhere along the Continuum for what they like to watch and write. Modern mainstream shows try to walk the middle of the continuum -- enough plot to engage, with characters charming enough to invite back into your house every week. You're trying to flip back and forth just a little every episode.

Its a very fine line. You can't do emotional stories without characters and situations changing. All "character" stories are about change. Too much change, and it's not the show you started watching. You lose the people who want to see their favorite "type" of show. Too little, and the show stagnates. You lose the people who are compelled by emotional change.

This is even trickier to manage because writers and audiences rarely agree what the show is about. Hell, define "about."

-- sidebar within sidebar. If you want to know what the creators intended a show to be "about", you can usually go back and watch the last scene of the pilot. In E.R., it's Noah Wylie sitting on the sidewalk, exhausted but changed. It's going to be a show about how people survive this tumultuous, draining situation, and how it changes them. I won't spoil the last scene of the Breaking Bad pilot, but it's stunning in its prescience right down to the final line of dialogue. (Seriously, it makes me want to kiss Vince Gilligan on the mouth.) The last scene of Leverage is Nate explaining the physics of Crime World, and how he and his crew are going to fuck up The Man. This show is about those people punching rich guys in the neck. Because they have Sinned, and Deserve It.

What's really kind of interesting is to go back and watch the Lost pilot. (Remember, the end of the pilot is the end of Ep 2*.) It ends with Charlie asking "Guys ... where ARE we?" That sets up the mystery of the show. But is that really, eventually, what the show's about?

I'd argue that's what so infuriated many people about Lost by the end of it. (Full disclosure: I really dug the show, and am show-business friends with a fair chunk of the ex-writers). Was Lost "about" the people on the island (emotion), or "about" the mystery of the island (the system)? I'd guess for the writers it was about unravelling those castaways' stories every week. And sure, for a big chunk of the audience, that's what got them emotionally invested. But mysteries demand solving, and as soon as the system of the island was set up as a mystery it became part of the contract with the audience. "Oh, there are mysteries! Puzzles! I'll pay attention over here, too!" But if you don't then satisfy the puzzle-solving part of the relationship -- God help you. Audiences are hella-smart. Even if they're not conscious puzzle-solvers, the lizard brain knows it isn't getting what it wants. That frustration feeds back into the character side, and before you know it fans are frustrated with both parts of the equation, because they're feeling that ...

... ahh ... you know the best thing I ever heard, the thing I wish someone had told me when I was 20?

"Every criticism is the tragic result of an unmet need."

I think it's important when working in television to understand we are in the emotional need business. The audience has needs, wide ranging and diverse, and ultimately impossible to satisfy universally and long-term. So, in the end, all writers can do is write the show they need to write. Most of our conflict with executives comes from the fact that their job is to get us to write the show the audience needs (which is, as we just discussed, unknowable). Sometimes you get lucky and hit a primal need, and sometimes you get very clever indeed by realizing that there's an entire chunk of the audience out here that needs simple. (That's not an insult. Simple is also elegant. Just go read The Glass Teat and assume the "Agnew-ization of televison" is the preferred form of entertainment for a lot of older viewers in a morally unsettling world.) Like politics and religion, both extreme ends of the Ahh/Clever spectrum are fertile places to recruit, with eternally unchanging disciples.

Even more muddling is that the writers themselves often don't agree what the show's about. Leave aside the individual variations of the staff writers who've come and gone. Downey doesn't see the same show as I do, as Dean does. I would say Leverage is about authority, how susceptible we are too it, and how it needs to be checked no matter what. I'd say Leverage is a show about CrimeWorld that happens to have broken people forming a family in the middle of it. Dean -- and we've been friends long enough, I don't think he'd disagree with this -- Dean always pitches from the gut and would say that Leverage is a show about broken people forming a family that happens to be in Crime World.

Downey and I have the closest alignment on what Leverage is "about". Yet we manage to have one top of the lungs barn-burner every year on just that subject. There's a running joke that his least-favorite episode from S3 is one of my favorites, and my least favorite is on the top of his list for that Season. And we're the showrunners.

The kicker is the show benefits by all that tension.

All this to say: the most emotionally charged, romantic episode of Leverage S4 -- which Wells or Whedon or Shonda Rimes would have spent ages building to -- was a total goddam accident.

Which we will get to in the next post.

* FWIW, the end of the first broadcast episode of Lost is also a Charlie question. We're looking at the airline pilot, snatched away by an unseen monster, now a bloody mess in an impossibly high tree branch. Charlie asks "How does something like that happen?" Another mystery question.

LEVERAGE #415 "The Lonely Hearts Job"

2011-12-25T08:20:00.000-08:00

"Hey, it's that guy!" "No, I think the other one would win!" "Aww, that's sweet!" And all the other stuff you yelled at the screen. Go ahead and post, and I will get liquored up and address your Comments.

LEVERAGE #414 "The Boys Night Out Job"

2011-12-18T13:37:00.001-08:00

Honestly, the trick was to just point the camera and get out of the way. Leave your questions, comments and snark for my written by/directed by debut here.

LEVERAGE #411 "The Experimental Job" Post-Game

2011-12-14T15:06:00.000-08:00

After 40-something episodes, you have a lot of fragments of shattered ideas and blown outlines kicking around. Before he left for Nikita -- a great spy show, by the way, very underrated -- Albert Kim was pitching a weapons dealer episode set at a think tank. There were a lot of great elements to the pitch, the best being the idea of Hardison going undercover as a genius researcher. Hardison, after all, is a genius and creates a lot of the cutting edge technology the team uses. The idea was to show there was a legitimate path he could have taken, but for a variety of circumstances just never did.

The pitch ultimately didn't work, although some of its story shrapnel wound up embedded in finale of that year.

So when Veach came to us to pitch a college research idea, that very attractive character beat resurfaced. College is an even better showcase for what we wanted to explore with Hardison. He is, after all, is a self-segregating geek. We're now in the Age of the Geek, where people like Felicia Day have successful web series, Wil Wheaton has close to 2 million Twitter followers, where the biggest movies of the summer are comic book movies, a video game can sell 25 million copies ... a world where, for example, successful television showrunners will have lunch and trade favorite sci-fi authors and favorite Doctor Who episodes. We don't belong, but the glorious thing is that in the 21st Century there's so many of us that we can all not belong together.

But there's still a tension there. No matter how successful the geek, there's a core of memory, something isolating (not always in a bad way) that drove you into that world of imagination in the first place. Societal norms are strong. My generation of geeks in particular were the ones who grew up outside the mainstream; even though we now are the mainstream, some primitive lizard brain survival instinct makes us twitch just a bit when we approach that invisible line. At the same time some part of me revels in the fact that I can talk about playing Dungeons & Dragons, some inner voice is whispering "What are you doing? THEY'LL KNOW!"

This episode is a parallel to "The 15 Minutes Job." In the same way we explored how fame's siren call is irresistible, we look at how "being cool" is equally irresistible if you grew up as an outsider. Of course the timeline is radically compressed -- it originally took place over a series of weeks, during Hardison's vetting and initiation, paralleled by Eliot's incarceration -- but that just wound up being way to goddam costly.

The original pitch had Parker also being affected more by the temptation of blending in. In the long run we realized that she would be immune. She had no frame of reference and so was, in her own way, innoculated against such a specific example of conformity. I don't think Parker wants to be normal. She just wants to be normal enough. We also played around with a lovely beat -- how she sees art -- that may surface later. All the parts of the buffalo, kids.

Eliot's story was originally set up as a nice counterpoint to what we developed as a Hardison episode. But TV shows are organic things; what read in the outline as "cool & interesting" became in the script "holy shit." Eliot's in a unique place this year. He's arrived at a new status, and this year is when we explore how he feels about that. Eliot's arc is always a little ahead of everyone else's, as he made his first major moral decision -- to transform from killer to retrieval specialist -- off-screen and pre-Season One. He's a guidepost this year, representative of someplace the penitent may arrive at. I'd put Eliot's speeches (and Kane's choices in them) against any big classic drama this year.

Marc Roskin shot the hell out of Reed College, and you can hear much more about the set design and set choices on the podcast. The first podcast is unique in that it's actually an excerpt of the DVD commentary. The following one is our more traditional "10 Questions" podcast.

Right, anything else I'd like to say is probably handled in the questions, so off we go ...

@Kim Henry: Hey, when is the gang going to steal a dog show? I would LOVE to see Eliot having to run a poodle :)

Only network shows can afford dogs. And I am not joking. They're $3k a day. Kids are cheaper. Infants are cheaper.

@KaraCaputo1: The Prisoner's Dilemma. And Zilgram like Milgram??@Doc: Wait a minute. Did you get the name Zilgram by combining Zimbardo and Milgram?

Precisely. To summarize what Veach has drawn on here --

The Prisoner's Dilemma: Classic game theory
Milgram: Designed the "zap a stranger" Obedience to Authority experiment. And kind of invented Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, btw.
Zimbardo: The Stanford Prison Experiment, where college students were assigned the roles of guards and prisoners in a lab built in the University basement (ahem). The situation descended into sadism and chaos within three days. Zimbardo's done a lot of constructive, positive work in his 50 year career, and this experiment is sometimes used to malign him. His book The Lucifer Effect is quite good, IMHO.

@Nooch said: Loved the ep! The responses Eliot gave when being "interrogated" (wanna know what food was on their breath?), were these "true" Eliot responses drawn from his past experiences or "scripted" for the con? I know what I think...just want to see if I'm right.

Oh, that's Eliot opening the door and letting us see into the room Where You Do Not Go.

@Lizzy said: Will what the interrogator said to Eliot ever come back to haunt him? I feel like all the characters have able have multiple showings of emotional imbalance and I REALLY want to see a vulnerable Eliot.

Eliot's been through his own long journey. That guy was not in any way going to shake him. Eliot's vulnerability is his connection with his new, odd family. You will never see weepy Eliot. You will never see Eliot running in his poncy nightshirt through the woods because his bone claws just came in. Eliot's job is to protect everyone, no matter what. Imagine how that feels. That's vulnerable enough.

@Hugin: 1.) I'm sure it will be revealed, but why didn't the team take down the CIA guy? My guess was that he's too well-protected, but to not even try to find the recordings seems a bit out of character for Nate. 2.) I would also like to say thanks for the policewoman.

1.) A man's got to know his swing. In this case, it was better to use the CIA's leverage against the bad guy than to pick that particular fight. The Leverage crew is a player in CrimeWorld, but they're not willing to go head to head with that bunch. Think Stainless Steel Rat -- move between the empty spaces in the infrastructure. 2.) Thank Veach, and actress Val Lundrum.

@Ally said... That was awesome. Bloody brilliant is all I'm going to say. The split perspective of Hardison and Eliot was really nice--it really added to the entire character dynamic. Again, Nate is astonishingly clever. Questions:1. Are we going to see ramifications of "I spent x days in hell, while you played computer games and hung out with your preppy buds" in the future? We did see a little in the ep, but will there be more? 2. Just how many people has Eliot killed?3. a. What agency was Sophie's character from? b. Who was the other lady? I'm sure I was supposed to recognize her. c. How did they get her to go along with their con?4. What does Hardison's CIA file say?5. Does the rest of the team have scary CIA files? And if yes, what do they say? 6. Like I said before, Nate is scary how smart he is. Was the prisoner's dilemma mind-trick thingy the plan all along? I assume it is, because that's just how smart these guys are. 7. Is Conrad a new big bad?

1.) No. Leverage is designed to be primarily stand alone. And Eliot cuts Hardison a fair bit of slack.2.) You will never know that.3.a.) She put herself out as an investigative reporter, then switched over to "unnamed agency" to convince b.) New character Detective Grayson to go along with the con, because c.) Detective Grayson very very much wanted that spoiled, rich sociopathic little shit to take the fall for what he'd done. Assume she convinced Detective Grayson during their coffee date.4.) In RL, it's chuffah text, not meant to be read. In the Leverage-verse it's quite fascinating reading. It includes their attempts at recruiting him years ago, and his qualification for the now disgraced Zero Protocols. Which is a curious conicidence considering Eliot actually has ...never mind.5.) Not so scary. And that would be telling.6.) Yep.7.) Nope.

@MichaelRay: Excellent episode. Only 1 question, what are the 7 different 'whups'(sp)?

We will endeavor to list all of them before the end of the series.

@Allie: Speaking of, I have a question about Parker, I know at times she has trouble feeling empathy, clearly in the case of the psych study and the electric shocks, though she does in fact have it, if only seen on rare occasions (see 1x06). But what would she be classified as? A functioning sociopath, somewhat akin to Sherlock Holmes? Or is not so much sociopathic behavior but rather a symptom of her (according to many dvd commentaries) Aspergers?

I think Parker's a perfect blend of nature and nurture. Emo Parker could not have become "Parker", and Parker integrated into society at an early age would not be a great thief. A great something else, perhaps, but not a thief.

@Sprite said: What a wonderful episode! A shirtless Hardison is always nice, do we get a shirtless Eliot this season too?d I do like how everyone is very much working as a team and the juxtiposition of Hardison's situation with Eliot's was very well done. I like the set up for the long con, I'm hoping to see the investment guy somehow involved in the take down. Now, were those real CIA files? or planted somehow?

CIA files were real. It was a way of showing that although ordinarily their cover stories would hold up, the Marks' connections made him a real, viable threat.

@workworkwork: 1.) You've mentioned in past postings that Eliot has 'agreements' with some 'men in suits'. Will any of those agreements kick in (or get cancelled) as part of the blowback for this job? 2.) Also, Parker is getting really good at the undercover work!

1.) Nope. They're a different department, and frankly don't mind seeing the CIA take one in the shins. 2.) If you're cool with interchanging "seductive" and "terrifying" at random, then yes, she's awesome.

@Unknown said: Not a specifically episode related question, but some of the Parker/Hardison moments in this did remind me of the niggling question: What exactly is the state of Hardison and Parker at this time? Are they actually dating?As much as anyone in their situation could be, anyway. Sometimes I think they are, but other things just confuse me.

They're not seeing anybody else, but are kind of feeling around the edges of "dating." As you've seen, Parker's understanding of "dates" is pretty odd. There's a bit of frustration going on here, which you'll see discusse din "The Boys Night Out Job".

@PurpleOps: NICE episode. (Alright, nice is probably the wrong word, as there was a lot of ugliness abounding, but you know what I mean.) Loved the nickname HP for Hardison; quite apropos. (Never mind that it's also Hardison-Parker...) Nice callback to Sophie's wine-tasting experiences. 1.) Was Eliot Hall in honor of our favorite ex-military man? 2.) My two complaints about this episode were both in the scene where Hardison is abducted. Would the villain really leave the CIA file on the floor? And it seemed the only reason for Hardison to have removed his earbud at that particular juncture is to provide Eliot with a sequence (which was admittedly interesting) to turn the tables on his torturer. Both bits seemed a bit too convenient. Other than that, superb writing!

1.) No, coincidence. That's a real building. 2.) The file was dropped during the struggle, which was cut. And Hardison removing his earbud was quite specifically so he could have that conversation with Parker -- we've managed to fuzz the earbud GPS in other episodes, we didn't need to have him take it out just for the plot point. To tell the truth, I find the Parker rescue much more satisfying then the Eliot scene. That may well be because the confessional Eliot scene is such a hard act to follow. But everyone salts to taste, you know?

@Zee-Zee: So, now that my suspicions of Sophie and Eliot have for the most part been confirmed that they were both pretty darn close to being super spys; who is the higher ranking officer? I know different countries have different rank systems (sorta) but I was just wondering, Is Eliot higher up in the ranks or is it Sophie because she knew about the stars and bars trick from Three days of the hunter but Eliot is the go to Military man. Love the show and can't wait for more!

Eliot served his country in an official status. Sophie only ever ran across spies in her grifting career, and may have done some back-scratching favors back in Europe. Assume that's how Sophie and Tara met. Although do remember that Tara was the one who owed Sophie the favor ...

@Nekussa said: 1.) "Here we go." I'm looking forward to finding out where this long term plan of theirs is going! That was a nice beat at the end with Nate and Eliot drinking as peers. 2.) How did they get that lady cop to go along with the scam? Or is that to be revealed later? Does she talk to Bonnano? 3.)Did the homeless veterans' shelter receive a large monetary donation from mysterious sources after all this was over and done with? ;)

1.) That was an improv on Tim's part. Assume it's meant to indicate a night of bonding between the men. 2.) Sure, I like that. She talked to Bonanno. Oh, and hot coffee date. 3.) They got a whole new building.

@Craig: Something I want to know. If Parker and Eliot were on a mission together and had a moment where they had to kiss for the purpose of the mission. Would they actually do it or would it be too weird?

They would absolutely do it. The mission's the mission. They'd have less of a problem than some of the other combos.

@monilyn89 said: I loved the Episode. I really enjoyed Eliot taking the upper hand in the interrogation. I'm wonderign if we will see Eliot displaying side effects of this 'study'. Either through him trying to regain his internal sleep cycles or Nate confronting him about some tidbit of information he learned? Thanks for creating a show with such well developed characters that we truly care what happens to them.

As noted before -- consistency, not continuity. We're a standalone show. And thanks for being such passionate fans. I think about 50% of the emotional guts of the show is manufactured from the heat of your fevered brains.

@meanderling: How much of the psych experiments in this ep were based on real life? I know that they do sleep dep experiments (I saw a poster for one on my campus, actually...now that kind of creeps me out...), but would a psych department really keep a small prison in its basement for that purpose? I understand CIA funding does make a lot of things go away, but that seems to stretch the line a bit. Also, are electric shocks still approved for psych tests?

If you go back and rewatch, listen to the conversation on the bridge, when they dump the body. They specifically mention moving the experiments out to "the farm" the building the fraternity owns off-campus. That said, I am as always genuinely touched by you people's belief in authority.Why there's no way money or influence would cover up unethical experiments run by powerful students at the behest of a national intelligence organization. That's as ludicrous as the idea of covering up a decades long pedophile ring for something as ridiculous as, say, football.

@Susannah: Questions: 1) Did the team expect them to find Eliot’s file and catch on to Hardison’s deception? That’s sort of what I assumed when it happened, but by the end I wasn’t so sure. Shouldn’t Hardison have been able to prevent that if he’d wanted to, or was this a level of CIA file that he simply doesn’t have access to? 2) Why did the team let the big bad CIA guy go? I mean, the kid was rotten, but taking down a 22-year-old college student, even if he’s a well-connected college student, isn’t exactly their greatest triumph. And taking the kid down while letting the guy with the real power who was actually pulling the strings get off seems a bit … well … toothless. Are they setting up the CIA guy to take him down later? I didn’t really understand the implication of Nate’s call with him the end. I’m worrying now that I’ve forgotten important arc stuff from the first half of the season and my confusion is the fault of the hiatus.

1.) Hard copies are a bitch. Our guys are good, not omniscient. That's why Eliot is on the team. 2.) Taking down the kid meant taking down his friends and, probably, the entire chummy recruiting fraternity. That was enough of a punch for the CIA to feel it. But not enough to get them out of their chair, as my grandfather would say.

@Oona: One complaint - I have to say that Parker seemed a bit OOc delivering her you're a geek badass speech to pump Hardison up. Maybe it was her look (which was beautiful but very unParker) or the delivery of all those "thingies" in the speech, but I literally lost the character of Parker there for a bit and it was like I was watching BR play someone else. Don't ever do that again people!

Nope, that's in character. You can tell because it's right there in the script. (with apologies to Steven Bochco) That was Parker's attempt at being supportive.

@JoellaBlue: Welcome back! It's been a longish wait but very much well worth it. As my dad is a VietNam vet, this episode struck closer to home than any of the others. I'm glad the plight of vets past and present was brought into the forefront-thank you ... I wasn't clear on how they were able to get the CIA guy to play along as well as the cop. She was in the 15 Minutes Job where the mark confessed to the hit and run yes? Once again welcome back; I am thankful for Leverage.

The CIA knows when to cut its losses.

@firelizardkimi: Okay, question. After watching all of the DVD commentaries (is it even really watching?), I am aware that all of the episodes are based in fact. How much of this episode is based in fact?

See above. And you can find some very interesting stories about CIA recruiting out of upscale Ivy League fraternities without much effort.

@antisocialbutterflies: One question, I am unsure of the legal precedent but it seems like the lady detective participating in the fake interrogation might provide cause to drop some charges. From a character perspective it seems rational given her earlier sentiments so it isn't a question of her participating but it seems like something a lawyer might bring up in court proceedings. I realize that the CIA bigwig probably made it all go away to cover his tail but I thought I'd ask anyways.

The main point of the con was to get the CIA guy to realize that Zilgram was more trouble than he was worth, and would flip when pressured. Once that protection was lifted, all the suppressed previous evidence would come into play. Not to mention, yes, the CIA coverup. It's really not hard to put people in jail, particularly when their crazy story is base don being arrested by fake homeless cops.

@Kate said: This was tremendous. I was frustrated when Eliot's prints returned a file that included Hardison as a known associate, because that seemed much too sloppy for our intrepid band. But based on Nate's "here we go," is it safe to assume that the entire file was a plant? (One that probably didn't include other known associates like, say, Sophie and Parker and Tara, whose pictures I don't believe we saw?) Also, at what point in the con did the team shift from an end goal of Mr. Connor withdrawing his protection to an end goal of taking out Mr. Connor altogether? Or am I misreading the play at the end?

Hmm, I think you guys are reading a bit too much into empty space. Our CIA friend may return, but this was just a case of the team running into the outer limits of information cover-up.

@Karina: In the show The Equalizer (which I find Leverage similar too in concept), the title character advertised in the classifieds to spread word of his services. How do people find about The Team?

Ah, new viewer! We've discussed this in the past. Let me go pull that questions AND the answer:

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@Tom Galloway: One minor hitch in the fun train; I got the impression that the miner came to the team, not them finding out about the problem and contacting him. So now random folk from small, usually socially isolated, backwoods towns 500 or so miles away known about the Leverage crew and how to contact 'em? These guys are almost as easy to find as the A-Team! : -)

This is funny, because I had lunch with the fabulously talented and amusing Matt Nix the other day, and as we genially gave each other shit about our shows, the clients finding the Leverage team was one of his bugaboos. However, he admired it: "'How did you find the team?' Who gives a shit? We're Leverage! 'Why do you trust these people?' WHO GIVES A SHIT?! WE'RE LEVERAGE!" At the same time, if I had to write what he had to write every week, I'd put a gun in my mouth. "Michael, my Yoga instructor's second cousin's niece got involved with meth dealers. You have to help her."

We actually did, way back when, write an explanation of how Leverage found the clients. It was in "Homecoming", where Hardison explained how his new tech setup scoured legal aid websites, headlines, etc, for potential clients, then contacted them through proxies. Not sure if it ever made it on the air.

To tell you the truth, Matt's right -- who gives a shit? Our job as pulp writers is to deliver you the most interesting moments from the case of the week. We dug in early that we'd never reveal the client process, for both that reason -- it's boring -- and for a larger philosophical reason. We always wanted the audience members to feel like, at any time, the Leverage team could swoop in and help them. Details in this case would accomplish nothing but disillusionment.

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Back. One of the things I dig about Person of Interest is how they totally short-circuited that problem by creating "the machine" which spits out "the number." Ordinarily I despise the J.J. Abrams Mystery Box stuff, but having wrestled with that bear for going on five years I can't help but admire the elegance of their solution. As I've said on Twitter, Person of Interest is like Leverage's very serious younger brother, while Revenge is our punky younger sister. Both worth your time. (And Psych is our brother from another mother.)

@SueN.: My question, 1.) did Eliot leave his fingerprints on that taser on purpose? It seemed a bit careless, especially in contrast to his care in not touching the glass. And he did obviously give in and let the guy tase him. If so, then was Zilgram supposed to get the team's files? 2.) And were those files real, or fabricated by Hardison? I really loved the final scene with Nate and Eliot, two professionals, two equals, and two scary men.

1.) Nope. Not omniscient. 2.) Real files.

@Murphy: This episode wasn't the typical "find a mark, do a con, get the bad guy" episode, but I think it was really great. Even though it wasn't quite the typical setup we've gotten used to after three and a half seasons, I really liked the way you portrayed Eliot and Hardison here. There were moments where Eliot seriously sent chills down my spine (good chills, of course) and Hardison managed his geektastic-cool great. Parker's mini pseudo pep-talk had me chortling. She's a doll. Anyway, no questions this time around, but fantastic job on the episode. Kudos to all!

I have to admit, one of the reasons we're breaking format is that we really, really don't want there to be too many "typical" Leverage episodes. A movie a week, even if sometimes the movie is weird.

@Raksha: I know this probably says something unpleasant about me, but I find Miserable Bastard Nate delightful! When he was practically taunting Zilgram (that was the kid's name, yes?) with his impending prison sentence during the "game" in class, I was clapping my hands with glee. I have a feeling it's going to bite poor ol' Nate in the ass, but I'm going to enjoy his bastardry while it lasts.

I'm partial to bastard Nate. I believe those are Tim's favorite beats, too. Really, you can never do the Chandler quote enough times. Just assume it's stapled to the inside of my eyelids.

@IMForeman I also immediately thought of Dr. P Venkman's Study of Negative Reinforcement on Psychic Ability. So, I have a question - was this a Ghostbusters reference (or nod, I guess), or are you both just doing your take on the Milgram study?

Milgram, but I wish I'd thought of the Ghostbusters reference.

@Calla: I would like to see Eliot in a situation where he does actually get tortured - not because I'm sadistic, but because I don't think we've see Eliot come anywhere near close to his real limits and, without having a flashback episode (which you've said you don't like) having something in the present that would showcase his training, what he's had to endure, what his tricks are for not breaking... I don't know - I think it would be interesting. Interesting like the episode of Firefly where Mal and Wash we taken prisoner and Zoe had to negotiate their release. I just think it would be interesting to see him really pushed to that point.

I'm not familiar with Firefly.

Kidding. That was such an odd little character episode, though, even for that show. I don't think we'll ever have something along those lines. And to tell the truth, I'm just not sure you'll ever beat "There are FOUR LIGHTS!"

@Anonymous: Could there please be more Nate/Sophie interaction because 5-second-long scenes are nothing, they don't contribute to any character or relationship development. They barely share any scenes at all. If I didn't know any BTS information I'd think you're phasing Sophie and Nate out of the show because it seems like everything has been about Parker, Hardison and Eliot lately, and by 'lately' I mean since you made Sophie leave in the middle of season 2. They don't seem crucial to the show anymore because you give a lot more air time and significant scenes to other characters and dynamics. I don't feel like it's the show I fell in love with anymore. The writing for Sophie and Nate has been very weak lately. What's the deal?

... you know what? This is kind of fascinating. I'll do a separate blog post on it.

@allison: 1.) I really expected Eliot and his army of homeless guys to be going after Hardison. Was it really in the plan for Parker to go in by herself, or did she just take off? Oddly, I was expecting Eliot as long as Hardison was holding his own, but once he was on the floor getting his ass kicked, in that last split second I knew it was going to be Parker. And of course it was awesome. 2.) Also, exactly how nice did Sophie have to be to that cop? :) 3.) Surely by the end the cop didn't believe Sophie was a novelist anymore, did she? Who does she think Sophie is?

1.) The day Parker can't handle a half-dozen soft frat boys is a sad day indeed. Nate called an audible, and Eliot went into con mode. 2.) As nice as you need her to have been to continue watching the show. 3.) She believes that Sophie works for ... somebody. Frankly, she didn't ask too many questions. Rich guy's neck to punch!

@Faltenin: I really loved the parallel deep dives into two worlds that couldn't be further apart, from the scandalous treatment of so many of those that went to fight for our liberties, to the secret societies of the rich and powerful... And of course the KISS! a great smooch that could only come when Parker is playing a role! Had to suspend belief for a few mns though at the end, where somehow all these sleep-deprived homeless guys happen to find uniforms and participate in a con in the midst of lots over powerful secret service guys, with no prep, but also that a real cop would play along, putting her career on the line for a wild bet on timing (that the kid would state he'll give up the CIA dude just the minute he's watching, etc

The con was being set up from Day One, so consider it more of a payoff than a flier. And again, you people's faith in authority is touching.

@msd said: So Eliot has a limit when it comes to tequila shots? I guess it is the price to pay for making sure a professor is "under the weather". I thought the hangover treatment scene with Eliot and Sophie (giving him aspirin) was great!

Tequila's not a drink, its a drug. The only thing I can't drink, although Kane did an admirable job of schooling me when we were shooting the pilot.

@Nekussa: I know Christian choreographs his own fights, but does he also help with fight scenes he isn't in?

Depends on his availability for shooting. But yes, often.

@Karl: Really liked the episode overall, but the incident with the blankets felt off. It seems like by bringing in the blankets/jackets, the vets were set up for abuse they wouldn't have otherwise gotten for the sake of getting tape of the frat guys rushing and beating them to determine the source. Was additional explanation cut for time?

No, the blankets were rigged hoping to get more evidence. Nate didn't anticipate the bonanza of assholery he got.

@Mai: Would love to see more of Val Landrum aka Lady Cop aka Detective Grayson. Nice touch on the lesbian bit!

You've already seen her in "The Girls Night Out Job." She'll be back.

@Jessa: Did Eliot really eat the raw eggs when he was supposedly hungover?

Kane ate them, yes.

@Kate: One other loose end for me: the first indication we had of the guys beating up vets was in the video at the end. It felt like that was supposed to be a doctored video based on the way they beat up Hardison - meaning he had a button cam on, recorded it, then spliced it into shots from the prisoner button cam POV. But I can't find any support for that in the episode, other than my gut. Am I imagining things, or did something get cut for time that would have explained that?

Nope, abusive video from the thugs in the basement. Yeah, that could have been clearer in the edit, now that you mention it. Our bad.

@Lina: 1.) What made Parker wave the white flag? 2.) What was Nate looking at? 3.) Weren't the boxers unusually large? I somehow think they are usually smaller. 4.) Why did everyone get a coat except Eliot? 5.) Not episode related, but do you think you'll ever do the #315 & #316 Post games?

1.) She knew that even though Hardison handled that badly, she didn't exactly cover herself in glory, either. They were both going to apologize. 2.) Don't understand the question, sorry. 3.) They need to be ... large. For standards and practices. Let's leave it at that. 4.) Eliot is warmed by his rage. 5.) Yes, eventually. At some point you'll have an almsot complete record of making a TV show over 5 years.

@Lydia:1. Was the exterior of the college Reed College? Did you actually get to shoot inside, or was that a separate location?2. Was Psychology purposely mispelled?3. Parker is only shown picking up and looking at the CIA file - whatever happened to Hardison's earbud?4. Did Parker lift anything (and maybe put it back for fun) while she and Hardison were at the party? Temptation was everywhere...5. What was the rock music they were blasting during the experiment? Was it Alice in Chains?6. If Parker hadn't brought the coats yet, what was Eliot huddling under when his teeth were chattering?

1.) Yes and Yes. The basements were built sets, though.2.) Um, sure? 3.) Knocked aside in the scuffle.4.) I'll say yes, because it delights me.5.) I think a Joe LoDuca special.6.) The coat he wore when he came in.

@Anonymous: Very entertaining liberties with student research. I enjoyed the echoes of Tuskegee, Milgram and the like, but honestly, you stretch the ledger element pretty hard in this one -- ever heard of human subjects review boards and faculty advisors? Doc students wouldn't have the liberties our little villain did, much less an undergraduate. That said, it was a dandy episode and he was a great villain. The Eliot and Hardison elements were a treat (who chose the stripey boxers?) Now, to the question: I assume all the HP stuff was largely product placement, you having sold out to Microsoft fter having maintained loyalty to the far superior Apple the first seasons. But is there also any in-joke associated with Steve Jobs having attended Reed College, where you filmed?

Oh, you kids and your faith in authority. HP was for "Harry Potter", btw. And no I didn't even know Jobs went to Reed until he passed away.

@Hugin: How did Elliot manage to have enough battery life for a week without a recharge?

He carries spares. No, you got me.

@zeyneb: 1.) Why didn’t Parker bring Eliot a jacket? I was disappointed that we did not get that scene, would have loved Parker being nice to Eliot. 2.)Was there a speech of evil in this episode that I missed? We never got to hear why this guy was doing this – unless he was a psychopath? He was thinking that he was coming up with better methods for getting information out of people right? In that case this brings me to my next question… 3.) Why was the CIA hiding the guy and protecting him? I am sure the CIA has better people with better degrees to figure out how to get information out of people, and more secret locations to torture them? Not that I am for secret societies and stuff but wasn’t there a decent human being among them to rat out what was happening to someone? I mean at first I just thought that it was music and the cold but then we saw the university students beating up the test subjects – not everyone in this world is evil? And if these so called “dust men” do grow up to be high position people in the world secret organizations, isn’t some of them – I don’t know good? Believe in good? Don’t we still believe in 007? Thank you again for a great episode!!

1.) Again, limited time, and Eliot is warmed by his rage. 2.) I am ... genuinely kind of at a loss of how to explain to you why bad people do bad things. Everybody who does bad things thinks they're doing it for good reasons -- well most of them. He's selfish, and privileged, and just doesn't care about people who aren't like him. Why do some insurance companies pull your policy as soon as you need it? Why do execs at food industries put spoiled products on the market? How can a guy who works for a bank that took hundreds of millions in government bailout money walk past a mom who works two jobs to pay her mortgage and shout "Get a job!" in her face? Why would people not just commit fraud to foreclose on mortgages, but also throw a costume party mocking those homeowners? Sometimes people are just shitty. And when they're also powerful, bad stuff happens. 3.) Organizations sometimes don't make good choices. There's a long list of dubious ideas that the CIA, among others, have pursued in the name of national security. And people in those organizations, in ANY organization, tend to obey the norms of their peers.

Don't I believe in 007? I guess not. I believe in Robin Hood. I'm not sure I can reconcile the two.

@Jessa: Did Eliot kill the guy who was interrogating him? Or was he just very beat up?

Beat up. Eliot doesn't kill any more if he doesn't have to.

@Rider3: I'd like to know who the guy was that they kept reflecting on near the end. He was in the food line, he was with the CIA agent at the police station, and he was also in another spot. I didn't get why that guy was important. Thanks!

It was just our way of showing that Eliot had recruited his fellow homeless inmates into the final con.

@allyone: 1) Did Nate pick up something for his tool chest listening in on Eliot and the interrogator? 2) Was everyone listening in on Eliot, cause we only saw Nate and then Hardison briefly when he was in Nate's apartment?

1.) No, those are Eliot's tools. Don't borrow them. They'll cut your hands. 2.) No, just those two.

@Seph: 1) I'm so very curious, when Eliot snarled back that there's seven "whoompa whoompa" that he knows, was he pulling Hardison's leg with a random number, or does he really know seven helicopter/motor blade sounds? 2) When they tried matching Eliot's fingerprint and came back with a file, was that something Hardison planted in the past for cases just like this, or was that really Eliot Spencer's file? If it was a fake file, how could they link him to Hardison? If it was the real deal... Shouldn't they have taken better precautions?

1.) He knows more than 7. Those are just the "whumpa" sub-category. 2.) Mentioned above.

@Miette: Shouldn't The Girls Night Out Job be the 4x11? You stated before in the post game 4x3 post. Any reason why changing?

Shooting order shifted from script order due to actor availabilities. No big deal.

@David Hunt: No question, but I would say your explanation of Parker and Hardison is pretty well thought out. You're right on this: "....I remember Rogers saying that the answers to questions about the sexuality and activities of the characters was always…whatever answer that makes you watch the show more. I expect that the answer to the question regarding just how “nice” Sophie was to that cop would follow those lines as well."

@Rachael: My questions about that are, 1) Will we be seeing anymore of Eliot’s darkness in upcoming episodes? (vague question, yes, but I’m fishing for a spoiler). 2) Who’s decision was it to not show the rest of the team reacting when Eliot gave his epic answer about all the people he’s killed? It was established that the others could hear him the whole time (unless I missed something), but there were no camera cuts in that scene. (Which I loved, and wouldn’t change for anything, but was there a specific mentality behind it?) 3) Eliot totally killed that guy, right? (And, unless “No” is somehow relevant to future episodes, please say yes). 4.)You’ve established (either in this blog, in the commentaries, or both – I can’t quite remember) that Nate and Eliot knew each other before the crew became a crew. And not just in a ‘Nate used to chase him because it was his job’ kind of way, but that they’ve worked together. Are we ever going to see flashbacks of that nature? Or even just have them talking about it?

1.) Yes, although in a more considered way. 2.) Marc Roskin, and I like that choice. 3.) I've got to dig in and say no. 4.) You might, in S5.

@Ryuu: Can I dare to hope we'll see more of Detective Greyson? It's kind of nice seeing queer characters in my genre shows/outside of specifically queer media.

She's already recurred, and I hope to use her more often.

@julie: Are you going to put the outtakes on the DVD that Beth has been tweeting about ? Not just from this episode but the ones she apologized to Christian about for having to do so many takes. And would it be possible to put some at the end of the episode during the credits ? They're great when they act weird in the show, but it's awesome when they mess up the takes. :) Thank You

We put a chunk on the DVD. Not all, but many. With our credits squeezed we decided not to do the post-credits flubs.

@Devinoch: Has a "theme" been picked for the fifth season yet? Here's your opportunity to say something horrifically cruel and cryptic - which I know you love. :)

"Consequences."

@briddie: I want to know how the writers came up with Eliot's speech. Most of it was pretty much what I would've expected, but "wanna know what food was on their breath?" was just brilliant. Creepy, but brilliant.

I imagine Veach did what most writers do: stare at the blank page until drops of blood appear on our foreheads.

@Anonymous: I wasn't cheering when Eliot beat up the interrogator. I was feeling grossed out and thinking, well, this is an unusually morally ambiguous Leverage episode... because it looked like we were out to stop the torturers, but then we become the monster we're trying to stop.... Yes, there is a difference of degree between torturing innocent folks and torturing creepy experimental interrogators, but to me, Eliot's violence was his trauma emerging, not a moment of triumph. In a paradoxical sense, for that moment, the bad guys won.Because this is the Leverage team. These people have Sherlock Holmes levels of insight, as proven many times throughout this very episode. So don't tell me that Sophie or Nate couldn't speedily intuit/logic where this bunch of frat boys had taken Hardison. Don't tell me that Parker, who was very close by, couldn't notice her friend being smuggled, hooded, out of a college dorm at gunpoint... or that, at least, she couldn't track/trace signs of that kidnapping... again, in a very public building on a public campus. Eliot had other, morally sounder options for finding Hardison. He just didn't take them.

I'll admit, we went back and forth on that beat a lot in the writers room. I was very personally uncomfortable with it, as any professional will tell you torture doesn't work. We had to for a while pretend otherwise in this country so that we could politely ignore the fact that we were doing things we executed Japanese soldiers for doing in World War II. If we didn't ignore it, then we had to face the uncomfortable idea that we'd let a few crazy people into the top tier.(NOTE: Do not take this as an invitation to send me "we got crucial information" quotes from the War on Terror. Because then I'll have to send you the "We could have got it other ways, a lot of it was a waste of time, and we ruined our rep internationally" quotes, and then we've both wasted an afternoon)

In the end, we went with the idea that Eliot is a man who deals in very precise amounts of violence, and this is the way he'd get the quickest answer. Its not the choice Nate would have made, or Sophie, but it's the choice Eliot made. And to a great degree the fact that's in his toolbox is one of the things he tries to live down every day.

@Anonymous: When Parker was going into the lab how did she see the graph with the numbers to the combination? Hardison-specialized glasses?

Nope, she can tell what numbers you're pushing by reading your elbow movement from behind. You can actually do this. Cool trick once you learn how.

@Geek Girl: Just one question from an editing geek girl... Was "The Experimental Job" edited in Final Cut Pro X??? There were some pretty distinct "X-ish" looking effects.

There's still no good workflow for Red for Final Cut X. We're sticking with Final CUt Pro for now. That problem may be solved by the start fo S5.

@Denny S. Bryce: ... Love Parker and Hardison. Just promise me you won't break my heart with these two, or Eliot, or Sophie or Nate. After some brutal days with Buffy, I appreciate watching a show that has tested my heart strings beautifully, but no grinding it into dust...promise (but then again you writers live to torture your characters:) Sorry this is so long...took me three days to get up the courage to post.

Why would need to get your courage up? We type like everybody else, one leg after the other. Wait, no.

I'm not Joss Whedon (for better or worse) as we've discussed in previous posts. On the other hand, I do so love Blake's 7 ...

@Anonymous: My question: Parker seemed more grown up in the last eps but acts now more "childish" like she did it in the beginng. Why?

Hmm, just a one-off for dealing with her emotions in a way she wasn't prepared for. It's always half writing, half Beth making a choice, for Parker.

@Dr. Matt: @jamoche: The best outcome for the pair is for both to stay mute. The way the situation is usually presented, the best outcome for an individual is if they squeal while the other stays mute. Nate-as-professor is right about what the game-theory math says: if you assume that the other person has made their choice, then regardless of what it is you're better off talking than not talking. Hardison's response about "superrationality" comes from Douglas Hofstadter's columns about the Prisoner's Dilemma from Scientific American in the early 80s (and hence the name-check of "Hofstadter's Theorem"): if we assume that rational people in the same situation should come to the same decision, then the real choice is between "(we both) talk" and "(we both) stay silent", and the latter is a better outcome.

Wow, you got the Hofstader reference. Damn.

@Liza: Question 1: What are the teams view on Nate and Sophies relationship? (We never got a very clear answer on the show)Question 2: Does Eliot have a thing for Tara?

1.) Mostly "about damn time" amused. It's a train wreck, but it's their train wreck, if you get my meaning. 2.) Everybody has a little thing for Tara.

@Riley7: Not trying to diss the plot or anything, but how come Parker and Eliot are never in a situation where they have to pretend to be a couple? I mean I guess it does make sense because there is the whole Parker and Hardison thing, but it just seemed a little unrealistic that it would never happen.

There are many, many jobs happening off-screen you do not see, and you may well see that pairing someday. But as we've discussed before, Eliot's job is to keep the exits clear, and that usually means a solo/periphery role for him.

@Stick: I'm aware "a dwarf, an elf and a thing with a tail" is primarily a reference to dwarves, elves and however you spell the knockoff Tieflings in WoW, but... The Fell's Five connection still made me smile. (Also, the one telling Hardison this was the innocent sociopath thief who's been know to accidentally stab people.) I'd love to see you talk a bit about the D&D comic here, but I suspect your workload is near-lethal as it is.

I may do so in a blog post soon. Thanks for the plug, though.

@USRaider: A brilliant resumption of the season with "The Experimental Job." My PhD wife, who knows something about collegiate experiments, brought up the factor that such a project would have to go through an IRB, but bought that the CIA would somehow be able to circumvent that protocol. She also was a bit stunned when I pointed out previous American government experiments (the A bomb, Agent Orange, etc.) that a supposed "free society" has done on its people in the past.1) What would happen if there was one member of our squad that was not available for duty? For example, if Parker wasn't available for some reason, who would do the thief work? While they have been able to adapt, to have an entirely new person step into an area that they lack expertise might be dangerous.2) Why involve the female detective at all at the end? Nate and the crew could have just as well set the situation up for the kid to turn on Conrad, so it seemed it was unnecessary. 3) We now have two figures that have their crosshairs on the team. As this season is about consequences (and it looks as though there are some severe ones on the horizon), how will the team recover?4) Might be a silly question, but was it intentional to set up the secret society party and the homeless shelter in such stark difference? 5) A Sophie driven con would be good for Christmas!

1.) You get to see variations on this theme in "Girls Night Out" and "Boys Night Out Job".2.) We needed to show that he'd be sucked back into the process/investigation already established, so we didn't have to set up a new one at the end. Also, cool lesbian detective. So, why not?3.) They're resilient. They could even bounce back from, say, a shocking death ...4.) That's some mighty fine directing by Marc Roskin.5.) You actually get one, precisely on Christmas!

@CGI Yoda: Unrelated question: Does the bartender at McRory's know what Nate and the gang do (like Eddie in Hustle)?

Yes. The entire local CrimeWorld is aware.

@Staffan: Speaking of the elf/dwarf/draenei comment... isn't Hardison Horde? Or was that just the guy he pretended to be when infiltrating an office back in the day?

No, he's Horde. I think she may have been referring to League of Legends.

@ZettaComposer: Great episode! Is Parker rescuing Hardison going to be a recurring thing? First a grave, now a fraternity/secret organization.

Not a recurring thing, more a byproduct of my near-ironclad rule that we don't put our female characters in damsel-in-distress situations. Makes my skin crawl.

@Anna: 1.) I can't remember her name, but do you plan on bringing back the cop? She's kind of my new hero. 2.) It was a great episode, but I've gotta admit the simplification of the Prisoner's Dilemma bugged me. If you cut down the second half of the dilemma because you thought it was too complicated for the audience, I've seen the whole concept explained on a single page in a magazine for 8 year olds, so trust me, they can take it. If you cut it out because the scam would be ruined if Zilgram heard more than the "ratting makes the most sense" part, then I'd argue that a senior at what is presumably an Ivy League school would probably have at least heard of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Meh. Maybe I'm just old and crotchety because Numb3rs did the same kind of thing when they covered the Prisoner's Dilemma, and you are the two shows that I know put effort into research. Such flagrancy in the face of game theory!

1.) She'll be around. 2.) You and I and Veach are the only ones who care. The explanation is also tainted because Nate is setting up the flip at the end.

@CL: 1.) Is the female detective a replacement for Bonnano? Where is Bonnano then? (in the TV show, not real life) 2.) If it's known associates then you mean it's Leverage right? Because they combine Eliot and Hardison together. Why doesn't the file have Nate and Sophie's picture as well? (because if it has I guess the last con on "interrogation room" won't work, isn't it?)

1.) Nope, parallel character. You'll see Bonanno this weekend. 2.) Assume they went through the file and only really recognized Hardison. Cut for time.

@ evening_shadow: So I was re-watching the ep, with my cc's on, of course, and I noticed something odd. In the scene when Parker rescues Hardison from the library, she knocks the guys out and then she's bending down to get Hardison, saying 'Okay.' He's on his stomach, reaching over like he just grabbed something from the student's pocket or from around his neck, and he says, 'Got it.' This is the last we see of the two during this ep. Was this moment in relation to something that cut, is it foreshadowing related to Nate's 'Now it begins,' or was there some change in the dialogue?

Change in the dialogue, I think. Rewatching, I'm not sure myself. I'll have to check the script.

****************

Whew. All right, a day or two down, and then I'll gird my loins for The Office Job Comments. Which should be ... interesting.

LEVERAGE #413 "The Girls Night Out Job" Question Post

2011-12-11T08:47:00.001-08:00

Hey, it's Peggy! Where'd Tara learn How to dance like that? Where the hell are Hardison and Eliot when she calls them? All your questions, comments and snark addressed below.

The Nerdist Writers Podcast

2011-12-08T08:16:00.001-08:00

The latest in the very excellent series of TV writer interviews done by the infamous Acker and Blacker is up. This one features myself, Zach Whedon, and Jeremy Carver(Being Human US). The lads do a great job with this, and I think we get down into the nuts and bolts of writing a bit more than most of the panels so far. Go and (hopefully) enjoy.

LEVERAGE #412 "The Office Job" Question Post

2011-12-04T17:59:00.001-08:00

Here you go -- where was Dwight? Did Jim hit on Parker? All your Office-y questions and complaints answered.

LEVERAGE #411 "The Experimental Job" Question Post

2011-11-27T16:49:00.001-08:00

Reactions, questions and snark in the Comments, kids. Welcome to the back 8!

LEVERAGE #403" "The 15 Minutes Job" Post-Game

2011-11-19T08:46:00.001-08:00

Things to do, things to do …

Fourth season is an odd season for TV shows. Not just for meta-structure reasons, but because it tends to be a very high turnover year on most TV staffs. For those of you who are curious, most TV writer contracts are for three years. After three years, young writers are ready (and urged by their agents) to go off and work on other staffs, make more connections, taken more responsibilities, etc.

The first year staff consisted of myself and Chris Downey as showrunners; the widely beloved Amy Berg (@bergopolis); intrepid ex-journalist Albert Kim (@MagicBranch); scrappy Victoriana heroine Christine Boylan (@KitMoxie); and the Wonder Twins, Melissa Glenn (@theothermelissa) and Jessica Reider. By the end of third year Berg was already on Eureka; Albert went off to Nikita; Boylan to Castle; and the Wonder Twins to Hawaii Five-O. That's a full staff turnover of all the original writers. The ones who were here for the long days of "Exactly what the hell IS this show?"

That said, we managed a soft landing in Year Four. Filthy Assistant Becky Kirsch (@BeckyKirsch) has been with me since before the pilot. After three years of scribbling down our whims and distilling our rants into outlines, she was more than ready to become a staff writer. Also, we'd hired two of our freelancers to staff Year Three: M.Scott Veach (@mscottveach) had first come in on #206, "The Top Hat Job". Our rule is that the freelancer comes into the room to rebreak and write their episodes. Scott impressed us enough in Year Two that we added him to the room for Year 3 -- I believe that, after his trial weeks, the Wonder Twins actually asked "Can we keep him?" As if a giant, shambling computer genius polymath sheepdog had wandered into the room.

Geoff Thorne (@dreamnasium) had sold us the idea for #303 "The Inside Job" back during Year Two. He had the best set of pitches we'd heard of all the freelancers, and so we added him in Year Three. Usually, when a show runner decides to make your episode his directing debut, it means you have a good sense of the show.

With some money freed up by various means, we added a lot of young talent. There are shows that run on the "Four Executive Producers" model, but both Downey and I like young, hungry writers who haven't picked up habits on other shows. Also, as we've discussed, this show is an idea shark. We burn three or four plot lines a show that would be the single a plot line for most crime procedurals. Between that churn and the sheer volume of research necessary to keep us, well if not interesting, at least different, more brains are better.

We added staff writers Jeremy Bernstein (@fajitas) and Jenn Kao (@kaogirl). We found two story editors: Joe Hortua from Life (@jhortua) and one of the co-creators of Jericho, Josh Schaer (@joshuaschaer1). Then we did something we've never done -- brought in a very experienced hand, the life-saving Paul Guyot (@Fizzhogg). Paul was crucial this year, as a quirk of scheduling meant that both Chris and I were out of the room together when we were absent. I directed Downey's episode #404, and we shot episode #411 -- which he wrote -- and #412 -- which I wrote and directed -- not just sequentially, but simultaneously.

That will make more sense when you see them.

#403 was the first story broken properly in the room for this season. #401 was written a bit AFTER a few of the others were broken. (Common for season openers. For example, #102 "The Homecoming Job" was actually written and shot sixth for the season) Geoffrey Thorne already had a couple months of tangling with #402. So $403 was when we got to take the new staff out for a spin, kick the tires.

There we were, the first week with almost all new humans, kicking about Leverage ideas. Downey and I were originally concerned going into the new year with a mostly new staff. What we hadn't anticipated (but should've) was the difference between staffing a show that does not exist, and one that has aired 44 episodes -- the writers knew the character voices, some of them were actual fans of the show. They came in with the Leverage stories they wanted to tell, as opposed to cool con stories we then hammered into Leverage stories. (Jenn Kao, as you'll see, actually wound up writing her first pitch idea, the one-liner that got her hired.)

After the first day of pleasantries, learning each other's spouse's names, what our lunch ordering system would be like, Josh threw out a backhanded pitch. "You remember that movie FX? I think a guy like that, who can manipulate perception the same way the Leverage team can, that's a good villain." With blood in the water, the room surged. We broke it in three days, in the room.

Again, for those of you not in the TV business, this is not normal for one-hour shows. On many one hour shows,

a.) you bring your idea to the show runner. OR

a*.) The show runner assigns you a story he thinks would be good for the show.

b.) You bugger off and outline it.

c.) Get notes on the outline.

d.) Bugger off and write it.

e.) Turn it in and if you're lucky, get more notes. Often your script is word-one rewritten by the show runner.

There are one hour rooms that run closer to ours, and one hour rooms that in theory do not need a room at all. Where the writers barely talk to each other. Ones where the writers meet for a couple hours a week on meta-structure issues, or meet intensely for a few weeks pre-season to break out the season arcs. Every show is different.

There are also rooms that start at 2pm and run until 2am. Those showrunners are dicks. I'm planting my flag on that.

We run a sitcom room. You can pitch an episode, but you only maintain as much creative control over it as the prep you've done. If you come in with something meticulously plotted, with a ton of research, more of it will stay intact. The room is there to solve problems, not suborn your work. On the other hand, ideas expand to fill a vacuum. If you don't know what that fourth act is, the room may well give you one you weren't expecting.

Sure, once the episode is broken, it's the writer's completely. He/she writes the two-pager, then the outline, then the draft, addressing notes form Downey and I along the way. Occasionally I'll do a pass on a trouble spot, or to address production concerns in prep, but that's it. Once they're in prep and on set, the writers -- no matter their experience level -- are steering the ship. Or at least lashing themselves to the wheel and trying not to scream too loudly. Lose a location the day before shooting? Good luck, kid.

But back when that proto-episode hits the table, best idea wins. "Best idea" as judged by myself and Downey, so it's a rigged game. That does, however, allow the writers to harbor a secret righteous belief that their pure version would have been better. This is particularly useful when they are on set and can use this as a shield about their soul when things are going horribly, horribly wrong. Never deprive a man of his right to second-guess his boss. It's one of the few refuges he has in a troubled world.

Where were -- right, sorry. We started with the villain: what does "image manipulation" mean in this current day? That lead us into politics. The current GOP battle for the nominee brings this into high relief: one bad day, one bad photo, one note-perfect hint that something's hinky -- you're done. We already had a ton of research on the Carvilles and Roves of the world for the election-stealing episode. (I respect Rove's absolute commitment to ruthlessness and fine understanding of systems design).

We then attacked the emotional through line. Fun fact -- if you ever find a Leverage episode pitch, it has both a logline and a "heartline", to let the network know what character story we'll be exploring through this plot. We had the overall arc this year of consequences; the consequences of becoming involved with someone, good and bad; the consequences of your past -- and for Nate, the consequences of being an arrogant son of a bitch who's letting his anger and his brilliance become a shield. Yeah, yeah, I know, we're just a little pulp adventure show, but we do try.

Parallel stories then, made text when Nate says "How would we take down me?" Josh, a little vertiginous at the speed, went off and wrote a hell of a script. He managed to touch on some meta-points I found amusing -- Nate's desire for "the gloat", for example, aligns with Dean Devlin's Holy Trinity of what makes a good Leverage episode.

We then got insanely lucky with casting, nabbing the super-fine Michael Gladis, late of Mad Men. There's something about episodes where we really lock in on the bad guy ... We can't do them every week, they eat up a disproportionate amount of page space relative to our leads and their stories. But in this case, Gladis just planted this feet and swung. He had a ton of fun, and watching he and Hutton dig in, and I mean dig in, no quarter asked on those two-handers. You almost feel a little sad for him, that moment in the spotlight. Some of the writers performed for a living and we know, that feeling, when they love you -- that is a drug that is almost cruel to inflict on someone who's not ready. And there's Nate just out of the spotlight …

The final shot, where Nate and the villain both walk off into darkness, was conceived by the director Marc Roskin. It's a lovely moment, when a guy who's in charge of seeing stuff figures out how to really nail what the guy who's in charge of saying stuff is trying to say. Roskin is a fantastic director, and you should go buy the DVD to hear his commentary on how he set up the very spiffy car crash shot.

This is also the first appearance of Val Lundrum as Detective Grayson, in a throw-away. Veach had mostly completed his draft of "The Experimental Job", where she plays an important part, and we though it would be fun to lay in the character early in the season.

Wow, that was … either detailed or indulgent, depending on how your coffee was this morning. On to your filthy questions!

@Miranda: Starting with the Evil Speech of Evil. Nice.

Not just the Evil Speech of Evil -- laying out exactly how we will eventually begin him down. Legitimizing a somewhat shaggy-dog plot by making it the effective villain plot. Old pulp trick.

And yes, I am fully aware that's not how Photoshop works. But it is boring to watch Photoshop render, and our job is to entertain you. Rendering is not entertaining. Just ask our VFX guys.

@Gina: Oh, Parker! How could you say that about Yoda? You may have just torpedoed any chance of a relationship with Hardison! (Hardison's little yelp of shock was the funniest thing I've heard all day!)

We are tweaking Hardison a bit there. He cares just a bit too much, in the way that we all care about something a bit too much. That reaction was all Aldis, btw. He just killed it.

@Anonymous: Hardison as a thug is hilarious! He is funny no matter what he does... But his bad ass is fantastic.

It was a pleasure to realize (and this was Josh) that we had an African-American character who was the least convincing street hoodlum of the group. Maybe Dulee Hill over on our brother show PSYCH would be worse …

@SueN: So how long until Eliot rearranges Nate's face? I do have to wonder how much longer Eliot's going to tolerate being brushed off by Nate. He's the one most directly responsible for the team's safety, is raising some very valid concerns … and Nate's treating him like a lackey. Given this season's "theme," are we going to see any consequences of that?

Also, when Eliot left (after being dismissed by Nate), Parker seemed to follow. Was she showing a moment of solidarity with Eliot? It seemed like a nice nod to their developing rapport, as well as a none-too-subtle jab at Nate. I mean, how bad is your behavior if Parker is offended?

@Becks: There seems to be a lot of tension between Nate and Eliot this season. Are we going to see that come to a head at some point?

Eliot's job is to keep them safe, and that just means reminding Nate of when he's banging off the guardrails. As long as Nate doesn't go through them, they should be fine. And Parker knows when to leave Nate alone. There are times it's just not worth talking to him.

@Gibbs: WHAT THE HECK? How did Nate get away with talking Crap to Eliot without getting his face punched? NOT COOL! Also what's up with Hardison repeatedly calling Parker "woman"? Not bitching, Love you guys to no end. Good to see the bantering between siblings again, missed it.

Hmm, are they really that hostile to each other? Don't see it, but then again, I'm attaching these form this end of the telescope.

The "woman's" and "girls" are Aldis's improvs.

@Sarah W: Parker said, "Squee." Parker said, "Squee." I . . . I love you guys.

That is the dead sexiest "squee" on earth. When we were editing this, Downey noted "you know, you don't need the rest of the con to convince this guy to embrace fame. If anything on earth made women who looked like that come up to me and talk to me in a bar, I would do nothing but that for the rest of my life."

@SPrite: Random question from way back in season 2 opener and all of season 2. Is Eliot still in the military? Is this a secret arc?

Eliot still does contract work. Nice catch. You actually meet a friend of his in the winter episodes.

@Rachael: I don't understand the bit about the negatives from the car accident. I took three semesters of photography in college with real cameras and film and dark rooms and all that stuff and I don't understand how you could alter real negatives. Can anyone help me with that part?

It is tricky as hell, and super hard to do. There were some Hollywood scandal guys in the 50's who were aces at it, apparently.

The trick is, you don't alter the negatives -- you create new negatives off an altered print. So at the time Rockwell would have gotten the negative, developed it, altered the print, then locked off the camera and reshot the roll, print by print, then substituting the negative. He's taking advantage of the prejudice, at the time, that negatives immediately convey authenticity.

To a great degree, it's like how you collapse layers on a pdf. Kind of. @PurpleOps in the comments did a good job of explaining it.

@PurpleOps: I'm also concerned that the show may be trying TOO hard to make Nate unlikable. Your DVD commentaries keep repeating the point, and the episodes now seem to be driving it home VERY strongly. We still need to be able to root for him, and his crew still needs to work with (not for) him and support him.

See, this is always tricky. I don't find darker. conflicted Nate unlikable. He's still helping people, still risking his neck personally, often, to do so. I still find him charming as hell, even when he's being a jerk. But that's me. Again, all we can do is deliver the show in our heads, and see where it lands.

@demonbrat-98 I loved the "And I didn't even stab him" nod to continuity.

The show timeline really is just two years so far, three by the end of this season. Parker's changing, but not that fast.

DaveMB: METH-uen? I guess the local-color experts can't be on set the whole time... (It's MeTHUen.) Seriously, a great episode.

You're lucky we didn't make him say Gloucester or Worcester.

@Kristin: This week's Leverage finally got me to post how great of a job you guys did this week. Definitely outstanding. There are so many wonderful tidbits foreveryone. When Nate kicked Eliot off the job I finally understood why you didn't answer anyone's "eliot seems really angry this season" questions from last week. 1.)It seems odd to me though that a senator knows about the leverage team? Seems really high profile for them even if it is an old friend of Nate's. 2.) Also, aside from staging, why did eliot move over to the seat next to parker when they were discussing Rockwell in the beginning? It seemed odd to devote a camera angle and cut to it. 3.) How is it Sophie has been the voice of reason this season? She has been the team's moral compass for quite sometime but it seems to really be shining this season. Definite character development. 4.) Why was Nate so hungover the next day? Yes, he's an alcoholic but I thought he was functioning. Sleeping in his clothes seems like such a reversion back to season one Nate. Is that the parallel we are supposed to draw from that?

Thank the staff Kristin. All I do is drink and keep track of the index cards. 1.)The District Attorney and Nate were childhood friends, and Boston is a city of corruption and fixers. 2.) Just staging. 3.) It's intentional. Sophie is on much more of an even keel than Nate is, as you'll see. She's always had personal conflict, but never the level of self-destructive anger and bullshit he deals with. 4.) More lack of sleep, than the booze, or a combo plate. I'll admit, there are nights when I can drink for six hours and feel fine, and there are raggy nights where three drinks will make me sour the next morning.

@Calla: 1.)Eliot does seem to be on Nate's case a lot this season, as does Sophie, only Nate is calling Eliot out on it a lot more than with Sophie. Is this because Sophie is better able to work her way around Nate's rough edges and come at things from several different angles where as Eliot goes straight from direct to angry? 2.) Finally, I wanted to ask about Nate. Nate said, "We take Rockwell down the same way we'd take me down." And Sophie kept saying she was afraid Nate would manage to go down with Rockwell. Would Nate succumb to the limelight like Rockwell did? Is he feeling under appreciated, despite the fact that they've had 3 (now 4) very successful cons in a row, even if Nate took a bit of an unorthodox route in the last two?

1.) That's a good explanation. As you've seen, she soon comes at it from a very different angle. Ahem. 2.) Not so much succumb to the limelight, but in his compulsive need to win tie himself to Rockwell's fate, over-extend himself.

@RRabit42: We've seen some of the marks recognize when they're being conned. What kept Rockwell from noticing that Nate was listing all of his own tactics back to him? Nate was definitely not subtle about this. Blinded by the realization that being in the spotlight could be attractive?

There's actually a moment, early in the show, where Rockwell shuns the limelight because he knows how dangerous it is. We made it text. But you can't -- or only the strongest can -- logic yourself out of the way that feels.

@Famous4it: 1.) Is Nate scared of anything? 2.) And I'm just curious: does the team have their own keys to the apartment. I know Parker doesn't need one, and Hardison's the landlord, but what about Sophie and Eliot. Did Nate or Hardison give them some or did obtain them in a more underhand manner...

1.) The only thing Nate Ford is afraid of is failing. 2.) Hardison gave them all keys. Assume that for a while Nate tried changing the locks on a regular basis, but then just gave up.

@Allyone: 1.) If Nate is an honest man, does that mean he can no longer be a con artist? Cause you guys are making me nervous there. 2.) Is Nate really so susceptible to fame, as Rockwell was, or is it just the idea that you would need to draw him out to bring him down? I see Nate's gloating as more a function of anger than desire for recognition.

1.) There's definitely a different edge to how we write Nate on the con than when he called himself an honest man. He can give himself permission to be a bit more of a dick. 2.) Not susceptible to fame, but to validation, to … need.

@MercedesA: So, every time Nate mouths off to, or generally dismisses Elliots' concerns I feel a general sphincter clench in the country! The tension between the two is palpable. (1) What is the outcome going to be? (2) Will Elliot be the one to walk away this time, just so Nate gets a taste of what it would be like without his muscle? (3) Will one of the weaker members have to get hurt for Nate to consider his drinking? (4) Is the tension due to the nature of Nates' relationship with Sophie? Or, (5) Is it that he's keeping the relationship from the team, or thinks he is? After all it is a form of conning the team.

1.) You'll see. Not what you think. 2.) Oddly, one team-mate does decide to teach the crew a lesson this year … 3.) None of them are "weaker". And if you go back over the seasons, Nate's always the one who suffers most for his drinking. 4.)No, Eliot can just see Nate's starting to edge close to those guardrails.5.) As of this episode, there's no "relationship" to speak of. Yet.

@Brave: 1)I'll say "if" but it's more of a "when" the rest of the team finds out about Nate/Sophie will they feel like they've been betrayed by the duo? Because Elliot doesn't like when people con their own crew. 2)Just like my first question. With the way the team has become a family will that add tension because of secrets kept? Like what Elliot did last season and Nate/Sophie? 3) Does the rest of the team even know that Elliot killed all those people? 4) Will Nate ever realize he can't be an honest man when he is in fact a thief? I would say he's an honest thief. 5)In the last scene with Nate/Sophie was that her way of telling him she loves him either way? 6)Did we get an answer to who Nate chose to be in that last scene when he left the drink on the bar and turned the light to darkness or was it just a plot point to the episode? 7)Nate actually let someone in on his childhood, is that a sign of him improving on any front? 8)So I'm thinking since Rockwell had a skeleton in his closet, is there one in Nate's we haven't been privy too? 9)Nate seems to need validation and recognition in what they are doing. In some twisted way is he getting or going to get that satisfaction from the "Big Bad"?

1.) As you see in #408, it's more that they're annoyed than betrayed. People I know aren't "betrayed" when their friends start sleeping together. Annoyed, but not betrayed. 2.) There aren't a lot of secrets in this crew anymore. Or at least, they're acknowledged "don't go there" secrets. Friends respect boundaries. 3.) They know something unpleasant happened. 4.) It's always hard to give up who we think we are. 5.) "I love you" with a caveat. Figure it out, one way or another. 6.) It's an ongoing arc. The ending was more, well … foreshadowing isn't the right word. But Nate is going into the darkness, and it may be the ending Rockwell had, or it may be something else. But it ain't good. 7.) Nate's good at sharing surface stuff. That's a longer post. 8.) Nope, the Nate you see is the one you got. Everything that happened back in Act Zero is just there to support his multi-season arc. 9.) Oh no. Oh, oh no.

@Philip Okita: Was Parker wanting to go to the "You can't love him until you love yourself" talk a total Parker/Hardison moment?

More a general "Holy Shit, you mean there are instructions on how to be a normal person?"

@Odie: Where were Parker and Eliot when they were going through the brochures and eating Chinese takeout?

Back room of the bar. Odd angle, that's all.

Hmm, the comments then become a fairly spirited discussion of Nate's relationship and responsibility to the team. Damn you people are clever. All right, skipping down a bunch …

@Oona: I do worry a bit that we're revisiting Nate's identity crisis from the first two seasons, yet I know we're way early and you guys are smarter than that, I just worry by nature. Any chance that the thing Nate's anger can't beat is something less related to cons and more related to his relationship with, oh I don't know, someone on the team whose name he may have forgotten? (Hey, a girl's gotta try.)

You're close. But don't worry, Nate knows who he is, even if he has a hard time verbalizing it.

@NO Illusions: Great episode! One question: didn't Nate tell Eliot to take the job off? So did Eliot rejoin on his own (unofficially or else through the rest of the team) or did Nate ask him back? Thanks :)

No, that was more a cooling off walkaway. Assume Eliot came in and took over the car hit on his own, with no apologies on either side given.

@Devinoch: Are we ever going to see a Nate/Hardison pairing for an extended time in an episode? We've seen most other pairings, even briefly, but we haven't seen Hardison and Nate paired up for a long point of time, and I feel like the two could do with a little bit of bonding.

#416, a great great episode by Joe Hortua.

@Raven Akurei: 1.) Will Leverage have a presence at Comicon this year? I've seen a couple writers/producers on the panel lists but haven't found a show panel. Leverage had one last year and I was hoping to catch one this year. 2.) And related question more about the industry: big fan-shows and cons that generate buzz - and occasionally draw off resources. Obviously to the fans these are big deals, but what about within the TV industry? How much pressure is there from the top to attend? How important of a marketing tool is it really? Coming from the video game industry, I'm curious about your view of the super-mega-con.

1.) With the benefit of hindsight, no were prepping the finale. No time for Con in 2010. 2.) It is a limited marketing tool, but any sort of internal reinforcement that the show is popular, particularly with a very passionate audience, is crucial to protecting it in the shark-waters of television cancellation.

@Meagan: 1) The scene with Sophie and Hardison (btw, LOVE them together, they should have more to do together) while Hardison is working on Nate's backround check and Sophie says something, looks over to him and then gets all blustered...what was that about? Is she mad he wasn't listening and participating in her lil mind meld thing like Nate does with her. (Like I mentioned before, I love scenes with just Sophie and Hardison...their scenes have a different vibe then the rest and I am intriqued) Question 2.) When Eliot and Parker were checking out the brochures and Eliot mentions the seminiar "you can't love him until you love yourself" and Parker says "we should go to that one"...it seemed like it was played for laughs but instead of the usual "there's something wrong with you" look, he looks at her with real thoughtfulness...was this another acknowledgement of sorts that he knows there's something going on with Parker and Hardison and of her trying to work through her issues?

1.) That was an actor choice. I honestly, on reviewing, am not sure what the intent is there. They do have great chemistry together, you're right. And there's a great Sophie/Hardison scene coming up in #416. To tell you the truth, you get a much better sense of Sophie and Hardison's working relationship over the course of the next few episodes. 2.) Yep, nice choice on Christian's part.

@Fish: I know you can't do it this year (since you've practically finished scripting the season), but will we ever get to hear updates of Hardison's World of Warcraft character? The last time we heard about it, he mentioned that the "new expansion" was going to be dope (since I assume at the time you wrote/filmed it, Blizzard hadn't announced the Wrath of the Lich King title)... but we've now completed that expansion and are in the middle of Cataclysm. At some point we need to know how he feels about the rebuilt Azeroth. Not to mention what his character actually is (my guess would be Forsaken warlock with Enchanting/Engineering professions.)

Hardison, like myself, is an alt-aholic with multiple builds. But always Horde. And he digs new Azeroth. Lately, though, he's been playing a lot of FPS on consoles.

@Robin: I know you have no question, but describing Nate and Eliot as " The man with the way in, and the man with the way out, as it were" is something I wish I'd written. Nicely done.

@Elaine: I'm working on the Commentary transcripts thing.

@Emma: In a completely unrelated-to-the-episode question, I have to ask: how influenced are you/the writers by the late, great Donald Westlake's Dortmunder series? I'm probably letting my fannish glee read too much into things but I can't help but draw parallels between my favorite show and my favorite heist author -- they plan cons in the back room of a bar! Nate's mastermind plans always go awry! You have an episode named "The Bank Shot Job"! (although, admittedly, the team doesn't actually steal the entire bank in that episode.)

She's named Parker, isn't she?

@Kevin: we played the Leverage RPG last week. That's the best licensed game I've ever played, hands down.

Play report! I want a play report!

@allyone: Just thought of another question - Hardison created an extensive alias for Nate online in this one. Did he then go back and scrub the web to remove all that? As much as there's been talk of past marks going after the team, it would be kind of a funny riff to have someone go after not the team member but the alias that was created for them for a con.

Hardison has a full post-con protocol he follows. We have had something similar happen, in "The Juror Number 6 Job", where it was one of Parker's aliases that got them sucked into the game. And that alias recurs in #411 "The Girls Night Out Job."

@Kate: I was interested to see another figure from Nate's past make an appearance in this ep. Especially one who seemed to have cleaned up more than Nate himself. Can we look forward to seeing more of the team's other affiliations make an appearance? What do you think are the pitfalls and demands of using a character from backstory in appearances like this?

A few folks swing by - one of Eliot's army buddies makes an appearance a little later in the season. I think the pitfall of any "past" character is that they take you out of the current action and relationships, where all the interesting story should be happening.

@JeanG: Did you do the pardison part for the parker/hardison's fans?

Oh, you get far, far more fanservice in #405, as you've seen.

Okay, not bad. Stay tuned, another one of these should go up in a semi-timely manner.

COWBOY BEBOP opening credits

2011-09-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

Because @marcbernardin reminded me. I actually went online to learn how to make ringtones for the iPhone so I could make my own for this tune.In the comments -- your favorite opening credits, animated or not.

"The Pig with the Froggy Tattoo"

2011-09-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Seriously.

LEVERAGE #402 "The Ten L'il Grifters Job" Answer Post

2011-09-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

I can only console you (and myself) by deciding that these long delays were my clever plan all along, so that we'd have something to talk about during hiatus.

This episode pitch came from the actors, actually. They'd been kicking around stuff they wanted to do, and "fight crime while wearing rad costumes" was apparently near the top of everyone's list. To be fair, I think they had the infinitely more adult and original "run a con during a murder mystery party" idea -- but without costumes, what's the whole point of that? Bonus points: combining the "classic murder mystery" with "costumed con" forced us to not run "costumed con" in superhero costumes. Considering the fixation several members of the staff had with putting Parker in a Supergirl outfit, that was probably for the best.

(FWIW, it should probably be -- Eliot/Wolverine; Parker/any Gail Simone character, probably Batgirl; Hardison would want to be John Stewart GL but we'd make him Spiderman; Sophie / Zatanna; Nate/Nick Fury. I assume you will fill the Comments with endless discussions of both "characters/characters" and "actors/characters" matches.)

This is a good example for our Spec Monkeys, of premise vs. execution. "Run a con during a murder mystery party" is a perfectly good pitch. But now how do you execute it? In our cons, each team member wears what we call "the hats", the roles inherent in the scenario they're working in. One of the good signs of a pitch is when it instantly generates hats.

Look at "The Stork Job", which began as a monumentally depressing Eastern European adoption scam episode. When we figured out what we'd need to find the kid -- the movie -- that secondary scenario kicked free the hats: Eliot/producer, Hardison/SFX, Nate/Director, we got to touch on Sophie's acting, and do backstory on Parker. That is one dense goddam episode, I'll tell you that. Still one of my favorites.

... sidebar. I wonder if the dark, always "night" setting in the old offices subconsciously pushed us into different tones and launch scenes for the show versus the very bright Nate living room. It had a dreamlike quality that lent itself to the darker flashbacks, like Parker's childhood reveal in that episode.

The nature of the briefing scenes is something we've always struggled with, even going into our fifth season. For example, I was not fond of the "couch" setup in Season two. It tended to suck momentum. But at the same time, it reinforced the very family vibe that we touched on all the way back in the pilot and that's been the backbone of the show. Looking at the set as it is now, I don't know how we'd block that scene in "The Future Job" where Parker comes home freaked out after the cold reader's cracked her past. She needs to be in that living room, surrounded by her loved ones. Maybe we'd do it in the back room of the bar now? Not sure ... anyway, good example of how TV shows evolve constantly. Or "fail to establish consistency through clarity of vision", if you want to take the negative view. There are days I would sacrifice a staff writer for a reliable template.

(I can't remember the source for this, so I'll claim I invented it: "Movies are planned. Television happens.")

... Right, back to "Ten Grifters". What are the hats during a murder mystery party? Planner, guest, uhhhh, waiter ... yeah. That gets thin fast. And the tension in one of those parties tends to come from the hunt for a fictional murderer. Not that gripping. The pitch, at this point, is going a bit south on us.

So Geoff Thorne, writer of the fantastic "The Inside Job", decided to embrace the murder mystery aspect whole-heartedly. We will do a classic murder mystery inside a party designed to ape classic murder mysteries. A bit meta, but hey, that's what fourth season's for.

Now, let's follow the first pitch path, where somebody else murdered the mark while our guys investigate, with our team not implicated. Our team's trying to solve a murder mystery while running a con -- but why? And what's the ticking clock? If the cops are coming, all they have to do is slip out before the police arrive, and they're out -- after all, they would have appeared in cover stories, so there'd be no trace back to them.

No, that means one of our guys needs to be implicated. Publicly. We must have stakes in solving the murder before the police arrive. And let's face it, in modern days of cell phones, the cops would arrive toute suite.

That led us to Nate being accused as the murderer, and gave us the parallel plotlines. Our mid-show complication became running the stall, which would fall to Sophie. Nate couldn't investigate , which meant Eliot had to switch roles. Always fun. That left Hardison and Parker on the original treasure hunt, which took advantage of the "spooky old house" tropes. (NOTE: You say "trope", I say "well-honed story tool.")

This also allowed us to set up one of Nate's issues this year -- his growing frustration at the sheer endless wall of bastardry that they deal with. This season Nate is both dealing with his anger and perhaps, more dangerously, becoming comfortable with it. Would Nate, in a moment of weakness, cross the line? Or even, worse, would he coldly and deliberately cross that line, because he decided that this one had it coming? Would he actually kill one of these sonsabitches? He didn't kill the man who he held responsible for the death of his son ... but that Nate Ford is not today's Nate Ford. And today's Nate Ford is not necessarily a better man that Season One. Not necessarily worse, either, just different.

A lot to cram into your fun little comedy meta-episode, eh? Anyway, Geoff dove in and wrote a classic whodunnit, with lighting flashes and multiple suspects and an offered three-way. You know, the classics. Casting about for costumes that would both be strong choices (and would clear), we landed on classic detectives -- and that led us straight to Tim homaging his father's role as Ellery Queen.

Geoff gave Nate the line I said in the writer's room. "Ellery Queen is America's greatest detective." I love Chandler and Hammett and Block and Ross MacDonald, don't get me wrong. But Ellery is my detective, the one who knocked me on my ass at age 12. As soon as this idea hit the table, I actually jumped up to call Hutton and ask if he'd be cool with it. (Thank God he was, because making him Holmes would have been so hacky.) When you watch the performance, its a bit boggling; he's even got his father's rhythms down in the reveal scene at the end. It's just one of those nice little Easter Eggs for fellow mystery fans.

My only regret is that we really didn't have the time in 42 minutes to really do classic misleads when tied into a single location. There's a reason most cop shows start with a dead body -- motives are then folded into the investigative arc storyline. The investigative arc is a discovery mystery, in which the audience cannot possibly figure out who the killer was ahead of the detectives because they only get the relevant clues at the same time as the detective. As much as I love PSYCH and CASTLE, you can't solve them before their detectives do, because their job is to find the clues. Their goal is not to solve the equation, their goal is to find the clues which when plugged in will automatically solve the equation for them. Their clues lead to other clues, more significant clues. Like, you know, real detective work.

But if you want the classic drawing room scene, you need to have the detective assemble clues that we've seen scattered about the setting. That means clues we've seen before the murder, too. Layer in our victim scene, intake, briefing, setting up the con -- well, there's a reason, as a Holmes buff friend of mine remarked, that MYSTERY does these things in 90 minutes.

All said -- a lovely little offspeed, with Costume Designer Nadine Haders building her case for an Emmy with those great detective costumes. (Add in her work on "The Van Gogh Job" and really. Really. Just give her the damn thing.) We built the order of the first five of the season very carefully, which we will discuss when we get to episode five.

Okay, your questions. From two months ago. Well, I'll assume most fo you are still kicking around. As always, for you new folks -- I haven't looked at these yet. I type the answers as I read them.

@The Goozer: When are they going to steal a chalice? Or stop a human sacrifice?

Next season, when magic returns to the Leverage-verse, and we finally get the Supernatural crossover you people have been whinging about endlessly.

@Mercedes A: Is Hardison supposed to be A Hardy Boy in this episode? Cause, wow that is hysterical!!!

He is both Hardy Boys at once, combining the keen mental powers of Frank with the sensuality of Joe.

@Jen Erickson: I own a copy of "Dreamnasium". Can I get it autographed by Geoffrey
Thorne? I hear you may know him. It would have a place of honor next to my autographed Leverage mug. Looking forward to the Leverage version of Clue!

Tag him at his author page on Amazon. I'm sure he'll think of something.

@Video Beagle: Foul! Nate should have gone as Archie Goodwin!

As great as that was, been there, done that.

@Anonymous: More of a general question, since the ep just started, but how much instruction/planning does Nate handle when sending the team out on a straight out job? Is it like, "Parker, Eliot, break into the records room," or is it, "Eliot, you will be the janitor. Parker will hide in the garbage can. You will do [this], go [here], singnal [this way]. Eliot will cover Parker while she does [this], and give [this] as a signal if there is a problem..."? I'm thinking it's more the first but Nate is such a control freak, you never know.

They plan, and run it by him to see if he thinks everyone's plan will interlock. They have a fair amount of freedom to handle their specialties.

@Video Beagle: Oooh, someone finally called out on Hardison's use of real names for Ids as in-world references. Though I thought Nate's record was erased. Guess not.

Yeah, although I am always amused by the number of you people who assume anyone but you people would know who Yma Sumac, or the Avengers, erc, etc, were.

Everyone's record was cleared in Season Two EXCEPT Nate, and at the end of S3 only his jailbreak prison record was wiped. Theres a lot of loose chuffa in the Interpol files. You can thank Sterling for that.

@Miranda: I felt bad for Nate at the end of the show. The team are the only friends the guy has and they doubted him.

They doubted him because they know him, because he's the only friends he has.

@Wesley Gibson: Who thought of the flashback skit with Hardison being there when Halle Berry won an Oscar for best actress? Pure comedic gold.

Geoff Thorne.

@Brave: Also from that ending is Nate more upset that everyone thought he was capable of murder or that He himself thinks he's capable of murder?

Super good question. Super good. Answer's probably coming in November/December.

@Zenkitty (and others): 1.) I can't believe anyone thought Nate killed him! Killing Beck would have messed up a simple grab-and-get-out scheme, and left him trapped on an island with his victim. Even if Nate meant to kill someone, he wouldn't have done it so stupidly as that. Besides, Nate wants the bad guys punished, not dead. 2.) Eliot seems to be especially put out with Nate this season. What's up?

1.) They are worried about his impulse control. That has not been an unknown problem in the past. The intention here is not to make you ask "why does the team think Nate could kill?, it's to place into text "The team thinks Nate might be at the point where he could kill someone. That's serious."

2.) Eliot's not really that put out, he's just annoyed at Nate constantly forgetting to put his own welfare into the equation. Eliot's job is to get everybody out alive. Nate's plans do not always line up with that goal.

@Anonymous: I'd like to know when Elliot is going to have his 'Come to Jesus' talk with Nate? And what will be the repercussions of that talk?

In the season finale, and it's not the talk you think it is.

@Sarah W: How many times is Nate going to hit bottom before he cleans up? He touches on the possible root of his problems in #401 (when he warns the client about revenge), so he appears to be aware that there IS a problem -- but that obviously doesn't mean he can fix it. Or will. Will he?

When did Nate hit bottom? I always count "My name is Nate Ford, and I'm a thief" as a victory for Nate, a sudden moment of clarity. He's a functioning alcoholic. He's good at his job. His job is being a bastard. But there's a conversation Nate has in, ah ... winter episode order is fluid right now, but Nate has a conversation with Hardison that will answer your question, I think.

@Mihir: 1.) Right, i've got to ask. A while back, you said that Eliot hasn't killed on screen. So was the Butcher of Kiev just knocked out? Same for Quinn (Was the the dude in the Series 1 penultimate ep?)? Because i'd have assumed that Eliot would have just gotten rid of him, especially as that was Quinn's job... 2.) Just something that's been bothering me - Hardison was so hurt that Eliot left him to drown for such a long time in 3.15, how does he get over that and start working with him again, let alone hug him?! Does Eliot see Hardison as a true friend?

1.) Both of those characters are alive. Very. Alive. 2.) In the Commentaries, you can here Christian explain that he played that scene as Eliot getting ready to kill everyone in that room to get Hardison, but being very, very aware of how long a healthy man can hold his breath. Assume Eliot explained that to Hardison, and they're cool. Brothers -- even ones who don;t like each other all the time -- work shit out.

@workworkwork: Let me also put in my thanks to whomever decided that Parker would be going as Nancy Drew.

I'll pass it along to Geoff.

@chelle: So the coms work on airplanes and throughout the rooms of the mansion, but don't go through the plaster/wood lath of the secret passages? Hmmm. And why blueprints (no one has used them for years)? Just for dramatic effect? Or is he such a bad contractor that he doesn't use computers or CAD?

Go back, we mention that the house interiors are reinforced with metal, screwing with the signal. And the blueprints are for dramatic effect -- even we get tired of those interminable flash drives.

@Stephanie: 1.) It seems Nate is more and more trying to do everybody else's jobs while having a harder and harder time doing his own. How close is he going to get to finding himself a one-man show? 2.) And have you used that office building before? The Reunion Job, maybe? Or do tall lobbies with lots of glass just make excellent places to shoot?

1.) We've ... toyed with the idea of a one-man Nate con. It hasn't gone away entirely, but would be part of a bigger suite of episodes. There's a half-stepped variant in this winter's "The Boys' Night Out Job."

2.) No, new building. And yes, glass and steel make for good shooting. Depth.

@msd: So Nate just calls Bonanna up and tells him "this is Nate Ford"? Have they come to some level of détente?

More than detente. Nate brought down the man who tried to kill Bonanno, after all. They've formed one of the traditional vigilante/cop friendships so common in corrupt systems. And the Leverage-verse is corrupt.

@Famous4it: 1.)Who was in on the plan? The cop, daughter and 'lug', or just the daughter and cop? 2.) How on earth did she convince him to help her murder her father? Riches? Should we just accept that he's a man with his own back-story that's made him the murderous, dirty cop he is today? 3. Or was he just sick of drawing the short straw ;) 4.) Parker believed Nate right away, Eliot didn't quite and Sophie and Hardison were in between. Does this reflect their trust in Nate, or do they believe Nate, especially drunk Nate is capable of anything?

The cop is the "lug" in this case. And she convinced him with feminine wiles and sweet cash. Which has worked in the past. 4.) Ah, good question. I think it's more that even now, these are inherently suspicious people.

@pattyv02: The large house/ mansion Parker was referring to in the Phil. was it Imelda Marcos'?:)) And I'd like to congratulate you for the successful awesome ep. though I felt quite unsatisfied with the Nate and Sophie thing.,, mind telling us if they're gonna grow into more than what they are(the a little more than friends who went to bed together)? I mean yes its obvious that they have feelings for each other, which is quite something that many of us fans love.. so I really how they grow into something much more than what i described. I hope Nate gets his act together, to satisfy the NATE AND SOPHIE fans..

1.) Yes, Imelda Marcos. 2.) Oh, you Nophies. Sate's? What's your word? Anyway, as you can see, it definitely goes somewhere. Whether it survives the traumatic season finale is the question ...

@Scooter5203249: General question, not related to the ep - are scripts delivered to the actors on paper or digitally to their iPads or whatever brand of tablet?

Paper, because revision pages with paper are still easier. I like paper so I can scrawl notes on the side. We do offer full pdf scripts and revisions, and Dean, for example, reads (and annotates!) all the scripts on his iPad.

@Sherri: Ok, another "there's a question in here somewhere" -- Hardison. Now, Parker takes a lot of her emotional cues from Hardison and Sophie, but she's never really had a problem with Nate, but Hardison has shown he DOES have some, and they are growing, and they remind me ever so much of the problems Nate has with his own father. I am going back to the Scheherazade Job with this and the subsequent "mind games" Nate is playing -- to shape Hardison into another mastermind? I mean, Jimmy was trying to make Nate in his own ruthless, hard-assed, mean, tough image but he started in on a small child and did damage. Hardison, for all his hacking ways and his bitching/whining, is emotionally pretty resilient. I don't think he sees it that Nate IS teaching him (yet) and that the father/son vibe is taking on solid echoes of the Jimmy/Nate one. You know, of course, as a writer, that when you can get your audience thinking this much and this long about what you've written, you've done a proper good job, yes?

That relationship is definitely evolving in almost exactly the way you've noted. We address it in "The Gold Job", which is the Winter season ep I referenced earlier. And thanks for the complement, but that's all the writers working their asses off. I just drink and yell about index cards.

@MagzMC: 1.) Quick canon question, has Nate killed before? As an insurance cop (a justified one of course, he was an honest man back then) or in self defence for example. Or has he only killed by proxy via Eliot's actions in The Big Bang Job. 2.) And if he hasn't killed anyone yet is the day approaching when he might have to or might choose to?

1.) No. 2.) Yes.

@dogdragon86: 1.) Who was exactly from the Pinkertons was Elliot supposed to be? 2.) Are tired of answering the people who wanted Nate to be Archie? 3.) Could you ever write a Leverage Stage play? 4.) Any little tips from aspiring writers?

1.) Charlie Siringo 2.) I adore them. 3.) Hell no. 4.) Write every day and keep a notebook of ... stuff that catches your fancy. Relevant to what you're writing. Whatever. I use Evernote.

@Lydia: 1. Did Tim ask to play Ellery Queen, or was that the brilliance of the writers at work?

2. Do you have a Guinness, as you do for the commentary, when you’re typing up the answers to our numerous questions? Are you ever surprised by some of the theories we come up with?

3. (S3 question - I sincerely apologize for not thinking of it at the time, but this has been bugging the hell out of me). Where did the character name/alias Dr. Wes Abernathy come from, was it inspired by the Abernathy bridge (which just so happens to be a mile or so upriver from where the Ice Man Job was filmed)?

1.) We asked Tim if he was cool with it, but then he totally took over and made it perfect. 2.) I am distressingly sober. And you people always surprise me. What I love is when one of you will guess a giant character beat that's coming, and then kind of gloss over it with techie questions. 3.) Wes Abernathy i think was just a name that cleared. It's in two scripts I wrote, so I may well just be using a name form my childhood I've forgotten the provenance of.

@bluehex: One thing surprised me, though: Eliot's sudden problem with grifting. I mean, you said yourself, he's the second best grifter in the team after Sophie. He did use the skill a number of times already - The Snow Job, The Tap Out Job - so how come he's suddenly so uncomfortable with it and needs to "adjust"? He forgot he knew how-to?

He's not really aware of how good he is at it. And he dislikes puttering about with investigations. That was someone else's job in the military unit he was in, where they were all code-named as ... no, you'll figure it out.

@Mrs. Sunshine: 1- Why did Parker know about dimensions and architecture? 2- Does Hardison ALWAYS carry a laptop (plus multiple cables, his smartphone, etc...) around? 3- I've always noticed that every little thing you see during the episodes is important to understand the con and the result of it (for example when Parker goes into the kitchen where the mark's daughter is making out with the guy). My question is: How do you come up with everything so that it fits perfectly?

1.) As we've seen, she rotates objects in space well. She likes houses, since she breaks into them -- has a feeling for them like a music fan has for musical styles. 2.) As you've by now seen in "The Cross Your Heart Job", yes. 3.) Very hard-working staff and a lot of index cards. We try, we do not always succeed, but thank you for your kind words.

@theimecraft: again with the Kansas mention... although this time it wasn't such a negative context. seriously, is kansas the hollywood word for "the ninth circle of hell out in the middle of forking nowhere"?

It's ... kind of out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Sorry.

@RevTrask: Question: Might there be some Eliot-related fisticuffs coming soon? I really dig the fights, mocha or no.

you know, there are shows where they go a whole season without fisticuffs. Yes, plenty of Eliot ass-whooping this year, as you've by now seen. Quite a bit int he Winter season, although both Parker and Hardison get in a few licks themselves.

@Anna: 1) Did Sophie have a method in picking everyone's costumes? Or, at least, did the writers have a method beyond "this costume would be the most funny/awesome/heartwarming"? 2) Does Parker usually hear mystery music while wandering through secret passageways? 3) LOVED the subtitled bit... reminded me a lot of Hustle. Who came up with that gag? 4) While we're on the subject of Hustle, I know you're really only a fan of the first season, but how many of your writers would kill for a crossover, or at least Adrian Lester as a guest star? Out of idle curiosity, if it were the Leverage team vs Hustle, who do you think would win?

1.) Nope. Rule of Cool. 2.) She hears ... things all the time. She also sees things a little differently. 3.) That's from Thorne's script. 4.) As I've noted before, we're in the same genre as Hustle, but we're over here in the "blowing shit up, fisticuffs, pulp Robin Hood" corner, while they're waving at us from the very cool but very different "con cozy" corner of the bar. (And only six episodes a season, Jesus, I'm jealous) I cannot imagine they will ever run across the top of a moving train while another of their members has a giant gunfight, for example.

I love Adrian Lester but I think it would be hard to have him guest star, since he's so iconic in that role. And Leverage v Hustle? Well, I think that would be a classic example of "meet, fight, team up", wouldn't you?

@Darryl Mott: 1.) With the theme of this episode being "famous detectives" and the influence of Boston on the series, I was expecting someone to show up as Robert B. Parker's famous detective Spenser, especially considering the author's recent passing and the imminent publishing of his final novel. Was there a creative reason there was no Spenser, or did you have problems clearing the rights, or did everyone in the writer's room just forget? 2.) Also, since you're an avid roleplayer, I've been dying to know since I got turned onto Leverage, did you ever play Shadowrun? What made me fall in love with the pilot episode was just after the scene in the warehouse. I literally stood up and started yelling "THIS IS A SHADOWRUN STORY!!" Johnson hires a team, team does the job, Johnson betrays the team, team gets revenge on Johnson. Eliot = Street Sam, Hardison = Decker , Parker = B&E, Sophie = Face, and Nate = Mage (What? Some of the crap he does has to be magic!

1.) Spencer has no distinctive wardrobe that would call him out. 2.) Of couse I played Shadowrun! I think there are some hacks online for using the Leverage RPG for laying both Shadowrun and Mage.

@Baritenor: So obviously Nate forgot Sophie's name and will have to dig himself out of that hole AGAIN. So now that she's told everyone (even if one special person has forgotten) the question becomes 1. will we ever ACTUALLY hear her real name spoken on screen? 2. If so, will it be this season? 3. Why was the decision made to keep Sophie's real name a mystery after toying with us for a full season...longer, in fact. Remember, Sterling called her "Jenny" mysteriously back in Season One. Will THAT ever be explained? Sheesh.

1.) yes. 2.) no. 3.) If it were up to me, you'd never hear her real name. But back in the day the Wonder Twins convinced me that you people would riot, and so you will hear it. But assume that Sophie;s name is the Leverage-verse equivalent of "He will knock four times."

@Oona: 1.) Questions: is it right to assume that Nate, after having his epiphany about anger last week and learning that they are targets from some unknown source is now feeling particularly introspective about why they do this and what he's become in the course of doing this? 2.) Was Nate testing Eliot to see how he would grift on the fly to find out information, as opposed to - say - distracting someone or getting access to an off limits area (which he has done a lot)? 3.) Would Sophie have dressed Nate as Sherlock if given the chance? 4.) Will we ever see flashbacks to Nate/Eliot working together in the past? 5.) And, most importantly, I know you've said the show has less than a 100 ep lifespan. Will you tell us if your goal is to have 6 or 7 seasons ? (Of course what I'm really getting at is please tell us you don't see the show going only one more season!) 6.) Have to add my appreciation for Nate's oh-so-very dad line "What's the Rule?" I use it myself all the freaking time with my kids. Is someone in the writer's room channeling their childhood (or parentdom)?

1.) Good catch. 2.) No, its more he's aware of Eliot's talents than Eliot is. 3.) Absolutely. 4.) That is a card on the board. We'll see if it happens. 5.) The goal is to keep it entertaining and good. That's it. We'll take it one season at a time. 6.) That's Downey's rule in the writers room, actually. Very dad-like.

@Anonymous: my one and only question: is one of the consequences related to the fact that everyone seems extremely comfortable? What I mean is this: with the exception being Nate, the team trusts in the fact that Hardison will hack, Parker will steal, Eliot will beat booty, and Sophie will grift. Granted, the majority of this trust would come from working together for a number of years, but it seems a little too perfect from here.... Or am I reading way, way too far into it?

Hmmm. Not really. That's more a by-play of them being super-talented pros at the top of their game. The consequences are more personal. But good question -- and some of the "role" issues will be addressed this season, but internally.

@Dave MB: If I'm not mistaken, Nate asked for "Detective Bonanno" at the end. A mistake, or was our State Police friend busted down in rank from Captain?

We just shorthanded. He's a Detective Captain, but in case new viewers didn't know him, we wanted them to understand Nate had a police detective friend he could call.

@Anonymous: This episode kinda ended funny for me. Could you go over what happened to Eliot at the end one more time please? It seems like we say him check for rips in the guy's jacket and then nothing more after that. I know when Nate, Parker, and Hardison were running for their lives in the secret passage way Nate says "Eliot we need that exit plan NOW!" but Eliot doesn't respond. It almost seems like Christian missed a few days of filming. Was this because of his schedule or was this just how the episode was written?

No, hes there. He did all the detective work for Nate, and we just lost track of him at the end because of editing. We're a true five-hander, so sometimes some characrters wind up a smidge light.

@JK: 1) Was this an episode that ended up getting written with certain actors in mind for the non-team roles? I ask because there seemed to be a pretty high number of geek-recognizable cast members this time around, e.g. Steven Flynn (though I may be alone among Leverage fans in being excited to see Johanna Braddy from Greek back on TV). How often do you end up writing roles for particular actors? 2) Anyone in particular in the writer's room we have to thank for the Imelda Marcos and Halle Berry bits? 3) The latter gag brought up something that's been kicked around before on this blog, in the sense that the flashback implied that Hardison was actually sitting next to Halle Berry. We've already this season begun to see a lot of the team's past jobs and habits biting them in the ass - old enemies looming, their criminal records damning them, people catching the references with their aliases. Since this is a season of consequences, are we at some point going to see the repercussions of the fact that a number of them have had their faces splashed all over the place? Sophie as the international media darling in the San Lorenzo Job, Eliot's time as baseball and country music star, etc.? 4) Happy to hear Detective Captain Bonanno is still on the job. Will we be seeing him in person later this season? How about Taggart and McSweeten?

1.) Coincidence. Almost every role is written actor-independent. Never write to an actor. As my old showrunner used to say. "You write for Cary Grant. You get Conrad Bain." 2.) Thank the dude who's name is on the episode. 3.) Those particular issues will not be the ones that arise. It's a big world. Although I assure you, Sterling will occasionally watch the news footage of Sophie in San Lorenzo when he needs a pick-me up. 4.) Bonnano and McSweeten will return. Scheduling problems on Taggert. One of the sad things about TV is that there are actual humans, with other jobs, attached to these characters.

@Meagan: Love the episode...this is my first time asking a question but I have been a reader of your blog for the last few years...anyway, my questions is: What the heck is Parker smiling/smirking about all episode? I found it absolutely adorable and since she's with Hardison the whole time, it made me think that she looks like a girl on a date with a really cute guy, lol.

She is happy to be stealing. Stealing makes her happy. Stealing with Hardison, particularly when she's figures things out before he has, is a very fun night for her.

@Rara: Will we be seeing Eliot use his Christmas Present from the "Ho Ho Ho Job" at all the season? If ever?

You came thisclose to a sword fight this year. Maybe next.

@Anna: Question from my brother (which I'm sure has been answered before, but I'm not smart enough to find): What's the power source for the earpieces?

A funky little battery Hardison designed. In the pilot he explains that they are ... possibly a little too powerful to be safe.

@Anonymous: 1) Did Eliot, as a retrieval specialist, ever have to retrieve something stolen by Parker?

2) Did all of the team know of each other, by rep, prior to the pilot? I think is was mentioned in a Season 1 deleted scene that Sophie had heard of Parker's rep, but did the others really know of each other? I can't really imagine any of the others knowing about hackers like Hardison, for example, since it seems so far out of their wheelhouse, but it has been mentioned that these guys have serious reps in Crime World.

1.) ... I'll say yes. That delights me. Yes. 2.) They new of each others' reps, but never worked together and probably wouldn't have recognized each other at all. Also, not a lot of crossover between Crime World fields. Eliot would know all the hitters and retrieval specialists, but just kind of know about the big grifters.

@GBellmansNo1Fan: Thanks for proving Sophie really IS more bad ass than Eliot! *ducks flying objects from others* Hey, it takes Eliot a while to knock people out with the props he uses. Sophie, one shot, with the shaded end of the lamp, and little rich bitch was out cold? YES!!! However, I'm now left wondering exactly how long she took on the Annie Kroy persona for. Please say "years"...lie if you have to.

I could write Gina as Annie Kroy for five seasons. She's my favorite cover identity. Say she's been Annie off and on for years, whenever necessary.

Right, there are some miscellaneous comments left, but no real questions, so that's it. Let's say #403 and #312 go up next week. Gives you maniacs something to chat about in the meantime.

Talk to you soon.

LEVERAGE #410 "The Queen's Gambit Job" Question Post

2011-08-28T17:49:00.001-07:00

That's it for summer! Questions, snark, and your plaintive cries for MORE STERLING in the comments.

LEVERAGE #409 "The Cross My Heart Job"

2011-08-21T20:42:00.001-07:00

Hey, almost a bottle show! Kinda. Salutations, cheers and jeers, put 'em in the Comments.

LEVERAGE #408 "The Boiler Room Job"

2011-08-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

Two two, two Leverage's in one thanks to the Falling Skies finale. "The Boiler Room Job" by Paul Guyot is one of my favorite episodes, funny as hell and with a great end twist. Plus extra McSweeten! Go ahead and vent or query in the usual place.

LEVERAGE #407 "The Grave Danger Job"

2011-08-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

I'm busy shooting the finale, that's why these are stacking up. Please post your Usuals for the first of tonight's episodes, "The Grave Danger Job", written by formally "Filthy Assistant" and now currently "Shiny New Writer" Rebecca Kirsch!

Oh, Hey, So That Happened.

2011-08-12T15:06:00.001-07:00

Was in a theater watching Eric Heiserrer's (@writerspry) very clever FINAL DESTINATION 5, so I missed all the noise. Go ahead and celebrate, bitch, and ask questions below. One day, when I'm not deep in the finale, I WILL get to all these ...

LEVERAGE #406 "The Carnival Job" Question Post

2011-07-31T17:21:00.001-07:00

Holy smokes, so busy with the finale, almost forgot. Frank Oz directing, Uriah Faber punching -- leave the usual Comments and questions below.

LEVERAGE #405 "The Hot Potato Job"

2011-07-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

A return to more template-y, con and heist-y stuff this week. I'm about 12 hours off having my half of the finale finished, then we'll binge on answering these while I'm living in the hotel for prep.

By the way, this is kind of relevant.

Your Comments, questions and growing restlessness below, please.

LEVERAGE #404 "The Van Gogh Job"

2011-07-17T11:27:00.001-07:00

Officially shot as #405, but we switched it up for some production reasons -- not the network so spare them your wrath, please.

Still working on the finale, I should catch up on a few of these tomorrow. Bit for now, you know what to do.

LEVERAGE #403 "The 15 Minutes Job" Question post

2011-07-10T18:01:00.000-07:00

While I'm busy typing my half of the finale, you folks go nuts with your comments, questions, and trepidations over episode #403, starring the very excellent Michael Gladis.

LEVERAGE #401 "The Long Way Down Job" Post-Game

2011-07-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

This the first time we've started the season without the team split. This stripped us of a very valuable writing tool. As we've discussed, I'm a pulp writer. I like a good corner to be painted into, with the paint being ninjas and robots and redheads with guns. No corner -- that's a bit tricky.

Nicely enough, in the pre-season writing period of about 6 weeks, an interesting fact came up while we were breaking stories. Joe Hortua, one of our new Executive Story Editors, climbs. I mean climbs, spike-y bits and ropes and oxygen and screws-in-ice-walls stuff. When I say "climb" I mean "those goddam stairs to the writers' room."

In fourth season, we're far enough in to play with the format. The audience is familiar with con mechanics, we've plumbed the depths of security systems (although we found some funky real-life ones we're using soon) -- time to toss the team into some extreme circumstances.

I walked into Dean's office and said "How'd you like to shoot the premiere on Mt. Hood?"

To which he replied, "Will it be unreasonably dangerous and possibly kill us?"

No, he did not say that. But he might as well have. Because he is Dean Devlin, and the only thing he likes better than blowing shit up is impossible locations.

So, having our location, we constructed the episode. A con on a mountain was interesting, but most of that would play out in tents. Why the hell would our guys have to be on the mountainside? That led to a treasure hunt -- and stories of frozen climbers scattered across the great peaks of the world, lost forever, gave us macabre inspiration. And if you read any stories of the tragedies in modern climbing, you quickly come to the realization that a lot of rich people who should not be going up these mountains are going up these mountains. If I were going to dispose of an unpleasant colleague, doing so on a mountain in a blizzard would be a pretty surefire way to get away with it.

Alan Scott (thank Geoff Thorne for that, not me) had valuable evidence of corporate malfeasance hidden somewhere on his body. What evidence? For that the writers went to one of my little habits -- I have a Moleskine with all the Leverage season 3 & 4 notes in it. Every note, summaries of each week's work, re-breaks and outlines of most episodes, all my relevant research pulled from my Evernote files ... if you wanted to know what was going on in the Leverage writers room, hacking my email and Evernote would not help you. But if I had a sneaking suspicion that, say, Filthy Assistant-turned-Spunky-Staff-Writer Rebecca Kirsch were systematically poisoning the other writers in order to advance more quickly, you would find my evidence in my Moleskine.

So the writers -- with a little too much fucking glee, might I add -- pitched that I was dead on a mountain, and the Leverage team had to find me before Kirsch's foul plot came to fruition.

That began a week of "How many things can go wrong on a mountain, and how many ways can you die?" Short answer to both questions: A lot. For our mountain we took the real stats of Denali (formerly Mount McKinley), including the death and climb success rates. The idea that our guys would summit was ridiculous, of course, not to mention unfilmable on Mt. Hood. But experienced athletes and climbers like Parker and Hardison could pretty competently hack around base camp -- which led to our device of Alan Scott disappearing just shy of base camp. People almost making it back is a heartbreaking standard of climbing tragedy stories. The reason nobody had found the body was because the mountain was closed after the murderous blizzard that had claimed Alan Scott's life -- that timeline is the only one that makes senes, otherwise search teams might have found the body first.

We tweaked the height of base camp to make sure altitude sickness would kick it at the right spot -- at about 10,000, above base camp, which we established at 8,000 feet. There are people who are unaware that altitude sickness can kick in that low. Those people often wind up dead. Particularly for people who have not acclimated to this height like, say, a team of thieves who just choppered in, you're going to want oxygen tanks.

We also found out that even when the slope does not look too steep, and you are not too high, you want to be roped up. Why? This is why:

In a word: HOLYSHIT.

Mechanics aside, there were specific writing things we wanted to accomplish here. This was our first season in the same time slot in four years. We wanted to reset all the relationships from last year, make sure all our new friends from the Falling Skies premiere got a good sense of what the show was, and launch everyone's arc for this year.

Dean was the one who codified the theme for this year: Consequences. These people have been emotionally evolving, and also pissing off a lot of very powerful humans. You'll see a lot of the personal growth come to fruition (not always in the most positive way), and see some past actions start to catch up to them.

For Nate, this is the conflict between him being smart enough to know his anger, not his drinking would destroy him -- and at the same time knowing his anger was what drove him. He's not going to be angry all the time, of course, but what makes him a wolf is that single, primal urge to hunt.

For Sophie, it's confidence -- she's a full peer, able to run the crew when she needs to and operate as a full free agent. Much as Hardison does, she's going to chafe a bit at the limitations in her relationship with Nate, both personal and professional.

For Eliot, he's the anchor. This is a man who's, well, not a peace but at equilibrium with being damned. A man who knows his swing, as my grandfather would say. And with equilibrium comes the willingness to help others out in their time of -- disequilibrium.

Parker has to deal with the fact that with vulnerability, with emotions, with relationships, come a lot of good things ... and pain and doubt, for the first time.

Hardison wants to move the relationship with Parker along, and move along his own evolution as a team leader.

We managed to peg most of those in this episode, with good representative beats of what each team member did. The only thing we're missing is a representative Eliot fight. We had one -- a rock wall fight -- that was unfortunately nixed because the rock wall we picked was too dangerous to work on. Note, not too dangerous for Kane to want to work on it, but just generally "we ain't putting cameras on this thing" dangerous.

That said, Eliot gets, for me, the best scene in the show. Don't get me wrong, Beth nailed Parker's torment at wanting to do the right thing, her frustration at how she wants to -- well, she said it all in the scene, and much more than what was there in dialogue. It's one of the finest pieces of acting I've seen in twenty years as a writer. But Eliot's scene afterwards, explaining that it was okay to be Parker at the same time she was trying to be a better Parker -- that's not a speech anyone else would have given. That's why we need all five. Separately they're kind of broken, and together they make one pretty decent human being.

We can't move on from performances without mentioning Eric Stoltz, of course. He's an old friend of Dean's, and was super-generous to come in and play the two scenes we needed for Alan Scott. For the episode to work, Alan Scott's last speech had to be devastating. While filming it, the crew was watching ti through the video feed, meaning they saw it from the camera POV. By the end of the first take, people had to leave the set, they were crying so hard. Stoltz had mad chops, yo. As the kids say.

He also sat there and played a corpse, saving us dummy money. We owe him a steak, still, for that.

Right, this is long enough. I'll leave the stories as to how we almost died on the mountain filming this goddam thing at 8,000 feet for the DVD commentary. As Dean said: "It's not every day you see 'avalanche warning' on a call sheet." So we should end by giving a giant, very special shout-out to the CREW, who hauled all the equipment up that mountain in a blizzard, set it all up and kept it working, and then packed it all back down long after we'd hauled ass to warmer climes. Leverage has the best crew in the business, full stop.

To your filthy questions!

@Sherri: congrats on getting 18 episodes -- did that change anything for the season? Was it harder to find 18 episodes worth of scripts or did you find the extra room gave you more time to do different sorts of stories?

A mixed blessing. We had room to do some more off-speed eps, like the linked "The Girls' Night Out Job" and "The Boys' Night out Job" later in the season. At the same time, that's a full half-season longer than our first. That's near network order, without the money to hire and keep the staff for full network prep. Luckily Downey had the prescience to break a couple episodes for this season at the end of last season while I was up in Portland dealing with the epic finale. That gave us a buffer, which by ... right now has burned away.

@The Goozer: When are they gonna fight some aliens? Or steal a chalice?

Season 5. In the same episode.

@Steue: 1.) Does Nate actually know(or remember) Sophie's real name? 2.)Is the 10/8 split harder to write for? 3.) Is there another seasonal episode this year?

1.) He does not remember. He is fucked. 2.) We don;t tend to write for the break. That said, I prefer a longer winter season. 3.) No.

@Mercedes: How did you get the crack down the ice shot?

Our amazing Production Designer, Randall Groves, built that entire cave on set. Once we lit it, we kept looking at the monitor, wandering back out onto the set, then running back to the monitor. Holy crap," we'd mutter, then run back and forth again. He and our substitute DP Alan Caso made that cave look real as hell.

We then dropped two stunties through the hole, a 14 foot fall. While trying to ignore Kane grumbling "It's only fourteen feet," off to our left, because we wouldn't let him do it. Fucking Oklahoma.

@iTimOSX: Are you guys still using Final Cut Pro and will you use Final Cut Pro X?

We're using Final Cut Pro, and will not be switching to Final Cut Pro X until plug-ins for Red and other workflow considerations are implemented.

@Anonymous: 1.) Did you have a hard time getting Christian to stop riding the snowmobile? 2.) When Parker walks away is it because she's upset that he hugged everyone else first? Or does she even think like that?

1.) Guess. 2.) No, it just never occurs to her to do the casual hug. After all, it's only been two weeks since San Lorenzo, and although they're just starting out what might become a relationship -- as she says, "this isn't going to become a thing, is it?" Anyone who has dated a charming but emotionally unavailable woman has heard this phrase. It's going to be ... complicated.

@Brittany: How was it working on Mt. Hood?

I'm in the red parka:

@Nooch: What do each of you find most challenging in the creation of an episode? Also, each character has had someone from his/her "past" play a role. When will that happen with Hardison?

Each writer has a swing. For example, Downey doesn't really see the episode until he sees the "hats" the characters will wear. I tend to drive him crazy because for me, that stuff is just "making license plates" -- I can't see the episode until I see the causal chain of the underlying plot -- character or con. Jenn Kao, one of our new writers, is like the Wonder Twins, a research fiend. Newcomers Jeremy Bernstein and Paul Guyot tend to favor the emo. They were hard-pitching on the Parker/Alan Scott story in this episode. Everyone's got there thing, eh?

Hardison's Nana ... well, not yet.

@Jackie's TV Media Thoughts: 1.) Will Jeri Ryan and Wil Wheaton make guest appearances this season? 2.) Will there be any "art imitates life" episodes, like the West Virginia coal miners and the swindling Hockey owner?

1.) Yes, possibly on both. 2.) all our villains are based on real people. My only real disappointment is that we didn't have time in "The Hot Potato Job" to really explain just how truly terrifying Big Agriculture is. I mean, yikes, topping out the list of nasty legal maneuvers and utter ruthlessness -- way above any mining/drilling consortium you can find.

@dogdragon86: 1.) How did Parker get her name? 2.) Will Nate ever where a moustache? 3.) Will there be actor commentaries on the Season 4 DVD?

1.) You will never find that out. 2.) No. And ... no. 3.) If they're available when we record them.

@Georgia: Who are the big guest stars this season?

All our guest stars are big. It's the screen that is small!

... No, literally, people are watching on their computers, those are small screens.

How's Danny Glover? Michael Gladis from Mad Men? David Snell from The Wire? Danny frikkin' Glover? Plus some other spoiler-y ones!

@TomGalloway: How come Alan Scott wasn't an engineer or a broadcasting executive? Or have a magic ring?

Because in this reality, the ring wen to a douche-baggy test pilot with daddy issues who fought space poo.

@Scavener: "Let's go steal a mountain. "Again" That bit was for us, wasn't it? :D

After three years, you've earned your in-jokes. Although it took me aback to do the math on that one -- "two years ago" is the right answer. "The Snow Job" aired January 27, 2009. We keep the Leverage-verse aligned with real time pretty carefully (with the exception of this year, saying this job came just weeks after San Lorenzo). That meant that a mountain job happening around June 2011 was just two and a bit years after the first example.

@mephron: So is it going to be buyable through the Apple Store? @theragingcelt: ... and Netflix?

Not just buyable on the Apple Store, but the first episode's free. Netflix, on the other hand, is still a no go.

@Video Beagle: Can't these guys do something about the Etrade baby?

Hardison researched it, but when he discovered the baby's name is "Ftaghn", he decided to let it go.

@Improper Bostonian: Did Beth and Christian really trek in the snow for the mountain scenes or were doubles used?

See the above video. We did use doubles just to get some additional footage for editing, but almost all the shots we wound up using were of Beth and Christian.

@Sherri: I was surprised at Nate coming down stairs with the whole speech about them having dinner in "his" apartment. That sort of came out of left field -- it hasn't been "his" apartment in a long while (he lost control of it during Beantown Bailout). It's been the home of the team for quite a while, the home for his "family". Is Nate putting down walls now, trying to draw boundaries, pull back emotionally from these people, deny the whole family vibe in some attempt to protect himself from...something? Or was that just a throw away to remind us that Nate is not a Nice Guy? (If that was it, that was...overkill, kinda clumsy, so I'm REALLY voting for the first idea. Lie to me and say it was subtle boundaries as part of a new Nate spiral, if you have to.)

Nothing as significant as either. He cranks at them being in his living room like I crank when somebody at the table steals my excellent pens. Faux affectionate annoyance.

@Anonymous: 1. why wasn't tara shown in the one flashback of Hardison hanging from the window in the season 2 ep the maltese falcon job? 2. how much of this ep was filmed on location? 3. was that a little glimpse into Eliot's past the way he signaled to Parker when approaching the Russian's tent? 4. Did Sophie tell Nate her real name on the Xmas ep last season or when they slept together? The fact that Nate doesn't remember it, was he drunk (haha) when she told him and that's why he doesn't remember? 5. they mentioned Sterling at the end of someone that might bug them - whether it's him or not, will Mark Shepard be coming back this season? Will anyone from the past be resurfacing? 6. nana's still alive?

1.) You're going to laugh, but residuals. Showing Jeri in that shot would have cost us multipel thousands of dollars. 2.) Almost everything was filmed on location. 3.) Yep. 4.) When they slept together. She wrote a very detailed clue to her name on the napkin in "The Ho Ho Ho Job." 5.) Mark Sheppard will be joining us this season, in the summer season finale. 6.) Yep.

@C_otter: My question: my understanding is that your team is almost done writing the scripts for the season. Do you make plot adjustments as the season progresses based on overall audience reaction or not? If you do make adjustments - how?

Every episode but the last four were written by the premiere, this year. We tend to make plot adjustments base don how the shows shoot, how we discuss the stories, etc. We're not highly serialized, so it's not too big a concern of us.

Although I dig viewer feedback, previously here we've discussed the boundary that I think every show has to keep -- we write. If we start going to the viewer well, we give up creative agency. Sometimes the right thing to write is NOT what the viewers want ... right now. But hopefully they'll see we honored the contract with the viewers. You will be entertained, the characters will be consistent, and the finale of the show will be satisfying, if not exactly what you were hoping for.

And we will not tell you everything you though you knew was wrong in the last thirty seconds of the season. That is some BULLSHIT right there.

@JoellaBlue: My question is: Since the team is losing their teflon and coming into so many others' sights, will they deal with more past jobs prior to joining the team? Eliot's past with Moreau came up last season and he surely has many other enemies that are hardcore. Hardison's enemies seem to be Chaos and Iceland. We have no idea about Sophie or Parker's past enemies. And then there's Nate. Will we be able to delve deeper into each of the characters this season?

"Consequences." Bad ones.

@Brave: Have only 2 weeks passed in the Leverage-verse since "The San Lorenzo Job"?

Yes. You could in theory watch S3 and 4 back to back.

@buzzby Why is oxygen being used when they're not even above the treeline?

Treeline and altitude sickness are not linked. Altitude sickness kicks in pretty reliably around 8,000 ft with minor symptoms, getting worse as you head higher. Treelines can wander anywhere from 7000 feet to 14,000 feet, depending on the mountain. We were at around 7,000 - 8,000 feet on Mt. Hood, and there were scattered trees.

@marisa: I would love to know how long it takes to write an episode!

Anywhere from 3 days (with me very drunk) to two to three weeks. Assume that if the writer comes in with research and some prep on an idea already accomplished, the eps take a week and a bit to break, then the writer has two weeks to write the episode. Revisions are done sporadically after that.

@Guru: As I watched, I found myself assuming that Alan Scott would be found alive simply because you'd cast an actor of Eric Stoltz's caliber. Was that deliberate, or did you simply want a heavyweight to carry the big scene talking to his wife?

I am a little surprised how many people thought we'd find him alive. He was gone three months. He is an ex-Stolt! He's not pining for the fjords --

Ahem. We needed a great actor for that last speech, and Mr. Stoltz did us a favor.

@Anonymous: OMG!!! The technical inaccuracies surrounding the "mountain" were atrocious and really made the episode hard to get into. From trees being at 8000' above sea level in Alaskan Mountains, to being roped off on what was supposed to be a mountain but looked like a bunny hill. Pretty silly stuff. They really needed some technical consultants; or I know maybe actually film it in Alaska...

I rarely say this, but seeing as we shot in six feet of snow for fourteen hours a day, I almost got buried in an avalanche, and we had one of the world's best climbers on set as a consultant -- you are utterly, utterly wrong. Choke on it.

@Oona: 1.) I thought Nate's speech to the widow was interesting, and I loved the way you guys brought the line "It's a long way down" back up in the end. Is the idea of running up against an obstacle your anger can't beat a bit of foreshadowing for Nate's character arc this season? 2.) Also, it was interesting that Eliot emphasized that Hardison especially would have frozen to death trying to retrieve the body. I thought that was spot on, but also raised the question - if something might ultimately create some tension between Hardison and Parker, will it be the fact that Parker's morality is more slippery than Hardison's? 3.) Annnnnnd, finally - clearly Nate doesn't remember what exactly went down the last night in San Lorenzo, but does Sophie? It's not surprising that Nate was too drunk, but they both seemed surprised by where they ended up, so I would suspect she was pretty snockered as well. Was she testing to find out what he knew or testing to find out something she might want to know?

1.) Not the most subtle foreshadowing, either. 2.) There will be tensions between Parker and Hardison as their relationship progresses, but their differing moralities is not one of them. 3.) Sophie remembers. Hazily, but she remembers.

@Liz: Can I say? Eliot hugging Hardison? Awesome.

Not in the script. Kane improv-ed that as he walked past.

@evening-shadow: 1) I echo the 'What did Sophie write down in Ho Ho Ho Job if Nate found out her real name in San Lorenzo Job' question. If the implication is he used it for the first time while in the throes and has known it for a while, it didn't really come across too clearly.
2) What was Hardison's motivation for denying that Parker should meet his Nana? A fear of commitment? Does he think Parker wouldn't fit in with "the real family?" It seemed a little out of character for him and it was the only sour note in the whole ep for me.
3) Does anyone know of any place where the commentaries are transcribed or, at least, bits and pieces of them? Since I'm hearing-impaired, the traditional commentary set-up doesn't work too well for me and I am especially interested in anything regarding Parker and Hardison. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

1.) Nope, she wrote down a clue, as noted above.

2.) Not fear of committment. Nana + Parker = Hardison does not stand a chance.

3.) oof, we've had issues with making sure our stuff is accessible to the hearing-impaired before. I'm sorry to say that there are no transcripts of the commentaries. I'll see if there's a solve, but I doubt it.

@SueN: At the end, when Hardison finds the bug, Nate says something like, "I thought you swept the place," which implies that's a regular practice So, have they been sweeping for bugs all along, and it's just one of those "invisible things the team has always done," or is it something that evolved out of the Italian-Moreau arc?

One of those maintenance things Hardison does that the team takes for granted. Too much for granted. Which he shall make abundantly clear to them in #416.

@Lydia: 1. (general Leverage question): Watching the “auditions” video that TNT put on their website got me thinking. You've said several times that you wrote Eliot's character with Christian in mind. If the script had stayed behind Christian's couch, who else would you have looked at to play Eliot? Or would you just called him up and demanded he read the whole script? 2. If it's only been less than two weeks since the team took down Moreau and they're already onto more jobs, is Eliot ever going to get the down time he's been asking for for several episodes in S3? 3. Each of them is the best at what they do... is it possible for Sophie to run out of cons, or will her brilliant grifting skills save her?

1.) Christian was in mind, but I didn't even know if he was available at the time. If he'd passed we would have moved on, regretfully. I don't hound actors. We had seom really great auditions, and we may well have wound up with an African-American Eliot. 2.) Eliot will never get the down time he is looking for. because that would bore you, and our job is to entertain you. 3.) Sophie will never run out of cons, because that would bore you , and we are here to entertain you.

Jesus Murphy, how many more of these things? >sucks oxygen< Okay, let's go.

@Anonymous: Finally, and I'm sorry if I'm being completely obtuse here, but I couldn't understand why Eliot didn't tell Parker they'd go back for Alan Scott's body? If they found it once, what was to stop them either going back themselves or, if that were to be impossible as they needed to clear out ASAP following the con, direct others to it?

Because it was more important to get Parker to understand what she was feeling was okay than to logic her out of it. Trying to logic a loved one out of emotional moment is one of those classic mistakes people make. Even after twenty years of marriage. Ahem.

@Anonymous: 1. How does/will Eliot feel about all the 'coupling' in the group and with the particular couples (nate/sophie, parker/hardison)? Will he ever 'interfer' or 'interject' with either couple?

2. Sophie has known and noticed the little things between them for a while, but are Nate and Eliot aware of what's happening between Parker and Hardison?
3. You have mentioned in your commentaries that Parker and Eliot are the most dangerous of the group. Eliot, obviously, knows that he is dangerous, but does he know how dangerous parker is or can be, and is he aware of how dangerous they are (just the two of them) together?
4. Is Parker trying to make amends for her past, or is she just trying to be a better person, now that she has an idea of what that is?
5. Has Parker ever killed anyone?
6. Who is 'watching' them? (I know you aren't going to answer that one, but it was worth a try).

1.) Later in the season, he may offer advice. Eliot has a full social life outside his workplace.

2.) Oh yes.

3.) Eliot is fully aware that they would cut a bloody swath through anyone they chose to. See "The Lost Heir Job".

4.) Less the abstract "being a better person", more the concrete "be like the people I care for." She doesn't feel she has to make amends.

5.) ... probably not.

6.) You are.

@Crescent Moon: 1) Will we ever meet Nana?

2) If we meet Nana, who would be your ideal actress to play her?
3) Does Nana know that Hardison was/is a hacker?
4) Why doesn't Hardison want Parker to meet Nana?

1.) yes.

2.) Not telling.

3.) Wait for it.

4.) See above.

@Famous4it: All your questions were answered above, but I just wanted to welcome you and our other viewers from Pakistan to the show and the blog.

@Anonymous: Is the Italian coming back this season? Does she have anything to do with the bugs in Nate's home?

Nope, our seasons are roughly stand-alone. Every season could be, in theory, the last season of Leverage.

@Anonymous: I'm a little confused as to why Alan Scott would take the incriminating evidence up the mountain with him. Obviously he suspected correctly that his boss could get to his home if he suspected anything but surely there's a happy medium between leaving it at his house and keeping it next to his heart. Or was this a personal journal he took everywhere that where he also jotted down the incriminating evidence?

Explained above, although we did lose some dialogue in the edit where we explained he was gathering evidence from other execs while on the climbing trip. I think you can hear a little bit of it in the Stoltz speech at the end when we're off him.

@Jamesfirecat: 1: Why did Parker need to slip the Russian bad guy the cell, when she and Elliot could have just carried it down themselves, given that they showed up at the tent in time to see the arrest they couldn't have been that far behind him, (they did show up didn't they?) so the cell message would have only gotten played a few minuets later still in time to nail the bad guy
2: It seemed like the Russian guy got arrested in the tent at the end, and if so, for what? Yes he effectively kidnapped/took Parker hostage in order to steal the journal but there's next to no proof that he did it, unless Parker managed to somehow record the entire threatening conversation on the cell phone they'd just recovered... which combined with point one is only more proof for why they should have held onto the cell phone.
3: The hiker's dieing words may be admissible in court, doubtlessly enough to get the guy arrested and bring him to trial, but would it really be enough to get the guy convicted without some physical from the crime scene as well? Unless Parker and Eliot found some in the cave which they took with them before they escaped (since they did listen to it just before they left) but if so, there was never anything saying they did that was there?
Or was the resolution that the guy would get tied up in legal battles with the murder charge long enough for the Leverage team to prove his wheeling and dealing when it came to the phony foreclosures? Either I zoned out during the episode or it felt like they needed another 3 to 5 min to wrap things up properly....

1.) There was no guarantee they'd get down the mountain that fast. You're meant to understand that they got a ride from the Forest Rangers shortly after their encounter with the Russian. In the first draft we had them arrive later, but we really wanted to have the moment where Parker sees the effect the tape had on the widow. Shortened for emo.

2.) Tampering with evidence, having a gun on a mountain, which is kind of a no-no. No real reason to believe the charges will stick on him, to tell the truth.

3.) The mortgage fraud will provide motive to support the murder charge, not to mention his downfall as a businessman. @ChelseaNH did a nice job in the comments of summing up the depressing practice of robo-signing, for those interested.

@Scot Boyd: Given Eric Stoltz's stature, I'm curious if the dead body in the crevasse was played by Eric Stoltz in makeup or a mannequin exhibiting cutting edge fake-Eric Stoltz technology.

The one and only Stoltz. Holding his breath when we're on him, btw.

@Sandy: In my endless quest to ferret out the sources of names in Leverage-verse, I'd like to ask if Parker was named after the thief Parker in the Richard Stark (pen name of Donald Westlake)novels? Check into the world of the Stark/Westlake Parker at : http://violentworldofparker.com/.
Also, is Nate's father Jimmy named after the conman from LOST? It came to me one day that Jimmy Ford = James Ford = Sawyer from LOST.

Parker is named after Parker, in homage. Jimmy is just a good Irish name.

@TJ ... Jesus, no way I'm reprinting all those. But, in order: 1.) Two weeks. 2.) A couple chats. 3.) We haven't. 4.) Nate's not a hugger. 5.) Thanks. 6.) Beth and Christian rocked it out. Tim had to pretend to be sik, so he didn't get to show off. 7.) Both altitude sickness and withdrawal. 8.) Type of boot 9.) Because he was needed in the tent. Probably. 10.) Hardison runs a mission this year. 11.) Different woman. 12.) "Coming out of? No no no. 13.) Not her first dead body. 14.) The Moscow Circus is real, not called that, and complicated. 15.) Yes. 16.) No. 17.) I can;t even parse that one. :) 18.) His whole life. 19) There's worse buried in there. 20.) Everyone cried. 21.) Yes. 22.) Interesting. 23.) Whatever makes him most interesting to you. 24.) Natural evolution. 25.) ...

@Anna: 1) I know nothing about mountain climbing, but why didn't Parker, Eliot, Karen and Nate get in trouble for going up the mountain without registering? Also, won't they have to testify at the trials for Mr. Evil of the Week and the Russian, and won't that put them on awkward ground if they're investigated?2) Will Eliot ever straight out know one of the badass evil henchmen? I half expected the Russian to be one of his old mercenary buddies or something. Does Eliot even have old mercenary buddies?
3) Been asked before, but to put it bluntly, are Parker and Hardison "official"? Will there be awkward dates involved?
4) Is Nate's speech to the Karen about anger a sign that he's moving on, or, at least, beginning to heal a little?
5) Will there ever be an episode where Hardison's Nana needs help, and that's how the team gets to meet her? Because that would be awesome, even though Nana doesn't sound like the kind of woman who'd need help.
6) Can we have an episode where Maggie shows up right in time to create a crazy awesome UST triangle? If so, can the con of the week involve her spending extensive amounts of time alone with Sophie?
7) When Parker refused to go on without the body... It seemed to me like there was something more than her growing social skills driving that, something akin to how she refused to leave the orphans behind in The Stork Job. If this is so, would that thing be her younger brother, or something else? Will we ever find out what that something is?
8) Will poor Eliot ever get a steady girl of his own? I just feel like he must feel kind of left out with all this pairing up going on, and even Batman gets to date Catwoman from time to time. Hopefully this year Eliot can do better than his scheduled once a season hookup!

1.) Nate is very good at making sure the chain of evidence is so strong, there's never a trial, almost always a plea out. Again, you people's faith in the criminal justice system is always vaguely touching.

2) That may well occur.

3.) Official. But, really, dates?

4.) Not healing in the least.

5.) tick tick

6.) Kari's busy. But we'll see Maggie again before the series --not season, series - finale.

7.) Nope. Backstory is boring.

8.) Eliot does just fine. Just offscreen.

@Kevin: Friggin' refrigerator moments. The team didn't actually win, did they? The notebook full of proof got burned. The arrest of the CEO isn't going to immediately stop his company from falsely repossessing 3000-4000 houses a year. The team made no money for the widow and are out their expenses.

Ah, lost in the editing, is the fact that Alan HAS the evidence he needs, all on his smartphone. He was trying to email it, but it had to wait until the phone was back in signal range before the files could go through. That's why we made such a big deal about the "voice/data line" on the map. You can hear Alan explaining that in the video. Just one of the things that became unclear in the edit. That's also why Hardison had the line that Alan Scott was getting his own vengeance.

@USRaider: 1.) I felt that actually filming in such difficult conditions brought an edge to the episode (the knowledge of the avalanche days after you left also makes you shudder). However, Jon, have you ever written anything, for Leverage or otherwise, that you said to yourself, "S**t, someone could get hurt doing this?" Is it the professionalism of youself, the cast and the crew that allowed such an episode to even be done? 2.) I have heard comments from friends that they didn't like this season premiere because "there wasn't enough action". I personally believed there was a conscious effort to make the S4 premiere a more character driven one than a slam-bang action fest. Was this a decision on your part, to kind of show the growth of the team personally with each other and individually?

1.) Someone could get hurt doing the easiest thing in the world. If we ever got to the set on the day and said, "okay, not THAT in these circumstances", then ther'es no way in hell our stunt coordinator Kevin Jackson or one of our directors would let it happen. But you can rarely predict what will be dangerous from the script. 2.) It was intentionally character-driven, but I gotta say, if three days on a mountain ain't enough scope for you people, I got nothing.

@Anonymous: I was surprised that Parker would have a glass of wine. Eliot has a beer, Hardison grabs an orange soda out of the fridge. Nate and Sofie have wine, that totally makes sense. But Parker? I would not have thought so.

We've shown her drinking before. She treats it like a spice. If it's what tastes best with the food, she goes for it. Chalk it up to Eliot's influence.

Okay, we're starting to double up on questions, and turn into conversations in comments her,e let me skip through ...

@AndrewB:This has been bugging me (and consequently, I've been bugging Video Beagle): is there a reason Hardison doesn't bother to scan for the kinds of bugs he can instantly identify? I get you're trying to establish that there's an invisible Big Bad lurking out there and they're good enough into Leverage HQ (like Sterling, the Italian, Nate's dad, and Sterling again), but why go with Hardison immediately recognizing the bug as a passive bug which is a pretty common kind of bug?

We actually talked about this in the room. We had a bit in the script where Hardison explained just how tricky a variant on a passive bug this was, but dropped because you and I and VideoBeagle (and maybe writer Scott Veach) are the .00001% of the audience that would give a shit.

And I would read a Claudiasarker story.

@Lydia: After watching the episode again, did Nate purposely set the other receiver where the widow could reach it and turn his back (as there were several instances of NLP in S3, and Nate did learn how to hypnotize people while in prison), or did it just slip his mind because of his withdrawals/altitude sickness

Slipped his mind.

*************************

Bloody. Hell. I forgot how relentless you people are. All right, see you next week with #402, and probably #312 slipped in there somewhere. I really, really don't want to even consider looking at the season finale question posts ...

LEVERAGE #402: "The Ten Li'il Grifters Job" Question post

2011-07-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'm typing the answers to the last one even now. Go ahead -- vent, question and snark.

LEVERAGE #401 "The Long Way Down Job" Question Post

2011-06-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

While I'm finishing the write-ups from last year's episodes, here's the placeholder for tonight.

Post your usual questions, snark and rage in the Comments. Have at it, and welcome back.

So Where the Hell Have You Been?

2011-06-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Writing, and then melting down, and then writing faster.

I try to be honest with you folks here on the blog, so I'll give this a whirl.

Right after wrap last year I took a little "fix this pilot" job -- which was then picked up to shoot and led straight into production. Although the pilot didn't go to series, it still ate up Sept-through Dec. Add that to some family health issues, and my hiatus ... wasn't. No hiatus for two years in a row by this point, as I had a movie to write on the hiatus before that, further complicated by some unpleasant personal issues.

There was something else, too. Those of you who heard me talk at the Fan-Con this year in Portland heard me be kind of raw about this: I hit asshole fatigue. Three years of endless research on corporations and fat cats who ripped people off, causing misery and harm in the name of profit -- and relentlessly, inevitably got away with it. Either the law was never applied, or they got a pass because the economy was so bad or ... whatever. Leverage to a great degree was born of anger. Robin Hood is an angry hero. After the bloody research required to make 44 stories, I was all angered-out.

So I ran smack into burnout over the 2010 holidays. And this with Day 1 of the Season 4 writing schedule coming.

Not fun. Not conducive to blogging, in any way shape or form. What writing I could get done besides prepping Leverage S4 was spent on launching the Dungeons & Dragons comic book. Basically, I had nothing left.

Luckily, the enthusiasm of the new blood on the Leverage staff got me fired up. Breaking stories in the room is the same process as writing, to a great degree. As we all know, you can't think yourself out of a writing block, you have to write yourself out of a thinking block. In short order I was back, enjoying the genuinely new and exciting ideas they were bringing to the room ...

... and then I was directing.

Directing means I'm out of the room for 3 weeks. Directing 2 episodes (plus on-set for the season opener) meant I'd be out of the room for close to 8 weeks. If I was going to live up to my responsibilities in the writer's room, that meant going fast and hard at story-breaking for the first few weeks, before I started buggering off to Portland. So no typing for you folks then, either.

Now, with every episode but the finale written, I should be able to get back on a regular schedule for the blog. We'll see.

None of this is "poor me", of course. I only mention it because somebody out there who's typing their spec may be having a shitty week. You should know -- and this may be either encouraging or discouraging -- that everyone has that week, sometimes. No matter how long you've been doing it, or how many tools in the toolbox, there are still days, sometimes weeks, where the blank page just stares back at you and wins.

Let's start back up with the post-game for #312, and we'll see what we see, eh?

Fighting Outside Our Weight Class

2011-05-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm the Earth. Jut here to remind you I can kick your ass.

Volcanic Eruption in Grimsvotn, Iceland May 21 2011 from Jon Gustafsson on Vimeo.

Bruuuuuce 2

2011-05-03T10:01:00.000-07:00

Everyone who reads the blog knows I'm a fan.

His work is invaluable when writing Leverage. Taking advantage of people's blind spots in security is what our guys do. And, again, most of what's on the show is real. Especially the unbelievable bits.

Keynes vs Hayek Rap Battle

2011-04-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

Fear the Boom & Bust.

In the Comments, your favorite educational/inspirational video.

Crunk & Classical

2011-04-17T19:05:00.001-07:00

Still on the road, doing ... producer-y stuff. Will resume actually typing soon, but in the meantime ...

In the Comments -- your favorite classical or classical-ish piece on your iPod.

Go, Team Venture

2011-04-12T00:15:00.001-07:00

Shot WW II this morning. While I drink, a medley of Venture Bros. music from its creator, JG Thirwell.

Steroid Maximus_Venture Bros Medley from JG Thirlwell on Vimeo.

In the comments, your favorite Venture Brothers moments.

For me, it's Brock crashing backwards through the windshield of a speeding car.

"Werner Herzog Reads 'Where's Waldo?'"

2011-04-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Up shooting until 3am, braindead. So, offered without comment:

Chris Downey actually loves Grizzly Man so much, he got a transcript of it. Which he reads at lunch in the writers room.

"You Actually Call It the Whedonverse. Huh."

2011-04-04T19:51:00.001-07:00

A buck-ten to whoever can ID that quote, brought to mind because, in this pic, I am actually doing the whole douche-y "This is the shot ..." thing with my hands. That's DP Dave Connell to my right, my 1st AD Matt to my left, and Line Producer Paul Bernard walking away, looking for something sharp to stick in his eye. Because the words coming out of my mouth at that moment are, no lie: "To the left is the burning tank."

LEVERAGE #405 prep QOTD

2011-03-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

SETTING: ART DEPARTMENT & PROPS MEETING

PROPS: So it's like a children's collage.
JOHN: Exactly. Why don't we have some actual local children do it, tell them the best one will be on the show?

PROPS: That's technically child labor.

JOHN: America was built on child labor.
LINE PRODUCER: How about having some hospice kids do it?
JOHN: Sure, they have more spare time. And tell them it'll live on in the show. It'll give them hope, before they go off to live in Santa & Puppies Forever Land, or whatever story we tell sick kids about Heaven.
(Silence. Then crying.)
JOHN: Oh, first time you worked with me. Right. Sorry.

The Full Dr. Who trailer.

2011-03-30T12:13:00.001-07:00

And this is WITHOUT the ubiquitous Mark Sheppard.

Welcome to LEVERAGE #401

2011-02-28T11:11:00.000-08:00

Taken by my co-writer for the season opener, Joe Hortua.

Joe actually climbs mountains, so this is all his idea. Please remember that, murderous crew members. Allll his idea.

GAME OF THRONES

2011-01-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

Please. Please be a big hit so I can finally do my magic-based TV show.

Toss your latest fave fantasy novel into the Comments, please.

Underground New York

2011-01-04T20:04:00.000-08:00

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo. Courtesy of these folks.

Rerun: Irrational Fears

2010-12-27T08:13:00.000-08:00

(Yep, still typing. This one's from June, 2007)

The roller coaster in Montreal was plainly cobbled together from demolished lake-house decks and railroad ties. So although I waited for a half-hour in line with my comedian friends, I felt perfectly justified in stepping into the car, considering my options, and then stepping right on out the other side.

Oh, how they mocked. But my momentary cowardice still allowed me to retain a shred of dignity, and so was worth indulging. Because if I'd gotten on that ride, my friends would have actually heard me scream. Like a little girl. Like a little girl who just woke up because somebody licked her foot. Like a little girl who just woke up because somebody licked her foot, and then when she turns on the light there's an evil clown sitting in the middle of her bedroom, eating her pony.

There's no comebacks from the clown-pony scream.

I knew from experience this would be my response to the tracked hellion. Fredericton, New Brunswick had taught me that.

That time it was a fair, or an exposition, or whatever the hell you call the gathering where the Lottery villagers eat fried beaver tails, drink beer and compare brood mares and quilts before they select the heavy stones and pass 'round the black-spot bag. We were in town visiting my new bride's family. As we walked through the small-scale carnival rides, I made a resolution. I would not give in to my completely irrational fear of funrides. These Fredericton rides were tiny things compared to the whirling articulated skyscrapers of a major park. Lovely Wife adores funrides. I will man up.

The first one was one of those parachute sumbitches. Perfectly reasonable, two people sitting in a car suspended by some sort of ball joint. When it rotates in one direction, you get a bit of a centrifugal tilt out. Then, of course, they tilt the goddam thing to 45 degreees, so you're pushed to the side, and you're way the hell up --

-- but I held it together. Even when I looked into the center of the machine's axis, from my vantage point at the top of the arc, and saw that they'd replaced on of the gears with a radial tire.

That said, Ride A involved height, movement, a sickening feeling of "just about to be thrown out" and a dodgy looking safety bar. I figured I was in the clear. Ride B -- the exact brand-name of which I have never discovered -- looked to be cake. Low to the ground. No height factor whatsoever. Bigger cars, two sitting across from two, each car suspended from above to a radial arm. I thumbnailed out the operations in my head. The ride itself spun, wheel-like, and then the cars probably spun horizontally on some smaller axis. I should be able to handle that.

So, as Madonna's "Like a Virgin" echoed murkily over loudspeakers never designed to convey music, Lovely Wife and I climbed aboard. Bar down, two twelve-year-olds sitting across, piece of cake. Most of the riders on this one are kids. I am encouraged.

Gears grind, sparks fly, and we're off. Round and round, like a merry-go-round. No worries. Then our car itself begins to spin. Ah, bit disorienting, and there's that nasty "about to be tossed" feeling, but nothing I can't --

Then the individual arms begin to rise and fall. Well. Okay. This is --

-- and then the cars themselves tilt. They tilt 90 degrees. I am now spinning vertically perpendicular to the ground, and rising and falling, and spinning horizontally.

...

There's a moment in every Lovecraft story, when a feckless human catches a glimpse of Cthulhu, where said human's reaction is supposed to be some sort of sanity-shattering meltdown far beyond what you're capable of even imagining. This is a terror that kills. We struggle to visualize such a reaction and necessarily, as we are sane and live in an orthogonal universe, come up short.

My wife knows.

It's always a matter of debate, what was the most humiliating moment of my meltdown. I hold that it was when I screamed "I DON'T WANT TO DIE LISTENING TO MADONNA!" Lovely Wife prefers the bit where, legitimately concerned at my terror, she yelled "Hold my hand!"

At the prospect of loosening my white-knuckled grip from the safety bar, I screamed back at her, straight into her face: "FUCK YOU! YOU HOLD MY HAND!"

Afterward, the various twelve-year olds regarded me with pity. Pity. Do you know how far you have to fall in an adolescent's eyes before you drop below scorn? They're hard-wired for scorn. The evening ended with my wife actually taking me to the petting zoo for a bit, to collect myself, before we headed home.

The goats helped.

All this to give you some context. Because when I read this:

A girl's feet were cut off Thursday when a free-fall thrill ride malfunctioned at the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Amusement Park in Louisville, Kentucky, police said.
A cord wrapped around the 16-year-old's feet and severed them at her ankles while she was on the "Superman Tower of Power," a police dispatcher said. The girl was taken to a local hospital.

-- I need to inform you that blogging may be slow for a bit, as I will be under my bed, in a fetal position. For a while.

The queasiness of my irrational fear's sudden gripping return is leavened somewhat by the "ah-ha" of "I KNEW it", but it's a hollow moment. A bit like your irrational fear of zombies being validated by the appearance of actual zombies at your window.

In the comments, your completely irrational fears. The ones that end you.

Oh, and here's the "Tower of Power" in question:

In the Comments, your perfectly irrational fear, please.

EPILOGUE: The ride in question is --

The Orbiter.

Rerun: Incident at Bedford Falls Bridge

2010-12-24T13:09:00.000-08:00

(Since I'm busy with the D&D comic and Leverage post-games, I thought I'd run some more Christmas-y reruns. This one's from March 2009.)

John: Favorite movie? Casablanca.
Berg: Searching for Bobby Fischer.
Chris: You know mine, It's a Wonderful Life. And the other --
John: Gotta say, once you realize George Bailey dies in the middle, it's a totally different movie.
Chris: ... what?
John: It's a Wonderful Life is really a movie -- and I'm not the first person to say this -- about how a man's dreams are crushed by family expectations and middle class responsibilities. George Bailey's dreams of going to college and off to Europe are destroyed by the allegedly idyllic small town values that in fact trap him. Suffocate him.
Chris: ...
John: So, say Bailey jumped off that bridge and died. Say Clarence was there to guide him to heaven. What would heaven be for such a man? It would be validation. And that's what Clarence the Angel gives him, a tour meant to show him how significant he is. Or how significant, at least, he always secretly believed himself to be.
Chris: Hmm.
John: And then when he repents of his suicide, what does he get? A timeless eternity in his living room surrounded by his loved ones, with everyone he knows in the world coming through the door to tell him how amazing he is. The second half of It's a Wonderful Life makes much more sense if you assume that George Bailey committed suicide, and the rest is Bailey's heaven.
Chris: Is that more or less depressing than the original meaning?
John: I honestly don't know.

In the Comments, tell us your favorite movie -- no judgment, no baseline.

LEVERAGE #315/316 Question Post

2010-12-19T15:25:00.000-08:00

In order: yes, no, yes she did, you'll see next year.

Lay it on me.

No, Seriously, the Senate is Very Bad

2010-12-17T09:12:00.000-08:00

They bumped the 9/11 First Responder's bill so they could vote on the tax cuts for rich people. This was supposed to provide health care to people who got sick trying to save the lives of our fellow citizens in that nightmare.

And as pointed out by the Washington Monthly, the only media covering this is ... The Daily Show. Watch this interview, it's goddam heartbreaking.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

9/11 First Responders React to the Senate Filibuster

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog</a>

The Daily Show on Facebook

LEVERAGE Live Chat from last night.

2010-12-14T10:18:00.000-08:00

Personally, I think it's a perfectly fine Gina impression.

... By the Coward Boo Boo Bear

2010-12-14T08:28:00.000-08:00

Yes, everyone else has it up to, but it delights me.

LEVERAGE #314 "The Ho Ho Ho Job" Q&A post

2010-12-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

You know the drill. Questions, comments, snark down below. SANTA FIGHT!

LEVERAGE #311 "The Rashomon Job" Post-Game

2010-12-11T11:13:00.001-08:00

There's not a giant post-game on this. We'd talked about doing it as five viewpoints of a single con/heist happening in the present day, with the puzzle element being the audience piecing together the plan along the way. The time-frame was undecided up until the point where we started breaking it -- it's the script we're discussing in the room in this video:

Although many people can see links to the shifting viewpoints and dreamlike quality of House's "Three Stories", this was really inspired by Coupling's "Remember This" and "Nine and a Half Minutes". Who am I kidding -- it was inspired by all of Moffat, really. There are very few television writers out there who play with meta-structure and perception the way Stephen Moffat does. A lot of the great moments in Jekyll depend on the writer knowing the viewer knowing he's watching Jekyll & Hyde. He pulled off an absolutely magnificent season-long time-screw with Doctor Who this season by ...well, that would be spoilers. It's streaming. Go watch it.

All those play with shifting viewpoints -- but I like writing about memory. How do we showcase those different memories of the same night? Showing them with differing views of each other would make sense, but if we started screwing with differing views of the objective events, we'd all get lost. So one outside character would become the lens for that trick. But how?

One of my favorite experimental films is Hal Hartley's Flirt.* Three different sets of characters in three different cities experience three different stories all speaking the exact same dialogue. Flirt is, insanely, only available on DVD in Australia as far as I can figure. Time to go haunt your hipster DVD store.

And, so Coswell was born. We were just very lucky to get John Billingsely, who can play both sides equally convincingly.

The structure -- one character per act -- breaks out nicely from their roles as "Mastermind, Grifter, Hitter, Hacker, Thief." It's amazing how a throw-away line tossed into the S1 finale -- essentially just because I like the sound of it -- has wound up being such an oddly iconic facet of the show. The "power surge" acted like a starting gun in each act, gave us something to hang objective reality off of. However, assume anything and everything on either side of the surge is fluid. In all the stories, including Nate's.

All the acts were intentionally stylized -- it just made sense considering the characters, and is one of the original concepts of the show from the first ideas three years ago. They're actually less stylized than originally envisioned. In the original version for example, Parker sees people in black and white, and valuable objects in color.

Eventually the script fell out as a weird "whodunnit". We were deep into the end-of-season chaos. Downey and Thorne and Veach were breaking the first half of the finale, Colton & Aboud went up to Portland to shoot #313 (they came back to help with the finale scripts), the Wonder Twins were just back from #310, and Boylan was, for a chunk of this, up on her very fine episode "The King George Job." So I disappeared into the half-built editing bay that serves as our EP office and started making notes. Lots, and lots of notes.

Every now and then I'd emerge into the light, grab whoever was in the writers' room and try to break the choreography on the heist. We wound up doing this with Legos and office supplies, as seen in this Twitter pic:

For a while there was a full-on armored car heist. For a while there were more fake daggers, some shipping boxes within boxes ... This is one of those times where it's really, really good to have a writer's room. I'll admit that this episode is one I've been waiting to write for three years; I could never have done it without the help of every person in that room.

I then basically puked this thing out, and we shot ... pretty close to my first draft. This was a script where it's better to just write the damn thing than think yourself out of a good idea. After all, when you look at the handy timeline/continuity flowchart our amazing Script Coordinator Kerry Glover came up with, no sane human would ever give this a shot.

Production at first had a collective aneurysm. But then our very capable 1st AD for this episode, Eric Hayes, broke out the posterboard. He tracked every scene in every timeline on the wall of the set as they shot it, allowing Arvin Brown to focus on the actors and the non-insane bits. Big shout out to our DP Dave Connell (two N's, two L's, mate) and A operator Gary Camp for cooking up all the cool in-camera dream-fades, etc.

Oh, that's right -- scheduling. Our season was originally broken at 9/6 (nine summer, six winter) or 10/5. The we found out we'd be doing 16 at the same time we were told it would be 12/4. I was planning on writing "The Rashomon Job" as one of the off-speed Winter episodes.

But then we found out -- and again, I have no problem with this, it's just how cable rolls -- that we'd be just 3 episodes in the winter, with the season finale shown as a two-hour event. That meant no room for "Rashomon" as #314 ... but "Ho Ho Ho Job" was already written for the Christmas slot. Downey's script was always going to be the summer finale (#312) and Boylan was even then shooting the script (#311) that led directly into Downey's script.

So, "Ho Ho Ho" was slid to the #314 slot, even though it spent its life numbered "#313". "King George" and "Morning After" were always a matched set, so that meant "Rashomon" slid earlier into the season than planned.

All that said, It's pretty standalone, and this is one of those situations where script/shoot order really doesn't matter.

Right, into the questions:

@Barbara: Did i just see the duchess' address as warren ellis road, or am i imagining things?

Hey, he deserves a shout-out too, you know. if only for introducing his readers to Godzilla bukake.

@Gina: Only thing I don't understand is, when they met years later, how did none of them recognize that any of the others had been there? You'd think at least one or two would have a good enough memory for faces.

Five years ago, for three sentences, tops, and they were distracted. That was one of the things we worried about, making sure the exposures were short enough.

@IMForeman: Of course, I do wonder how Nate and Sophie missed each other, since they knew each by that point. And I wonder if this isn't one of the first big jobs Hardison pulled, given that he would have been real young by that point.

Nate was focused on Gladstone, and wasn't on the floor much, Sophie never saw him. But yes, that could have gone very differently. Assume Nate at some point realized Sophie was there in the wrap-up, but never pursued it, as he got his man.

@Jordan: This is non episode related. I was wondering if any of the five cast members could make an appearance on his season's commentary? I like watching the commentary and getting the writers perspective but I would like to hear the actor's too.

They've missed the last few years because of scheduling conflicts, but a couple of them are kicking around on the Commentaries for Season 3.

@Joey C: Are we supposed to take Nate's telling of the story the catch-all "here's what happened?" or is there still some room for debate in that?

Despite what some actors have said in interviews, no. Nate is still an unreliable narrator, although about 80% accurate. He's not making up the crush, or the crime plot, or how they interfered with each other.

@Traeia: The only criticism I would have is that the way the entire crew felt the urge to move to another part of the bar at every break felt very forced to me. Except Nate's movement to the bar. That felt veryNate.

I wrote that to allow us (and the actors) to track attitude. That way, they were always aware just how much they knew in the framing device-timeline by where they were sitting.

@Sammie323: That was Riley Smith as Sophie's Eliot, right? Did he enjoy trying to be Christian Kane? :)

Indeed, he had a ridiculously good time, and it was great to have him on set. He's known Kane for ... Jesus, I don't know, but I've seen a photo of the two of them as bloody teenagers hanging out together.

@Anonymous: Let's get right down to the important stuff. :) Did Sophie imagine Nate unzipping her or did he imagine doing that to her? Is it a little preview for a future episode?

Sophie flirts even in a narrative device.

@workworkwork: So how did you keep everyone from cracking up every time Gina had to roll out a new accent? (I especially loved Sophie's comment to Hardison's story - "I hate you all.")

We could not stop the laughter. Beth barely got through her sequences with Gina. And I suspect that's how Brits think of their American friends all the time ...

For the record, for Gina's last accent, the script simply reads "Sophie: Absolutely incomprehensible British-sounding gibberish." She came up with the accent herself.

@Sarah W: have to ask---do y'all have post-it notes all over your writing rooms that say things like, "Eliot---Monkey---North Korea---sapphire?" Or does someone just look up and say, "Hey, this would be a good place to stick a monkey reference as a special treat for Team Eliot." ?

Pretty much the second one. We do have those notes assembled by Kerry Glover and Rebecca Kirsch, but as we're not a continuity heavy show, we rarely need to go looking for something we don't know off the top of our head. 40 odd episodes between references, btw.

@Evening Shadow: (1.) In the Reunion Job, we find out that Hardison originally stole the Iceland money to pay for Nana's medical bills. In the Miracle Job, when he says, "I am so sorry Nana," he raises his gaze upwards and he also speaks of her in the past tense. I took all that to mean Nana had passed away. Yet in your Q&A for Ep 306, you refer to her as being alive to make Parker's dress. Soooo alive or dead? (2.) If Nana is indeed alive, does this mean she's met Parker or any other members of the crew? (3.) Speaking of Parker, will there be any more Parker/Hardison goodness coming this season? The 'pretzel' scene was excellent and I'd love some follow-up on that. (4.) I'm hearing impaired and I was wondering if there might be the possibility Leverage would take a page out of its TV boyfriend's Psych's book and do video commentaries. I can't listen to regular commentaries because it's the episode that's cc'd and not the commentary itself. On Psych S3, the video commentaries were cc'd and I was finally able to get some behind the scenes dish.

1.) Alive. 2.) Hmm. Hmmm. I do not know. Yet. 3.) Heh. Finale. 4.) We don't really have the abilities to do video commentaries (also, I'm drunk in a lot of them. Uh, all of them...) The closed-captioning is up to the DVD humans, but I'll see what I can do.

@Anonymous: ok my question is: since "eliot" had short hair is this where he starts growing it out so he's not as recognizeable and his enemies can't blackmail him and assassins can't find him?

When he transitioned from primarily, ah, dampwork to retrievals.

@Jason: (1) How far would Hardison go just to satisfy his ego and will it ever get him into serious touble?he did all of that planning just to steal a sword to prove something to other hackers.(2).Will we ever get to see Hardisons nana in a flashback type of episode? (3).How old would the leverage team be 5 years ago when this took place?

1.) I think we've seen Hardison's ego bite him in the ass a couple times. And as it's part of his superpower, he's not losing it soon. 2.) I think so. 3.) Nate & Sophie late 30's, Eliot about 30, Parker and Hardison early 20's. We always play them roughly parallel.

@Cameron Hughes: (1) What did Nate mean by "You all ARE criminals. I have no choice." I thought he was past this. (2) A late question, I know, but I talked to Beth about this and wanted your take. Nate was outraged by the fact that Archie didn't take her in and help her. Said he "ruined" her, but Nate himself could get her help, but instead uses her like a tool. Elaborate on this?

1.) He can still be a petty shit about it. It's like how people who went to an Ivy league school always somehow manage to mention the school in any conversation, no matter the relevance. 2.) Parker was a fully-functioning adult thief by the time Nate got her. He wasn't going to drug her and make her go to group. (Although, as we've seen, that was surprisingly effective.) He relies on her for a lot of the physical infiltration planning. He may use her, but she's at the very least complicit, and capable of her own judgment.

And hey, better you've got Parker pointed in the direction of "good".

@Shawne: My question is -- what is the significance of the team drinking with Nate?

He's back to a balanced state of functioning alcoholic. If you're going to hang with him, you might as well drink.

@The Pink Peril: What happened to Billingsley character? He lost the girl, found out he was oblivious to the crimes happening on his watch by his boss, and didn't catch a single bad guy. He needed a happy ending.

Oh, he got one. Nate let him take all the credit for the bust, and he wound up dating that other nice girl from the Antiquities Room. He's just ... sweet. He still think Nate is a swell guy, actually. And Nate is inordinately fond of him.

@CtRokJ: Ok a few of us were wondering. When we first see Eliot we spotted a number 7 on the back of his vest. What does it stand for? Mickey Mantle or Rule number 7?

We had to put something on the vest, might as well be ... Rule Number 7.

@Anonymous: (1) did nate realize that it *was* Sophie before tonight? or any of the rest of them? and (2) why couldn't't parker feel that it was a fake? she was the only one of them to hold it, but she clearly thought it was real.oh, and (3) where did Sophie's amazing duchess dress come from?

1.) He figured Sophie out shortly thereafter, but let it lie. He's had some questions about the funkiness of the night ever since the incident. 2.) It was a good fake, and Parker didn't have it for long. 3.) Your subconscious.

@nonniemous: (Long complicated question about Eliot being set up by Gutman)

No. It's not linked to the arc. Straight-up job.

@Whimseyrhodes: My question(s) are not episode related, but I hope you'll answer them anyway. Do you (or any of the cast/crew) ever read any of the fanfiction on the internet? You guys obviously know it exists, from comments/spoofs done on the extras of S2. What do you think about it? Does any of it offend? Do any of them spark ideas for new storylines?

We're genre writers, so know it's there. As I've stated before, I think fanfiction is the sign of a healthy show. But we don't read it. It's ... well for us, to paraphrase my old showrunner, it's a bit like a dog eating his own vomit. And I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean -- well, you either get the metaphor or you don't. It's just meta and recursive.

I'm sure some people would find some of the stories offensive, but ... eh. That's for you guys to enjoy.

@Richard Howe: With all this talk of Nate being a bastard, and having finally seen his dear old dad, I'm left wondering: was Nate a good dad? I know he loved his son, but that alone doesn't make you a good dad (though it certainly helps).

He was a great dad. He was a far better man with Maggie and Sam than he was before or has been since.

@Coren: One, how are these works of art being scanned? You obviously can't slap a barcode on or implant an RFID chip (even if RFID was that advanced five years ago) Two, so the dagger was gonna go back to Gladstone when it got scanned, but then Sophie changed the shipping address. But then Hardison hacked it so it was going to stay put - so why was the nice box which the dagger would be kept in still sent, without the dagger?

1.) Image recognition. Pretty primitive for then, but used widely now. Not good enough for authentication, just for filing. 2.) Two different assistants were working at that table. One saw the nice box was closed, assumed the other had packed it, and so put it in the delivery crate.

@ANonymous: There was at least one of Aldis' paintings on the wall? I thought I recognized the red one...

I think so, but I am not sure. I'll ask him tomorrow.

@Maya: I have a few questions. (1)Why is Nate wearing a ring/wedding band on his right hand, middle finger in the bar? I don't think I've ever seen Nate wearing jewelry before. Does it have a special meaning (for Nate/Sophie or Nate) or is it random and we shouldn't give it a second thought? (2) Did Nate know that it was Sophie going up the stairs in that fabulous dress right before him and Coswell? We do know that Sophie had no idea he was there as the insurance agent 'cause none of them did. (3) What happened to the roses that were meant for Sophie in the first place? I was hoping Nate would give them to Sophie in the end. (4) Was Nate projecting a bit of himself and his feelings for Sophie in the real version of Coswell? They're both into Sophie, they live for work and Nate might realize he shouldn't let her get away...

1.) Random. 2.) No, he compressed their distance in his version of the story, for time. 3.) Nate gave them to Maggie, who was pleasantly surprised, and a little suspicious that he was about to pop another "Nick and Nora off to Istanbul" trip on her. 4.) No. Coswell's crush is real. I could leave it all vague and Inception-y, but nah.

@dyluke: question: is the sapphire monkey the same monkey in the two-horse job?

Yep.

@Anonymous: do have a question, though. In the first two stories (Sophie's and Eliot's), John Billingsley says "I saw my first Duchess upstairs -- she -- you--". I don't completely understand the "first Duchess" reference. Was that the line as written? In these two stories, he's not coming on to Miss Ipcress (or her file :-), and he's not trying to impress her with culture, so if he was trying to say that she looked like the Duchess (as she did!), I think he would have expressed himself somewhat differently. What's the story with that, if anything?

It's a play on Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess." No, seriously, it always stuck with me.

Anyway, Coswell's trying to say she's as pretty as a Duchess. He is not having a good night.

@Anonymous: Question-wise: did the crew misremember the museum security chief as being super-competent to give themselves a better story, or did they just misplace the invisible hand of Nate in the proceedings?

No, it's their natural bias in a tense situation dealing with authority figures.

@Anonymous: We saw the Dr. Wes Abernathy persona in the Jailhouse Job. Is this where he came up with it for the first time?

I would say it's the name of a childhood friend he uses when he needs a quick character.

@MacSTL: (1) Hardison & the choking. We saw Sophie drug the champagne. Did Eliot really take that glass? But Hardison is not really alergic to shrimp -- so what did he choke on? (2) How did Eliot happen to pick the car of a guy whose clothing with fit him so well? We need to see a con where this trips the team up!! (In fact - Eliot did it twice in this and Hardison did it once.)

1.) he was fake choking, not realizing it would play into Sophie's plan. Sophie's the one who accelerated it. 2.) He watches the head height as they drive up.

@Radagast: One thing bugs me - would Hardison-five-years-younger really be able to pull off being a government minister? We saw him as he looks today, of course, but in the actual situation, he'd be a tad less mature. And I doubt he'd look like the memory Sophie and Eliot had of the 'minister'.

They weren't paying all that much attention to him. And kleptocrats run young. Not to mention the fact that most of you are convinced Aldis is older than he really is, anyway.

@Odie: Oh. A question: What was the security guy about to do that made Eliot's flying tackle necessary?

Eliot needed the uniform, and he needed to clear the guy out of line of sight of the door. Big kudos to Arvin Brown for using the locked-off comedy frame there.

@Kathleen: nice Guttman ref.

Thanks for getting it.

@Heronymous: Jon, you've said in several media that you believe there are a finite number of stories to be told with this crew (a point with which I agree, btw); is that number something you can share, at least in the ballpark? Or is that a "we don't say the name of the Scottish Play" kind of thing?

Less than a hundred.

@Jimbo: (1) was it written as we saw it, or did you start with the getout, and work your way back? (much like the heist in A Sacred Art Of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre - recommended reading) (2) was the Baron Oil bit added in later on as a reaction to BP's little misadventure? Or was it just good timing, like the plane landing in the Mile High Job?

1.) Pretty much as you saw it. The conceit was "five versions of the same crime", then invented a crime with the fiddly bits that would work, then the character beats. 2.) It was happening at the time.

@Livlife:Nate has chased ALL of them at some point in the past, before the team came together. I can buy that being in the museum, he might not have seen one or two of them. Is is possible that Nate didn't know any of them were there? (I can't believe that). If he knew they were there, was HE there because of it? He stated that he was acting for IYS because of the suspected forgery by the evil owner, but was there something more...maybe to make certain that the fake wasn't stolen by one of the gang

Nope, didn't know they were there. The basic premise is not subject to the unreliable narration.

@SueN: I loved how, when the lights blinked off, everyone else went "power surge," while Parker's immediate reaction was, "somebody's broken into the security system." She is such a thief!

Although some people think Parker's streamlining her story, I'm going to go with this. She knew and didn't care, because it didn't impact her plan at that moment.

Remember, our rule is "whatever explanation creates the coolest interpretation of the character wins."

@Anonymous: The one gag that had me rolling, (and no one here has commented on,) was when Coswell stopped Hardison, he had a photo of Sophie, along with her personnel records. In other words, he had the Ipcress File. Hilarious.

Michael Caine is Harry. Goddam. Palmer.

@Anonymous: (1) ANSWERED EARLIER (2)Does Sophie have safe houses of stolen stuff all over the world, she had one in LA, and now London? (3)What happened to the Monkey, did Eliot ever get it? (4)I LOVED the accent gag, I'm British originally, and have the accent, and at that bit could NOT stop laughing. Who came up with it? (5)Loved Parkers bit with the dagger, the flailing and the skipping, is that improvised or scripted, either way, pure directed genius.

2.) As you've seen in "King George", yes. 3.) Season 5. 4.) I have a lot of annoyed British friends. 5.) All Beth.

@Ally: 1) Had Nate already worked with Eliot at the time of this attempted theft? Did he realize that he was helping Eliot when he got Gutman arrested? If so, how? 2) How did Parker escape when Coswell knew she was there? 3) What exactly was Nate doing in the "security office" and what made him come out to check the hallways?

1.) Yes, then no. 2.) Climbed right into another vent while Coswell was nursing his nose. 3.) Checking onthe food poisoning case, which had mysteriously disappeared.

@SueN: Stealing the dagger in modern day. I defer to Rogers – competition or collaboration?

Competition. How the prime storyline was originally conceived, three years ago.

Eric Palicki: why didn't Nate recognize Sophie from her employee file? Am I correct in assuming that she and he had a history by then? Did he not screen the museum employees?

He didn't see the file until afterwards -- he already suspected Gladstone, and came into the case very, very late.

@MagsMc: You’ve mentioned before that we need to keep our eyes on that envelope/file from Scheherazade, did we see a glimpse of it as Eliot searched through the shipping crate?

Nope.

@Kris: That's the same actress playing the reporter in this episode as in The Inside Job. Well done with attention to detail! (Nosy production question - did you have to bring her back to film this bit, or did you just film it when she was on set for The Inside Job?)

Brought her back. She's part of the Leverage-verse.

@Simon: With the argument between Sophie, Hardison & Eliot at the beginning of the show, Sophie's argument was the only one I could make out clearly from start to end. Was the audio manipulated to make her argument stand out over the other two or did it naturally end up that way?

That's just vocal tone. The argument was all improvised.

@Katie: (1) Was it just me or did the normal leverage background music have a bit of a Coupling spin? Noticed it mostly before Sophie's story, am I just hearing what I want to hear?

(2) How hard was it for Gina to pull off an Americanized fake-ass Cockney accent? And the worst dwarf imitation ever? Big ups to her for that, btw.
(3) You write such amazing Sophie scenes, is it mostly cause you like making Gina work for her money or because you have an affinity for the character? Do not in any way infer that you don't write them all splendidly, but your Sophie stands out as being particularly amazing :)

1.) Coincidence, I think. Not sure Joe DeLuca ever saw the show. But it's a Sophie-spin. 2.) She can do it in her sleep. 3) I have to admit, I always like writing Sophie. Part of me pines for the justification for a Tara/Sophie spin-off.

@Erin: Question: Regarding the Nate-Gutman-Eliot reveal - to what extent, if any, was Nate aware at the time that taking out Gutman would benefit Eliot? At first I assumed it was inadvertent, but on rewatch that second beat at the bar after everyone else walks out sure reads as Eliot being grateful for more than Nate's unknowing involvement in a happy coincidence. Are we meant to be reminded that Nate, at his chessmaster finest, knows where *all* the pieces are and arranges them exactly as he sees fit?

Inadvertent. Total coincidence.

@Rebecca: Please settle a debate from TWoP - did Sophie put some kind of shrimp juice or shrimp product in the Minister's drink to cause an allergic reaction or did she put something to make him sick and then just point out that the food he'd been eating had shrimp in it, making everyone believe he was having an allergic reaction? A moot question, I know, since the Minister/Hardison never drank the drink, but still...

Shrimp juice. Sophie was a professional criminal who didn't give a shit what happened to some corrupt ass-grabber on her way to the prize. Assume, however, she was working under the belief he'd have an allergic reaction and be fine.

@Erin: You know what theory I do like, though? That Nate was *never even there* that night. Think about it...that's right... Here, you can borrow my tin hat, it's quite comfortable :)

That works just fine, actually.

@Wa: I apologize if this has already been addressed? Who wrote the episode? Was it yourself, or a collaborative effort with each of the centric character's writing team working on their version of the tale?

Each episode of Leverage, with the rare exception, is written by a single writer (or writing entity, in the case of partners). Although most shows are broken in the room, the writer of record usually pitched the idea in the first place and takes lead in figuring out that plot. They then produce an outline, and finally a draft. Downey and I will give notes, and occasionally I'll do a light pass, but the writer's in charge of all revisions. That writer is then on set to adapt to any changes in physical production, director's notes or actor's input.

The exceptions tend to be the finales, where Downey and I will sometimes split up acts, but then the writer of record does the final unifying pass. If you look back through the post-games, we usually note any other exceptions.

@Michael: One further comment/question: Did I just imagine things or did Hardison, in the scene where he pretends he actually had the dagger (a few seconds later replayed as dismayed not having the dagger) pull a perfect copy of an Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley-face?

Aldis was showing off.

@scooter5203249: (1.) Nate was just being sarcastic when he said he'd go back to jail "forever" if they didn't find Moreau, wasn't he? I can't think of anything he did that would warrant a life sentance, and what the hell, he gave state's evidence. He may be a thief, but he's still a good guy. (2.) Sophie gives some of her artwork to the museum to be exhibited while the dagger is on display to get an easy in. Why isn't she worried that someone will recognize one of her pieces as a stolen item? Or are these suppose to be items she bought with, perhaps, proceeds from stolen goods?

First off, I'm disturbed that there were 5,203,248 Scooters in line in front of you for that screen-name.

1.) The organization The Italian belongs to is not a big fan of due process. Enjoy your frame-up and banishment, Mister Ford. 2.) Stolen items have actually been exhibited in museums countless times. She was making a safe bet.

@Dawn/StL-MO: (A) When Eliot’s in the van opening the crate, first he tosses & breaks the “Ming” vase (hysterical) the next thing he pulled out was a pocketed folder with papers in it. Was the information in the folder something regarding Moreau? (B) In Parker’s pov, she crawled into the storage room from the vent, set her duffle bag down & went for the door. She couldn’t get out the door because Eliot & the security guard he tackled were leaning against it, so she went to Plan B. If Parker was really planning on walking out the storage room door, why would she have put down her bag? Was it just a move to make the bag switch work & I should just ride the fun train?

A.) No, see above. B.) The closet, as written, was WAAAAY smaller. She needed to get her hands free to open the door. Set changed, bit didn't. Plus, all it had was her climbing rig, which she didn't need to lug around until her escape.

@Kate: My main question for this ep, however, is this: Does realizing they have NEW first impressions of each other change anything for any of the Leverage crew?

Nope. They're pretty set in their ways by now.

@Gentry: Question: When did Parker start being able to understand Sophie? Or was it more to do with the fact she just didn't care to really listen to what some random Duchess was saying.

That. You can assume most people sound that way to her, actually.

@Rusty: When Sophie's telling her story, "Dr. Abernathy" has short hair, but in each subsequent version, Eliot has his current long hair, albeit in a ponytail. The "waitress", before we know it's Parker, has long blond hair not in a ponytail. After Parker is revealed, her hair is always in a ponytail. My take was that, once each of them knew the other(s) were involved, they were 'seeing' them in the retelling as looking like they currently do - thus the subtle changes. This is similar to how, for example, Eliot's attitude and actions with the knife (not to mention the knife itself, lol) kept changing to fit how the others perceive Eliot now.So, was it really thought out that far, down to the hairstyles?

I wouldn't say "thought out that far", more "internally consistent." It only made sense to drop present day versions of the characters into the story as we went. However, because of the order of the stories, you have no idea what Sophie looked like back then...

@Anna: (1) Does that pic Hardison snapped of Eliot and Sophie exist somewhere? (2) Why did everyone remember Caswell being such a hard-@$$? Do they feel that way naturally about all authority figures? (3) Current status of Hardison's nana? (Sorry if it's already been addressed). (4) Was it hard to clear the bit about Baron Oil?

1.) Oh yes. If he snapped it, it's on a hard drive somewhere. 2.) Authority figure bias. 3.) Alive. 4.) Barron Oil is a fictional Company with no relation to companies currently in existence. Why would we have a problem clearing it?

@bluetiger: Question: Why isn't Nate wearing a wedding ring in the flashback? And what, on the other hand, is that ring that he's wearing on his right hand in the bar?

He doesn't wear a wedding ring. (Neither do I, actually. Feels weird typing all day with one.)

@TJ: (1) I'm assuming everyone's mad at Parker, not because she stole the dagger, but because she didn't say anything about stealing it? (2) Did Beth Riesgraf actual do her cup and ball bit? And how? (3) During Hardison's explanation, she seems confused - is that her working out what happened before her theft or did Parker accidently fool herself with her cup and balls routine? It is Parker... (During a later read of my own post (Note she's also the first person who figured out Nate was there.) Is that when she realized Nate had been there that night?) (4) Why are they all arguing that they stole it even though none of them had hands on it at the end of the night?

1.) Exactly. 2.) Yes, and we tell you on the DVD. 3.) No, she was trying to figure out who got it, because she knew she didn't get it. If you watch her face, you can see her tumble to Nate just a beat before everyone else. 4.) Because each one pulled off the perfect crime. it was just somebody else's fault that they didn't get the prize.

Okay, let's see if I can squeeze at least one more out before "The Ho ho Ho Job" airs. Regardless, have fun tomorrow, then strap in for the soul-shattering two-part season finale!

* Lovely Wife is a big Hal Hartely fan, and I wound up watching this over her shoulder on IFC one day. She's the classy one - she reads Serious Literature and watches Hal Hartley. I read Chandler and misted up during the Community Christmas Special. But it works.