{"id":545,"date":"2008-12-30T21:55:08","date_gmt":"2008-12-31T04:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wwwold.dreamloom.com\/?p=545"},"modified":"2008-12-30T21:55:08","modified_gmt":"2008-12-31T04:55:08","slug":"leverage-the-bank-shot-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/?p=545","title":{"rendered":"Leverage: &#8220;The Bank Shot Job&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-544\" title=\"leverages01e05\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dreamloom.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/leverages01e051.jpg\" alt=\"leverages01e05\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ai-ight. That&#8217;s more like it. At this point, I&#8217;m wondering whether Rogers, Downey, and Devlin have a mind probing satellite in geosynchronous orbit. A satellite tuned to my brain waves so they can put a show on the air specifically tailored to my tastes. Because this one? This one was exactly up my alley.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Here&#8217;s my checklist:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Twists that feel organic. ((Remember the rules of drama: ending with a <em>deus ex machina<\/em> is cheap, but any setup is allowed.))<\/li>\n<li>Massive geekery from Hardison.<\/li>\n<li>Sophie doing an accent that sounded *unlike* her own accent.<\/li>\n<li>Timothy Hutton in a cowboy hat. ((I think it&#8217;s the stark contrast with the clean cut, WASP-y roles of his youth that makes me appreciate that.))<\/li>\n<li>The team acting like a *team*.<\/li>\n<li>Eliot getting in at least one good one-liner before kicking someone&#8217;s ass.<\/li>\n<li>Parker being Parker.<\/li>\n<li>Hardison being Hardison.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Add to that a fantastic scene-chewing turn from HITG <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0642259\/\">Michael O&#8217;Neill<\/a> and you&#8217;ve got a near-perfect hour of television.<\/p>\n<p>Look, I&#8217;m not going to try to convince you this is important or meaningful; it&#8217;s not. I&#8217;ve been rewatching <em>The West Wing<\/em>, and even the weaker years still have spine tingling moments that a show like <em>Leverage<\/em> is never going to achieve. But you know what? It&#8217;s not TWW. It&#8217;s not FNL. It&#8217;s an hour of light action that aims squarely for entertainment and hits its mark far more than it misses it.<\/p>\n<p>The original rip deal the team was pulling on Judge Roy doesn&#8217;t seem very well thought out, as I&#8217;m pretty sure he would have gone gunning for Nate when he realized he&#8217;d been scammed, but that&#8217;s a small complaint about an otherwise excellent episode. Each thread, neatly tied in a bow by the end, where even the Feds who came into town aren&#8217;t going to be overly concerned about what happened because they&#8217;re getting a big drug bust.<\/p>\n<p>Some other thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I really enjoyed the crosstalk between Eliot and Deputy Arnold as Eliot&#8217;s talking with Nate over the wireless and Deputy Dawg&#8217;s being all officious.<\/li>\n<li>Parker and Hardison showing up in the product placement Hyundai when they returned in FBI windbreakers.<\/li>\n<li>Hardison&#8217;s pack of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chupacabras\">Chupacabras<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Old Virgil up there, he&#8217;s a crack shot.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Deputy Dawg following SOP he learned from his online seminar in crisis management.<\/li>\n<li>Boss Hog!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What did everyone else think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ai-ight. That&#8217;s more like it. At this point, I&#8217;m wondering whether Rogers, Downey, and Devlin have a mind probing satellite in geosynchronous orbit. A satellite tuned to my brain waves so they can put a show on the air specifically tailored to my tastes. Because this one? This one was exactly up my alley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[31,81],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-electric-entertainment","tag-tnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamloom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}