Leverage Season 1 Episode 3: The Wedding Job

[vae]

It's time for us to discuss and delight in another episode! Today we're watching and commenting about season 1 episode 3, The Wedding Job. Expect spoilers for episode 1, 2 and 3 in the comments.

If you want to comment about anything that happens in later episodes, please use rot13 to encode your comment, so anyone trying to avoid spoilers can do so. And yes, there are some people here watching for the first time!

Not sure what to comment about? How about your favourite scene? Your favourite character so far? What surprised you? Did any of the things said resonate with you? How about setting or design choices?

And don't forget about our fic prompt post if anything strikes inspiration!

Comments

[pensnest]

Wot about The Wedding Job? That's episode 3 on my set of DVDs!

[vae]

I'm so sorry, you're right. I'll update the text here but the image is going to need to wait.

[petit_rhino]

That makes sense because I watched the 2 horse job and a few times thought 'what, already?'
Bonus is, a second Leverage episode this weekend. :)

[vae]

I'm so sorry! Bad head weekend.

[petit_rhino]

No worries at all. <3

Hope you're feeling better.

[ruric]

Whoops I watched the Two Horse Job - off I go to watch the Wedding Job instead!

[vae]

I'm so very sorry, I looked at the wrong timeline. Won't happen again.

[alexseanchai]

thanks for correcting—we started on Two Horse Job before I noticed what the comm said wasn't that

[ruric]

No worries - means I get two episodes :)

[petit_rhino]

Wow, Nate is still kind of an asshole.

Parker with the kid is so cute!!!
And the look on the team's faces. *chef's kiss*

Eliot and Alec talking while Eliot is at the FBI is precious. I love that they're teaching each other their skills, making each other stronger.

Is Parker wearing her belt from last episode on her head?!

Alec doing all the researcher, bless. You're such an essential part of the team.

Eliot is so intense with his cooking. And to be honest I like to team pushing back when Nate orders them around like puppets.

Yeah, the fat joke can fuck off.

"The Butcher is here." "Does he have the baby lamb chops?"

Parker being disappointed at her lock-picking time, even in the middle of the rushed money search.

[ruric]

I love that "baby lamb chops" line *G*

[vae]

Nate really is incredibly unstable here, right? I honestly can't tell how much of it is intentional misdirection and how much is just innately Nate.

[pensnest]

Didn't think much of the fat-shaming bit, although I suppose it *could* be characterisation for both Parker and the mob-wife (Heather? Doesn't seem like the right name for her.)

I love the little scene between Eliot and Hardison where they're taking about 'ever been close' (to marriage), and the differences between them.

Parker as drunk bridesmaid was excellent—a bit of a surprise from her characterisation so far, but it shows her quickness of wit. Hardison smoothly extracting FOB from the clutches of his enemy was also very nice. Parker's little aside to Hardison about meeting him in the screening room to have sex - priceless!

I like the little FBI guys.

Most of the bad stuff in this episode was Nate. He was being deliberately oblivious—nobody can be that obtuse, he knows what's going on with Sophie. The anti-wedding rant during the ceremony was all kinds of wrong, not just because it was very poor, but also because of the considerable break of character that it involved. Nate shouldn't be the guy who jeopardises the operation because he has to bloviate. And yes, he did make some attempt to redeem himself, and Sophie seemed happy enough about it, but it's still putting the operation in jeopardy and I think that's bad writing.

I'm also somewhat unimpressed with the idea that a wedding of that scale can possibly be conducted by five people who are actually there to do something else—nope. There ought—no, there must have been oodles of faceless members of staff doing the actual work.

[alexseanchai]

probably a lot of the people already paid to do the thing were just getting more direction from Our Heroes?

[pensnest]

I think I did notice one minion in the background at some point, but I definitely think there should have been more notice taken of the need for staff.

[jenett]

I got the impression that part of why he was bloviating was to vamp and take up time while the rest of the team could figure out what was going on with the money. (I am not entirely sure why I have that opinion, now I think about it, but it doesn't contradict anything? Not that his choice of how to do that was great, mind you.)

[pensnest]

I can't remember, you may well be right. (Shows how closely I watched, dear me.) But, he could have rhapsodised about the glorious state of matrimony, maybe even thrown in a few digs about the bride's parents' wonderful marriage, and generally managed to spin the whole thing out without being such an ass. And it really felt, to me, as though he was reaching for it so hard. It didn't feel sincere, just, well, assholish.

[vae]

There were definitely a lot of staff - I specifically looked for them on the rewatch, and there are a ton of catering staff and bar staff around in the scenes of the set-up, though it's definitely blink and you'll miss them.

I'm so happy the FBI guys got their little victory as well! I hope it gets them time out of the van.

The fat-shaming bit really stuck out, which is interesting - I'm so inured to casual fat-shaming as part of TV shows that I really do notice that Leverage has already, by episode 3, conditioned me to expect more acceptance of people as they are (c.f. Parker). In another show it might have just passed me by.

[pensnest]

It's a shame they put the fat-shaming in Parker's mouth. If it had been mother's dialogue there would have been a way to get Parker to appear to assent to it without actually making her unambiguously unkind. It sorta does add to Parker's characterisation by making her not notice that she is being inconsiderate, but I don't like the cost.

[alexseanchai]

marriage is not running on rooftops in Paris

speaking as someone whose primary fandom is currently Miraculous Ladybug, I DIE

…I had other thoughts during but my brain is kinda not

wait no, one thought: if the FBI got the audio from Parker's flower's bug, how did the FBI not get the audio from anything incriminating Parker? or was it not live to the FBI and Hardison edited it before sending it on?

[vae]

My guess is that Hardison heavily edited/filtered that feed before the FBI actually got it, probably on a delay. They'd already set up that the FBI were having issues with their feed so they wouldn't question any interference.

[rhade]

This isn't one of my favourite episodes to be honest and I'm not sure why.

However, it is one of my favourite Eliot fights 'cos great to see Anthony de Longis fight. First saw him on Highlander - the only actor to be guest Immortal twice. More to the point he was swordmaster on Secondhand Lions where he taught Christian both swordfighting and the fights. This one works at speed because they know & trust each other. Especially important in that small, cluttered space.

Though do like the FBI guys and Hardison's intro as Agents Thomas and Hagan.

[vae]

I know it's not one of my favourites, but that's because my favourites are the ones where the team are working as a team. The Wedding Job is a lot of the team working as competent individuals, trusting each other (to an extent) but mostly trusting Nate and following direction. I think that's why, for me, it works better as an episode that fits so early in the running order.

[lilituc]

The scene with Parker and the bridesmaid was gratuitous. I get what they were going for, but just no.
V srry yvxr vg'f bar bs irel srj fbhe abgrf V pna guvax bs va gur ragver frevrf.

Nate's speech was a lot. The Nate and Sophie backstory is intriguing. Nate is really annoying and out-of-control in this one, though.

The fight scene was amazing. I think they actually used the words "Jackie Chan" (John Rogers worked with Jackie Chan) and it shows. Somehow, it didn't seem like too much, though.

The fact that they wrote Eliot is interested in cooking into this episode and then found out Christian Kane is interested in cooking is some next-level foresight.

The costumes in this episode are phenomenal - the bad bridesmaid dresses, Hardison's DJ ensemble...

[vae]

Nate is incredibly obviously being an asshole in the whole episode, right from the beginning where he's pissed that he doesn't have total control over which jobs they do through to the speech through to trying to pull the job at the last minute. The first I think is genuine, but the speech seems performative, and I question what it was trying to achieve either for the con or the character.

[sorchasilver]

Wow, Nate is being such an asshole here. It's really jarring, having just watched the previous episode a few minutes ago.

Parker and Hardison with the FBI guys is delightful. "She smells like jasmine."

I love their costumes for this one.

The stuff between Nate and Sophie seems too much this early in the season. The tone of the whole ep is a bit off for me. It's not my favourite.

Nate being a dick, again. Sigh.

"Did you just kill a guy with an appetiser?" "I dunno, maybe?"

Hardison appreciating Eliot's cooking <3

The little girl jumping into Parker's lap is so cute.

Yeah, overall despite some nice moments, this really isn't one of the stronger episodes for me.

[vae]

The contrast in Nate seems like an excellent opportunity for fanfic, tbh. What happened between those two episodes to piss him off so much? The only likely reason for the contrast that I can see is that in the last episode, Nate brings the job to the team and, in this episode, Sophie does. It's the team taking a life of its own beyond his control, maybe going further than he anticipated?

Ah, I love Hardison genuinely appreciating Eliot's cooking, to the extent of listening to and being interested in the explanation.

[sorchasilver]

That could certainly explain it. I just find it strange that the show is so good at showing us what's going on with everything else, but I don't get any sense of why Nate is behaving this way from what we see.

I think this actually works better in broadcast order - the jump isn't so glaring as it is in the DVD running order.

[ruric]

I think this is one of the few times that I agre with the airing order rather than the creators planned viewing order.

The Wedding Job fits much batter later in the season in terms of Nate's deterioration throughout the season (it's too early for him to be such an asshole already) and the way Nate and Sophie interact I thnk that's part of what makes it feel so off if we consider it epsiode 3.

Eliot's face when he opens the cupboard oor in the FBI thumbdrive ready to go and see's shelves of tapes is perfect. And Harison's complete bemusemen and the verbal sparring between him and Eliot that follows. Hardions "just punch somebody" Oh boys!

Listening to the convo between Marscone and his wife...Sophie "It's a bit like an opera isn't it?" and Eliot's "you mean cause I wanna run away?" *G*

I will never not love Eliot's little speech about how to hol a knife. Hold it like this, cuts through like 8 yakusa in 4 seconds. Screams. Carnage. Everything's in cntext." *hearteyes^ His face when mob wife spits out the mushroom and Nate grabbign Eliot's arm to stop him going after mob wife with the knife held in the "slice through yakusa" mode.

Also love the fight scene in the kitchen.

But all in all not one of my favourite episodes.

[vae]

I go back and forth on the order here, honestly. It makes sense for the team for it to be this early, because they're not coordinating and making the most of each other's skills yet (gubhtu V nccerpvngr gung n YBG bs gung qbrfa'g ernyyl unccra hagvy Gur Gjb Qnivqf Wbo juvpu vf jul vg'f fhpu n wbo jura vg unccraf), but as you say it really doesn't make sense for Nate's character development to be such a dick so quickly and for the newly-formed team not to call him on it or walk away. They've had no reason to build loyalty to Sophie yet.