afraschatz:

I think the reason why I love Leverage so much (well, the main reason. There are about 23342364 others) is that I don’t have a favourite character. ALL characters are my favourite.

And I am not just talking about The Big Five. EVERY single character is fantastic, every single actor in the supporting roles is brilliant – from the pair of bickering assassins in The Girls Night Out Job, the in-over-her-head mother in The Cross My Heart Job to ALL the villains in all the seasons. They all just *deliver* and it’s their amazing acting (and the fantastically fresh and original casting choices) in every scene that makes Leverage Verse so very, very believable and real despite the hilariously over-the-top heists and cons.

Now, of course even more importantly, the team. In every other show, I have my favourites. Sometimes it is just one character because of whom I am watching, sometimes it’s a pair or maybe three of them. But there usually are also the ones that I don’t care about whose scenes I can skip over, that I will fast-forward through during a rewatch.

Not on Leverage. I honestly cannot say who is my favourite because they all are. Equally.

I love soft-on-the-outside, hard-on-the-inside Nate who is really the most badass of them all, so fucking broken, so fucking brilliant, hilariously obnoxious and annoying and so incredibly fierce.

I love Sophie who is such a princess and so thoughtful, who is so smart and flexible, who sees right through Nate and loves him anyway and because of it, who is so bad at acting and so brilliant at it, who carries heels in her hand luggage and beats people with frying pans and so effortlessly took over after Nate got himself arrested.

I love Eliot and his broken relationship with his father, the fact that he (okay, maybe Christian) is like Batman to every kid in a 100 mile radius, I love how incredibly smart and patient and humble he is, I love his instant anger and his obsession with twirling things, and I love that next to Sophie he is definitely the best actor of them all.

I love Hardison and his rants, his sense of fashion and his passion for robot fights, I love his hatred for the outdoors (and its insects), love his over-reaching and his San Lorenzo Job bad attitude, I love his love for completely unhealthy food and his knack for accents, I love his incredible kindness, his humour and his love for Doctor Who, and I love that he knows how to play the violin and his love for stinky Lucille.

I love Parker and her just-that-little-bit-off sense of humour, I love her flashbacks and the fact that she does love Archie (no matter how much the rest of the team wants to kill him), I love her physical strength and her anger issues, love her funny faces and her obsession with Christmas and electro shockers. I love her elegance and her coldness, I love her uncomplicated enjoyment of sex and her super creepy decorating choices.

And I love every.single.relationship between them.

I love the development of Nate’s and Sophie’s relationship – both adults, both broken in different ways, not always on the same path or speed, but with such a respect and love for each other.

I love Nate’s relationship with Eliot which switches from father-son to brothers and back again, and I love how they don’t trust one another and do trust one another at the same time.

I love Nate’s support of Parker and how she trusts him, and how that is not always the best thing to do.

I love Nate’s respect for Hardison and his skills and how he exploits them and is sometimes even cruel (because Nate Ford is not a nice man) but how Hardison still so obviously feels appreciated and still is very clear – much clearer than the rest of the team – when Nate has fucked up (again).

I love Sophie’s utterly odd relationship with Parker who have possibly the least in common in the team.

I love Sophie’s and Eliot’s dynamic and how they come from such different worlds – the fighter and the girl who certainly won’t eat pork grinds – and yet somehow GET each other and share the fact that they can take a step back and see what the others are doing.

I love Sophie’s and Hardison’s relationship especially when they are at the heart of a con together (especially when Hardison is the fiddle).

I love Hardison and Eliot together because Hardison eats gummy frogs and drinks orange soda and buys Eliot a brewery. And no one throws Hardison of a roof except maybe Eliot. I lovelovelove how utterly Hardison trusts Eliot to always get him out safe, and I love how Eliot KNOWS and loves how smart and kind Hardison is.

I love Hardison and Parker because they are friends AND lovers, and Hardison loves Parker despite AND because of her quirks and Parker loves Hardison more than any thief-who-looks-good-in-a-suit-and-should-be-called-Chaz.

I love Eliot and Parker together and how they can be honest with each other like they can’t with anyone else, how they get the job done together and share a rather morbid sense of humour that is just hilarious.

And I love all combinations of three of them, of four of them, of all five of them over the course of the seasons. In every season, in every episode, in every single scene.

I just love this show so much. ❤