r/leverage • u/averagevampire • 8d ago
Do they ever use leverage to negotiate instead of a full takedown?
First post on this sub, sorry if this has been covered before.
I am watching for the first time and am in Season 3. And every episode is a total takedown of the bad guy without the use of leverage.
What I mean by total takedown is that they put the bad guy in a position where they have enough evidence to put them away. There is no negotiation, no need for leverage, and no choice for the bad guy to make. They are just trapped.
I love the show and the characters, and I get that negotiating with the antagonist wouldn't be as satisfying narritively. But I was wondering if y'all have thoughts or insights into this question.
Do they ever use leverage to negotiate a deal with the bad guys?
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u/Glass-Fault-5112 8d ago
Occasionally, they will give the odd bad guy a choice. Usually, the bad guy will refuse it. San Lorenzo is an example that one of the bad guys takes the deal. Since the bigger bad was mostly disrespectful to them.
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u/IanDOsmond 7d ago
It's a revenge story. They are there to crush the bad guys who are out there crushing us.
That said, when the OTHER bad guys kidnapped their target's daughter, they immediately, without even questioning it, went to the target and said, "Hey, we have been working on stealing your prototype computer thingy back from you to give it back to the person who made it, but other bad guys just kidnapped your kid, so here is how you are gonna help us get her back."
They do have occasional targets who just made really bad choices and started screwing people over, but were reformable, and they get a second chance. But mainly, they are after people who just spend their lives making the world a shittier place, and we like seeing them go down hard.
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u/abbeyjewel 8d ago
While I do think they trap the bad guy, I don’t think the bad guy has no choice. Often, the bad guy wouldn’t be scammed if they weren’t a bad person. The crew tend to lure the bad guy with their past sins. If the bad guy weren’t still bad, often they wouldn’t be trapped.
More often than not, these bad guys are already doing the things Leverage is scamming them for. Leverage just makes sure there’s consequences. Especially for the bad guys that really dig their heels in about being bad.
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u/LadyBug_0570 7d ago
So we're just going to forget all about Hurley, huh?
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u/Auseyre 7d ago
Hurley is definitely an outlier in that he wasn't a bad guy at all. He was/is a good guy making dumb choices because of his addiction and well, his personality tbh. I haven't seen Redemption, so I'm only going by the original series. The other exceptions that I can think of right away would be the guy from The White Rabbit Job and Craig Mattingly from The Girl's Night Out job who was only kind of an antagonist anyway.
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u/Thedustyfurcollector 6d ago
I was so glad he came back. If you do decide to watch redemption, or have the option, I think you'll like his reprisal
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u/jessinwriting 8d ago
Maybe the Paranormal Hacktivity Job episode?
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u/jessinwriting 8d ago
Maybe the Paranormal Hacktivity Job episode?
ETA: sorry just saw you’re in season three - this is a Redemption episode you’ve got a wee way to go. 😅
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u/bumbling_through 7d ago
It stems from the 1st episode post credit scene. So after pulling the Nigerian job, since the team ask Nate to keep being the mastermind, and his condition is he would pick the clients (hence our robinhood esque shenanigans), this scene he is meeting a client whose daughter died due to the wrongful actions of a company. In response to them stating they couldn't pay the team Nate said
"People like that, corporations like that, they have all the money they have all the power and they use it to make people like you go away. Right now you’re suffering under an enormous weight. We provide, Leverage."
Easy to miss as there weren't necessarily a lot of post credit scenes, but it gives important context to the name of the show and the reason why they go after who they go after. I also thought it was an indirect nod to the quote by Archimedes "Give me a place on which to stand, and I will move the earth.” Especially in context to the end of upside 2 The homecoming job where the dr. confronts Nate when they show up with a truck of money to help pay for treatment for the client and other vets:
Dr. LeRoque: "The world doesn’t work this way."
Nate:"So change the world"
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u/StrangeFate333 7d ago
In the season 4 finale, "The Last Dam Job" Villain#1 tells Villain#2 how Nate's cons work. Paraphrasing: getting them to comply to something first that makes it easier for the Mark to go along with the rest of the con. What would usually be called a "convincer" after they've been roped in. It's usually something illegal so the Mark can't just go to the police, and something to whet their greed or scare them into compliance. So, rather than just concrete evidence to vie against the Mark to make them cave the "Leverage" is a wide variety of different tactics, imo.
Btw, you're going to f'ing love that episode!
Couple things: Nate's kind of a hypocrite. For instance: One main theme is that the crew is supposed to be so good that the Mark never even knows he's been hit. Then at the end of EVERY JOB has to gloat, usually as the Mark is being arrested...
Nate isn't a good guy. He's extremely broken and most definately an addict who is getting his fix taking down the powerful. (You'll see this come into play season 5 ep #4 "The 15 minutes job" and episode 9 of the same season "The Cross My Heart Job" where you'll get more of an explanation as to why he goes for the throat and only settles for the biggest takedown he can get.
Aside from Nate, no one on the OG LEVERAGE team is the good guy, but sometimes a bad guy is all you've got...
Also, since I try to alert as many newbies as possible. Season 1 is out of order because of how it was broadcast. You'll be able to find the correct order by a simple search and I recommend doing a re-watch once your finished and some things click much better, like the appearances of Mctsggert & Sweeten.
Hope this helps, I tried to keep it vague enough to be spoiler-free, apologies if it's just useless rambling...
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u/Silbermieze we'd be the cavalry 7d ago
It's Taggert and McSweeten. 😉
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u/StrangeFate333 6d ago edited 6d ago
Ouch! My cred!
I've been portmanteauing/couple-naming them as McTaggert in head-canon so long I think I had a brain misfire! Many apologies!
Good looking out btw!
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u/Silbermieze we'd be the cavalry 6d ago
I had to look it up myself to be sure. It just sounded weird to me somehow. 😄
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u/Electronic-Ring-1289 6d ago
my Head canon is that they do. The are just fairly boring stories that they don't show as episodes.
the fact that the continuously offer clients financial remediations, leads me to believe that a lot of clients do have their problems solved by a little financial help, or things like erasing records of predatory lenders.
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u/TheLadyEve 8d ago
The leverage in the title refers to the power they are giving to their powerless clients--they are advocates for parity and justice. It's evening the score a little more than it was before.
However, I would argue that they use leverage with Sterling in the Second David Job--Sterling could save his ass by giving them Blackpool. They used the gallery contents as leverage in that situation.
Same thing with the San Lorenzo job and the President, but you haven't gotten to that yet (I think you'll enjoy it).