Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at the TV Show Leverage

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Cons have always given good screen time. The big cons which spawn a film franchise like the Ocean’s film world aside we like The Sting and have become familiar with the tropes of the mark, the roper, the set-up, convincer etc. In the UK we have the slickness of the BBC series, Hustle, but when the American TV series, Leverage came along it added to the whole caper considerably.

Me and my daughter loved it and when there was a crossover between the actress who played Parker then playing the love interest for Spencer Reid, in Criminal Minds – her favorite character there – it all became an even bigger pull for us both. It ran for 5 seasons and 77 episodes so there was plenty for us to drool over!

Running from 2007 to 2012, there were five principal roles filled by five principal characters. There was a thief – Parker played by Beth Riesgraf, a grifter – Sophie Deveraux played by Gina Bellman, a hacker – Alec Hardison played by Aldis Hodge, the muscle – Eliot Spencer played by Christian Kane, and a leader – Nathan Ford, played by Timothy Hutton.

The set up was simple enough. Rather than being the kind who would rob to line their own pockets, the fitted into a modern-day Robin Hood vibe as they took on the corporate and greedy for the little people which fitted in with leader, Ford’s backstory.

Recurring cast included, when Sophie Deveraux took a break (Gina Bellman was pregnant) and she was replaced by her friend, Tara Cole, played by Jeri Ryan and James Sterling, played by Mark Shephard who was a rival in the insurance game of Ford’s and determined to bring him down – he fails, though the twists and turns of his trying makes for a very well-considered narrative arc.

The way that each con was produced was simplicity itself. Someone would approach Ford with a problem, research would be done into the mark, there would need to be everyone involved, a con would be put in place, the mark would appear to have the upper hand, then they would fall flat on their faces and the con would, through a series of flashbacks reveal just how clever our dear heroes had been. We, the viewers were privy to only sections of what was going on, leaving that reveal at the end for us to marvel at how we and the mark were fooled.

Fueled by leader, Ford’s anger that an insurance company denied coverage for his son’s illness, which led to his death, Ford employs his skills as an insurance investigator, in a far more purposeful manner when they chase the big bad guys as opposed to the little bad guys. Ford goes from chasing the four people in his crew to being part of their slick gang. Initially employed by industrialist Victor Dubenich to recover stolen intellectual property, the team are double crossed by the unscrupulous Dubenich who tries to have them killed; it was not his first mistake! The first series sat with this as its overarching storyline in a 13-episode introduction to the team that was so popular that it got renewed.

What made the series work was that this was no squeaky-clean group with a back story that simply was about beating bigger bad guys. They had some struggles themselves and also had issues in even working as a team because they were not natural group workers. Having existed on their own wits having to trust each other was a challenge. Ford also struggled with alcoholism, there was a complex relationship with Deveraux which ended in their marriage, Hardison and Parker fell for each other, and they too got married, though both had complex histories whilst Eliot seemed to have more rabbits in hats than a down at heel Las Vegas strip street magician as well as military friends who needed more help than most.

By the end of series two they are being pursued by the insurance company that were responsible for the death of Ford’s son. Their final con of series one was worthy of a finale, and the insurance investigator who was sent to pursue them in series one, Sterling, follows them to series two until Ford gives himself up to save the team. In series three it begins with how to free Ford from jail.

Things begin to unravel a little with the plotlines taking in a fictional country and an international villain and I began to feel we were losing the Robin Hood vibe. It was now less about being the stalwarts against greed and more about being the master criminals in a criminal and corrupt world; it was beginning to corrupt the purity of their quests.

In series four we got back to doing what they did best and, perhaps as a nod to their roots, the villainous Dubenich makes a return. Unfortunately bringing him back creaked more like an attempt to regain audience than their mojo. It did not work and series five became their last.

Behind the scenes the production was beginning to creak and various delays were done to keep the whole thing going meaning that in season five there was a relocation for the team fictionally as they ended up in a pub in Portland out of which they operated – reminded me a little of the excellent Ray Donovan. The end was nigh and when Ford and Deveraux at the end of the final season announced that they were off to marry, it seemed the plot had reached a natural conclusion. We were happy with the finale but, after a while, missed the capers.

Broadcast on TNT in the States and on Bravo in the UK, until that station closed down and Fox picked it up, it was a sure-fire ratings winner until we fell a little out of love with it in series 4/5. Ratings and their falling figures are what killed it.

It remains one of my favorite US shows and repeats may be far and few between in the UK but the reboot – Leverage: Redemption – is filling that spot admirably. Is it the equal to the original, well that, as they say, is another story…?

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television , you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…