Leverage is my favorite new show this season. On December 30, I was very excited to curl up and watch “The Wedding Job,” 
which looked hilarious, with the team being undercover wedding planners for a mob wedding. Plus, the episode was directed by Jonathan Frakes of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame, so I figured we’d have a winner.
When I turned on TNT, though, they were airing “The Bank Shot Job” that night instead. I started to get nervous, thinking maybe they were shortening the season, or skipping “The Wedding Job” altogether. Whatever scenario I invented, it wasn’t a good one.
Then I talked to Dean Devlin, the creator and executive producer of Leverage, and he told me that switching the order of “The Wedding Job” and “The Bank Shot Job” was an intentional decision made by the show’s creative team, because some of the relationships evolved in a more natural way when the episodes were shown in this order. Now that I’ve seen them all in the re-arranged order, I have to agree that this was the right way to show them. Let’s take a look:
Hardison and Parker
Because of the flip-flop, we got to see them work together as fake FBI agents in “The Bank Shot Job” first, which gives them some good together time. Then, the next episode to air was “The Stork Job,” where they bonded some more over their childhoods in foster homes. Parker got lots of esteem-boosters from Hardison which cemented their bond (like the orphaned kids would be lucky if they turned out like her). Finally, in “The Wedding Job,” there’s some romantic undercurrents as Hardison zippers Parker into her dress. It was a nice progression of their relationship with the episodes in this order.
Nate and Sophie
The same goes for Nate and Sophie. Before “The Bank Shot Job” aired, we were left wit the tidbit that Nate and Sophie had a past and that she wouldn’t wait forever for Nate to decide what he wanted. “The Bank Shot Job” shows their feelings for each other, with Nate staying in the bank that is being robbed because of Sophie, and Sophie blowing their cover when Nate gets shot. “The Stork Job” shows a bit of banter during one of the missions about Nate taking forever to make a move, but we really see some resolution to this in “The Wedding Job,” when Nate is a fake minister giving his sermon on needing a little time before jumping in. He brought Sophie to tears and really conveyed his feelings for her and the situation through his speech at the wedding.
However they choose to move forward with thee two relationships, it is clear that Leverage‘s team made a great decision by flip-flopping “The Bank Shot Job” and “The Wedding Job” around “The Stork Job.” Just another solid choice this hot team has made for their new hot show. Nice job, guys!
Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Jan 16, 2009 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
I would have to disagree with the episodes being out of order being a good thing. In “The Wedding Job” Alec asks Eliot if he has ever been close to being married. This makes no sense cause we, and Alec, already know this, cause we met his former flame in “The Two-Horse Job.”
Also, I think the flipping around of episodes has messed up the Hardison/Parker relationship progression. I think Alec’s uneasiness at zippering up Parker makes more sense when it comes before them working together as FBI agents for what should be the second time in “The Bank Shot Job” and then they bond some more over their foster kid backgrounds in “The Stork Job.”
As for Nate and Sophie, I’m completely lost at where they are in their relationship.
The problem isn’t that they swapped a couple of episodes, it’s that they have moved around multiple episodes. For me, as individual episodes they are fun, but as a cohesive season long story arc, they’ve really messed things up.
And of course the FBI guys from the wedding job are the same as in the Bank Shot job. I’m not sure it makes sense that if they are supposed to be watching the mob guy they also run around to bank robberies.