Leverage: The Stork Job
January 28, 2020 9:46 AM - Season 1, Episode 9 - Subscribe

The team goes after an adoption company that is scamming couples looking to adopt war orphans; the team hijacks the production of a horror movie.

Episode transcript

Mark Watches

No KF Monkey I could find.
posted by jeather (10 comments total)
 
It's always good to have a Parker episode, but I think this was the point in my rewatch that made me start wondering if Leverage has a xenophobia problem.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 10:35 AM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]


I mostly remember the villains being primarily, though not exclusively, white men. This isn't an episode I particularly loved so I didn't actually rewatch.
posted by jeather at 6:34 PM on January 28, 2020


I can understand the villains being mostly white men, especially in a series dealing Leverage's subject matter. The problem I noticed was that when American ethnic minorities and non-Americans appear, it's almost always as villains, possibly also the client. The dialogue also tends to collapse "[villain]'s gang" or "the [nationality] mob" into just "the [nationality]s".

My rewatch was a few months ago so details are fuzzy, but by the end of S5 I wasn't happy with this pattern.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 7:18 PM on January 28, 2020


Not sure if it's (old) "white men" but the show is about injustice and economic disparity has (old) white men stacking the narrow side, demographically.

Yeah, though, this felt more mid 90s than late 00's in terms of wokeness. 'Hustle' (2004-2012 [Leverage 2008-2012]) is essentially the same idea but from a UK perspective. Been too long for me to remember whether it had similar prejudices.

--

Aww, I remember Parker listing out how the kid's an orphan tore a heartstring when I first saw this during broadcast, and it happened all over again now.

Small detail - Eliot's got a cold pack on his face - modern shows tend to hideously undershow the damage from fighting. Eliot avoided just about all of that damage but still needs an ice pack.

But yet, cartoonish enough that I don't expect scars over time, like from a show like 'Vikings' with plot-defining scarring events or modern super hero shows where everyone's left bloodied every other Saturday. Every one of them should be looking like Scarface.
posted by porpoise at 8:48 PM on January 28, 2020


'Hustle' (2004-2012 [Leverage 2008-2012]) is essentially the same idea but from a UK perspective. Been too long for me to remember whether it had similar prejudices.

I can't remember whether Hustle had xenophobia issues either; what really stuck out in that series was the sexism.
Prejudices aside, I like how Leverage uses Hustle's formula but shifts the focus to getting justice for people wronged by the mark, rather than simply which marks are corrupt enough to make money from. Parker embodied that ethos in this episode.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:12 AM on January 29, 2020


I remember really enjoying this because the racism in international adoption and scams with trafficking are/were totally true and while sensationalised for a tv show, having them break up the adoption racket and help the kids was delightfully satisfying.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:17 AM on January 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


I think it's hard because, other than a few people who recur (Maggie, Sterling, Tara, the FBI guys, Bonanno, etc), the main guest characters on any episode are the villains, so if you want to have anyone who isn't a white American man with any sort of role, they've generally got to be the villain. (There are occasional episodes where this isn't the case -- Lost Heir Job, Broken Wing, etc.)

The show felt pretty good for the time given it was a TV show, but yeah, it has its limitations.
posted by jeather at 7:03 AM on January 29, 2020 [2 favorites]


Aww, I remember Parker listing out how the kid's an orphan tore a heartstring when I first saw this during broadcast, and it happened all over again now.

It's the scene with Hardison when she's all "they're gonna turn out like me" and Hardison's all "I like how you turned out" that gets me the most. I just love Parker/Hardison so much.

Small detail - Eliot's got a cold pack on his face - modern shows tend to hideously undershow the damage from fighting. Eliot avoided just about all of that damage but still needs an ice pack.

Pretty sure that they wrote in the "Well, how was I supposed to know it was a lesbian bar?" joke to explain away the fact that Christian Kane's actually-bruised face. If there's no Kung Fu Monkey post, Rogers must have talked about it in the dvd commentary or somewhere, how Kane fell or got banged up playing hockey, or something, I forget, just that it wasn't an on-set/stunt injury. And that Rogers insists that Kane is like Wolverine or something because his face was back to camera-ready crazy fast.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:21 PM on January 29, 2020 [3 favorites]


Also, I love all the low-budget-SyFy-Channel Eastern European film set stuff — Nate’s director persona, Sophie’s first reveal as Sister Magda. I remember John Rogers jokes that, with the sets and costumes they had, they could have shot some more scenes and had a real B-movie to sell.

It’s especially funny watching this episode this week, as a Schitt’s Creek fan, since that show’s fake-movie ‘The Crowening’ has a trailer out now.
posted by oh yeah! at 7:25 AM on January 30, 2020 [1 favorite]


And the Leverage crew would probably have bankrupted the Roses if need be, closing the circle.
posted by jeather at 7:54 AM on January 30, 2020


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