Leverage & Continuity
One of the things that makes me tell people they should watch Leverage is because they get mad at the shows they’re watching for having bad continuity. The writers/writing team forget about details that happened in past episodes ‘cause they don’t watch them religiously like we do. But in Leverage, they don’t forget. They’re really good at keeping everything continuous (even when it seems like they aren’t – in the case of the tombstone saying Katherine in one scene and then saying Sophie in another – John Rogers explained that Sophie had it changed because of the things she was saying to Nate in that final scene).
Another great thing about Leverage and continuity is that you can watch every episode several times and still learn / notice new things about the episode. Because there are just so many tiny details that you can miss if you aren’t paying attention. (Because, another great thing about Leverage is that you can just sort of have it on in the background and do other stuff, or you can watch it closely for details and it’s equally enjoyable.) And sometimes those little details come back in later episodes as other tiny details.
One of my favorite examples of these is Parker and her plant. In season 1, episode 2, The Homecoming Job, Hardison sets up the first Leverage HQ. He’s showing them around and says:
Hardison: Now these, these are your offices. Now you can bring something like a photo, you know what, a plant! I’m a big supporter of dandelions.
Then at the end of the episode, after the job is done, the whole team is standing around talking about how many they’ll keep doing this job, and this exchange happens:
Parker: I bought a plant.
Hardison: Nice. Team spirit.
Parker: What does it do?
And this was just a little line but such a cute one, because it’s so Parker. If she’s gonna own something, she wants it to be practical and have a purpose or for there to be a reason for having it. But Hardison suggested they buy plants, so she did, which I could probably headcanon into something Parker/Hardison, but that’s a different post. The POINT is the writers remember this line.
And so does Eliot, because in season 4, episode 15, The Lonely Hearts Job, at the very end of the episode, the team is sitting around McRory’s Pub when a delivery guy comes to the door with two boxes. One for Sophie and one for Parker. Both ladies get excited and open the boxes. Sophie has a box with flowers and Parker has a plant. Sophie thinks Nate sent them, but it’s later revealed by Nate’s confused expression and Eliot’s smile, that Eliot was the one to do it. Sophie is excited about pretty flowers but Parker says this:
Parker: It eats flies. Huh. A plant that does something. That’s nice. Thanks.
FOUR SEASONS LATER, they have a small-detail line in a scene where a lot is going on that refers back to a small-detail line in a scene were a lot was going on in season 1.
And in a show that maintains continuity across four seasons for a tiny detail like “Parker likes plants that DO something” – you can be sure that they maintain continuity about all the big, important things.
(Side fun fact: Parker’s plant does show up in the background of a couple episodes. Notably, Hardison waters it in 1x05, The Mile High Job. The original plan was to put it into every episode of the season but it ended up being too difficult to work into all the scripts so they had to drop the plan.)
[Note: Season 1 episodes on Netflix are numbered/sorted by their original air date. I use the episode order numbers from the DVDs. The networks originally aired the episodes out of order because they preferred the order. I prefer the order the writers originally intended them to air in. If you want to watch them in the correct order, you can find the list on this excellent Leverage transcripts page.]
