Leverage/Awesome: Difference between revisions

** Parker's introduction in the same episode. Her evil foster father takes away her stuffed animal. She not only steals it back but {{spoiler|then blows up the entire house with the evil foster parents still inside,}} and afterwards, the flashback ends and Parker jumps off a building.

* Also in the pilot episode:

Nate: ''"He used my son."'' }}

* From "The Wedding Job"

Eliot: "I dunno. Maybe." }}

* In "The Stork Job", Parker, while pretending to be a waiter, stabs corrupt politician/arms dealer with a fork, and then leaps out of a window. Later in the same episode, she takes out the arms dealer, who is twice her size, and then plants herself between a group of armed gunmen and a bus full of orphans.

** If you do some thinking, Nate does this every episode. He outsmarts everyone he cons, some of which being done in the most ridiculous ways possible.

** Two quotes from the same episode are also quite awesome:

*** Later:

* A special meta-example. In "The Reunion Job," in order to protect someone, normally non-violent Sophie goes after a professional assassin, [[Took a Level In Badass|hitting her with a fire extinguisher and getting a few good shots in before scampering away]]. The meta comes into play here: Gina Bellman missed the second half of season 2 because of maternity leave. The woman recently had a baby, and one of her first days back on the job, she has to film a fight scene where she is supposed to hold her own against a hired gun. The woman is tougher than she looks.

** And ''again'' in ''The San Lorenzo Job'', where she takes out a pair of guards with ''champaign bottles''.

* In "The Studio Job," Nate is alone with two huge guards and Eliot is indisposed. When we next see Nate, both guards are unconscious. He says later they "got into an argument," and that's all the explanation we get. Given Nate's previously demonstrated knowledge of psychology, mental programming, and hypnosis, we can safely assume that in ''five minutes'', he just ''talked'' two guys into knocking each other out.

* Some addicts have kidnapped a woman, forcing her husband and son to try to rob a bank for the ransom. Eliot makes the drop then gets a message that they need the money back, and beats up all three of them.

'''Elliot''': (as he disassembles the man's gun) Good answer. (proceeds to kick the rest of their asses) }}

* There's also the time he and Hardison are threatened by some gang members, the leader of whom displays a gun in his waistband. Eliot simply reaches forward, grabs the gun, and flicks off the safety. [[Groin Attack|Without removing it from the leader's pants]].

* And then there's [[The Chessmaster|Nate]]. To name just one example, in "The Order 23 Job" he gives a man a nosebleed using nothing but psychology. And then there are the [[Kansas City Shuffle|KansasCityShuffles]] he pulls in "The Nigerian Job" and "The Second David Job", where the marks ''knew'' he was after them and still fell right into the trap.

** The con in "The Order 23 Job," was getting the mark to run to his hidden money stash by convincing him that Russia had just attacked the local area using a weaponized virus and he'd gotten caught up in the epidemic. It's a Moment of Awesome in itself for the sheer audacity of it.

* This troper found Parker's pickpocketing dance in "The Studio Job" incredibly, mind-blowingly awesome. There's also something vaguely [[Waif Fu|Summer Glau-ish]] about it.

** Doesn't hurt that they play homage to every single gunplay trope from [[Improbable Aiming Skills]] to [[Concealment Equals Cover]] to [[Guns Akimbo]] to [[Bullet Time]] to [[Click Hello]].

*** Likewise doesn't hurt that, since it's him, ''you never even question the above's validity.'' Ladies and gents, I give you Eliot Spencer, [[Badass]].

'''Eliot''': I don't. (fires four shots into mook's chest) Never said I couldn't use them. }}

* Hardison disarming the massive EMP bomb at the end of "The Big Bang Job." No wonder Parker [[Will They or Won't They?|finally]] [[They Do|wanted]] [[It Makes Sense in Context|pretzels]] when it was all over.

'''Parker''': Well, there's that. }}

** And remember, this is all intercut with Eliot's destroying the hitmen in the warehouse...

* Parker's [[Squee]] in the "15 Minutes Job." Doubles as [[Fetish Fuel]].

* Nate's stall for time at the end of "The Van Gogh Job," in which he {{spoiler|pretends to light the Van Gogh on fire in front of an investigator who had been chasing it for 20 years.}}

** Also a meta-example: the actors in "The Van Gogh Job" flashback are Hardison, Parker, Nate, Sophie and Eliot playing subtly to intensely different roles, which really shows how ''phenomenal'' the acting on this show is.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZtSrYNXTd8 Eliot vs. Roper] (played by mixed martial arts champion Urijah Faber) in "The Carnival Job". With a concussion from having very recently been rammed into by a carnival ride, fighting disoriented in a hall of mirrors, Eliot then has to go up against a hired martial arts expert that proceeds to [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|outclass him in every respect and repeatedly leave him gasping on the floor]]... and then the [[Theme Music Power-Up]] kicks in, Eliot closes his eyes and breathes deeply, and gets up and uses blindfighting training to completely kick Roper's ass.

* Hardison, pretending to be an air traffic controller, using Microsoft Flight Simulator X to land an actual, 300-passenger jet on his own in "The Cross My Heart Job."

** From the same episode:

'''Nate:''' "And I help people who can't. And God help you if anything should happen to that boy because if he spends even one second longer in that hospital than he needs to, I will make it my mission in life to end you. I will ruin you. I will ruin your name, I will ruin your company. I will bring down everything you have ever touched. And when I am done, I will hunt you down, and I will kill you myself. }}

** And the ending.

'''Nate:''' No. God killed you. I just...made sure it took. }}

* Pretty much everything Sterling does, but "The Queen's Gambit Job" really counts. {{spoiler|To reunite with his daughter who is also his informant, he hires the team in a pretty much unrelated heist so he can get in the same building that she's in. He then drugs Eliot, betrays Parker's position and screws the team over as a distraction to make off with her and get her away from her stepfather. Said daughter is the only reason that he didn't get the crap beat out of him for doing what he did. That and flattering Nate's ego for telling Nate that he was the best person for the job and Sterling refused to risk less.}}

* The Season 4 finale. Quinn and Eliot kicking ass as a team, Maggie's return as a substitute grifter, Archie using cake to infiltrate the villains' headquarters, Chaos breaking into a system specifically designed to recognise Hardison but not him...it was just all around awesome.

* The season 4 finale, "The Last Dam Job," is full of these, but two of Nate's stand out. In the first, the villain has a gun pointed at him.

Then, later, the two villains have both been trying to convince Nate that he should kill the other one.

* "Hey, Sterling. ''Get out of my house.''"