And Nine Interplanetary Conventions

I know I've been slacking on my blogs, and tonight I'm even going to cheat when it comes to posting. The funny thing about this is, you would all assume I was slacking because I had nothing to write about. Actually, it's just the opposite.

I have nine posts written out, and enough notes of things that have happened to make at least five more. This is truly the case of having so much going on, and so many weird and funny things happening, that I can't keep up. I keep writing out new posts, and then running out of time to proofread and post them. Then, I had the cold from Heck, a legal place in my mind, for five days, and a million things to do, which just led to more funny things happening, but not feeling like writing or posting them, so I ended up playing catchup. As opposed to Ketchup. Okay, bad joke. I'm sorry.

I also have to post part three of iGo For A Walk, which, let me not even lie, I haven't even written yet. All this crazy stuff keeps happening, and I keep writing it down as it happens, and other things get pushed back. It's pure insanity, I tell you! *Insert panic attack here, only not really* I also wrote out that story I promised you all a good month ago, but then decided to hold off on until the storm cleared. It's going to end up being two posts, but it's coming.

For tonight, I'm just going to regal you with fun stuff from Leverage, because, quite frankly, it's all I've got. Tomorrow looks like a good day to sit down and really hash out all this stuff, so I can start getting my posts in order. I say that now, but with the way my life is going, tomorrow I will probably end up running around to six stores and nine interplanetary conventions. I'm just saying.

For now, I leave you with my apologies, but enough stuff to make you laugh just so you'll hopefully forgive me. I super have to apologize for this one more than you think, because what you're getting was originally an e-mail to my mom and Aunt Bev to catch them up on the Leverage trend before the new season started. Yes, I'm now feeding you all rehashed stuff, but it came from my mom and Aunt Bev's inbox, and my outbox, so a little forgiveness would be awesome. If you can't forgive me, I understand. I'll be mad at me, too, just for you.

Anywho, strap yourselves in for a Leverage saga, because if you are reading this blog, you have time to a Leverage saga. The clips are short, I promise. Plus, I've explained everything, so even if you don't watch the show, you don't have to wonder what's going on. What you may have to do, however, is revert back to the Alice White Made A Friend posts from a few days ago, in order to understand a few of these clips.

For instance, this scene has to do with that post, where I explained that Parker had an alias called Alice White. You will need to refer to that post so this makes more sense, because in this scene, Eliot and Sophie are trying to teach Parker (the blonde) how to be personable with people. Eventually they give up and tell her that Alice has to be personable with people and she gets it...a week later. However, this is at the beginning of the process. Parker has spent her life in foster homes and then she took off on her own after she had enough of the abuse, so to say she is socially inept would be an understatement. She is a thief by trade to survive, and has no idea how to persuade anyone to do anything. She says it like it is, and if she has to talk someone into doing something, she does it by threatening them, or saying the most crude thing she can to get them to do it. This scene is an awesome example because, even with as well as Eliot knows her, he completely falls for it. She is just that good at what she does and says. And no, Sophie doesn't usually dress like that. She just came off of doing a con and decided since she is the ever persuasive drifter of the group, getting people to believe anything she wants, she should be the one to teach Parker how to take after her.

At this point in the show, Eliot has had to tell Parker that she and Alice are the same person about a half dozen times. He is not a gentle person, so he's about had it up to his ears with her. Sophie is a moderator, often acting like a parent between the two.

Clip 1 - Power of Persuasion

By far, the two funniest characters on the show are Hardison and Eliot. Hardison is funny because, well...he's just funny, and he reminds me of Gary, a character on What I Like About You, whose signature line was "oh my damn." Eliot is funny because he's supposed to be scary, but really he's just confused most of the time because no one listens to him, so he just beats anyone up that looks dangerous and apologizes if it wasn't the right person. Anytime Hardison and Eliot get put together, nothing good can happen. In this scene, Eliot has kidnapped a cadaver, and he and Hardison have to insert liquid into his brain so that when an MRI is done on him, it will show up like he has a brain tumor. There's really not much that Eliot won't do or hasn't done, which is shown by the way he "sets down" the needle right in the corpse, but apparently this is his limit. On the other hand, when it comes to being hands on, there's not a lot Hardison has done and he's visibly softer natured than Eliot, so naturally they settle this like men.

Clip 2 - Rock, Paper, Scissors

Highjacking a fashion show became a good idea somewhere along the line. This is where you would normally expect Hardison to fit right in, since he can blend in with anything fairly easily because he's so easy going. This is also where you would expect Eliot to dress in torn clothing and not fit in at all, which is normal for him regardless of a con, unless Hardison makes him an outfit and forces him to wear it, which is really a whole other story altogether. The tables turn when Eliot decides he knows what fashion is. Hardison tries not to die of laughter on the spot. The other girl in this scene is Tara. She's filling in for Sophie while the actress who plays her takes maternity leave. So just pretend she's Sophie. There's two things to keep in mind while watching this. One: Hardison is one hundred percent terrified of Eliot and hates confrontation. Two: Tara is not afraid of Eliot, but he is afraid of her. Which is new, because he's not really afraid of anyone, but because she's not afraid of him, he's afraid of her.

Clip 3 - Guyliner
And yes, he wears the guyliner through the rest of the show. It takes a hell of a man.

The guy who created, writes and produces this show actually has a blog where he tells about his experiences on the show. This scene apparently became a big joke between the cast and crew. I'll let you watch it and then I'll explain why.

Clip 4 - Darts
The clip obviously called for Eliot to look away from the dartboard but still hit the target. They gave the guy who plays him darts and told him to just throw them and don't worry about where they land, obviously. Apparently he threw two in a row and hit the target both times without looking. This was also apparently the day everyone decided not to piss him off.

As for Parker slapping guys butts, she was stealing their wallets. Eliot slapped her butt not because he was supposed to, but because he knew it would irk her, and it's not often that he gets to do anything but make sure she doesn't get in trouble. On top of that, Parker likes Eliot, but is generally disgusted by Eliot because he's used to getting what he wants from woman. She's not afraid to tell him about it, which usually ends in him being disgusted with her when he has to babysit her, which is constantly. This sounds grim, but in the half dozen scenes where he is carrying her away from doing something stupid and she's kicking him in the background of a scene, while no one notices this going on, it becomes really funny.

Picture it, a beautiful mansion, 2008. The team is running a con during a wedding. In order to do this they all have to fake being part of the wedding festivities. Sophie is the wedding planner, Parker is the assistant, Hardison is the DJ, Nate is the stylist and Eliot is the chef. I'm pretty sure the rest of it explains itself.

Clip 5 - "I don't know...maybe."

Eliot takes his job too seriously and he's armed with knives. Then the fabulous Nicole Sullivan comes in and ends up being the first woman to ever tell a fully armed Eliot that he sucks. Good thing she doesn't know that he beats the shit out of people / kills people for a living.

Clip 6 - "I have 200 people to feed!"

While running a con in a mental hospital, Hardison and Eliot are left on the outside, with Nate and Parker checked in as patients, and Sophie playing a doctor. They need to get inside to get a few things to Nate, and Hardison having never been able to pull one over on Eliot in a place where Eliot can't kick his ass, decides to use this to his advantage. Eliot is a ladies man and also overcompensates by trying to be too butch, so I give props to a very creative, easy going and impossible to embarrass Hardison for thinking this was a good idea. These two play this part flawlessly.

Clip 7 - "Bring yo ass."

On a side note, for those of you trying to figure out how you know the guy who plays Eliot, like I spent a ton of time doing, you may, like me, know him as the awesome husband on the short lived show Close to Home. Or, you may know him, unlike me, as Lindsey on Angel. And if that still doesn't do it and you just know you know him from somewhere, yet you can't place him, he's the lead singer / songwriter for the country band Kane. Yep, you heard me, sexy Texan boy can sing. Read it and weep.