😭

MAJOR DEAD RECKONING PART 1 SPOILERS

My second watch makes me feel much stronger about my theory about the Big Spoiler in this movie, and how Part 2 will follow it up.

At first I bought the movie’s basic reading, but now there’s no doubt in my mind it’s a fakeout: Ilsa Faust is absolutely alive.

I will fully be ready to look like an idiot if she’s not, because I’ve run down everything I’ve thought of that the movie could do to telegraph her death being a fakeout, without actually revealing it:

- establish the idea of IMF people successfully faking people’s deaths in general and Ilsa’s specifically ✅

- Have both plot and character reasons why Ilsa pretending to be dead would be necessary ✅

- Establish that the way she supposedly died wasn’t guaranteed to be fatal ✅

- Have a scene vaguely establishing that the IMF is getting ready to do a con, but not specify what ✅

- No last words or final moments for her character ✅

- Skip past what the IMF does immediately after she supposedly dies ✅

- No one in the IMF literally says “she’s dead” ✅

That last one is big: Christopher McQuarrie has gone on record saying “No one in the audience of a Mission: Impossible movie will accept something is true until Ethan Hunt says it”. He never says she’s dead, and the closest he comes is thinking of her in a montage with Marie (who we also never specifically are told is dead) and Grace (who we know is alive).

Meanwhile, when Grace says “she’s dead”, Luther says “No, you’re alive because of her, and that’s the truth”, which is very specifically calling attention to the beginning and end of that sentence.

People are angry at this decision, but McQuarrie has also gone on record as saying “We want the audience to think we’ve ruined Mission: Impossible”, and if you want ways to make people think you’ve ruined any franchise, randomly and cheaply killing the leading lady is an obvious place to start.

I adore them

(really in my feels about the ot3 because of the @powerpolyculeshowdown so here's some propaganda)

parker and hardison allow eliot to be sillier. more ridiculous. outragous, even. eliot sings the stupid ditties hardison writes special for him, and he rolls his eyes at parkers pokes and prods and the occasional "accidental" face slap, and eliot can express himself for what actually bothers him no matter how nitpicky, versus having to calculate what he should say. (he still argues with hardison that throwing in on a brewpub was a stupid plan given its risk, no matter how many times hardison claims it was always a gift for him.) eliot laughs more. real laughs; you can tell because his smiles look more and more like grimaces: the way his ma perked her mouth which his dad always teased her about (though it was his favorite thing about her), rather than the wide toothy grins eliot learned because he knows, tactically, they are best for charming. parker and hardison let him not feel like he's a monster. or... parker tells him she always thought the big bad wolf had a bad rap, and hardison says some stupid shit about monsterfucking being the hip thing the kids are into these days, anyway.

hardison and eliot allow parker to feel deep. it's food that tastes like a hug and it's gadgets made just for her and it's loving and being loved and it's being one another's real families. she doessn't want to run away, anymore. or... she wants to run but with her friends beside her. or... running cons is all she's ever wanted to do, and all she did, for so long. parker is good at it. she loves it. she loves that hardison and eliot love it too. but... feeling deep is also being deep. she's no longer just her piles of money because she is no longer afraid of herself. her past. the memories that hurt. the habits she thought she needed to grow out of but always missed. these habits, like bleeping sounds that arent words and hands move move moving. hands that were once made to stay now can fly because hardison buys her fidgets and designs some just for her and keeps locks in lucille for when parker feels like infinity and needs the vibrations of ticktickticks to bring her back to herself. and eliot lets her braid and unbraid his hair; he won't let her blow dry it, not yet, but... he lets her pet his hair while it's still hot, now. it frizzes his hair a little, and parker feels her pulse rush throughout the day knowing she did that to him. eliot and hardison kiss her knuckles when they burn.

parker and eliot allow hardison to be mean. vindictive. he is nicer than he needs to be. wants to be... what he needs to be is nonthreatening, for the most part, in many places. he knows what it means to be him: tall and black and queer and gaining muscle and too smart for his own damn good and so very, very tenderhearted. hardison loves so damn deep, and he cares so damn much, but part of caring (the other side of a coin) is not giving a fuck. it's the boiling point of rage and betrayal. the i need to walk away from this fight because you are dead wrong and imma about to say something imma regret, so go fix yourself. the im not gonna forget, im not going to forgive, and im going to get my revenge. parker and eliot would not have questioned hardison's joy at securing the capture of the men that put him in that damn coffin; they hold space for him to be fully himself with all his ugly parts and his petty parts and the parts that do bring hardison shame if he thinks about it for too long. they know he's not perfect, and that? that feels like safety and love and forever to hardison.

Finally watching 3x01 of redemption and I loooove the Hardison and Eliot thing where Hardison will poke fun at Eliot, just generally tease him, right after Eliot’s just done this big act of violence - “there’s my special guy, how was your first day of school?” Because it’s very standard “teasing is their love language” but I think it comes from a place of Hardison poking the bear so Eliot will know his family isn’t afraid of him. Like, after Eliot knocks half a dozen people unconscious like it’s no big deal, there’s this characteristic reassurance from his family, this, “I know you’re still you.”

I’m crying 😂😂

This grown man has beef with a child in a suit

god every time i watch leverage i'm just reminded that like. they didn't HAVE to put in the amount of effort that they did! they didn't NEED to keep nate's storylines about his addiction and his son and his father consistent. they didn't NEED to stretch out the parker/hardison slowburn so elegantly. they didn't NEED to give tara goddamn cole a character arc despite her being in the show for like half a season!

but they did!! they did all of these things!!! and they also dedicated entire episodes to team-building (the rashomon job), they also kept sterling consistent, they also made the goddamn RUNDOWN JOB like. this show did not have to be as good as it is!! but it really is just SO GOOD

Okay but think of the comedic potential of the Leverage OT3 having been together for years by the time of Redemption, and at one point the others find out.

Breanna would be like "oh my god how did I not see that". Sophie would go "oh that explains a lot of things". (And yeah, it would also be on board for her to know, but one, it's been established that unconventional relationships are kind of a blind spot for her, and two, Parker is weird enough and Eliot's act is good enough that it would help throw her off the scent.)

(Harry wouldn't care much probably.)

And the possibilities of how it could happen. Like. Hardison is up in space, Eliot and Parker are doing something for a con, they see someone coming, Parker is like "quick, let's make out", and throws herself on Eliot. Eliot is like "no, not the lips", but he goes along with it, and then when they're in the clear, he's like "why do you always bite my lips? you didn't have to bite my lips", to which Parker replies "I was playing a character. Clara is a lip biter", and Eliot goes on an angry rant about the whole thing, but also the others overhear it, and Breanna checks in like "Eliot always says it? how often do you guys make out on cons?" and Parker goes "Eliot's not talking about the cons."

OR Parker is upset by something, and leaves the room, and Eliot goes after her, and when he doesn't resurface for a while Breanna goes after him, and they're kissing, and Eliot shouts at her to get out, but she's like "Okay. This is not cool. Eliot, you're super scary and I can see you're pissed at me right now, but I gotta call Hardison," and they're both like no, you don't have to do that, but he's already on call, and Breanna tells him everything. Eliot is facepalming and sighing the whole time. Parker is just like "what? they had to find out eventually." And then Breanna finishes, everyone is dead silent, waiting for his reaction, and Hardison is like "So y'all wasted my time with this? [five-minute rant about how busy he is]" Breanna is flabbergasted. "So Eliot makes out with your girlfriend and that's your reaction?" So Hardison just goes "Damn sis I better damn hope that when my girlfriend is upset our boyfriend would go and comfort him. Get yo act together." He hangs up, camera cuts to Breana, her face frozen while trying to process the information. Then she just goes "HOLY SH-" [commercial break]

Hardison will be taking photos whilst Elliot growls at him and Parker is fiddling with a lock so she sits still and stops trying to steal the Bobby pins from Elliot.

any time parker has a fancy little hairdo i just imagine her sitting on the ground in front of eliot while he works on it with a mouthful of bobby pins

I love all of this 😭

finally made rwby meme slides. after like a literal fucking decade

I am vaguely trying to make gif sets dlfkgjfdlkg I think it’s okay??? (insp)

PAIN

"And I want you to know that Portland Row will always be open for business. There's a light burning in the living room, cakes on the table, new cases yet to solve...Please drop by any time. Its your home too after all."

im weeping mr shroud.