#maggie collins

[ghostlyarchaeologist]

"Sometimes the classics really are the best."

Leverage S01E13 The Second David Job.

[beautifulscreaminglady]

[aardvaark]

the second david job is so funny from maggie’s POV. her deeply suspicious date is wearing her ex husband’s button camera. parked like 10 feet away is a deeply suspicious black van. she opens the van door to her ex husband (moderately drunk), the sheikh’s son who sold the david (with a laptop that was clearly monitoring her conversation), a representative of the vatican (eating gummy bears & shrugging), and the hangar receptionist (also eating gummy bears, not bothered enough to shrug). all sitting crammed in the back of a van looking at her with wide eyes. and the best part is that maggie’s not mad at any of THEM, she doesn’t think that these random people (who she is evidently soon told are internationally wanted criminals) might have manipulated nate into this, or that nate’s gotten himself entangled in something by accident, no. she’s just like "nate what the fuck are you up to now". another day in the life of knowing nathan ford

[booksbabybooks]

One of the things I love about Leverage is it would have been so easy to fumble Maggie: make her the tragic woman whose entire character is "lost her son" or make her the uptight straight woman to the team's hijinks, the life that Nate could have had, and escaped.

Instead she feels fully rounded. Yes, she's ostensibly "normal", doesn't understand the world the way the team does, doesn't really understand them and reacts to situations with a faith in authority they don't have. She's arguably far too trusting.

BUT she also happily leaps in to help a con. She's smart and incisive. She has a big heart. But a wicked sense of humour (the whole button cam thing!)

She's not threatened by Sophie and Nate, recognising the romantic part of her and Nate's relationship is over, but happy to build a new relationship with them both. Reminds Sophie that even when Nate calls her his wife, she calls him her ex.

She's deeply, deeply scarred by her loss but it hasn't made her closed off or bitter.

I totally think we should find out she ended up with Sterling, mind.

[violet-oriel]

Why is this actually such a good summary of both of their teaching styles though?

Sophie came from an environment where street smarts saved your skin, you didn't study; you did. I mean, you can't exactly learn out of a book how to take a car hit or steal a painting. Over time, she gradually refined her techniques by running scams and stealing priceless artifacts until she became the best. That's not to negate the loads of research she probably did to get as good as she is, but as we see in Tournament Job, a lot of the time she is able to con without much preparation at all.

So it makes sense when she's teaching Parker, Hardison, Harry, Breanna, and even Maggie how to grift that she doesn't actually grift on their behalf or by having them follow behind her when she plays a character. She gives them a few suggestions and lets them try it out for themselves. This also relates to non-grifting teaching as well, like when she's teaching the crew about the nature of smuggled artifacts in The King George Job. She allows for each crew member to tell their observations about the statue of Ra before she details why that's significant. With Sophie, you learn and you con by doing.

Eliot came from a sports and military background, where you receive a looooot of feedback, a lot of the time in insult or brutal honesty. Depending on the person, feedback combined with further training and repetition can lead to solid improvement. You best believe that Eliot has taken every piece of advice to heart so that he could be the best. He has cultivated his skills through many different facets, namely in black ops, retrieval assignments, and culinary school. We see evidence of the years of training and experience in every single episode. With Eliot, you learn and you con by honesty (ironically) and correction.

So again, it makes sense that Eliot's the most brutally honest out of the whole crew and uses that to his advantage when teaching. Because he calls the crew out on their individual shit, it allows for them to assess dangerous or painful situations accurately and work together to evade or conquer. They improve because of his feedback. That's not to say that Eliot is not an incredibly gifted teacher or that he doesn't tune his feedback to who he's teaching (I love how gentle he is with kids and Parker for example), but he doesn't sugarcoat to spare people's feelings. He wants them to succeed, but he's not above knocking them out in the name of showing them proper technique to do so. We see this time and time again with his interactions with Hardison and Nate.

But what I do love is that both of them praise the crew ALL. THE. TIME. It starts as early as The Bank Shot Job where Sophie praises Parker's baby grifter attempts and obviously Eliot boosts morale through the entire original show. This carries all the way through Redemption, they really can't not hype their family up and it is so so fun to see. Especially considering that they probably didn't receive much positive validation in the years that made them great.

[gnar-slabdash]

I’m not sure if this is a Nate Thing or just a 2008 Thing, but it’s so funny how bothered he is that Maggie’s in therapy. Like, you both suffered a traumatic event. One of you is doing therapy about it, and the other is doing a crime spree about it. Maybe you shouldn't be the one judging here.

[whitecollarcrimekids]

Eliot saying “drinkings not a problem its a symptom” and Maggie saying “it’s not the liquor that worries me, its the fact that you’re hiding it in your coffee cup” are both such compassionate statements said by people who care deeply for Nate. They aren’t trying to shame or change him, but acknowledging a deep pain that is the undercurrent for why he’s drinking in the first place.

Eliot understands the want to drink all too well but knows the danger Nate puts them all in when he’s drunk. Maggie is proud of the man Nate has become and sees the shame still burning in him.

They both want better for a person they love

[leveragecentral]

But worst of all, he completely forgot that I gave him that same button camera for Christmas three years ago.

Leverage - 1x13 The Second David Job