Personally, I loved the show, and I thought that Leverage got the best possible send-off.

While I'm not happy that it's canceled, I'm just beyond glad to see it get an appropriate, touching, and awesome ending instead of a WE JUST GOT CANCELED KTHNXBYE rushjob.

Pappas: dj_spanmaster: Thread comment count: 32 (as of now)
Indicative of cancellation?

Indicative of poor/uncaring series finale scheduling.

Preach it. The show got bounced around the network's schedule to the same degree as Futurama on Fox. No one will watch the damn thing if they don't know when it's on.

Pappas: Great show. Will be missed. I didn't realize it was the series finale until after I watched it... they've been promoting it on-air as the season finale.

Yeah, the network seemed caught offguard by their own decision. The commercial going into the show dubbed it a series finale, while the little tagline at the bottom of the screen referred to it as a season finale. Huh.

DSF6969: I was one of those who watched it purely for the good feeling I got seeing corrupt a$$holes getting what they deserved each week. This last episode ended the series well. You are left with the knowledge that the entire con-man world community was going to open up a huge can of schadenfreude on the bastards that caused the 2008 meltdown and got rich doing it.

That and Parker took her shirt off in the elevator again.

Like I said, it was a totally appropriate ending.

We won't get a spin-off, but I love the idea of Leverage International doing its thing and being headed up by Parker, Hardison, and Eliot.

Jim from Saint Paul: Stopped watching a season or two ago. I mean, I appreciate the fact that they never tweaked the show. You knew what you would get every week. Thing is, doing THAT generally means you will get bored with the show.

I loved the whole thing right through, but I'm super easily amused, so that too must be taken into account.

EdenLiesObscured: Bigger question: Sophie or Parker?

Yes.

Zombie DJ: Its like A Team. You just turn your brain off and watch.
I loved it.

Exactamundo.

Best junk food TV for the five years it was on.

I turn to Breaking Bad for filet mignon, and I turn to Leverage for a greasy hamburger.

davidphogan: I stumbled drunk through their set once. They were nice about it, had me sign some type of waver, and had me do it a few more times. I probably should have watched the show by now.

I think you'd dig it, actually.

davidphogan: You've sold me.

As I said elsewhere, it's not too terribly deep or plausible, but you love watching how the main characters interact, how they set up their cons against the Villain of the Week (with two particularly amusing examples being Wil Wheaton as the rival computer hacker Chaos and Giancarlo Esposito, Gus Fring from Breaking Bad), and how the various schemes all come together in the end. It's the cast and the humor that make a lot of these episodes work.

If you're expecting something deep or overly complicated, you'll want something else.

If you want something in the vein of your favorite heist/con movie meets Burn Notice and The A-Team (although the good guys almost always don't use guns), then you've got your junk food, man.

Mr_Juche: Think of it this way: John Rogers (writer/show runner) has said that if they did a cross over episode of Leverage, it would be with Psych. They both have the same kind of 70s/80s throwback vibe. Leverage is Rockford Files crossed with The At-Team. Psych is kinda like Moonlighting.

Interesting.

Actually, you know, we were THIS close to getting a great Psych/Leverage crossover.

According to the powers that be, if Psych hadn't made Leverage a fictional show within Psych's universe, Leverage's Eliot Spencer would have had an uncle named Henry Spencer.

How cool would that have been?

Mr_Juche: In the inevitable Psych wedding episode, there needs to be a pan across the church pews that shows Elliot in the back giving Henry the stink eye.

Wouldn't that be perfect?

Mr_Juche: Also, each show is established in each other's universe. I can't remember which episode it's in but Hardison mentions hacking Nate's tivo and there are a bunch of Psych episodes.

That's right, I forgot about that!

WolfRider: I'm gonna miss this show. Not high drama, but then again it wasn't supposed to be. What I would have loved to see going forward is if Leverage International hopped across the pond and got some help from Mickey Bricks and the rest of the Hustle crew. That would have been epic.

Indeed. It was comfort food.

It would have been one hell of a crossover, wouldn't it?

Time Traveling Bunnies: Didn't get to watch the finale until now but it was pitch perfect. Love the callbacks to the first season. I wish this season had been more like this.

Time to marathon the seasons over again in remembrance.

Glad you enjoyed it, then!

I was kinda worried about being let down, but nah, they hit it out of the park. All the callbacks were wonderful, especially the very last scene.

I'd love to pick up the DVDs sometime soon, I'll tell you that for free.

Time Traveling Bunnies: You could tell they really put the effort into for the longtime fans.

It didn't seem like a rushjob at all.

It's like they said, they intended for this to be the series finale in case they didn't get Season 6, and it shows. I'm just happy that they were able to do such an episode on their terms instead of one of those "well, that's the end, g'night, folks!" deals.

Time Traveling Bunnies: With the overhead shot of the five of them together at the end and two of them peeling off together rather than all five separately, Sterling finally paying penance, the Steranko, Parker giving the season 1 Nate speech..... All throughout the show I had to keep pausing it to explain the references to friends who missed them.

YES.

I loved those touches!

I also dug that they finally landed the payoff with the ominous, mysterious thing that Nate and Hardison were working on at the end of the first episode of this season. I was hoping that they weren't going to leave that up in the air.

Time Traveling Bunnies: It was awesome to see a show finally do a finale correctly.

Amen to that.

I would've loved to have seen the return of such characters as Maggie, Tara, Archie Leach, Detective Bonanno, Chaos, and Mr. Quinn (although most of them appeared at the end of season four or in season five), but with what we got, I can't be disappointed.

Not that they need to do so, but if they ever make Leverage International, I will watch the HELL out of that.


/you are now Favorite'd accordingly

Toshiro Mifune's Letter Opener: I also dug that they finally landed the payoff with the ominous, mysterious thing that Nate and Hardison were working on at the end of the first episode of this season. I was hoping that they weren't going to leave that up in the air.

That is, the Black Book thing.