WMG / Leverage

Sophie stole the Holy Grail.

It's the cup we see her dusting off in her storage compartment of stolen goods in "The First David Job".

• According to Word of God, that's actually the Judas Chalice in her storage compartment.

Sophie is Lisa del Giocondo.

Since she has the Holy Grail, there's no reason why she couldn't be that old; and she looks vaguely like The Mona Lisa. Clearly, she is the subject of that painting. She is interested in Renaissance art because she grew up with it. This is how she could be sure that nobody's ever stolen both Davids before.

• Perhaps she is a descendant of Lisa del Giocondo. Her entire family has been art thieves for generations, which would also explain her interest in art and knowledge of the Davids' history.

Sophie and Jane are the same person.

Jane was an identity Sophie was using during a particularly long con.

• Well, we already know that Jane was a made up character In-Universe, so that sort of makes sense.

Whoever Sophie is, that's not her real name.

She practically says as much:

"Start telling the truth all day, stop being Sophie Devereaux."

• "The Two Live Crew Job" answers this one. Confirmed, unsurprisingly.

Sophie is a terrible actor... on purpose.

All of the times that Sophie has acted has shown that she gets lead roles and important parts of all the plays she is a part of. However, it is also known that she generally has to go to try-outs and is outed as being awful. So how does she continue to get these positions? By being a grifter.

In other words, she is using her awful acting to prove that she is a world class grifter. By making these people believe that she is good, despite showing that she is awful, she is continually showing off, or honing her skill as a grifter. In fact, every time that we see Sophie act, the reviews are very awful, and yet, she still continually gets on high class plays.

So not only is she proving that she is a world class grifter. But not a challenge that will leave her in danger if things go badly.

It's not a passion, or a challenge, it's all a game for her.

• Also, she might even be making sure that quite a few people definitely remember her, "Sophie Devereaux", as being an absolutely terrible actor intentionally. If she is forced to go under the radar for a while without pulling a con, then "Sophie Devereaux" would be the last person that anyone who had seen her perform would ever think of as a grifter. She couldn't act to save her life!

There can be a WMG that's not about Sophie.

Like how Nate is secretly a time lord or a doll.

• Whoa, now you're getting out there!
• Don't be ridiculous. Parker is clearly the Time Lord. Think about it, it perfectly explains her ability to disappear and reappear wherever she wants- TARDIS!
  • Confirmed. She all but admits knowing about the existence of time machines in "The Radio Job", when she spends some time looking for one, then suggests that Nate's dad stole it. Also, Hardison may be another Time Lord. "Bow ties are cool."

The experimental treatment for Nate's son was fake.

The company offering it was running a scam in which insurance companies were pressured into paying for phony "experimental" treatments. None of them work, but they're considered such long shots anyway that no-one gets suspicious. Nate's insurance company made the right decision in turning him down.

Eventually, Nate will be asked to get revenge on the company for the fake treatment that let someone's child die, and he'll find out everything.

• Alternately, it was a real experimental treatment at the time, but it failed the medical trials. It didn't work well, or had unavoidable dangerous side effects. Or maybe it only delayed things for a few months. It's worth noting that no one has ever said Sam would still be alive if he had gotten the treatment. And it's entirely possible that Nate already knows this, but it doesn't matter one bit to his guilt.
  • Nate's guilt might even be compounded by his subsequent success as a "bad guy". He did the Nigerian Job (the pilot episode) in his first week as a crook, using a team he could probably have formed himself, and immediately made enough money that even the career crooks on his team considered it to be "retire and buy an island" money. If he'd been willing to break the law for his own son, he could have easily paid for the treatment.

The gang is using Yahoo!'s game site for mind control.

There is a Flash game called "Leverage: The Con Game" on Yahoo!s game page (and possibly elsewhere). It is a match-three with bonus power-ups (you choose which one) and no timer, and it appears to be almost impossible to lose. Clearly, there are subliminal messages in this game which the gang will use on unsuspecting corporate Flash-gaming slackers later on.

Sophie's real name is Alice... and she's the Alice of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Her time in other worlds could explain why she's now living in modern time. She can't admit who she is without being considered insane, so she created new identities. She turned to grifting and cons to support herself.

• Nah, it's Parker - all the headbands? She's even freaking Alice White!

• It's why her white rabbit meant so much to her as a child. It wasn't just a toy...

Leverage and Hustle take place in the same world

Starke said Nate's crew was the nastiest this side of the Atlantic. Who has that title on the other side?

• Great crossover potential.
• Richard Chamberlain has now appeared on both shows. WMG away!

Parker is a lesbian

The only time she's comfortable acting is when she's pretending to make out with Alex. Obviously, she has a lot of practice acting straight.

She seemed WAY too interested in Nate's ex-wife. In the Juror job, the other juror she was most interested in was another woman.

When she's in trouble, the one she usually calls for help is Sophie.

In the Hunter episode, there's a scene where Hunter tells Parker that if you punch out the camera man, she'll kiss you. Parker immediately looks at the cameraman, like she's considering it.

In the fashion episode, Eliot says that Tara is hot, and Parker agrees before quickly covering.

In "The Maltese Falcon Job," when Tara drops her towel to distract a bellboy, she ogles Tara as much as Eliot does.

• Since she has a neglected background in the orphanage, has No Social Skills and suffers from Asperger Syndrome, it wouldn't be surprising if Parker had no concept or understanding of the differences between asexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality, and homosexuality.
• Since "The Double Blind Job", she has shown definite romantic interest in Hardison . . . or pretzels. She's Parker; maybe she's beyond labels. She could be Bi or insane.
• Officially, she and Hardison are dating.
• She seems to have a romantic interest in Hardison at least, and maybe in men generally. Which doesn't preclude a sexual interest in women. Maybe she's heteroromantic and homosexual? Or biromantic and bisexual? Or any other combination that allows for romantic interest in Hardison and sexual interest in women.

Leverage is a prequel to Kaitou Saint Tail.

Think about it. A magician father (Nate knew a lot more about magic than you'd expect), a Classy Cat-Burglar mother, and she only steals things that have been stolen before?

Leverage Consulting and Associates is a real company.

Making up an entire 80-year corporate history is absurd overkill, so Hardison just picked a real company and borrowed their details, inserting the protagonists and their office as required. The real LCA is located far enough away that he thinks they'll never find out. Until they become the next target.

• Maybe LCA isn't "far away", it's just a company that is so small, compared to the team and their usual marks, that Hardison bought them outright for the legal rights to use the name and trademark, but left them to carry on operating as standard legal consultants. He'd only need to step in if somebody tried to hire the actual LCA for their pro bono services and seemed like a viable client.

One (or more) of the Leverage Consulting and Associates crew is a disavowed member of the Impossible Mission Force.

Most probably Nate, given his overtly compassionate and yet chessmasterly nature. He pulls together another team like the one he lost: "muscle" - Eliot, "faceman" - Sophie, "techie" - Hardison, and "legman" - Parker. Given their prior relationship, then Sophie could also be a disavowed member of either his old team or another team they worked with prior to be disavowed. Nate is angling on getting reavowed.

• Based on the final episode, maybe Nate and Sophie finally did get reavowed and "retired" from a life of crime to return to a life of spying.

Parker is the daughter from Con Air

If you don't remember the movie, Nicholas Cage's character gives a white stuffed bunny to his blond daughter. The first time his daughter saw her father out of jail, he was covered in blood. Obviously, this greatly affected her psyche.

• Actually, the daughter from Con Air already acted quite shy and avoided eye-contact, without speaking to anyone. She may have already had social anxiety before the film.

Eliot is a reformed Lindsey McDonald.

He survives his gunshot wounds, retains his utter badassery, goes on to become a renowned hitman/bruiser in the intervening years, before finally hooking up with Nate. It would certainly explain his resistance to injury and his incredible skill.

• Eliot does have an evil hand... He uses it to hit people, just like the other one.

Parker is a kleptomaniac.

When Parker said she was a kleptomaniac, it was just supposed to part of her rehab patient cover. But she keeps stealing things even though she has plenty of money. She even compulsively steals a gun from an armed man for no reason, which is incredibly dangerous. So she has Nate's definition of an addiction - a compulsive behavior that negatively affects her life.

• ...Is this supposed to be a WMG? It just seems like it was stated outright on pretty much the whole first season, at least.

Elliot is a deep cover agent of some kind.

Seriously. He's introduced as a "retrieval specialist" and is grouped in the same mold as criminals like Hardison and Parker, but everything about his background speaks government spook. Liberating Croatia?

Of course, since it's brought up at least Once an Episode, it's not good deep cover. Maybe shallow cover.

• Alternately, Eliot quit the spy business and became a "hitter" because he was bored of the complicated stuff and just wanted to punch people.
• "The Beantown Bailout Job" all but confirms that Eliot was involved in the "hinky stuff" the U.S. government was doing in Pakistan, so he's definitely done work for the government and could still be doing it on the side.
• Later episodes explain. He did work for the government, but when his tour was up, he took some jobs on the side. PMC, along with some other people.
  • Though that could still be part of his cover story; by not hiding his government involvement, he's following the principle of "always tell as much of the truth as possible."

One of the team is going to jail.

And I'm betting it's Eliot. The title of 301 is apparently a "huge spoiler," which means the location or item to be stolen would reveal tons about the season finale. And there's a promised Kane fight at the very beginning of the season 3 premiere. And Nate is completely losing his shit. The end of season 2 is going to be disastrous and Eliot is going to do some time. Until, of course, he's busted out of prison.

• Confirmed. But it's Nate that's going to jail.

Sophie's real name is Carmen Sandiego.

She's got the look (long, dark hair), keen fashion sense, and penchant for stealing rare items. And traveling freakin' everywhere.

• If that is the case, then.... there she is! She's right there! that's where she is! It wasnt THAT difficult to find her, now was it?

Team Leverage is a Solar Perfect Circle.

• Eliot is a Dawn Caste specializing in Martial Arts.
• Sophie is a Zenith Caste with high Performance.
• Hardison is a Twilight Caste with high Investigation and possibly using Sorcery through his computers somehow.
• Parker is, obviously, a Night Caste.
• Nate is an Eclipse Caste using tons of 1E Sidereal Dodge and Awareness charms. Or, since nobody else besides Ian, Sterling and Maggie ever seems to recognize him including the FBI, is just an undercover Sidereal himself - fitting with the chessmastery. (In which case he's probably Chosen of the Maiden of Secrets.)

Not sure why they all seem to have the Night Caste anima power, but that's hardly the most notable obstacle here.

Team Leverage is a Blessed Werewolf Pack.

Similar to the above Exalted theory:

• Eliot is an Ahroun, a supernaturally proficient sacred warrior.
• Sophie is a Galliard, the bard and prophet and emotional center.
• Nate is a Philodox: judge and jury, the ethical heart of the party—if not the moral one.
• Hardison is a Theurge, a mage, competent at potent and subtle magics.
• Parker is a Ragabash, thief and spy, supernaturally silent and unnoticeable.

Sterling is God. Or Jesus. Or a god.

• Sterling. Never. Loses. 'Nuff said. Of course, the fact that "Sterling never loses" is Word of God straight from John Rogers, what does that make Rogers if Sterling is a god?
  • His mother?

Sterling and Nate DID used to be friends.

Something happened which Nate doesn't remember but Sterling does, which is why both Sterling and Nate have above-human levels at predicting and manipulating 'normal' people.

• Sterling and Nate are canonically friends. They both remember it perfectly well, they reference their past together all the time when they're in the same room. (Nate probably feels that Sterling betrayed him (by not taking his side, and continuing to work for IYS), and Sterling's actions towards Nate are clearly those of someone trying to save an out-of-control friend from himself.)
  • "The First David Job" had the following bit of dialogue:

    Sterling: Do you remember when we were friends? After work we used to come up here, have a drink, watch the sunset?

    Nate: We were never friends, Sterling!

    Sterling: So the answer to my question would be "no", then.

    • I think what Nate actually meant was along the lines of "We used to hang out together, but you were always a weasel."
• Jossed, with explanation confirmed. Nate, in a later scene, clarifies that he is wondering why Sterling never told him a secret "When we were friends".
  • That's not necessarily true, though. Nate might just be using the phrase "when we were friends" because he knows that Sterling claims to think that they were friends once.
  • In a later episode, Maggie mentions Nate bringing Sterling home with him on multiple occasions. They were friends, but their current situation makes it easy for both of them to engage in selective denial when it suits them.

Sterling and Nate both have large, well-diversified portfolios, with holdings distributed among the world's major insurance companies.

'Nuff said.

"Parker" is an alias.

Whatever her real name is, she's a big Richard Stark fan.

• Word of God has already confirmed this. The alias, that is.

Elliot, Hardison and Parker are mutants.

It is so obvious. Elliot has super strength, speed and resistance to injury. Able to take bone crushing blows and keep hitting. Parker can teleport short distances once a day and Hardison is able to manipulate images on computers with his mind.

Nate is going to retire at the end of season 3.

In the season premiere, he says he's been an honest drunk and a sober thief, and now he's going to try being a drunk thief. Once he's done with that, there's only one corner of the square left to explore...

• Jossed, we're headed into season FIVE! Woohoo!
  • Now confirmed, except for the end of season five, instead.

Sophie was formerly an assassin or spy.

Think about it. She's delivered a brutal headbutt when she was protecting Nate and taken on an armed hitperson using a fire extinguisher. These two alone could be things she learned from Elliot, but, she was able to up a rifle with alarming quickness. Elliot has remarked on his own dislike of firearms, meaning this would probably be something she learned on her own. It would also explain why she's so skilled at making up a cover: it used to be her legitimate job.

• In "The San Lorenzo Job," Sophie shoots a government Mook with a bottle of champagne.

The Italian is a Catholic Church Militant, a roving Agent for Good authorized by the Pope.

What do we know about the Italian?

• She threatens Nate with imprisonment in Rome.
• She speaks with a thick Italian accent.
• She has enough pull to command a millionaire businessman with state contracts and to keep the cops off of Nate even though he's still in Boston.
• She works outside, above, and beyond police and government ("Damien Moreau buys police. He buys governments"), but has access to FBI, CIA, Interpol, and Japanese Security files, among others.
• She does what she has to do for the greater good.
• She knows what Nate and his team are capable of.

Nate was a seminary student; he helped out his friend the priest by faking a miracle (to the point that Vatican officials got involved); the Church operates with a certain amount of freedom and Diplomatic Impunity in many countries; and at least in theory, they believe in defending the innocent and righteous and in stopping evil. In the past, regrettably, that was the Inquisition. Now, perhaps, it's a bit of To Catch a Thief?

The Italian was working for the organization that burned Michael Weston.

The organization was not evil, after all, just operating completely outside the law and rather ruthless, and extorting Leverage is exactly their MO for how they get operatives. And, of course, they probably had ulterior motives for getting rid of Moreau, the 'central bank of international crime', perhaps planning to replace him with themselves. They would have continued to extort Leverage, except Michael Weston took them down immediately after.

Moreau is related to Kate Moreau, Neal's girlfriend on White Collar.

• Criminal genius runs in the family!

"Archie Leach" is really John Robie from To Catch a Thief

• His pseudonym is a play on the guy who played him in the movie they made based on the book about his little excursion in the French Riviera.

The Leverage Team is a modern day group of Adventurers .

Basically they travel the land on a Quest to right wrongs and bring down the all powerful evil Lords = CEOs.

• Nate is the Paladin. Driven and unforgiving, almost bloodthirsty in his drive to punish those who are evil no matter the cost. While a good man, he will let nothing stand in his way in his holy mission.
• Sophie is the Bard. With the gift of persuasion, able to charm and win over with a song or dance. And Nate's only voice of restraint, as seen in season two when she left.
• Elliot is a Dwarf. Gruff, Earthy and Direct. A good drink and a good fight, great strength and high constitution. Behind his gruff lies a deep and intelligent being.
  • Would his character class be Monk, then?
• Hardison is a Wizard. Able to rewrite reality with a motion of fingers. Changing backgrounds, images and conception with a coded word and a smile.
• Parker is the Thief. Flighty, unchained and unrestrained. Deft of finger, short of sanity. And able to rob you blind before you even open your eyes.
• Partially Confirmed and Partially Jossed in the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Strategy Guide: (John Rogers) created the show Leverage, the story of a party of 10th-level rogues who take on corporate bad guys.
  • What does that make Sterling, Tara, and the other recurring characters then? Chaos is of course a rival Wizard with a Chaotic Evil alignment.

Tara Cole is named after Tara King of The Avengers (1960s).

Yes, the similar names may be a coincidence, but consider: both Taras are replacements for a departed main character in their respective series. Also, Leverage has done at least one Shout-Out to The Avengers (1960s) (see the Shout Out page for details).

• Confirmed by Word of God. See here.

Eliot used to be black ops.

He used to work for the government, and it's implied that he used to be an assassin. He's wanted in several countries, and has made vague references to having done some very, very bad things.

• He 'liberated Croatia'. He spent six months in Pakistan at the same time the White House email hack revealed that the US was up to 'hinky stuff' in Pakistan. The show's hinted pretty blatantly that Eliot got his initial start in US military special operations, before he lost his way somewhere and ended up being a merc for guys like Damien Moreau. Heck, what with 'Pakistan' apparently he still did contract work for a government spook job during the Leverage crew's downtime.
• And the promo for "The Queen's Gambit Job" reveals that according to Eliot's file, he once 'crawled three miles through a sewer to kill the head of Al-Qaeda in Yemen'. I think we can call this one confirmed.
• Confirmed all over the place with the season five, he has both mentioned scrubbing logos off helicopter when he'd gone...fishing. For fish. He also worked for a PMC doing very, very bad things and worked as one of Vance's now illegal "little dance teams." Previously he worked with Vance in the service together and "got his hands dirty." There is literally no more confirmation without Eliot saying "I used to be black ops."

Sterling is Crowley from Supernatural.

Sterling was possessed sometime after Nate lost his son and pretends to be Sterling to screw with Nate because it's fun.

Sophie really is the 18th Duchess of Hanover. And was married.

At first I just assumed the Countess was another con artist, but that would require a pretty staggering coincidence. Even with that, though, faking a Duchy? I'm pretty certain that is, to all intents and purposes, impossible. The College of Heralds puts not their trust in computers — you'd need to be a master forger with full access to their archives if you want your story to hold up for more than half an hour, much less seven years. More than that, though, you'd need to fool multiple official publications, including Burke's Peerage, which employ people to check these things. And most importantly — 18th Duchess. For that to hold up, there would have to be an extant or recently extinct Duchy of Hanover (which, in the real world, there isn't) — otherwise you'd be spotted in ten seconds.The solution to all this: Sophie was, at some point, married to the 18th Duke of Hanover. Not least because you don't get to be a duchess without marrying a duke (peerages are sexist like that). Presumably 'William' was the Duke of Hanover, to whom Sophie was married for seven years. Whether she married him under her real name, on the other hand...

• But this would certainly explain how she knows the intricacies of nobility and has been able to masquerade as royalty rather successfully. It's nothing you just do as you need time to learn from models. I was thinking more on the lines that this family are nobility AND also happen to be a family of con artists. If your family's been at it for generations, Sophie is just carrying on the "family" business so to speak. I thought of the Countess more to have been a family member and that "William" was her husband the Count. They might have raised her, Sophie dutifully married the Duke of Hanover, and then she went on with her con business...breaking William's heart.
• Leverage: Redemption confirms that Sophie really did marry the Duke of Hanover, whom she'd met in her younger years while working grifts among high society, having genuinely fallen in love with him.
  • The Countess may be a grifter herself who became a countess under similar circumstances (by marrying the Earl of Kensington, for love or for a job), befriended Sophie in that setting, and helped out a young grifter in over her head by claiming to have known her as a child and legitimizing her cover.

Alternately...

Sophie really is the 18th Duchess of Hanover, and the "William" mentioned by the Countess was her father.

The Countess never indicates what her relationship to William was, except that he was clearly someone close to both Sophie and the Countess. Also, the story about the prize petunias sounds an awful lot like the Countess knew Sophie as a child. A possibility not mentioned above is that William was Sophie's father and the Countess' brother.

• It is possible for a woman to hold a peerage outright (referred to as a duchess suo jure), but these are exceptions. The letters patent creating the peerage must explicitly allow a female heir of the body (aka a blood descendant of the original holder) to inherit; they can be amended, but it is relatively rare. It seems more plausible that if Sophie was really a duchess, it was by marriage.
  • Also worth noting that the Duchy of Hanover is fictional, and may well have been created to allow both male and female heirs to inherit. However, the fact that she identifies herself as the eighteenth Duchess of Hanover implies that the duchy was created some three hundred years ago, at which point this would not have been completely out of the question, but certainly not a normal arrangement.
• Perhaps the Countess was a real relative of Sophie, and William was the Duke of Hanover (or more likely, given everyone's relative ages at the time of the relationship, the heir to the duchy) and a family friend or the son of a family friend. Thus all three have relatively close relationships, and the relationship between the Countess and William was probably heightened after Sophie left him. Thus Sophie really is royalty by birth and a duchess by marriage, and no dueling cons were necessary.
  • The two being actual relatives, or at least having a strong personal relationship in which at most one of them is a con artist, is strongly supported by the fact that their intimate, personal conversation takes place without anyone involved in the job to hear them. If they both knew it was an act, there's no reason to keep it up without Keller around. So there must have been at least some kind of relationship that one or both of them believes is/was real.
• Leverage: Redemption confirms that Sophie legitimately married the Duke of Hanover, also confirmed to be William, and wasn't the Duchess herself by birth or otherwise.

Eliot doesn't use Guns because it makes things too easy.

Just look at how he demolishes an entire team of trained assassins while barely breaking a sweat. Clearly having a gun put Eliot into God Mode and he doesn't like guns because he likes a fair fight.

• Hinted at in the fourth season's finale: "You know I have a gun." - "I know. That's what makes it fair."

Sophie's real name is....

• ....actually Sophie Devereaux. (Because someone had to posit the possibility.)
  • Jossed As of The Inside Job we know it is a six letter name that ends in "a"
    • Sophia.
    • Un-Jossed. Word of God says that Sophie didn't actually enter her name into the keypad on John Rogers' say so. He didn't want to give any actual clues to Sophie's real name.
• ....something we're never actually going to learn.

Beck fom The Rundown is Elliot

Both are extremely good fighters, both prefer to not use guns because they do too much damage with them, but if they think the cause is worthy they are able to shoot down 50 people in under a minute. Beck collects recipies and wants to open a retaurant, Elliot is able to cook for a wedding party. Both are introduced per subtitles to the viewer as "retrieval expert".

• Alternately they know one another and have worked together in the past.

The final episode of Leverage will be a casino heist.

It would be a great way to end the show with a big finish. If they do one at all, they will save it for the series finale. Or they'll just decide that casino heists are unoriginal.

• Jossed. The series never did a casino episode.

Parker's real parents are Haley and Elan from The Order of the Stick

She got her mother's incredible thief skills, and her father's personality. She doesn't understand how 'normal' people are supposed to act because on some instinctive level she knows she should be in a fantasy world rather than the one she somehow ended up in.

Sterling has a crush on Maggie

Who is the one that contacts Nate when Maggie's in trouble? Sterling is. And he's brought up "Maggie's continuing poor choice in men". Jealous much?

• I agree. And in the first season, he kept trying to stop her from getting involved with Nate.
• As of The Last Dam Job, it seems to be mutual.
• Word of God (possibly jokingly) states that they would be dating in Season 6, if it had aired.

In the Leverage-verse, the Star Trek franchise ended after The Undiscovered Country.

Hardison's Trek references have all been from TOS and its associated movies. This explains why he has failed to notice that his Arch-Nemesis is Wesley Crusher, or that Sophie's temporary replacement was Seven of Nine.

• Star Trek: The Next Generation was in its fifth season when that came out. Either Hardison is one of those "Ruined FOREVER!" fanboys, or Wesley and Seven were played by someone else in the Leverage-verse (like someone else starred in Avatar in the Bones-verse).
  • Jossed in "The Last Dam Job" when Cha0s himself references TNG.
    • Double Jossed - after having half the Star Trek franchise on his show, and a character named Willie Riker in an episode known as "The First Contact Job". Word of God has just stated that that he's calling TV Tropes Different World, Different Movies to solve the Celebrity Paradox and saying that Star Trek had a slightly different cast and character list.

Leverage is eventually going to jump the shark, get very weird and do an episode based on The Prisoner

Eliot as Number Six (much like Patrick McGoohan he's good at punching and raising one eyebrow), Sophie as Number Two until halfway through the episode, when Nate takes over as the new Number Two. Parker and Hardison are Villagers who Eliot may or may not be able to trust and who may or may not be working for Number Two.In the end it'll just turn out to be a dream Eliot had while suffering from a concussion. But then the door to Leverage HQ opens by itself! *dramatic sting*

Parker and Elliot are Wedy and Aiber, respectively.

Wedy is a master thief who can sneak past any security system. "Parker" is already confirmed by Word of God to be an alias, so Wedy is probably an alias as well (especially since Kira can kill using just a name and a face). Aiber Does Not Like Guns, and is a con man, and "Aiber" is probably an alias as well. As for how they know L (and what they're doing in Japan), L probably got involved with one of the Leverage team's cons, and saw right through it. Rather than turning them in, he kept in contact with them so he could call on them should he ever need their assistance. As for why it's just Parker and Elliot, he may have just called on the two of them instead of the whole team.

Leverage and Criminal Minds take place in the same universe

Gideon and Nate are BFFs. Garcia and Hardison are online friends who don't know that they're on opposite sides of the law (both of them even say similar lines about how they don't control the internet). Someday the two teams are going to have to work together to catch a serial killer who the law can't bring down.

• Would be a Moment of Awesome!

Leverage is some sort of Limbo for Supernatural characters

People who died in the Supernatural-verse get a second chance to live "normal" lives after death before getting to go to Heaven/Hell. Jake gets to be rich and (mostly) safe from harm, Jo gets to have a non-Hunting career, and Sterling/Crowley has the ability to travel to Limbo to relax every once in a while by messing with a new set of morons.

• Then it's also a Limbo for Star Trek characters, which is why Seven of Nine and Data get to be fully human and "normal". Even Wesley Crusher is now a hacker instead of a child prodigy/chosen one.
  • Don't forget that Quark is now a lecherous lush legal consulting Doctor who is on the US no-fly List, Dr. Phlox becomes a Love Sick Security Guard who most of the team (except Nate) think is a Super Genius in 'The Rashomon Job', and Riker is a random guy in a neck brace in the Waiting Room with Nate in 'The Snow Job'.

The FBI is on to the Leverage crew

They keep them around because they know they can take down criminals the FBI could never get at. Someone at the top is fully aware of "Special Agent Hegen"'s true identity, and is intentionally spreading the deep cover agent story to explain her long absences to the rest of the bureau.

• With the help of Lt. Bonanno.

Out of all the marks, Larry Duberman will be the one that comes back for revenge

• "Doucherman" in addition to having his company ruined and being hauled off to federal prison, the man stuck in high school had his night of rubbing his success in the faces of his school peers ruined by the team. He's also the one that tipped off Jack Hurley to what the team does.
  • Right theory, wrong mark. Dubenich is the one who came back. Of course, it's always possible that Duberman could also come back. We shall see.

Roper will be hired as the muscle by whoever puts together a Leverage Revenge Squad

• When Eliot fought Quinn in 'The First David Job', there was no personal recognition between the two and Quinn didn't hesitate to just keep attacking Eliot while he was down. Quinn was clearly just there to be paid for taking out his target (and because he liked hurting people, any people). But Eliot recognizes Roper (played by Urijah Faber) and calls him by name in 'The Carnival Job', and Roper likewise mocks his opponent as if its It's Personal ("The great Eliot Spencer, heh"), and keeps letting Eliot get back up after he's knocked him down instead of just finishing Eliot off when he has the chance. It wasn't just enough for Roper to beat Eliot, he had to defeat him. So I'm definitely calling old martial arts rival here, and why build that kind of thing up onscreen if you're never going to use the guy again? And since Roper is clearly not the brains of any operation, if he shows up later it'll be as part of some other team that somebody is putting together to go after Leverage. And he'll be glad to take the job cheap because it'll give him another shot at Eliot.
  • The problem with that theory is that when Eliot fought Roper he had just gotten hit in the head by a carnival ride and was still able to take him down. His fight with Quinn was on much more level ground, so in theory so long as Quinn has been making sure to do plenty more training since season one he'd have a much better chance against Eliot in a rematch than Roper would have.
    • Level ground? Quinn? Quinn started that fight by sucker-punching Elliott and then kicking in his ribs while he was down. Basically, the man supplied his own carnival ride.
  • Hmmm...tough choice. Quinn's the better fighter but is Only in It for the Money. Roper's obviously got some sort of personal stake in beating Eliot and would thus make a better bad guy from an emotional angle. Is it too much to ask that we see them both again? Maybe there could be some sort of "Eliot Spencer Revenge Squad." They could both be in it, along with The Butcher of Kiev. As for Roper or Quinn needing to put up a better fight in the future they could always bring a weapon next time. Also, just because somebody beat you once under one set of circumstances, doesn't make beating you again under a different set of circumstances any easier.

Things are going to get really bad, really soon.

The team already turned down an offered alliance with a very powerful businessman, and they recently attracted the attention of the CIA. These two factors will come together against our plucky heroes, and the results will not be pretty.

• Confirmed, Nate's dad dies, although the team gets out of with their location burned, but otherwise unscathed.

• Unless Sterling comes to their aid, because Sterling. Always. Wins.

Hardison's Nana will appear on the show.

We've met Nate's ex-wife, Parker's adoptive father, Elliott's former girlfriend, and Sophie's (possible) aunt. It's Hardison's turn to have a family member show up, and his foster mother/"Nana" seems to be the only candidate. Plus, a little old lady getting robbed of her life savings is a perfect setup for an episode of this show.

• Or one of his foster siblings, for that matter. Unless Hardison uses the Royal "We", his Nana took care of more than one kid. Then take the Sibling Trope of your choice and go with it. (And god forbid that siblings turns out to be a white woman he happens to meet in secret. This would be so clichéd and yet so fitting.)
  • Hardison’s foster sister is confirmed to be a new team member in Leverage:Redemption

The Italian will eventually return as a season's Big Bad

Because let's face it, there's no way that she wanted them to take down Damian Moreau for altruistic reasons. She's probably hoping to pick up where he left off. And when she does, she'll quickly realise that the Leverage crew are the first people she needs to get rid of. Connecting to an above guess, she'll also be the one to put together the Leverage Revenge Squad, hiring Chaos to oppose Hardison, Roper or Mr. Quinn to take down Eliot, and positioning herself as the evil Nate.

Leverage takes place in the same universe as Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Eliot is a son of Ares, Sophie is a daughter of Aphrodite, Nate is a son of Athena, and Parker is a daughter of Hermes (self-explanatory, really). Hardison's the only full mortal, since magic and technology don't work well together.

• Hardison could be a son of Hephaestus.
• Even if not, it makes a GREAT idea for a Scion chronicle.

Nate's dad will be the companion for Doctor Who's 2012 series

There really was a time machine in the patent office. He went back in time, had a few months' wacky adventures with Eleven and then returned, knowing what would happen, as his death was a fixed point in time. For bonus points: It was the Teselecta which got killed. Again. Also, Hardison's bowtie was left for him by Eleven recognizing someone who agrees that they are cool.

In the end Nate never intended to shoot Latimer or Dubenich

Once Nate had them both at the dam, he wasn't suffering some sort of internal struggle on if he would break a major moral boundary; instead, he was just being the biggest bastard he could be. He needed to plant the idea in both men's minds that if only one of them was left alive then the other would be able to go free for certain. One the idea was planted in their heads properly... well, surprise surprise! Two greedy men and one precariously-placed gun equals the end of two problems for Nathan Ford.

Parker is a grown-up Brittany from Glee.

They're both beautiful, athletic, flexible blondes, they're both batshit insane, and they both have a habit of hanging around bitchy/bad/morally grey people.

• The backstory doesn't really line up, though.

Eliot doesn't mind getting beaten up because he thinks he deserves it.

On some level, he feels that getting beaten up is karma for every time he beat up someone else. Hell, maybe he wants to lose fights for this reason.

Dubenich is still alive.

We heard one shot and one splash. Unless one of them shot the other and than fell in the water himself, there is a good chance that one of Dubenich or Latimer is still alive. If so, my money is on Dubenich.

• If they both fell off the dam at the same time (as implied), then there would only be one splash, since they'd fall at the same rate and hit the water at the same time.

The fifth season premiere's stinger refers to:

Either someone leaving the team (obvious) or the team splitting up (unlikely). It all points to Nate leaving, but that's a bit obvious. Right before zooming out, the map pointed to Tokyo. So, he's running to Japan?

Parker's a Time Lord.

Word of God: Beth Riesgraf said so! (The DVD Commentary for 4x06).

Greg "The Mako" Sherman will inevitably return to either seek revenge on the team or team-up with the team

Given the fact that the character is basically a master conman who was treated as a major threat and a good number of previous guest stars have resurfaced, it's a given that the Mako will find some way to evade imprisonment and once again encounter the group. He'll either form his own evil counterpart version of the Leverage team to get revenge (and such a plot has great guest star related potential as far as having several additional members of the cast of The Shield show up alongside David Rees Snell) or resurface and align himself with the team for a team-up.

Nate's "game," as mentioned by Eliot in The Gimme a K Steet Job is to groom the team to take over his position as "Mastermind" because he is leaving the team later on, either at the end of the season or the beginning of the next one.

Reasons could be either he just wants out, or he knows he's gonna die.

• Confirmed.

The Final episodes of the show will be a major deconstruction of it with at least a Bittersweet Ending

Word of God is that the Leverage team are Villain Protagonists but we see an awful lot of them being very heroic with the means they use not having any consequences. So in the last episodes there'll be things like Eliot will be causing people brain damage when he knocks them out, Hardisons hacking will cause a big fallout, Parker's crazy will get her into big trouble, cons will backfire horribly and Nate will completely break down etc. A Bittersweet ending for the show is likely but this troper wouldn't be surprised with a full on Downer Ending were Nate is concered, ending up in jail or his alcholism causing health problems or nearly killing him.

• Jossed

The first part of the series finale is what actually happened after all.

Nate was so distraught over getting the rest of the team killed that he invented a happy ending to cope. He really does spend this rest of his life in prison.

• Jossed by Leverage: Redemption.

Leverage and Human Target take place in the same universe.

With Leverage, Inc essentially being the White Collar Crimes division to Christopher Chance's Secret Service.

Leverage, Inc. is a Technocratic Amalgam.

Nate, Sophie and Parker are Syndicate Enforcers, Eliot is a New World Order Operative and Hardison is former Virtual Adept.

Billy Epping from "The Jailhouse Job" is (unknowingly) related to Hardison

The two had similar vocal inflections and physical mannerisms — understandably since Edwin and Aldis Hodge are brothers IRL — and both are presumably good with numbers and computers since Billy works as an accountant.

Maybe that wasn't entirely coincidental. Perhaps Billy and Alec were also brothers (or half-brothers) who got put into the foster care system young. Either the system split them up or Nana couldn't taken both of them in, and since he wasn't very old, Hardison has few memories of his older brother.

As to why no one makes the connection that they're really related:

• Billy never really interacts with Hardison
• Many years have passed since they last saw each other
• It was an intense situation with Billy trying to prove his innocence and the Leverage team trying to get Nate back so no one had time to pause and think about it

If Wil Wheaton and Cha0s both exist in the Leverage-verse...

...then this might go a ways towards explaining Cha0s being such a maladjusted asshat. Seriously, go read the Wil Wheaton page, about what he went through. Now imagine you're a kid who likes Star Trek: The Next Generation and in particularly the character of Wesley Crusher - a kid who has a similar level of smarts to Wesley and even a physical resemblance. Cha0s just took all that Fan Hate a lot more seriously than Wheaton did (which is saying something) and more to the point, never got over it.(BTW: according to the tie-in novel The Con Job, Wheaton and Cha0s DO co-exist, but Word of God has denied that they do. Assuming that John Rogers either was wrong or has since changed his mind, the theory works.)

Hardison is actually the "main" character.

• "'Age of the Geek', baby!"

Parker is actually the "main" character.

• "You're adorable."

Eliot is actually the "main" character.

• "I'm not at liberty to discuss that with you."

Parker was a bat in a past life.

And that's why she sleeps better upside down. Or she's actually a bat and we just don't know it.

Sterling was in on the con in the last episode

Sterling seems awfully knowledgeable about the black book investigation and the results, and says some very interesting things in front of Agent Casey, almost as if he's deliberately presenting a side of Interpol he knows that she would find unpalatable. And, at the end, Nate presents the option to cover the entire thing up.

First, realize this entire episode was multiple layers of con...and every single flashback is suspect. And then realize we have an entire missing year in Sterling's life, when he first started working for Interpol.

What if Sterling was working on the black book investigation, and got pissed when it got shut down under him? And Sterling, of course, never loses. He could have stolen the files at any time, but that would have been obvious. So the entire purpose of the team's song and dance was to present a reason for Agent Casey to cover up the theft. The reason being that she (and Sterling, at least it looks like) so badly screwed up security that to admit what had happened would ruin their career.

Afterwards, after Sophie drives off, Sterling's going to stand there while Agent Casey 'convinces' him that not only do they need to cover up the entire thing, but not even mention what the team was after. The official story will be that there was just a security breach of people entering the building, which was quickly discovered and they were chased out. And afterwards the server room was checked routinely but nothing was missing and there's no sign of entry. (They will probably put an empty hard drive in place.)

A few points:

• It's Sterling that tells Casey to wave the coroner van drivers through security, and then he immediately distracts everyone by, somehow, knowing to get them to count the bodies and sending everyone elsewhere.
• And he is also the one to explain 'They'll be hiding in the audience' to the Interpol agents at the end. Why does he think that? Why that oddly specific and wrong instruction? He knows it's their play, they are the people running it, so logically they could be hiding anywhere within the show. Cast, crew, ushers, whoever. He already 'knew' Sophie had played Lady Macbeth at the matinee, and he knows the exit is backstage, which makes it much easier to get to, duh, backstage than into the audience. But he just tells security to look at the audience.
• The plan for Nate to distract Sterling from noticing the team entering and exiting the server room by staring at him seems a bit dubious. Even if Sterling hadn't guessed the team would use that enter, he sure as hell could guess Parker would attempt to disguise herself as security to exit. And, indeed, by the end, we can see the staring contest was over, so there's no way he'd fail to notice the team exiting. (So what was the staring contest about? Nate knowing that if Sterling was planning on double-crossing them, that would be the moment to do it.)
  • In fact, sending a dozen people into a room with no other exits and no real hiding places except behind some shelves is so silly it's almost impossible for Sterling to have thought it was a good idea. Parker is literally imprisoned if she's in there. Send one guy in, lock the door immediately behind him. They'll quickly know if Parker is in there.
• Sterling has seen them use a remote control van before, so the idea he'd just blithely accept that their van dove into the river and they mostly drowned is a bit odd. (Granted, his assumption would be 'they faked their deaths by driving a remove control van into the river', when actually they faked the entire van crash from top to bottom, but he'd still check.)
• Most importantly of all, this is the only time that Sterling has interacted with the team and he hasn't come out ahead. Which violates a basic premise of the show. The most logical assumption is that we are wrong about what he wanted.
  • And Nate could have presented the coverup option, at the end, to Sterling in that manner. He could have said 'If you want to come out of this with your job intact, you need to cover up that we succeeded.'. Because Sterling will do anything for his own self-interest. But Nate didn't say that, because it wasn't Sterling he was trying to convince...it was Agent Casey. (So instead Nate presented the moral reasons to cover it up, and lets her figure out the 'also it means I won't get fired' thing herself, or Sterling, playing the amoral bastard that he is, can present that if she doesn't.)
• Additionally, it's implied at one point that the team has been working for months, doing research and planning for this job. A theatre's season is released almost a year before the first rehearsals begin, so just to get Sophie's troupe in the theater across the street would require a lot of time. If we assume that Sterling has done some work on the Black Book, and that the first time he saw the team in a year was during "The Frame-Up Job" (six episodes before the finale), it's likely he guessed that's why Nate and the gang were there. Maybe he even did some research and confirmed they had been doing cons in the area for long enough to be planning to go after the Book. Then, because Sterling never loses, he figured out some way to contact Nate and offered his assistance—he wanted to set the information on the Book free, and knew the team was his best chance at doing it. They all met up, worked out the perfect plan, and pulled it off without a hitch.
  • Alternately, Sterling is the one who somehow got them on the job in the first place, without them knowing, years ago. Except he wasn't sure if they were doing it until he ran across them in Portland.
  • Or possibly he did know they were already in Portland (And lied about it), which is why he was working out of there, and why he gave Nate and Sophie a lot of slack during The Frame-Up Job.
• He asks, specifically, 'Does Parker even know you got Hardison killed?' How does he know about their relationship? The last time he saw them, they weren't dating yet. The time before that, Parker and Hardison did have a bit of a moment with her jumping off the roof, which would actually be relevant here about how Parker would feel if he was dead (With her being alone and trapped.)...except Sterling was long off coms by that point.
• Sterling's odd willingness to let Agent Casey lead the investigation and discover things on her own seems rather out of character of him. In what investigation has he ever done that? Instead, he's content to let Casey figure all that out. Yes, the logical theory is that he was trying to trick Nate so he only shows up after Nate explained that it wasn't a hospital, but that doesn't explain why we don't see him investigating outside the interrogation room.
• He somehow knows Sophie is driving the van at the end. Now, the audience knows it must be her because we saw the rest of the team during the flashback to the theft. (Assuming the flashback is accurate.) But how does Sterling know it was Parker, Elliot, and Hardison that went into the server room, and not, for example, Parker and Sophie? He can't even know it was three people...the security people he's talking to just talk about the 'van drivers'. Heck, we have no evidence three of them went in except a flashback, and flashbacks are dubious evidence in this episode, so Sterling somehow knows something even the audience is not quite sure of! He supposedly believed it was just Parker until only a few seconds ago...and yet somehow when he realizes the entire thing is a con, he manages to figure out who's doing what, where? Sterling is smart, but he's not psychic!

Sterling is psychic.

Nuff said.

Leverage and Ace Attorney take place in the same universe.

First off, Leverage takes place BEFORE the games do (except for The Inherited Turnabout, set in 2000, but only Manfred's forgery is ever noted, not that the prosecutors yet have a rep for it). So, it's possible the Leverage Team inadvertently contributed to why nobody trusts prosecutors in that universe, who have a reputation similar to the team's- what matters is the end, not the means. Prosecutors in that universe start off known for evidence forgery and whatnot, but it's possible that reputation came from a forged case like what the Leverage Crew make. After all, their cases are almost too good to be true sometimes, like "The Bank Shot Job", "The Iceman Job", and "The 15 Minutes Job", because all three have the Mark showing briefcases full of evidence against them, delivered to the police by that person. The Phantom and the Arc Villain of the first Ace Attorney Investigations game are also two of the world's greatest grifters.

The crew bought the bar at some point after The Bottle Job.

Cora might have grown up in the bar, but that doesn't mean she knows how to run it. Hardison already owns the building, so she sells to the crew knowing that it would be in good hands. After season 2, the crew are seen reaching and standing behind the bar, meeting there after closing, and in at least one episode, Nate closes the bar and locks the door. They have it set up so that if they have to be away for a long time (for a long con in another city), the bar is self-sufficient, which is why they can move all the way to Portland without any notice.

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