#they arent compelling they just suck
You know what gets me about leverage? Every single villain is absolutely and utterly boring. And I mean that in the best way possible. No dark and mysterious sexy villains or misunderstood extremists who actually had the right idea maybe hmmm it’s complicated. NO. Just corrupt white guys (and sometimes non-white non men but 9 times out of 10 it’s an old white guy in a suit) being greedy, and greed and or overconfidence being their downfall.
There are a few instances where the show grants some sympathy for the villain of the week who “can be a decent guy but currently kinda going through something and not realizing the damage they are causing but start doing better once they are confronted (pretty dramatically) about it, and also usually after most of the consequences of their actions have already started biting them in the butt big time” (Hurley, Molly’s dad).
But other then that? The show is committed to showing that all these evil things are happening due to greedy people with too much power, and most importantly, that’s not interesting. Those people are boring.
Even Moreau? Hyped up for an entire season, complicated dark past to one of the team members? Boring, greedy, overconfident dude. Gets taken down by his own overconfidence more than the “24 year old genius with a smartphone and a problem with authority”. Not once does the show try to spin him in a more compelling, intriguing light. We get “He prefers beer” and then like, two episodes of proof that Moreau didn’t pay much attention to Eliot after he left (and is in general not that smart of a dude but that’s a different post). Moreau was only “interesting” as far as Eliot’s character development was concerned but beyond that he had the depth of an origami clown.
Latimer and Dubenich? Same hype, same downfall. Same lack of depth.
Udall? Who I think is one of the only “ideological” villains in the show? Not for a second are his ideas entertained, instead they hint strongly that Vance (one of the “good guys”) is on pretty thin fucking ice as well for someone on the “”“opposite end”“” of that spectrum (I do not expect criticism of the US military/police state in US television at all, so I felt like that leeway was as good as it gets, lol).
I’m not saying villains in fiction shouldn’t be interesting or have a point or whatever, because that’s literally their narrative function. But I do appreciate how Leverage came to point out the problems at the tip of the system and went “these kinda guys exist irl, they have blood on their hands, and they are not sympathetic or compelling. They are just greedy and they suck.”
