Yesterday, for the first time, I watch an episode of the TNT series Leverage. Among the characters is a somewhat-comely young woman named Parker. At one point in the show, Parker, evidently pretending to be an office drone, gets approached by someone who mistakenly thinks she is the person he’s been sexting; later in the episode, she asks one of her colleagues what sexting is, sounding not unlike Temperance Brennan.
What’s her deal?
Not Brennan. I already know she’s not right.
Parker grew up in an abusive home and ran away at a very young age; she’d been living on the street and in the care of thieves and didn’t interact much with society; they’ve remarked several times that she never went to school.
Ah. Okay. It was pretty clear that Archie Leech had quasi-raised her for quite a while, but somehow I thought she was an orphan rather than a runaway.
She may be. She blew up her house when she ran away, it’s not clear whether or not her abusive parents were in it or not. The show tends to be relatively light fluff, so they sort of skirt these darker issues (Nate had a son that died because the insurance company he was working for denied lifesaving treatment, and it’s anybody’s guess what Sophie’s background is).
Incidentally: the AVENGERS allusion with the no-kidding-around-comely brunette and the black dude were obvious (Peel & Steed), and it took me but a moment’s thought to realize why the Richard Chamberlain character was hight Archie Leech (Cary Grant’s real name; Grant starred in “To Catch a Thief.”) Do they always play around with names thus?
It’s also not entirely clear whether those were her parents or foster parents.
Parker more or less raised herself and does not play well with others. (Also from that episode, she has given the people she trusts most in the world 6 different fake addresses and lives in a storage facility.
It occurs to me this is the first ep where I’ve seen any hint of sexual tension directed Parker’s way – and not even by one of the team. Is she asexual? All the others seem to have, or to have had in the past, sex lives of one sort or another . . . Even Hardison mentioned he gave up violin for computer stuff because playing the violin does not involve even electronic images of babes . . . But as far as Parker goes, we don’t know if she has even an internal/imaginative sex life.
Oh god yes. John Rogers does like his little games.
Parker’s named after this character, for one.
This is Rogers’ blog. It’s fun.
You should read his stuff. I’ve been following him since he was just a DM on a forum I used to go to.
Again, Mr. Rogers says…
She’s really, really messed up, is the answer. Abusive home followed by foster families who were also mostly abusive followed by street life and grooming by a master thief.
Hardison mentions a few times that he was also in foster homes, but he was looked after well (by at least one long-term foster-mother); she never had the guidance that he did.
In the episode where they all help the rich kid who’s father’s a bastard one of the nice cops fancied her, a lot. There was also recently, in an episode where Parker had to try to grift and flirt with someone, a montage of former scenes from the series in which she’d been flirted with and had not reacted well, including stabbing a man with a fork.
John Cleese’s character in A Fish Called Wanda also had that name, as an homage to Cary.
Does she even know she’s hot? Not that she is, especially, in my view, but in the show’s universe she seems to be thought of as such.
I saw a snippet of the premiere episode a few months back, during which she, Lindsey McDonald, and the hacker dude were evidently escaping from a heist via elevator. She non-chalantly stopped in front of them. It didn’t come across as a Xena-esque, yes-I-will-tolerate-your-looking-because-I’m-busy-but-dare-dare-and-you-will-will-draw-back-a-stump; it was more a Dataesque, I-do-not-understand-this-reaction.
Hardison has a crush on Parker, but she’s oblivious. I don’t think they’ll ever have them seriously consummate. Parker will probably remain chaste throughout the series.
I saw that. As I watched that moment, and I really liked how they played it too, I was thinking “Aha. My prediction may yet be wrong”.