rembrandtswife:

Or, things you can learn while watching Leverage with commentary.

• John Rogers and Nate Ford have a lot in common, especially when it comes to alcohol. Not only does Rogers usually tell the listener what he’s drinking, you can often hear the ice clinking in the glass when other people are talking.
• Take away Eliot’s disastrous military career and stint as assassin for hire and you basically have Christian Kane: musician, chef, brawler, actor. The man does all of his own fights, I swear.
• Sterling never loses, but he sometimes admits Nate is right.
• At the beginning of each episode, the commentators introduce themselves. At the beginning of “The Frame-up Job”, in which Sterling thinks Sophie has stolen a famous painting, every commentator impersonates Mark Sheppard as Sterling during his introduction.
• Portland is full of good actors.
• Every instance of fraud on the show has real-life counterparts, most of which are far worse than what the show portrayed.
• The heartbreaking detail of Hardison, Parker, and Eliot holding hands in death was *not* in the script, but came from the actors.
• Pretty much everybody cried on set during the filming of the final episode.
• Gina Bellman decided on Sophie’s real name.
• John Rogers subscribes to the Smithers Hypothesis, which is that shows are more interesting if you assume the bad guy’s sidekick is secretly in love with him. (This applies regardless of the genders of the bad guy and the sidekick.)
• Rogers also subscribes to the theory that the characters’ sex lives are “whatever makes you want to watch the show”.
• Rogers really is the Anti-Moffat. I came to this conclusion after noticing how often he compliments Gina Bellman, Beth Riesgraf, and Jeri Ryan on their appearance, then listening to how he does it and what he says about the men on the show. The right pair of boots on an actress will make him fervently exclaim, “Jesus Murphy!” He seems to think Beth Riesgraf has the best smile in the world. But he’s full of praise for the skill of Nadine Haders, their chief costumer, and he lavishes much  more praise on the actresses’ work than on their legs. He also repeatedly calls  Christian Kane “charming” and acknowledges that women go for him. He openly admires how Aldis Hodge looks in a suit. And he’s lavish in praise for the men’s acting as for the women’s.

I have actually not once heard John Rogers say anything skeevy about women, in four seasons’ worth of commentaries. (I don’t have season one yet.) All of his female characters have depth and agency. None of them is ever merely a damsel in distress, not even a 12-year-old girl. Nobody, male or female, ever gets shamed for having sex. Set the number of times he admires an actress in boots or remarks on her charisma next to the number of times he praises her ability and craft as an actress, and his praise for ability and craft weighs far more.

John Rogers is the Anti-Moffat, and this is another reason why you should watch Leverage.