open/close all folders
Team Leverage
Sophie Devereaux - The Grifter
Played by: Gina Bellman
A con artist who comes out of retirement after the death of her beloved husband.
- All Women Love Shoes: To mark the anniversary of her and Nate's first meeting, she plans to go out an spend a large amount of money on clothes.
- Bad "Bad Acting": While trying to keep a quirky creative genius occupied, she enters a sonnet recital and briefly puts on a Large Ham reading reminiscent of her Lady Macbeth in the original series' pilot episode.
- Insistent Terminology: Where everyone else calls Harry by his first name, she insists on calling him Mr. Wilson.
- The Mentor: She takes this role for Harry and Breanna, as they aren't as familiar with the world Team Leverage works in. With Harry, she tries to familiarize him with the dangers he didn't consider when he started his redemption crusade. With Breanna, she tries to show her that it's not a betrayal if she tries to build a life for herself beyond her team and family.
- The Mourning After: The series opens on a shot of her waking up alone in bed, then shows her studying her engagement and wedding rings. Then she meets the team at Nate's grave. She continues to wear her engagement and wedding rings until the first season finale.
- Rank Up: In the wake of Nate's death, she steps into team's leadership role. This rankles Parker somewhat, as she'd been leading the team during Nate and Sophie's retirement.
- Ship Tease: With Harry. For example, at the end of "The Jackal Job", where coffee was a major characteristic of the client who "loved to get coffee with Jo" (with her wife), he asks her out for coffee. He's the one who usually sits down and talks to her about Nate and his own estranged family. The season ends with her thanking him for seeing her differently than the team, giving him a kiss on the cheek, calling him by his first name, and taking off her engagement and wedding rings on her way back to the team.
- Took a Level in Badass: While initially the pretty defenceless roper, Sophie has shown to be pretty physically competent in a pinch. She even embedded almost an entire Kunai in a watermelon with one throw during "The Unwellness Job".
Eliot Spencer - The Hitter
Played by: Christian Kane
A former mercenary and "retrieval specialist".
- Awesome by Analysis: He can gain an immediate tactical advantage by noticing the "distinctive" tells/quirks of his adversaries.
- The Big Guy: He's the one who handles physical confrontations so that the rest of the team can focus on the job at hand.
- Dating Catwoman: He starts dating a US Marshal.
- Happily Adopted: Less happily in his adult years until "The Fractured Job" but he was adopted by a black couple when he was abandoned in a hospital as a baby.
- Ladykiller in Love: Finally gets into a long-term relationship. It doesn't end well.
- Noodle Incident: He once overthrew an entire country on a budget of just $80 million (a task that would normally require $150 million just to be safe) but doesn't explain where and how.
- One-Man Army: He can mow through multiple foes with ease. He does this especially well in "The Harry Wilson Job" when he takes out an entire building's worth of security guards in just 60 seconds.
- The Worf Effect: As with the original series, he is a Batman-grade physical combat specialist. However, he regularly meets people who can match him (or almost so) in a fight to show that their foes have become much more dangerous during the Time Skip.
Parker - The Thief
Played by: Beth Riesgraf
A mysterious thief who led Team Leverage in the gap between the original series and continuation.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She hasn't lost any of her quirks, but this still doesn't detract from her abilities as a world-class cat burglar.
- Creepy Good: She's still doing this.Parker: Past Parker is dead. She dies every second, over and over. Future Parker never arrives. She's suspended in time, forever.
Breanna: Sometimes you forget how her brain works, then [Your Head Asplode guesture]. - Faux Fluency: She helps the Korean Leverage team with a job by walking them through a task over the phone. While the others are amazed that she can converse in Korean with native speakers, what's actually coming out of Beth Riesgraf's mouth is practically gibberish.
- Stern Teacher: She's very tough on Breanna because slip-ups in their line of work can result in injury and death.
- Trickster Mentor: When teaching Breanna how to sneak up on people, she coats the bells on her jacketnote with a numbing cream powerful enough to knock Breanna off her feet.
Breanna Casey - The Maker
Played by: Aleyse Shannon
Hardison's foster sister. She joins the team after her solo attempts at following in Hardison's footsteps land her in a heap of trouble.
- Black and Nerdy: She's an expert at Spirits Ruse, a collectible card game, and has a deep knowledge of its lore.
- Informed Ability: She says she specializes in physical tech builds, but spends most of her time doing computer hacking.
- Distaff Counterpart: She's essentially a younger, female version of Hardison.
- Mission Control: Often provides remote support from one of Eliot's food trucks.
- Replacement Flat Character: Mild one, as she is cocky and out of her depth, much like early seasons Hardison, as opposed to Hardison now, who runs charities in his spare time.
- Soapbox Sadie: Can lean into this at times, prioritizing lecturing others or taking shots based around various causes and beliefs she's connected to. She has also expressed a wish for the team to take on larger systemic issues (as seen in "The One Man's Trash Job"), but she recognizes that such things are too big to take on alone, even for them.
- Twofer Token Minority: She's both black and a lesbian, and gets a girlfriend late in Season 1.
- Worf Effect: Not her hacking, which is good. However, her physical tech builds are utterly annihilated nearly every time she tries to use them.
Harry Wilson - The Fixer
Played by: Noah Wyle
A one-time corporate lawyer who became disillusioned with helping his high-powered clients make and keep enormous fortunes while causing pain and suffering among regular people.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Harry was able to do his job as an Amoral Attorney for years. Then he offered Fletcher Maxwell a solution and drove to every one of his victims, met them face to face, looked them in the eye, and convinced them to take the settlement. And then Maxwell reneged.
- Affectionate Nickname: Sophie is fond of calling him "Our Mister Wilson" in a playful tone.
- Amoral Attorney: Prior to joining the Leverage crew, he made a point of being on nobody's side, protecting the rich and powerful while staying fine with his conscience by getting those affected payouts.
- The Atoner: The "Redemption" part of the series' title refers to Harry's goal to make amends after spending years as a high-priced lawyer helping the rich and powerful keep their ill-gotten gains. Hardison tells him that it will take a long time before he makes any meaningful spiritual progress.
- But Now I Must Go: He gets his turn at this trope at the end of the first season finale, "The Harry Wilson Job". He decides to leave the team and go back to being a lawyer — specifically, the idealistic kind that he originally wanted to be. However, he returns for the second season and decides to stick around because, he admits, it's more fun to be a part of Leverage.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Nate Ford. Both are divorced men who started out as technically on the right side of the law but on the wrong side of morality. However, there are notable differences.
- Nate's crusade was kicked off by a combination of his son's death, his marriage ending and Dubenich's manipulation. By contrast, Harry has his own moral awakening after seeing first hand the result of his clients' crimes and is already on a moral crusade of his own before he meets the Leverage team.
- Nate's son was dead before the events of the series. Harry has a teenage daughter who is still alive.
- While Nate was the team's leader, Harry is a subordinate to Sophie.
- Nate's last job allows him closure and peace with his son's death, while Harry's last job lets his daughter back into his life.
- Creepy Good: At least Eliot thinks so in "The Great Train Job".Eliot: You just happen to have a bunch of science... and you have a bailout bag with duct tape and plastic. Harry, we never asked before, but are you a serial killer?
- Earn Your Happy Ending: His work with the team gave him a new lease on life, allowing him to use his legal prowess to do genuine good in the world. He also gets the chance to improve his relationship with his daughter, as she asks to move back in with him once her stepfather's crimes are exposed.
- Fake Defector: He quits the team to work at RIZ, but it turns out that he's trying to take them down from the inside.
- Fatal Flaw: His guilt-fueled hatred for his past; once it dawns on him that he was on the wrong side, Harry embraces the chance for redemption with gusto, but this also makes him prone to keeping secrets from the team out of shame and blowing his cover with angry ruminations on the amorality of his old clients. This is best exemplified in "The Tower Job", where he takes the job without consulting with Sophie or anyone else, makes a promise to the client which makes things harder for the team, hides the fact that the mark was somebody he represented, and ultimately gets pulled from the job towards the end once he can't take acting like an Amoral Attorney anymore and verbally rips into the mark.
- Hidden Depths:
- Breanna deduces that he's a hardcore gamer after he references an obscure feature in a mobile game that had been patched out years before. He later says that his hobby came about because he got lonely after his wife and daughter left him and he turned to the online gaming community for company.
- He has a keen interest in environmental science and carries a fully loaded kit, complete with hazmat suits and respirators, in his car.
- Last-Name Basis: Sophie, and only Sophie, calls him Mr. Wilson.
- Ship Tease: With Sophie. For example, at the end of "The Jackal Job", where coffee was a major characteristic of the client who "loved to get coffee with Jo" (with her wife), he asks her out for coffee. He's the one who usually sits down and talks to her about Nate and his own estranged family. The season ends with her thanking him for seeing her differently than the team, giving him a kiss on the cheek, calling him by his first name, and taking off her engagement and wedding rings on her way back to the team.
- Took a Level in Badass: Over the course of the first season, he learns how to run a con, pick a lock, do some hacking... but not how to crack a safe.
Alec Hardison - The Hacker
Played by: Aldis Hodge
Leverage's long-standing hacker and tech expert. While eager to help his team out, Leverage's growing international operations dedicated to helping other suffering folks all around the world cause him to leave the team to focus on them. In doing so, he approves of his foster sister Breanna becoming his replacement.
- Advertised Extra: He's featured prominently in the show's marketing due to being a central character in the original series, but only appears in three episodes of the first season. He gets more screentime come season two.
- Black and Nerdy: And if his Catchphrase of "age of the geek" is any indicator, he's still very proud of it.
- Back for the Finale: Via a Big Damn Heroes moment in "The Harry Wilson Job." Insert the entire audience squeeing.
- But Now I Must Go: Leaves the reformed original Leverage team to attend to Leverage International, but he still keeps in contact with them.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: In "The Too Many Rembrandts Job", Eliot cuts him off from the alcohol, pointing out that he's a lightweight. Sure enough, a few scenes later Hardison has a hangover.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Doesn't have the main character role he had in the previous series because Hodge was too heavily booked elsewhere.
Recurring and Returning Allies
Jack Hurley
Played by: Drew Powell
A man who Leverage helped long ago and who subsequently joined up with Leverage International.
- Big Fun: He's a boisterous, big guy.
- Brick Joke: In his original appearance, Hurley said that his many addictions included a strong addiction to tacos. When he returns, he still has that addiction, but has a much better handle on it than before.
- To put it another way? He considers "tacos" and "Cocaine" an equal level of addiction.
- Took a Level in Badass: He now works with Leverage International, a significant step up from the mess that his life was in the original series.
Maria Shipp
Played by: Andrea Navedo
A marshal who meets Eliot during one of Leverage's missions. The two quickly form a connection.
- Action Girl: She's quite capable of holding her own in battle, as a group of police officers discover.
- Dating Catwoman: She's dating an internationally wanted criminal, albeit one on the right side of morality.
- Loved I Not Honor More: She thought Eliot was some sort of undercover or black ops type, but then he asks for something one of them wouldn't need to ask her for. He admits he's a vigilante. She walks away.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She recognizes Eliot's work is shady, but she also recognizes that he's doing good. So she just doesn't ask about it.
Sarah Nichols
Played by: Morgan Lindholm
A young and idealistic lawyer. Harry runs into her during "The Golf Job", and they meet again during "The Turkish Prisoner Job".
- Crusading Lawyer: She wants to use the law to help people.
Billy Spencer
Played by: Keith David
Eliot's adoptive father, a war hero who has been estranged from his son for years. They finally patch things up during "The Fractured Job".
- Determinator: He never gives up his quest to stop the fracking rig, even after the bad guys win the right to build six more rigs across Oklahoma.
- Handicapped Badass: He limps because he injured his hip during his military service, but is still able to help Eliot take out a gang of Mooks.
- So Proud of You: In the end, he admits that he's proud of Eliot for the good work he and his friends are doing.
- Unseen No More: He finally appears after only getting sporadic mentions across both series.
- What You Are in the Dark: During his military service he helped liberate an entire prison camp, but received no recognition. Eliot follows his path of doing good deeds no one will ever know about.Billy: You know they awarded the Medal of Honor for that prison escape, but they didn't give that medal to me. A lily white boy from Kentucky got that. All I got was a medical discharge and a lifetime of fighting the VA for my medical benefits.
Recurring Antagonists
Clients, employees, and associates of RIZ
Alexandra Bligh
Played by: Lucy Taylor
Leader of RIZ, a secretive Private Military Contractor corporation.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Willing to send her goons to commit crimes, including murder.
- Evil Counterpart: A British woman of a certain age in a leadership position, she clearly thinks of herself as one for Sophie. However, Sophie actually is as good as she thinks she is. Alexandra... not so much.
- Smug Snake: She does a lot of Evil Gloating when she thinks she has the Leverage team at her mercy.
- Interestingly, one of her biggest issues is that she wants Eliot to work for her, since her goons aren't up to snuff, then forgets that this means they cannot handle Eliot.
John Safer
Played by: John Newberg
Harry's boss at the start of the series.
- Amoral Attorney: He'll happily take money from evil people and use the law to cover up their many misdeeds.
Fletcher Maxwell
Played by: Reed Diamond
The owner of a pharmaceutical company which is being sued for crippling and killing people with opioids. The team's first mark after they get together again following Nate's death.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He used unethical methods to push opioids on people, then hid his death so it couldn't be taken in lawsuits and also decided to draw out the lawsuits as long as possible so that his victims would die before he had to pay them.
Ethan Bradford
Played by: John Hans Tester
An ostensibly ethical executive brought in to help clean up an oil firm. However, he turns out to be secretly working for RIZ. Harry’s ex’s new husband.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He covers up his oil company's leaks, and then has the oil rig destroyed (killing some workers) when the Leverage team exposes the scam. He also turns out to be helping RIZ in its quest to suborn aspects of the government.
Sophie's former associates
Arthur Wilde
Played by: Damian O'Hare
A forger and con artist who has a history with Sophie.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: He still hasn't forgiven Sophie for selling him out and letting him go to prison so she could continue a long con.
Billy the Gent
Played by: Max Baker
Another former associate of Sophie's.
- Treacherous Quest Giver: He got Sophie and her team to take down a multilevel marketing firm by saying it would help his daughter. It did, but he also wanted that done so that his boss Ramsey could get some land the firm had designs on.
Ramsey
Played by: Ralph Brown
Sophie's first mentor.
- Evil Mentor: Ramsey trained Sophie as a grifter, but he tried to train all the emotion and soul out of her and turn her into a cold, lying machine who would do anything to make him money.
- Graceful Loser: Ramsey is calm and grudgingly admiring after being tricked into walking into a police trap.
Astrid Pickford (MAJOR SPOILERS)
Played by: Alexandra Park
Sophie's stepdaughter, from her Long Con pretending to be the Duchess of Hanover. Now grown up, she works for Interpol and wants revenge on the criminals who conned her father, including Sophie.
- Antagonistic Offspring: She despises both Sophie and Ramsey, and she wants to bring them both down.
- Arch-Enemy: She's one to Parker (though Parker has several).
