So much is great about this episode.

So much.

From Hardison being tossed into the pool and sucking 'air out the pneumatic compressor to get himself an extra 30 seconds' to Parker and Hardison storming a goddamn train to Eliot's physics-defying but SUPER RAD shootout where he proves himself to be precisely the kind of man he always claimed to be, to Nate refusing to tell Moreau who he is (which honks him right off) and his frame-up, but two scenes were above all others.

I clipped them both this time, so apologies if you're not in the mood for two very different types of awesome. I like to think, however, that I know most of you well enough by now to know that you'll most likely watch both, then complain I didn't clip the other and ...

... That's totally fair. We love the show; all moments are moments worth revisiting, but these two are great for two very different reasons. I will go with my personal favorite first because of course I will, and then on to the next one.

It's all about those pretzels, baby. Those. Pretzels. I know Parker doesn't work like other people, so I really doubt that Hardison's absolutely monstrous heroics on that train had anything to do with it, and yet ... I kind of still think so. We know by now that Hardison's as brave as anyone and that the majority of his bluster is a leftover from when he was just a hacker behind the screen, but his time with Leverage has changed him in so many ways.

He hacked history, people. So while his heroism on the train and elsewhere isn't unfounded, I think Parker got to see Hardison being himself in a way that she'd never seen before, and that, we know, is what Parker prefers more than any other thing.

That is a three-season conclusion to an arc I like to think we were all tremendously invested in, and its payoff (Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy) is one of the greatest emotional paydays in any TV show I've ever seen. I like that it was never a will-they-or-won't-they, but a when-will-they, and the writers and the team couldn't have done it better.

But since this truly is an Eliot-centric episode, we gotta talk about the scene in the park. It's Eliot's full confession, and CK delivers it with such great sorrow and loneliness. His very dark past has always been hinted at here and there, but he never came right out and said, 'I did terrible, heinous shit.' Hell, he didn't even explicitly say it here. What he did say was, 'Everyone of 'em has innocent blood on their hands, every. One of 'em,' with such deep regret in his eyes that you just feel for the man.

Leverage: Redemption wasn't even a dream the writers had at this point, but they were doing that all along, anyways, with the Leverage team, right from the start. Eliot's was a long time coming, and (like always) I like to think that from this moment on, he, too, gets to be his truest self. A return to the young, idealistic farm boy who joined the Army to do the right thing, before he fell into darkness.

As a personal aside, isn't it kind of a universal rule that if anyone as badass as Eliot says, 'I don't like guns,' you don't think, 'Okay, they don't know how to use a gun'? Like ... for real. Thinking a guy like Eliot couldn't shoot all the bullets with perfect accuracy is just dumb.

A most satisfying lead-up to a nice little vacation in San Lorenzo!