‘Leverage: Redemption’ Boss Reveals the Question That Will Never Be Answered About Eliot
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Back during Leverage‘s original run on TNT, its third season villain was financial mastermind Damien Moreau (Goran Visnjic). What the others didn’t know until they’d actually encountered him was that their hitter, Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), once worked for him.
In “The Big Bang Job,” which aired in 2010, Eliot explained to the others — mastermind Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton), grifter Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman), thief Parker (Beth Riesgraf), and hacker Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge) — that he’d been trying to protect them, which he saw as his job. Though Nate thought they could handle Moreau, Eliot disagreed.
“We’re out of our league, Nate. Every one of Moreau’s men has innocent blood on their hands. Every one of them. Every one of them are worse than me. You think you know what I’ve done? The worst thing I ever did in my entire life, I did for Damien Moreau. And I’ll never be clean of that,” Eliot said, and when Parker asked what he did, he told her, “Don’t ask me that, Parker. Because if you ask me, I’m going to tell you. So, please, don’t ask me.”
Leverage: Redemption showrunner John Rogers (who co-created the original series) told TV Insider while discussing the Season 3 finale that we’ll “never” hear what the worst thing Eliot did was. (There’s no word yet about a Season 4.)
“It’s interesting because Christian has said, ‘I know what it is,’ and I said, ‘Don’t tell me. Whatever you’re going to have, whatever I’m going to have, whatever Chris Downey or Dean [Devlin] has in their head is all going to be different,'” Rogers shared. “‘It doesn’t matter. What you believe is the worst thing he’s ever did is what will give you the performance.'”
Both Christian Kane and executive producer Dean Devlin have told us that Eliot would say he could never be redeemed because of all the things he’s done.
“Eliot’s a serial killer. He’s killed a lot of people — sometimes for money, sometimes because they deserved it, but he’s killed a lot of people — and there’s no way that he’s ever going to be able to redeem himself for that,” Kane told TV Insider in July 2023 and added that Eliot telling Parker not to ask what he did was “basically taking care of our fans so that they don’t absolutely hate Eliot, but at the same time, letting them know we were all bad guys, but he might have been one of the worst. So there is no redemption for him.”
So now, the only path for redemption for Eliot is guiding others there.
“There’s a line that a lot of people found shattering in the second season in the finale where he says, ‘I appreciate the opportunity to be useful,'” Rogers said. “And that’s just a guy who’s like, ‘Look, I’ll never see the promised land.’ This is the tragedy of the show. There’s no greater hero than a man who believes he will never see the promised land and spends his entire life trying to get other people there. And that’s Eliot. It’s funny, he’s much harsher on Eliot than I am. I’m like, ‘He could be redeemed,’ and both of those guys are like, ‘No, he’s going to hell.'”
Do you think Eliot can be redeemed? Do you have a theory about the worst thing he ever did for Damien Moreau? Let us know in the comments section below.
Leverage: Redemption, Seasons 1-3, Streaming Now, Prime Video
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Yep, definitely child related. He can't tell them because both Parker and Nate have issues with children too. Plus he's super protective of the kid who gets abused in another show. But I think that's why he's willing to take the hits for his team. It's his punishment.
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In the Big Bang job the guy working for Moreau tells Elliot that he wanted to kill Athertons whole family like they usually do, while the camera pans across his daughter.
Seems like that where they we going with the “worst thing he’s ever done”
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I wouldn't classify Elliot as a serial killer, serial killers like to see pain, they have urges to kill, for blood. Hes more of a Hitman, for the right price he will kill someone for a person, or he might kill cause someone is close to finding him out. The character Dexter is a serial killer, something he keeps hiding,, he kills for urges his body craves. His character is more like the Iceman, a real hitman, He lived a regular life with his family, when the mob wanted him to kill someone he did, no questions ask. He went years without getting caught, he was great at his job, but he did not crave the blood or to kill. OCTAVIA SPENCER WOULD BE MY choice FOR Nana. For so many reason
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I assume killed a family w children. Killing children to Eliot is the worst you can do. Id tell him you will be absolved when you meet St Peter because you've done so much good since then. 😻
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Remember that you can't get into heaven by "works alone"; you have to ask for forgiveness, and Eliot probably hasn't and won't because of what he has done. More than likely, he would never forgive himself and others who have done the same or similar, and therefore, he won't ask.
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It's not just redemption. It's repentance. Eliot has repented for his past.
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It May be hard to believe, but anyone can be forgiven if they are truly repentant. The problem with Elliot is that he can't forgive himself. No amount of psycho therapy will free him. He has to dig deep I forgive himself. There's moments when you can see his caring & loving heart. There's hope for him
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I believe that Eliot will find his redemption and ask for it when he finds true love again. Whether he gets married or not, and he has a baby on the way, the moment he sets eyes on that child, he will have his redemption.
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Amends is an ARC: Apology - Restitution - Change. If he can't apolotize in words, he's still doing so now in deeds. If he didn't make restitution directly to the people he did the worst to, he's still working now (a) to keep other such people safe & (b) to provide them with justice. If he's dedicated to such justice, a reflection of Divine justice, then what he will live any spiritual afterlife in is God's mercy. Because either God is all-loving and therefore all-merciful or God is not. And I don't know about you, but I prefer to believe in a God Who is. Of course, that's just me; you have to decide what you want your definition of God to be.
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I do think Elliot can be redeemed. And I truly believe his 'worst thing' had to do with a child/children.
At the same time, in my opinion, Christian Kane does a remarkably masterful acting job to convey through his body & facial expressions ~ not always with words ~ Elliot's innermost conflicts: his shame? remorse? perhaps even fear that somehow his teammates WILL discover his secret? I cannot imagine another actor portraying Elliot as well as CK does.
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I agree with most of what was said already. Especially that no one is beyond redemption. But without knowledge of this, how would Elliott even know. The Whole show is about second chances, including the team of thief's who are Leverage. Elliott obviously had a sense of right and wrong when he worked for this other guy. He just chose to ignore it, until it pushed him to his limit and he walked away. The only reason he would think he's unforgivable is because he knew the difference and did it anyway. But just like the thief on the cross, it's not too late, until it is. He can't take away the staìn. He never could. Only God can do that. But I doubt the writers would even consider that. Although it would be refreshing if they did.
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I always imagined it involved the torture or murder of a woman or child, maybe a family he was sent to intimidate and things went pear shaped and that’s something you can’t undo, a stain you can’t ever clean off your soul.
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Unless Elliot has completed rejected God and willingly given his soul to Satan, then he can be redeemed. He has repented and carried the sorrow of whatever it was ge did.
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I think he killed an entire family including kids. He won't tell anyone that, especially Parker and Nate.
They both have a big thing about kids.
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Amen
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Eliot isnt a seriel killer. A serial killer is defined as a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern.
Like John Wayne Gacy.
Eliot is just a regular killer who has done it way too much lol
I hope that Eliot can get some sort of redemption. He's not that man anymore. He's a good man now. Well hes a criminal but a good guy lol. Hopefully now he is rebuilding a relationship with his dad, he can restore some of his hope for himself
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A popular trick amongst writers is to never actually have a "correct" answer. Some things are best left up to the imagination because frequently, the revealed answer never satisfies everyone. So never establishing an actual answer does alienate fans. Everyone is free to speculate about their own theories,but no one is proven wrong.
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Agreed. If it is a non-answered "worse thing", everyone inserts their own answer. If my "worse" thing is not as bad as your worse thing, your disappointed with my answer being right. This way, no matter what the writer / actor or producer thinks is the "correct worse thing", the person in the audience is assured, "the worse thing" truly is their "worse imaginable thing".
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I can honestly ask who you think you are or everyone else for that matter? There isn’t a single human action that can get someone into heaven I mean really we’re not Jesus why would you think you are so important that anything you do could get you into God‘s paradise? Sorry that is only up to him.
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What if the thing that Elliot will never be clean of was somehow orchestrating the death of Nate's child? How twisted would that be?
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