The bow not touching was intentional lol. You're not supposed to know that he can play until the end, he's nervous and trying to fly under the radar. He's not playing for real because he doesn't want to mess up.
4 Reviews
Very telling
wearyalizay31 July 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I quite like this episode. The storyline was good, but I especially liked that Nate told Hardison at the end what it really takes to run your own crew. As someone who has a hard time separating emotions from situations, I appreciate that Nate was able to do that and show Hardison that running a team means helping them get past their own fear that's blocking them from succeeding. He knew Hardison was gifted on the violin, but he was doubting himself in a way that was holding the team back. He really showed that while Hardison is ambitious, he (at the time) didn't have what it takes to run his own team.
Interesting but seriously flawed episode
Muskox5323 May 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I love Leverage the series, and have now watched all 5 seasons in quick succession many times. Their plots are usually solid and the cons are persuasive and tricky. Which is why this episode is so disappointing in many ways. They simply didn't do their musical homework:
1. Sheherazade is not "the most difficult violin solo ever", but an orchestral piece with some extensive solos for the concertmaster (first violinist in the orchestra). And these concertmaster solos are certainly not the hardest in the standard literature--nothing like as hard as, say, the solos in Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss.
2. It is not the case that the piece leads up to a super-solo at the end. Concertmaster solos are spread throughout the piece, at least one in each of its four movements. The one that is in many ways the hardest is right at the beginning of the first.
3. The idea that Nate could accurately project the timing of a piece as Romantic and fluid as this is silly. That the conductor would suddenly adopt a new unanticipated tempo that would take a minute off the remaining timing is absurd; tempos don't fluctuate THAT much. And the place where the tempo change is announced isn't one! (It's actually an edit between two passages with pretty much the same tempo!)
4. It's an attractive notion that Hardison's teenager skills on the violin could be recalled by hypnotism, and perhaps his confidence could be boosted this way. But the limberness of the fingers and the precision of the bow arm--these would take months, if not years, of exercise and practice to regain, to be able to play at the level that he is supposed to be operating at.
Aldis Hodge does a decent job of faking; he obviously does play the violin, and isn't just waving his hands around near an instrument, finger-syncing to a sound-track. That's not the problem. I just wish the writers could have come up with a plot that didn't embarrass all the professional musicians in the audience...
1. Sheherazade is not "the most difficult violin solo ever", but an orchestral piece with some extensive solos for the concertmaster (first violinist in the orchestra). And these concertmaster solos are certainly not the hardest in the standard literature--nothing like as hard as, say, the solos in Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss.
2. It is not the case that the piece leads up to a super-solo at the end. Concertmaster solos are spread throughout the piece, at least one in each of its four movements. The one that is in many ways the hardest is right at the beginning of the first.
3. The idea that Nate could accurately project the timing of a piece as Romantic and fluid as this is silly. That the conductor would suddenly adopt a new unanticipated tempo that would take a minute off the remaining timing is absurd; tempos don't fluctuate THAT much. And the place where the tempo change is announced isn't one! (It's actually an edit between two passages with pretty much the same tempo!)
4. It's an attractive notion that Hardison's teenager skills on the violin could be recalled by hypnotism, and perhaps his confidence could be boosted this way. But the limberness of the fingers and the precision of the bow arm--these would take months, if not years, of exercise and practice to regain, to be able to play at the level that he is supposed to be operating at.
Aldis Hodge does a decent job of faking; he obviously does play the violin, and isn't just waving his hands around near an instrument, finger-syncing to a sound-track. That's not the problem. I just wish the writers could have come up with a plot that didn't embarrass all the professional musicians in the audience...
Insult to my intelligence
paintedlaughter-5629024 August 2019
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
