Thinking About Story Teams: Part Two: Four Teams

My reference points for this story team analysis have been many and varied, but the three I’ll hit the most often in these discussions are Person of Interest, Leverage, and Legends of Tomorrow. Since we’ve binge-watched the first two here, I’m going to assume most regular readers have at least a general idea of how those teams work even if they haven’t seen the series; I’m using Legends because it’s such a sterling example of what not to do coupled with a great team hidden inside the dysfunctional larger team; I can often learn a lot more by figuring out what didn’t work than what did. Think of the following as my practice jumps before turning to Nita’s team.

Needless to say there are MASSIVE SPOILERS IN THIS ESSAY. And the shows I’m talking about are really good; you should watch first. The post isn’t that great and it’s really long and probably redundant, which is what happens when I think out loud on paper. You’re not missing anything. Go watch good story.

LEVERAGE

1. A team has a common goal that unites them

In Leverage, in the beginning, it’s because Nate offers four solo crooks a chance to do what they do best within a team framework that enhances their skills. When they follow him down the street at the end of the pilot, they’re asking him to keep them together because they had fun and they want to do it again. When Nate points out that he’s not a criminal, Sophie tells him to find them some criminals to scam; they don’t care who the marks are, they just want to have fun. The rest of the first season is the individual members of the team evolving and with those evolutions come personal goals–Eliot wants to make up for the evil he’s done, Hardison wants to be part of something bigger, Parker wants to be able to pass for sane–and they all want the sense of purpose they’ve gotten from saving people. By the end of the first season, it does matter who the marks are.

I think that “sense of purpose” may be the single most defining element of a team goal: “We came together because it’s our purpose in life to do this thing.” Just as individuals become happier and healthier when they find their true paths in life, so do teams.

2. Team members should have sets of skills that complement each other and are directly useful in attaining that goal, no overlaps.

Leverage really is the gold standard here. Nate’s the mastermind, not just because he’s smart but because as a former insurance investigagor, he’s been chasing all of them for years. Now that he’s on the other side, he really knows their skills and their weaknesses, but he also knows how to use them to best advantage while circumventing the law. He really is the mastermind. Oddly enough, he doesn’t choose his team; his nemesis Victor chooses Parker the thief, Hardison the hacker, and Elliot the hitter, and Nate makes it clear in the beginning that he would not have chosen these three because they work alone and because Parker is insane. So the first half of the pilot is Nate trying to patch three rebellious loners together into a crew long enough to pull one job. When the reversal comes and they decide to band together for vengeance, Nate brings in the only member of the team that he chooses: Sophie, the grifter, the one skill that was missing from the original team because Victor was the one pulling the con.

The clear delineation of skills means that the team works smoothly; if somebody needs conned, they send in Sophie; if they need a pocket picked, Parker goes without argument; if it’s a computer problem, everybody turns to Hardison; and if muscle shows up, it’s Eliot on deck. Nobody fights for favor or argues about who should do what part of the job. This is why the original design of a story team is so essential: it cuts through a lot of crap that would slow down the action of the story.

3. Team members should have individual character arcs that are echoed in the character arc of the team as a whole.

Much of the fun in Leverage is watching the team work together, but that goes back to our attachment to the damaged people that make up that team and the way working together helps to alleviate the pain of the individual characters. Eliot is haunted by past crimes; working with the team to save innocents, working to save the team in times of trouble, Eliot finds himself again in a new sense of purpose. Hardison began life as a foster child with a fierce foster mother; he finds family and direction working with a team that lets him showcase his talents and gives him a sense of purpose beyond I’m-really-good-at-this-isn’t-this-fun in using them. Parker’s another foster child, her attachment and relationship skills stunted by abuse; in the safe shelter of the team that protects her like a little sister, she finds her feet and comparable sanity and something she’s never had before: that sense of purpose. Sophie and Nate are older; working with the team shocks them out of their ruts and gives them a new sense of purpose: they’re the adults watching over three talented but damaged children, heading up the family business, Leverage Inc. Parker’s leap off the building into Sophie’s arms in the first season finale is fun to watch on its own, but the emotional impact comes from Parker’s fearless leap into the arms of a mother who will finally save her, not desert her. It’s a character arc completed in one action sequence and probably my favorite in the entire series.

4. Develop individual relationships within the team that keep them from being cogs in a machine.

The Sophie/Parker mother/daughter relationship isn’t the only one that matures over the course of the series. Nate, the bereaved father, clearly sees Hardison as a son, giving Hardison the father he never had; his mentoring, scolding, praising, loving relationship with the hacker is an integral part of the show’s emotional bedrock. The Eliot/Hardison nobody-hits-my-brother-but-me relationship isn’t just entertaining, it’s the focus of several stories and the clearest demonstration of both men’s emotional arcs. Romances in action shows are often there because, hey, romance, but Parker’s ability to trust and attach to Hardison is more than just a rom com, and the Nate-Sophie romance only works once they’ve both moved past what they once were and become who they were meant to be (which, bonus, also makes Sophie a good actress). All of these individual relationships fuel the team/family relationship as a whole. At the end, when the three younger Leverage members go off to start Leverage International, there’s no sense that the team is fractured because of all the interpersonal relationships. You know they’ll be together at the holidays, that their kids will call Nate Grandpa, that Sophie will be teaching the next generation to act and grift, and that Eliot will always protect them all because it isn’t just the team that binds them, it’s the inter-relationships within the team that make them a family.

5. Have a leader who deserves to be the leader, whose world view and focus gives the team its identity.

Nate may be an arrogant drunk, but the Leverage team follows his orders because they know through experience that he sees the Big Picture and he will always save them if something goes wrong. He designs the con using everybody’s skills to the best effect, and deals with setbacks as they come because he has a Plan B. And C, D, E, F, and G (Hardison dies in Plan G). Add to that, he’s the only one of them who isn’t a criminal, so he becomes their moral center. Even at the end of season two, when he finally accepts who he is and says, “My name is Nate Ford and I’m a thief,” he’s still their moral touchstone. If Nate says it’s wrong, it’s wrong, and nobody argues. That’s a great leader.

And now I want to watch Leverage again.

PERSON OF INTEREST

1. A team has a common goal that unites them

The common goal in PoI comes about because Finch and then Reese organically assemble people who need redemption. Finch chooses Reese and tells him that he’s offering him a sense of purpose because he’s lost his way. Reese brings in Fusco, a cop who turned to corruption through bitterness at the unfairness of the world; Finch offers him a chance to make things fair again on a case-by-case basis, giving him a chance to be a good guy again. Finch draws in Carter, an honest cop working in a force riddled with corruption; he shows her the way to work outside the law to protect it, saving the innocents that gave her a sense of purpose as a by-the-book cop. Shaw loses her way when her employers betray her and murder her partner; Finch offers her a chance to do what she’s best at outside the system, giving her that sense of purpose she was beginning to lose in the face of the corruption. Root begins as an antagonist and becomes part of the team because she loves the Machine and can see the coming apocalypse that the others will fight with her to prevent. The Machine Gang in the end is united by that sense of purpose, the clear knowledge that they can make a difference, and because they’re united, they evolve from saving individuals to saving the world, at least for now.

2. Team members should have sets of skills that complement each other and are directly useful in attaining that goal, no overlaps.

One of PoI‘s few weaknesses was that they incorporated team members with redundant skills. You want a computer genius? Finch and Root. You want somebody who will kill without hesitation? Reese and Shaw. You want somebody with no moral boundaries? Shaw and Root. You want a good cop? Carter and Fusco. You want somebody driven by lost love? Finch and Reese. You want . . . well, you get the picture. I wouldn’t want to lose any of these characters because I love them all, but looking at them simply as a set of skills, they weaken the team construct. If you think of them as a set of planned redundancies they work a little better, but even then PoI overcompensates. Carter dies, and Reese becomes Second Cop. Root dies and the Machine becomes Root. Given the dangerous tasks they take on, the redundancy makes sense from a practical standpoint, not so much from a story standpoint. Having said that, I want all of these characters to thrive onscreen for as long as possible even if they do gum up the works.

3. Team members should have individual character arcs that are echoed in the character arc of the team as a whole.

The arcs in PoI are strong and radical, some of them 180 degrees, none more so than Fusco who begins a corrupt cop capable of murder and ends the heart of the series, the guy who says to the man who murdered the partner he loved, “I’m not going to kill you; she made me better than that.” The damaged Root moves from heartless con woman to a partner who dies to save the man she knows will save the world. Emotionally stunted Shaw moves from cold killer to the passionate defender of a young girl and the passionate lover of a woman as damaged as she is. None of these transformations is fast or unbelievable–at the end Fusco will still put a body in a trunk to save the team and Shaw is in a committed relationship with a computer–but they are still transformations, earned through pain and joy and action throughout the series. Finch learns to trust, Reese learns to love, Root learns compassion, and all of those arcs are echoed in the arc of the team, which moves from Finch and Reese in a cold partnership saving individuals to Finch, Reese, Root, Shaw, and Fusco all willing to die for each other, bonded together in a team that will save the world.

4. Develop individual relationships within the team that keep them from being cogs in a machine.

Finch and Reese may be the pair that begins the Machine Gang, but as the others are slowly added, individual relationships become the interlocking web that keeps the team going through tragedy and defeat. The bond that Reese and Carter form frees Carter by giving her the unconditional back-up she’s never had and almost destroys Reese when Carter dies. Carter and Fusco’s partnership gives her the same thing; Fusco coming through for her in the safe house with the mob bosses is a major turning point not just in their characters but also in their relationship, a bond that becomes transformational in its impact on Fusco. Root’s admiration for Finch may be based in awe at his computer genius but it manifests itself as love when she sacrifices herself for him at the end. Shaw’s emotional detachment melts when it meets Root’s manic drive; their love saves Shaw from torture and transforms them both. And there’s no greater relationship arc than the emotionally detached Reese dying with a smile on his face because he’s saving Finch, the man who saved him, and the distress and acceptance on Finch’s face as he leaves Reese to his fate, knowing that Reese needs to pay that debt. At the end of PoI most of the team is dead, and their leader has gone to Rome to reclaim his one true love, but Fusco and Shaw keep the team alive with the Machine in the lead, still insulting each other affectionately, both of them committed to taking care of the dog. The team survives because the team members made personal bonds that transcend even death.

5. Have a leader who deserves to be the leader, whose world view and focus gives the team its identity.

Finch chooses Reese and then slowly admits him into his confidence. Reese chooses Fusco and Carter, and then Finch slowly admits them into his confidence. Finch sends Reese to save Shaw and then waits until she’s ready to join the Gang. Only Root inserts herself into the Gang by kidnapping Finch, and even then, it’s Finch who unlocks the door to the library and invites her to join them in order to save Reese. The rest of the team has highs and lows, uncertainties and fears, but Finch has already reached bottom and so his sense of purpose is steadfast, a sense of purpose that gradually communicates itself to the rest of the team. This is what they do, this is their purpose, he tells them: They save people. The Machine Gang may not like everything Finch tells them to do or not do (“Stop killing people, Miss Shaw”), but they follow him because he designed the system and assembled the team for that single purpose they all accept, and because he’s their moral compass. And in the end the team that remains follows Finch’s successor, his child, the Machine, continuing that purpose in a chaotic but free new world.

And now I want to watch Person of Interest again.

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

(NOTE: The above team picture is missing Stein, Jax, and Rip; if you can’t get your whole team into one picture, that’s a clue you have too damn many team members.)

1. A team has a common goal that unites them

At the beginning of Legends: Rip assembles a group of people and shows them the future as a burning wasteland created by the immortal Vandal Savage (worst antagonist name ever). They can change that future, he tells them, and in so doing they will become legends, their names remembered forever in the future. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Rip is lying in his teeth, let’s look at how bad he is at leading a team. After his big speech . . .

• Snart and Mick walk off, unimpressed; they decide to join later for their own goal of robbing the past through time travel. Screw the future.

• Stein goes for the knowledge he can attain and the historical figures he might meet. Screw the future.

• Jax refuses to go; he ends up on board the ship because Stein drugs him because he can’t go without him. Screw the future.

• Ray goes because he wants to be remembered as a legend. Rip’s con works on him.

• Sara goes for the adventure and to save her city in the future. Rip’s con works on her.

• The Hawks go to defeat Savage, although Carter has to beat Kendra in a fight to get her to go. Rip’s con works because Carter know Savage is coming for them anyway.

So Snart, Mick, Kendra, and Jax refuse the call. Sara and Carter accept for personal reasons. Mick and Snart accept for greed. Ray accepts because he wants to be a legend.

Nice team you got there, Rip. Good luck with those multiple goals.

Okay, no team begins as a unified entity; teams need to evolve over time. In fact, one of the pleasures of reading about a team is seeing how it comes together, a kind of multi-player romance story in which the way the relationships among the members are built foreshadows the team’s future success. But on the first season of Legends, too many people with too many goals made a hash of the team concept. Instead, teams formed within the team. Sara, Snart, and Mick became Killer, Klepto, Pyro not through any conscious decision but because they were the three who were the most practical and the ones most willing to cross moral lines to get things done. They were also, not surprisingly, the most effective and most popular of the group. Stein and Jax worked out their father/son power issues and became the working team that was already Firestorm. Kendra and Carter tried to work out their relationship which was tough because Kendra couldn’t remember her past lives, and then Carter died (207) and she was left on her own, still whining about the way her life changed without her permission (she didn’t ASK to be a demi-goddess). Ray wandered around trying to attach to everybody and ended up in a doomed romance with Kendra, a woman he knew was fated to be with another guy (reincarnated 206 times, Ray, and always ends up with the same guy). The team only becomes a team in the last two episodes when Rip’s lie is revealed, further compounded by the betrayal of the Time Masters. At that point, the team comes together to save itself, a common goal at last, and then to gain vengeance for the death of one of its own. There’s a reason the last episodes of the first season are the best: they’re finally about a team.

Now contrast that with the second season: Sara’s in charge with a clear goal: save the timeline from anomalies. She invites the others along with a clear sense of purpose: They’ll replace the Time Masters and save the world. Those who accept–Stein, Jax, Ray, and Mick–accept knowing that’s the mission. The new members, Nate and Amaya, are told that’s the mission from the beginning. There are still too damn many team members, but they’re all working together for the same goal that they’re all committed to, which is why the new season in infinitely better.

2. Team members should have sets of skills that complement each other and are directly useful in attaining that goal, no overlaps.

God knows why Rip picked these people. He even tells Mick the only reason he’s along is because it’s the only way he could get Snart. Why he wants Snart is a mystery since his plan is to kill Savage and Snart’s a thief. So here’s the team Rip assembles in Season One:

Kendra: Flies and can kill Vandal Savage (has tried and failed 206 times).

Carter: Flies and can kill Vandal Savage (has tried and failed 206 times).

Ray: Flies and is a physicist.

Stein: Flies and is a physicist.

Jax: Flies and is an auto mechanic.

Snart: Thief who freezes things.

Mick: Thief who burns things.

Sara: Assassin.

Okay, your goal is to kill the immortal Vandal Savage. You’d want one of the greatest assassins in the world (Sara) and the two demi-gods who are psychically linked to Savage and who may be the only people who can end his immortality )the Hawks). Now explain to me the physicists, the auto mechanic, and the thieves. Yes, the physicist and the auto mechanic can fuse to become a nuclear weapon, and the other physicist built a suit that allows him to shrink to the size of an atom, but since Savage is immortal, you really don’t need that fire power. If there was some totem or amulet that gave Savage his power, then the thieves would make sense, but nope.

Now look at the second season:

Sara: Leader, assassin, and general badass.

Mick: Time travel expert, thief, muscle.

Stein: Physicist, can fly.

Jax: Time ship mechanic, can fly.

Ray: Physicist, grounded without his suit.

Nate: Historian, can turn to steel.

Amaya: Channels animal spirits to transform herself, general badass.

The goal this season is to monitor the time lines, find where anomalies are happening (bad people messing with time for criminal ends) and go stop them. Everybody on the team, with the possible exception of the now grounded Ray, is going to be useful in fighting bad guys, and once Ray finds himself again, I’m sure a new skill will crop up. The only real problem this team has is that when Stein and Jax fuse to become the nuclear weapon Firestorm, they pretty much make everybody else redundant, something the show hand waves away. Rip’s gone missing so he can film Broadchurch, but he’s not missed because he’s not necessary; Sara is a vastly better leader. Snart, on the other hand, is a grievous loss because amoral brains in a master thief are always useful, and he was an exceptional cold-blooded Lancer to Sara’s Leader. The team still has doubles–Ray and Nate are both goofy innocents, so we could lose one of them, and Sara and Amaya are both kickass fighters, although I’m okay with that one, we need more badass women on film, but at least they’re all working together toward a common goal and consider themselves a team instead of being told they’re one.

3. Team members should have individual character arcs that are echoed in the character arc of the team as a whole.

First season Legends gave its characters arcs, but it did that through their individual relationships, not through the actions of the team.

Stein and Jax change each other, develop an understanding of each other, and grow closer, giving Stein the son he never had and Jax the father he lost and making them both healthier and more valuable to the team.

Sara arcs from rebel in search of adventure to sober leader in search of time anomalies.

Snart arcs from bad guy to hero, his death the capstone of the second most compelling arc of the series.

The most compelling arc belongs to Mick, who evolves from mindless, amoral pyromaniac to intelligent, caring thug, which moves him from comic relief to fully realized, complex character.

The rest of the team is pretty much treading water. Ray loses Kendra in Season One and his suit in Season Two, setting him up for tremendous character growth, but Ray is still just Ray, dealing with insecurities in spite of being a billionarie genius who looks like Brandon Routh, one of the reasons that even though he’s goofy and lovable, he’s not a character that evokes a passionate response in the viewer/reader. Rip is still angry and secretive and now missing but not missed. Kendra and Carter few off at the end of last season, pretty much the same people they were when they flew in, and again, nobody misses them.

4. Develop individual relationships within the team that keep them from being cogs in a machine.

Because the Legends team is so fragmented, they stay reluctant and rebellious cogs in Rip’s machine until the last episodes. The Leverage team in the beginning is having a good time while saving the innocent; in the end, they’re saving the innocent, which also happens to be their idea of a good time. The Machine Gang begins as individuals trying to save individuals, by the end they become a world of their own trying to save the world. The first season finale of Legends, in contrast, begins with all those different motivations and ends by splitting the team into three groups in three different time periods to do the same thing; even though they’re finally united by a common goal and the loss of a team member, they’re still not really a team. The true team within the team, Killer, Klepto, Pyro, gets the real climax, rescuing the others and taking out the Oculus Rift that negates free will, their fierce independence as a group and interdependence on each other freeing the rest of the world from the Time Master’s control at the end because one of the three is willing to die to save the other two (and the world). I think one of the reasons Sara, Snart, and Mick were the MVPs of the first season of Legends is because they formed a unit to rebel against Rip, the guy who turned out to be lying to them and flat out states that he’d sacrifice them all to save his family. The emotional arcs of the three characters, the relationship arcs of Sara and Snart, Snart and Mick, and even Sara and Mick fuses them into a true team with clear goals and clear motivations in the middle of muddy and often ridiculous story. Snart in particular arced through relationships; he grows close to Sara and tries to initiate a romantic relationship (“I’ve been thinking about what the future might hold for me. And you. And me and you” might not sound romantic, but boy, it is), he takes Mick from the team when he becomes a danger to them all, saves Mick from sacrificing himself at the end because he’s a brother, and earns a kiss from Sara before he dies. If Legends had been Killer, Klepto, Pyro, it would have been a much better story.

5. Have a leader who deserves to be the leader, whose world view and focus gives the team its identity.

Unfortunately for the team, Rip is lying in his teeth; he does want them to stop the bad guy who burns the future, but it’s to save his wife and child. Also, in the future, nobody knows who they are. It’s all a con. So Rip does things no good leader does: he insults his team, he lies to them, he manipulates them, and he uses them for his own selfish ends, telling Sara at one point that he’d sacrifice them all to save his family. That’s human, but it’s lousy team leadership. In return, some of the team doesn’t trust him, and most of them don’t follow his orders. When Rip says, “I’d like to remind you that I’m in charge here,” Snart says, “I remember, I just don’t care.” A leader can’t order people to respect him or her and, outside of the military, a leader can’t order people to follow him or her. The leader has to earn that, which is another reason most story teams are built up over time. Watching a team come together is a kind of love story, and the connection is that much more powerful if we witness it instead of just being told it exists. And the single most important thing in pulling a team together is a strong leader. Contrast Rip in Season One with Sara in Season Two; she connects with each member of the team, she makes their missions clear and motivated, she listens to their concerns, she never lies to them, and she protects them at all costs. So early in Season Two when Mick turns to the team at the end of a battle and says, “Sara says it’s time to go back to the ship,” they all go immediately. She’s the leader, and Season Two is turning out to be good, if still ridiculously out there, storytelling.

So what have I learned from this?

THE DEVIL IN NITA DODD

1. A team has a common goal that unites them

Right off the bat, I have a problem.

Nita wants to find Joey’s killer. It’s Mort’s and Button’s jobs to do the same thing, so they have a united sense of purpose.

Nick wants to close the hellgate. It’s Dag and Rab’s job to help him, so they have a united sense of purpose.

If whoever opened the gates or is guarding the gates is the same as whoever ordered Joey killed, they can combine to fight a common enemy, a plot move I really like.

I just don’t know why anybody would do both of those. Or one of those. ANTAGONIST PROBLEM.

2. Team members should have sets of skills that complement each other and are directly useful in attaining that goal, no overlaps.

Nita’s a cop.

Button’s a cop and a sharpshooter.

Mort’s a doctor/medical examiner who is also a self-taught demon expert.

Nick’s a fixer, Devil-elect

Dag’s a fixer/demon.

Rab’s an Earth Studies expert/demon.

I can see potential there, and even better I can see room for assigning different traits, but mostly I can’t see a pattern because I don’t know what they’re fighting. ANTAGONIST PROBLEM. I can see that Nita’s team is well-equipped to find Joey’s killer and that Nick’s team is well-equipped to close a hellgate, I just can’t see the larger problem. Because I’m not sure what the larger problem is. ANTAGONIST PROBLEM.

3. Team members should have individual character arcs that are echoed in the character arc of the team as a whole.

Nita’s going to find out that she’s not what she thinks is, which is going to explain a whole lot about her previous life, allowing her to arc into a new, more powerful one.

Nick, who is dead, is going to evolve back toward life again, becoming more than he was before when he was living (but staying dead, I think).

The rest, I hadn’t really thought about their arcs. They’ll have to have them, but I think they’ll be informed by the relationships they make and their struggles to achieve their goal of defeating . . . ANTAGONIST PROBLEM.

4. Develop individual relationships within the team that keep them from being cogs in a machine.

Nita and Nick will become lovers (duh, romance novel) which will transform both their lives.

Dag’s in love with Daphne, which will arc him into a new life.

I’m sure the others will develop relationships . . . crap.

5. Have a leader who deserves to be the leader, whose world view and focus gives the team its identity.

This is where Nita has to step up. She is moral and determined and smart, and she’ll never lie to her team, but I don’t know what her plan is because I’m still not clear on who she’s opposing. ANTAGONIST PROBLEM.

I think tomorrow I’ll look at the impact of antagonists on teams.

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