I have been thinking of nothing but a Leverage/Les Misérables mash-up for DAYS.
The scene opens in a French galley. A prisoner about to be released is brought to see the guard.
NATE: You are a thief!
SOPHIE: I stole a loaf of bread!
NATE: Look, you were in a house with a known collection of valuable art and antiquities, there was a set of professional lockpicks on your person, and when you were caught, you grabbed a loaf of bread and began wailing about how—
SOPHIE: My daughter was close to death, and we were starving!
NATE: You need to learn the meaning of the law. Do you want me to print out the Wikipedia page on the social contract for you?
SOPHIE: I know the meaning of these nineteen years, a slave of the law!
NATE: Five years for what you did, the rest because of your series of brilliantly complex escape attempts, all of which I foiled. Yes, 24601—
SOPHIE: My name is Sophie Valsophie!
NATE: That’s an obvious alias. I’ll just keep calling you 24601…unless you want to tell me your real name?
SOPHIE [through gritted teeth]: My name is Sophie Valsophie.
NATE: Aaaaaand I am Nate Ford! Do not forget my name. Do not forget me, 24601…
Sophie breaks parole and goes to get her daughter Parker, who she left with an innkeeper and his wife while in prison. But the inn has been burned to a rubble by tiny angry Parker. Sophie begins searching for her daughter, evading capture (and making money) through a series of elaborate stratagems that include talking a bishop into giving her all his silver; faking her own death (twice); getting a job in a jet factory, pretending to be its owner, and selling it; running for mayor of a small town; and impersonating a nun.
Nate is on her trail.
Sophie eventually finds Parker training to be a cat burglar with Archie Leach. Sophie convinces Parker to come live with her and the two of them end up on the grift in Paris.
[pictured impersonating members of the Paris FBI]
One day Parker runs into Hardison Pontmercy (literally). Hardison is part of a small revolutionary group led by Eliot.
ELIOT [giving a PowerPoint presentation]: So we’re gonna wait for General Lamarque’s death, and then at the funeral…Where the hell is Hardison? He was supposed to present his design for an impenetrable barricade that would collapse onto the National Guard with only two strategically placed charges.
Hardison wanders in, a dazed expression on his face.
ELIOT: Hardison, you’re late!
REVOLUTIONARY #1: What’s wrong today?
ELIOT [mutters]: The same thing that’s wrong every day.
REVOLUTIONARY #2: You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!
HARDISON: A ghost, you say—a ghost maybe. She was just like a ghost to me. One minute there, and she was gone! I think she was just a pickpocket though. I’m pretty sure a ghost wouldn’t need my wallet for anything.
ELIOT: You’re not a kid, Hardison! I know you mean well, but we’re kinda trying to overthrow the government here?
Cute shenanigans ensue in which Parker is afraid to reveal that she’s a total criminal to her adorkable new boyfriend.
Then Sophie and Nate spot each other in the street and Archie Leach demands Parker’s help on a big job in exchange for his silence! Sophie panics. “We’ve got to flee to England! I can do a killer English accent.”
But Parker runs off to sneak behind the barricade and save Hardison first. While there, she meets Eliot, who is struck to the bone in a moment of breathless delight for the second time in his life.
Sophie follows her daughter and finds…Inspector Nate Ford, who was spying on the revolutionaries (while pretending to be a very off-putting veteran with a folksy accent) and who has been caught!
SOPHIE: Let me kill that man.
ELIOT: He’s all yours.
NATE: Once a thief, forever a thief. What you want you always steal. You would trade your life for mine: yes, Sophie, you want a deal!
SOPHIE: Of course I want a deal. I’ll let you go if you help me get my daughter and her adorable boyfriends out through the sewers.
Nate is charmed, but he resists.
NATE: Not good enough. Turn yourself in.
SOPHIE: [cocks the gun]
NATE: [calmly stares her down]
SOPHIE: Fine, you win! I’ll turn myself in.
NATE: And tell me your real name.
SOPHIE [melting a little]: Oh, Nate…
NATE [imperturbably]: Do we have a deal?
SOPHIE: Okay, but you have to carry Eliot once we chloroform him, he looks heavy.
PARKER: But Mom, we can’t just leave! They’ll kill everybody.
ELIOT [points at Gavroche]: I made a promise to that kid.
HARDISON: Yeah, he’s counting on us.
NATE [overwhelmed]: And must I now begin to doubt, who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone and still it trembles!
SOPHIE: Oh, please. You’ve always hated the people you work for. And…[softly] I know your heart, Nate. I know it isn’t stone.
NATE: Fuck it, let’s steal the French government.
SOPHIE: Oh, Nate, we could have had years!
NATE: Actually, I think this is perfectly timed. Here’s what we’re going to do…
And then they organize a SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION!
And they all lived happily ever after.
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