Breanna Casey

Breanna Casey
Real Name	Breanna Casey
Affiliation	Leverage International
Family	"Nana" (foster mother) Alec Hardison (foster brother)
Allies	Sophie Devereaux Eliot Spencer Parker Harry Wilson
Equipment	Computer and General Technology
First Appearance	The Panamanian Monkey Job
Latest Appearance	The Crowning Achievement Job
Played by	Aleyse Shannon

“	People who grew up feeling like they don’t belong. Like they’re strange for the way they think. The way they dream. Or the way they love. People like me. And your game made us feel like we weren’t alone in the world. Like we could belong. Like we do belong. We belong in myth	”
— Breanna, The Card Game Job

Breanna Casey is a character from Leverage: Redemption.

Sarcastic and intelligent, Breanna joins the team as a new kind of the hacker, the “relevant” kind. Her special skills include being a genius mechanical engineer (just ask her about her drones) and making social hacking and social media manipulation look like child’s play. Landing in the foster system after her parents’ tragic car accident, Breanna got lucky finding a home with Nana, and bonus big-brother Hardison, who reached out to the spiky, scared 10-year old by teaching her computers and hacking. Now, Breanna has a wicked sense of humor and is a genius-level hacker. She also still has some of her spikes, seeing the world with the jaded view of Gen Z, having lived through 9/11, unending war, global financial crisis, and the destruction of the earth at the hands of the generations who came before. In short, she doesn’t believe that the system needs to be fixed, she believes that the system needs to be blown up… and she has decided that joining the Leverage team is the best way to do it.

History

Early Life

Breanna lived with her grandmother who had Alzheimer's Disease, after which she was fostered by Nana. This made her and Alec Hardison foster siblings.

She worked multiple gig jobs before joining Leverage International. One of these was working social media for a concert promoter.

Breanna went after a new facial recognition software and also crashed Twitter, putting her on the FBI watchlist. Breanna was also involved in stealing credit cards, ransomware attacks, and DOD intrusions.

Leverage: Redemption

Season One

After going on the run from the FBI, Breanna begins to stake out her foster bother, Hardison and the Leverage team in New Orleans. Breanna wants to join the Leverage team, having grown up hearing their stories from her brother and Parker. Breanna also wants to put her skills in technology and engineering to good use. Breanna uses a drone she built to stalk the Leverage team while they’re on the con. Eliot notices the drone and the team soon finds Breanna hiding in their food truck. She begs them to let her stay. While Parker is initially hesitant, Hardison convinces her to let Breanna stay and help the team.

Parker helps Breanna with her pick-pocketing while wearing a coat with bells on it. Breanna says she wants to do more than stay in the van, hence why she’s working on her thieving skills. On the con, Breanna tries to seal a pearl on display, only to get caught immediately. When realizing there’s more money in the safe than Parker can hide under her dress, Breanna thinks up a plan, and the team trusts her.

Breanna works a job involving one of her favorite card games, Spirit’s Ruse. Breanna is able to help the team by decoding clues, having played the game. She also convinces the game’s creator, Springer, not to sell the game, showing the passion and love, she and the others at the fair have for it.  

After trying to steal a councilman’s watch, Breanna has to do community service. Breanna delivers food to an old woman who she learns name is Stella and was once the legendary thief “the Jackal”. Breanna helps Stella recount a story from her life for the team to help her out of her situation.

During The Golf Job, Breanna is at a computer coding camp with Hardison

During a con, Sophie gets Breanna to talk with the chief engineer on the project they are investigating, Emily Yoo. Breanna’s nervous because she’s never conned someone cute before. Breanna reveals to Emily that the battery for the plane she’s designing is fake. Together with Sophie, they expose Blake’s lies to his investors, discrediting him. At the end of the episode, Breanna and Emily share a kiss before the team has a meal with the food the farmer’s provided.

Season Two

During “The Debutante Job”, Hardison and Breanna buttheads about the best way to go about things. Breanna reiterates that she’s not Hardison and that he should respect and trust the ways she does things.

Breanna gets to run the con during “The Tournament Job.”

When the London Leverage team’s con goes sideways, the main Leverage crew head to London to investigate. They determine the conspirator to be Sophie’s former mentor Ramsey. They also come across Astrid Pickford, who Sophie reveals is her stepdaughter. With Billy the Gent’s help, they set Ramsey into a trap in the museum, where Astrid arrests him. Later, Sophie gets a call from Arthur, who had orchestrated everything to set his own trap for the Leverage crew, setting them up to seem to be behind the thief of the Maharaja crown.

Sophie hesitates with the alarms going off in the museum, causing her and Eliot to get locked in. The other team members work to free Eliot and Sophie, trying to slip unnoticed out of the museum which is now swarming with law enforcement. When the team gets free of the museum Sophie realizes that Arthur must have hidden the crown in the museum and suggest that the team find it to take him down. The team goes back in, and work alongside Astrid to make Arthur lead them to where he hid the real Maharaja crown.

Relationships with Other Characters

Alec Hardison

They are foster siblings.

Breanna shares skills with computers and technology like her brother.

Breanna seems to not like being compared to her brother in some senses but looks up to him and wants to be like him.

Parker

Parker acts as a mentor to Breanna, and Breanna idolizes her.

Parker taught Breanna how to tail people when Breanna was eleven years old, and also taught her that fire solves all problems

Harry Wilson

Harry and Breanna connect as both newcomers to the team. Breanna often iterates that Harry’s screw-ups make her look good.

Breanna and Harry bond over having a shared interest in gaming.

As Breanna is the youngest member of the team, Harry seems to be protective of her.

Emily Yoo

She expressed a romantic interest and mutual flirting with Emily in during The Great Train Job, which leads to a kiss at the end of the episode.

When Emily got a “super important tech job” that involved government security checks, Breanna broke up with Emily, as the Leverage team is “sketchy”. Brenna didn’t want to risk Emily losing her chance.

Notable Episodes

Leverage Redemption

Season One

• The Panamanian Monkey Job
• The Rollin’ on the River Job
• The Card Game Job
• The Double-Edged Sword Job
• The Jackal Job

Season Two

• The Tournament Job
• The Work Study Job

Character Notes

• It may be implied that Breanna’s not old enough to drink in the first season, as Eliot takes the glass from her in The Panamanian Monkey Job, shaking his head. By the second season Breanna is shown drinking alcohol with the rest of the crew.
• Breanna feels like she’s living in the worst timeline and is ready to make the world a better place
• Breanna’s had experiences with bad friends.
• During Season 2, Breanna has an asexual pride flag sticker on her laptop. This may indicate Breanna is asexual.
• In "The Date Night Job", Breanna refers to the Leverage team as her family.

Quotes

• Breanna: Hey, look. We're gonna mess this guy up pretty hard. Are we the... bad guys here?
  Sophie: Oh, yeah! Never forget that, Breanna! We're not heroes. We're just... necessary.

Casting

A listing on the Backstage website for hiring an actress to play Breanna (originally called Brenda) described the role as follows:

Production Description: Casting the series regular role of Brenda in "Leverage 2.0" a one hour comedy-drama. Note: Seeking someone with a strong comedy background. Stand-up and/or improv a big plus.

Role: Brenda: Female, 18-29

Asian American; strong comedy chops. Comfortable playing LGBTQ+ character. Sarcastic and intelligent, Brenda joins the team as a new kind of the hacker, the “relevant” kind. Her special skills include being a genius mechanical engineer (just ask her about her drones) and making social hacking and social media manipulation look like child’s play. Landing in the foster system after her parents’ tragic car accident, Brenda got lucky finding a home with Nana, and bonus big-brother Hardison (Aldis Hodge), who reached out to the spiky, scared 10-year old by teaching her computers and hacking. Now, Brenda has a wicked sense of humor and is a genius-level hacker (but doesn’t want to be known for just that -- hello, Asian stereotype). She also still has some of her spikes, seeing the world with the jaded view of Gen Z, having lived through 9/11, unending war, global financial crisis, and the destruction of the earth at the hands of the generations who came before. In short, she doesn’t believe that the system needs to be fixed, she believes that the system needs to be blown up… and she has decided that joining the Leverage team is the best way to do it. As Brenda trains in new skills with the other Leverage team members throughout the season, she will learn to embrace and trust her new family and accept the fact that blowing it up isn’t always the answer, sometimes the way forward is to help just one person at a time…(Series regular, 10/13) Note: Seeking someone with a strong comedy background. Stand-up and/or improv a big plus.

Ethnicity: Asian

Trivia

• Breanna appears to be obsessed with old technology, this is shown when she sees Mr. Blanche's library computer and gets a Nintendo 64 gift from Sophie.