White Collar – Everybody makes mistakes

I’m pretty sure it’s the first time this has happened, but last night’s episode of White Collar nearly bored me to tears. And I might possibly mean that in both the crying and the destructive sense of the word, although what I would have torn I’m not sure. But something.

Japanese “Samurai” bonds sounded sexy. They sounded like a whole lot of martial arts, ancient lore, and secret societies. Instead, we got a self-titled “white collar bounty hunter” in Sara Ellis (Hilarie Burton), an absolute horror of a character I hate to imagine might be back due to the fact that Neal never recovered that package from her office. Thanks for that, Caffrey.

And what was up with Mozzie? After stealing the show for four straight weeks, Mozzie was bumbling about some wine, some whine, and who knows what else. When even the guy you count on in a pinch lets you down, you know something’s not right.

Also, Neal and Mozzie took a look at the wreckage of the plane that Kate “died” on. I’m not so interested anymore, but okay, I get that we need to continue down that road. But wouldn’t you imagine that the black box wouldn’t hold the secret as much as whether any forensic evidence had been recovered from the body of the plane itself? It wasn’t flying in the air, so there wouldn’t have been any distress calls. Instead, why not look for traceable remains of the explosive, or, as gruesome as this may sound, Kate’s DNA plastered on the wall? If that’s missing, so was she.

The Mr. Black alias was kind of fun, but I really didn’t like seeing Neal with a gun. And would you imagine he’d be so adept with one? Daniac posited last week that Mozzie and Neal overlooking the fact that the “middleman was expendable” spoke to the non-violent nature of their crimes and their personalities … a gun was really out-of-character for him. I realize Neal had no choice, but the writers did.

The print of the stolen Raphael painting was a cute move by Caffrey. Sometimes he can be a bit too cute for his own good, but that was a good one … and a part of me wonders if that wasn’t actually the real painting he was returning in order to get in Sara’s good graces.

Did anyone else get a whiff (get it?) of Dirty Sexy Money when we heard that the wealthy real estate developer had bought the building that he’d first lived in when he moved to New York? Tripp Darling did the same thing with the family’s first home, although it was certainly a much grander place.

I also thought it was funny to note here how money clearly changes people. When he was but a poor young man, the mogul killed his adversary by himself and buried him in the yard. Now that he’s rich he can hire that sort of work out. Money sure does make a person lazy.

Anyway, nothing to write home about here. Hopefully next week will see White Collar back to form. In the meantime, last night was, to quote Neal Caffrey, “A long flight” indeed.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Aug 11, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT