I’m willing to accept that it may have been me and where my head was when I watched it, but I found almost nothing to like about last night’s episode of White Collar. I know there was so much that could have been great about it, but I couldn’t help but get annoyed at the cliched, cheesy, unimaginative — and at times just plain bad — plot that coursed through the hour. Let us count the ways.
Peter and Elizabeth’s fight was ridiculously lame. Sure it was funny to see Neal and Mozzie roll their eyes at it, but it wasn’t even staged well. Whereas I’ve enjoyed their relationship in the past, both Burkes were completely stilted and awkward in their delivery of that opening scene. And Peter directing his frustration with himself at Elizabeth, thereby causing the fight, came across as rough and forced.
Ross McCall returned as Neal’s nemesis Matthew Keller. You’ll remember that when we last saw him we were calling Keller “Bizarro Neal,” and Keller and Caffrey were competing to make a counterfeit bottle of wine. That was awesome; Keller wanting out of jail was boring. Shocker, the con wants out of prison!
Adam Goldberg as Jason Lang, forger extraordinaire who didn’t so much forge as kidnap Peter, was terrible casting. And despite Neal’s expertise at all things criminal, cons don’t always cross borders in their law breaking. I’d guess that a guy most at home with “works of art” wouldn’t be so comfortable with a gun. Granted Peter proved that point, but I’m talking about Lang’s willingness to participate in the first place.
And no one claimed that Lang was a Caffrey/Keller kind of guy, but I’m so tired of these scenes where the prisoner gets into the kidnapper’s head and manages to win the day. Everyone is not that dumb; I’d love to have seen Lang shoot Peter in the leg just to get him to shut up.
Even the jail cell break was mediocre at best. It was as if the writers took something they imagined could be cool, and then hit us over the head with it. I love Caffrey as much as the next guy, but it’s not feasible for him to have an answer to everything. It just isn’t.
And how about some of those ridiculous lines from last night? Elizabeth telling Mozzie “We’re not like most couples, Moz. We work.” Which is to say that most couples do not work? Okay….
Elizabeth yelling at the agents in her house that “You have my husband on the line; put him on speaker!” Another staple I’d love to see fixed: the forceful spouse who can cow any type of officer or agent. They should have patted her on the shoulder, said “Sure,” and then continued to ignore her pleas.
“Hun.” It just felt creepy.
Not to make it seem as if there were only bad lines, Mozzie did have one of my favorites, when he said to Neal “I happen to have an arsenal of hammers.” It was just the right kind of random for Mozzie, and it preceded a funny line about John Lennon, and Neal retrieving his engagement ring from a statue’s finger with one of Mozzie’s hammers. White Collar does still know how to make that stuff work.
By the way, on what planet does the Russian Mafia only have the tentacles to hit Keller in one prison? But then I guess I shouldn’t expect that to have been thought out any more than the rest of the episode. I really hope next week’s finale returns to form.
Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 23, 2011 @ 16:00 EST5EDT
That’s a surprising reaction. I thought it was one of the best of the season, especially the jailbreak scene, with them reproducing Peter’s cell in the FBI office. And even the FBI boss gave Neal credit with a shoulder clasp at the end of that scene.
Goldberg seemed uncomfortable in the role because his CHARACTER was uncomfortable in HIS role. “We work” meant that they don’t bicker or fight much at all. Mozzie’s visit to Elizabeth was moving, seeing that he really cared about her and about Peter. And Neal’s willingness to give up a $2.5 million ring to get Peter back safely was a great way to say how much his friendship with Neal means. And their instant understanding regarding “Neal’s phone number” and the sending of a 10-digit code not only highlighted their similar thinking, but underlined a point that some episodes seem to forget–Peter IS as smart as Neal.
I was also surprised that a) Peter was willing to give the ring back to Neal, and especially b) that Neal didn’t take it, and told Peter who to return it to. This show is, in part, about Neal’s redemption and turn away from a criminal life, and his growing connection to Peter. This episode showed that growth. It also managed to break out of the standard pattern that “White Collar” episodes fall into.
*POST AUTHOR*
Like I said, it could be where my head was when I sat down to watch the episode, but there wasn’t a lot going on that felt worthy of the series. I do acknowledge some of the smaller moments that you mention, but overall it felt more like what an episode should look like than just a creative, innovative episode.