White Collar – Go away Bizarro Neal!

It makes sense for figures from Neal’s criminal past to continually crop up as he navigates the fringes of the underworld that they once inhabited together. It even makes sense for some of them to keep on coming back … who doesn’t want to see more of a fun character?

Well, Matthew Keller (Ross McCall) does not, and never has, fallen into that category, and I wish to all things holy that he’d just go away once and for all. His initial appearance as Bizarro Neal back in season one was only enjoyable for all the things that had nothing to do with him specifically; namely, I loved Keller and Neal battling to create a fake antique wine.

But like I said back then, “I’m not sure how I felt about meeting Neal’s “rival” … do we want to think of Neal like that? Did we need to imagine that someone as uncouth as Keller could do what Neal does so well? … I kind of felt let down that Neal would imagine himself in direct competition with that guy.” And Keller was no different here — force and violence is his calling card, and he couldn’t hold a candle to Neal.

Adding insult to injury was that, following his most recent appearance when he kidnapped Peter, last night we had to endure Peter fretting about Elizabeth’s reaction to Keller’s return. Why is a guy who kidnapped him once, however long ago, more dangerous to Peter than an unknown criminal who could suddenly shoot at him, or worse? Too bad Keller escaped … that means we’re not done with him yet. Super.

And yet, White Collar is White Collar, and so even a mediocre episode always has moments worth noting:

• Neal telling Mozzie that “We can’t leave until we have that list,” when he had the list, was the surest sign yet that Neal’s actually second-guessing their plan to run. I think the answer to Neal’s uncertainty has to lie in who he was before he met Mozzie and scammed Vincent Adler. When do we get to hear that story?
• Peter said that Raquel (Eliza Dushku) the Egyptologist smuggled in real artifacts by making them look like gift shop trinkets. Why would an Egyptologist be bringing gift shop trinkets into the country? I don’t think there’s anything someone in her profession could be doing that would look more suspicious.
• Mozzie relaying what he knew about Raquel to Neal and then telling him that, “Not all my information is helpful.” Yeah, Mozzie!
• Since when is Peter so shortsighted? If Neal didn’t turn his transmitter back on in sixty seconds Peter was going to blow the entire operation? What if it takes seventy-five seconds to do a thorough wand sweep? It’s quite possible that current Peter would be incapable of catching a thief like Neal….

And then there was Neal and Mozzie coming face-to-face after Mozzie sold the Degas and Neal revealed that he’d found the partial list when he broke into Peter’s house. The look of betrayal on both of their faces — Neal’s because of the hit on Keller — was fantastic … in a sad kind of way, of course. Is it possible for their relationship to be ruptured? I definitely don’t want to find that out.

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Aug 03, 2011 @ 15:30 EST5EDT