There’s one more week before Neal Caffrey’s great commutation hearing on White Collar, and all I can say is, thank goodness! Can’t wait until that’s behind us.
Meanwhile, I enjoyed the case-of-the-week that marked Tim DeKay‘s — a high school and college baseball player himself — directorial debut. The immersion of baseball into the story made it all the more enjoyable, so much so that I wasn’t even that offended by the drop-in about Peter’s past life playing professional baseball. Neal studied Peter just as in-depth as Peter studied Neal, and they’re trying to tell us that he never found that out? Don’t think so. But still, it’s kind of cool to imagine that once upon a time Peter pitched for the Minnesota Twins organization. And how awesome was it for Neal to dig up a genuine Peter Burke rookie card? Nice. I loved Neal’s response to Peter’s request to keep the card: “They’re not that expensive.”
The case got a significant boost from Mozzie “The Imp’s” involvement. The team’s reaction to the sight of Mozzie in surveillance photos of Gordon Taylor (Hal Ozsan) was hilarious, and it’s nice to confirm that it’s not only Neal who holds Mozzie’s skills in such high regard. And talk about skills … Mozzie hiding Neal’s message to Peter under the stitching of the fake baseball, using a double red stitch to tip him off, was awesome.
Some of my other favorite moments:
Also, I couldn’t believe Peter’s immediate question to Mozzie after learning that Taylor ran, “Did Neal tip him off?” Really? Are we back to that again? I caught a glimpse of scenes from next week, and one thought stuck with me that I’d like to share: the idea that Peter’s nothing more than Neal’s mark, and that this entire series has been Neal running a long con on Peter. I think that conceit is fantastic, and it’s one we can delve into further in the comments below, or next week. But if it turns out to be the case, Peter’s continued distrust of Neal will get us one of these from Peter: “I always suspected that Neal was trying to pull one over on me.” Would we really want the show to move into an entirely new phase with that lame attempt at substantiating Peter’s suspicions? To be honest, it also kind of minimizes Neal as a con, to think that Peter’s been somewhat on to him this entire time.
Neal pulling a long con on Peter could be an awesome entre to the second half of the series. Don’t ruin it!
I got the feeling that the next episode will hinge on the Raphael painting, no? They keep bringing it up, and I’m thinking that is the last thing they have to get Neal on. I could be wrong, but that was my take.
I am SO against the whole series being a long con on Peter. I definitely picked up on that too, and it’s not that it wouldn’t be a good twist, but ‘con artist trying to reform and works for the FBI’ is so much better than ‘con artist uses the FBI to run YET ANOTHER con’. Character development is key to any series and this would basically kill any growth Neal has had, and in my opinion, make the whole series kinda pointless.
And where would we go from there? Can we REALLY stand yet another bout of Neal betraying Peters trust, then coming clean/getting caught and Peter forgiving him, they YET AGAIN agree “no more secrets”, and lather rinse repeat? Plus, I am also sick of Kramer, and if Neal is once more proven untrustworthy, I see much for of him–or someone like him–for us in the future.
There are several ways they can pull this out and make it awesome, setting up the future brilliantly, I just hope they do.
*POST AUTHOR*
You could have a point about the Raphael. I imagined it might have to do with Neal and Sara removing the final obstacle to their relationship (which would be unfortunate), but you could be correct in thinking that it’ll play some role in Neal’s hearing. Don’t know.
I think long con might be the only avenue the show has available to it without becoming too stale. What happens if Neal’s sentence gets commuted? He becomes a “free” consultant to the FBI? What happens if he gets turned down? He continues as a convict who’s a consultant to the FBI? In the former scenario it could be interesting if he chooses to split his time between good and evil. In the latter I could see his anger and disappointment driving him to do the same. But ultimately the show will be in the same place as it’s always been. Then what?