White Collar – Ripping off the Great Bambino

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:

• The on-location filming at the new Yankee Stadium, and inside the Monument Park museum, was awesome. As a Yankees fan I greatly appreciated the peak inside The House that Jeter Built.
• Peter and Neal’s discussion about sports versus art as a thing of beauty and a key to unlocking emotions. Got to be honest … I’m with Peter there.
• Neal’s billiards audition. In fact, I loved everything about that, from June bringing Neal a cue, to Neal’s reminiscing about his childhood hustling pool in Missouri, to the game itself. Very cool.
• Mozzie’s man crush on Taylor was annoying, especially considering that Mozzie gets to work with Neal so much. Taylor may be the first fellow con who could arguably hold a candle to Neal (and the jury’s still out on that), but come on, Mozzie! Nevertheless, I loved how nervous Mozzie got while watching the surveillance monitors with Taylor. I like to think only part of that was as a result of the con that Mozzie and Neal were pulling on Taylor.
• Peter telling his team, “We don’t have much time.” If we had a nickel for each time that’s been said (mainly by Peter) on this show….

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!

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Feb 23, 2012 @ 00:31 EST5EDT