Summary and Thoughts: White Collar - Series 4, Episode 1

Because writing it down helps me process. 

Neal’s gone – it’s been 6 weeks since he fled New York City. Peter is grilled by Kyle Collins played by Mehki Phifer from the Office International Affairs. 

Surrounded by art (turns out they're copies) Neal appears to be in a warm and Spanish speaking country – viewers don’t know where, they have to wait until someone figures it out. Clues include an archipelago, situated on the Atlantic, and without a US extradition treaty. Neal is also making friends with the locals, including a young boy selling fruit named Hector. Using aliases Neal is James Mayne and Mozzie is Barry Satoro. Mia Maestro, who I last saw in Alias, is the latest object of Neal’s affections as a local coffee bar owner. Their stay in their island paradise costs them $25,000 a month as it’s owned by / under the control of an entrepreneurial American whose own stay has been almost 20 years long but he owns law enforcement, so for Mozzie and Neal, he’s a good person to know. 

Back in New York, Peter follows Collins because he has access to information he doesn’t: Witness Protection files and Ellen’s whereabouts. Remember the Season 3 finale with the impressive escape from Roosevelt Island with the alleged Raphael? Yes, that Ellen. Collins strikes out, so Peter gives it a shot. Ellen blows him off too. Elizabeth, who’d brought Peter a sandwich for his stake-out, gets that look in her eye.   

Neal has a romantic evening with Maya on the beach orchestrated by Hector who has been paid for all the papayas that Dodds’s man stole from him. She finds out that Neal was the one who got it arranged, and she softens towards him. Neal permits her 20 questions about New York but the scene ends before she gets very far. 

Peter comes home to find that Elizabeth has persuaded Ellen to come to their house. In conversation he finds out she was Neal’s father’s partner and convinces her that he really Neal’s friend. She tells him that in cases of emergency she and Neal had exchanged pagers and they were the only ones with the numbers. She gives Peter the number.   

Neal in bed with Maya – the pager goes off. Neal and Peter talk as friends. Neal enquires after Peter’s career and Elizabeth’s well-being. Peter warns him about Collins. They hang up as friends, but Peter is bound and determined to find him and records the call. The team come to the brownstone and analyse the information contained on the tape to figure out where he is.

Mozzie does some research on Collins, he’s bad news – his record as a government bounty hunter is more dead than alive and does not bode well.

The team find something in UTC-1, they cinch it to Cape Verde and circle the islands on a map. Glee – next job: figure out how to bring Neal home. BUT, oh my, unexpectedly, Collins exercises a search warrant on Burke’s place. Turns out he was watching Burke follow him and used Burke to lead the way in narrowing down Neal’s whereabouts. He finds the map. Elizabeth looks worried. 

Burke is put on leave when he goes to complain about and finds out Collins has left. He’s kind of / sort of given the opportunity to go after him, without protection from the agency. 

Switch back to the island, Hector arrives to tell Neal and Mozzie that Collins was in town. They decide to take the next flight out while Collins scopes out the main city. Meanwhile, Peter arrives – he was on the next flight after the next flight. Who knew that Cape Verde had SUCH good flight connections with New York. One would’ve thought there may be flights a couple of times a week at most, but multiple flights a day. Astonishing! Peter’s first stop on the island is the church that he had heard on the recording of his conversation with Neal. En route he finds the hat shop (so much for Neal being able to reinvent himself wherever he goes) whose owner tells him about his love of coffee. Peter flashes a photo of him and Neal to Maya (I’m a friend, really) when Collins arrives. He throws a wrench in Peter’s nice-guy tactics by in turn flashing a wanted poster of Neal and offering a reward of $500,000 dollars for Neal. He doesn’t mention alive because he doesn’t care. The cafe empties, all the men who had been sipping coffee had their marching orders for such a substantial reward. Peter looks worried. Collins looks triumphant. Maya looks worried.  

Hector steals Peter’s wallet, a chase ensues. Turns out it was a ruse so he can get him to where Neal is (and Mozzie) to talk uninterrupted. Hug. Brief discussion and they decide to flee. The locals catch on, as does Maya, another chase. Maya comes to the rescue with her Vespa after Neal separates himself from the other two to give them the chance to escape. She drops him off at Dobbs’s house. 

Peter and Mozzie secure transpo off the island and begin a long night’s wait, dum-da-dum-dum: Neal is stuck at Dobbs’s house when Dobbs decides the best thing for his own skin is to leave Neal to Collins to get the feds off ‘his’ island. End episode. 

I don’t know. This was never the most cleverly constructed show, it was always a vehicle for the friendship tests of Neal’s con-man-with-a-heart-of-gold core and Peter’s law-enforcement-to-the-core/smart-as-a-whip-but-how-much-has-Neal’s-con-man-charm-worked-on-him sensibilities. It’s a successful archetypal device: one character is very black and white – absolute, the other operates in the grey, the nebulousness: Sherlock Holmes / Dr Watson; Dean Winchester / Sam Winchester; Kate Beckett / Richard Castle; heck even Magnum / Higgins, when you come right down to it. Maybe because I have this so often I am starting to get bored. The eye candy that Matt Bomer is and the overall entertainment value (not to mention the selling point of the Willie Garson factor) might not sustain me to the end of this season. My PVR might be glad of the break if I do decide to call it quits. Question is: would I miss it? Hmmm.