By: Stephanie Sigafoos
Even as the reigning king of cable television, USA Network isn’t adverse to shaking things up a bit. It turns out neither are the writers of the original drama “White Collar,” which is set to christen its new timeslot (Tuesday 10pm EST) with the fallout from a daring cliffhanger scripted into the fall finale.
The show, which centers on a criminal mastermind now walking a tightrope of fairly good intentions, isn’t just a run-of-the-mill procedural. Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer) is the guy you’d want on your side tracking down the highest class of criminals – the ones wielding paint brushes instead of guns, touting SAT scores and not the length of their rap sheets. He prides himself on being a somewhat reformed high-end thief, a master forger and the FBI’s newest “consultant,” trading in orange prison drab for the stylish suits of Sy Devore, and a small, unkempt cell for a massive Manhattan brownstone.
Indeed, Neal’s smarts are what keep him from languishing in a maximum security prison, a two-mile tether attached to his ankle just the first price for his freedom. His “work release” is contingent on helping nemesis-turned-partner Peter Burke (Tim DeKay) identify things like the gum Arabic on a forged Spanish Victory bond or the security fibers woven into new Canadian currency. His failure to do so could lead to a one-way trip back to the big house, but what propels the character is something else entirely.
Neal’s willingness to tow the line has more to do with his missing girlfriend, Kate, who bid him adios in prison before leaving cryptic clues throughout the city as to her real location. Thanks to a picture taken at an ATM — one half revealing a man’s hand on her shoulder sporting a distinctive piece of jewelry — Neal believes his ex-flame to be in imminent danger. Their first real contact is brief, only long enough for Kate to ask for the location of his cache of hidden valuables, then disappear after warning him that the “man with the ring” was closing in.
Is the man with the ring Garrett Fowler, an OPR agent who seemingly framed Neal for a jewelry heist during the show’s last episode? Or is it Peter, the trustworthy suit whose hush-hush meeting with Kate (at the end of the last episode) was punctuated with a close-up of a thick gold band on his pinky finger?
Perhaps the better question to ponder is, “If Neal can’t trust Peter, what happens next?” That’s that dilemma at the forefront of Tuesday’s episode, “Hard Sell,” in which Neal goes undercover to stop a “boiler room” scam swindling investors out of thousands of dollars. It’s a treat to watch the cast work its way through the script, especially when Neal panders to potential clients with phrases like “The only history worth a damn is the history we make today,” and later brags to a suspicious investor that the Cuban missile crisis was also solved with a phone call.
We can’t – and won’t – ruin the ending, but can say in getting there the show finally traverses some moral grey areas, Neal’s lack of trust in Peter creating a more serious conflict that puts not only their partnership but also their lives in substantial danger. The darker moments are a reward in themselves, taking the show from a blue sky, almost fantasy-like version of cops and robbers to a more heavyweight drama. The guest stars (Jonathan Tucker and Justin Grace) are also smoothly believable running the share-selling scam, using tactics that would make Wall Street veterans either cringe in embarrassment or raise a toast in admiration.
The show even digs deeper into the contents of Neal’s secret stash, invoking a time and place of mosaics and mirrors – maybe a nod to everything not always being what it seems?
*White Collar airs at 10 p.m. EST/9 C Tuesday, January 19 on USA Network
