WHITE COLLAR: By the Book

Mozzie has put a lot of effort into creating his mysterious persona, but this week’s episode threw him in the middle of the action. And in the process, we learned a little bit about our favorite “little guy.”

The Case of the Week

After some banter about his orange ascot, Mozzie left Neal and headed to his favorite diner, where he’s apparently developed a crush on his waitress, Gina. They talk cute about books and Gina recites Mozzie’s regular order, but the flirting ends suddenly when a couple of unsavory characters walk into the diner.

Gina ask Moz if he truly has friends in the FBI, leaves a few cryptic clues and then leaves. It turns out that’s all it takes for Mozzie to darken the doors of a federal building.

• Neal: Why are you in a federal building, dressed like Truman Capote?

Though Mozzie has to remind him that he never asks for favors, Neal agrees to help his friend quickly. They use Peter’s research team to track down Gina’s address, because though Mozzie has developed an entire file on her, he draws the line at finding her unlisted address.

At Gina’s apartment, they discover her place has been searched and wiped clean – but Gina is smarter than that and has left a few clues for her fellow mystery novel lover, Moz. The clues lead the guys to a cigar bar and Navarro, a Columbian drug lord, where they would have been caught if Peter hadn’t realized what was going on and showed up just in time.

Once Peter and Neal were both working on Mozzie’s case, he actually had to go inside the FBI offices – no disguise allowed. I always find the camera work interesting on this show, but I especially loved how they filmed this scene. Between the music and the dizzying perspective from Mozzie, I really got a feel for how stressed out this made him!

Together, Peter, Neal and Mozzie track down Tommy, Gina’s boyfriend – the problem in this whole scenario, of course, and only “a version” of Mozzie. Though they negotiate a trade – the money he stole from Navarro for Gina – but the boyfriend chickened out at the last minute.

I’m pretty sure that was Mozzie’s intention, as he was telling Tommy how likely it was that Navarro would kill him. If so, it worked perfectly, because in the confusion, he snuck out to meet Navarro while sending Neal a message about “the perfect exchange.”

Unfortunately, the perfect exchange wasn’t as perfect as Neal and Mozzie assumed. Thankfully, Peter and his team burst onto the scene just in time (again), giving Mozzie the opportunity to whip a gun out of the bad guy’s hand and turn it on him. Go, Moz!

Sadly, though Gina realized Tommy was a big ol’ chicken (and, oh yeah, a thief), she also decided to take off for California.

• Mozzie: I wouldn’t do well there. I like my shoes to cover my toes.

The Music Box Mystery didn’t come up in this episode. Neither did the tentative friendships between Diana and Neal or Peter and Mozzie. As a matter of fact, it seemed like Mozzie was back to complete distrust of Peter at some points, calling him “Suit.”

Or maybe it’s an affectionate nickname now?

This was actually my least favorite episode this season. Between no Alex and green-screen Elizabeth, it turns out I missed the strong women that play so well off our leading men. And aside from the pen scene at the end (which I saw coming, didn’t you?), we didn’t even get much flirting interaction between Peter and Neal.

Also, I thought it was overly convenient that Elizabeth knew that Gina was Mozzie’s friend from the diner – almost as “convenient” as Neal having a fingerprinting set on his hands when they broke into Gina’s apartment!

Despite all that, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing more Mozzie. I loved his excuses to keep people out of the elevator (“Do you smell that? Burning insulation?”), and watching him grab the gun in the rescue scene at the end was priceless. Here are my favorite lines from the episode:

• Neal: This is a little creepy.
• Mozzie: Oh, it’s nothing.
• Neal: How’d you get a whole file on her without getting her address?
• Mozzie: I’m not a stalker.

• Neal: Okay, I’ll go up…
• Mozzie: No way. She meets you, and I become the quirky friend.

• Mozzie: She liked it. She kept it.
• Neal: To use when she files the restraining order?

• Peter: Is he stalking her?
• Neal: I’d have to look up the legal definition.

• Peter: Is that why you’re wearing your cat burglar outfit?
• Neal: I’m a New Yorker. We like black.

All right, White Collar fans, what did you think of this episode? Did you love the Mozzie focus? Did you miss the music box mystery and Alex? Let’s discuss!

Mary is a soon-to-be PR freelancer, a wife and a mom to a toddler who she describes as “VERY two.” And while you might think her busy life would get in the way of an ambitious TV schedule, she’s way more organized [AHEM, addicted, AHEM] than that. Also, a clean house is overrated. Mary blogs about an imperfect life at Giving Up on Perfect, writing about family, faith, books, food, celebrity look-alikes and chick flicks. You know, the important stuff.