WHITE COLLAR Season Finale: Point Blank

A special thanks to Mary for taking on the weekly discussions of WHITE COLLAR.  So happy that she’ll be back talking about Neal, Peter and the crew when the show returns in the winter.

Wow! It’s hard to believe we’ve reached the end of White Collar’s summer season already, but here we are. Let’s get to it!

Case of the Week

The case of the week wasn’t really a case, although Neal and Mozzie worked hard to make it appear that way. After deciding they needed to find Alex to figure out the music box mystery, Neal comes up with a way to smoke her out.

Mustard, coffee, perfume and imperfect stapling are just a few of the ways Mozzie and Neal “live the file” and make it appear legitimate. It seems a little over the top, especially when Moz hums the Batman theme to get into his role, but it works. Peter picks the Silver Burglar (a.k.a. Alex) file as the team’s next case to work.

• Peter: What do you know about Spanish silver?
• Neal: Do you even have to ask?
• Peter: Oh, for once I wish I did.

[Side note: Really? The FBI is now so caught up and plain old bored that they need to go LOOKING for cases? Is this how it works?]

Peter’s team sets up surveillance to catch the cat burglar who’s stealing silver jewelry, but Neal takes the opportunity to catch her first. He finds Alex on top of a building and warns her away from the FBI team.

Then, in their never-ending game of I scratch your back and you scratch mine, Neal asks Alex to steal the music box from Diana’s apartment and give it to the Russians. He knows they’ll put it on display and, presumably, attract the person who was after the box in the first place (and who, in theory, killed Kate).

Alex steals the box, Diana almost catches her, Peter accuses Neal of doing the very thing he did: stealing the music box.

Case over.

Music Box Mystery

We started the episode with Peter and Neal, one with the music box and one with the key. The ongoing tension between these two is realistic and interesting, but I like them best when they’re working together to catch the bad guys.

They discover that the key opens a secret compartment that holds a second comb. When put in place, the comb makes the box play a different song that, with Mozzie’s help, Peter and Neal determine must actually be a code of some sort.

Of course, Mozzie knows a guy who can help, so he heads off to meet him.

Meanwhile, Diana and Jones are investigating Agent Fowler and trying to connect the dots between him, the box and Kate’s murder. What they find out makes it pretty clear that Fowler is the killer: the explosives used to blow up Kate’s plane were purchased by someone using Fowler’s alias.

Fowler’s wife was murdered before we met him last season, but because the circumstances surrounding her death were suspicious, he hasn’t received an insurance settlement. In order to find Fowler, Peter’s team deposits money in his account under the guise of that insurance company finally paying out. Sure enough, Fowler bites and withdraws the money.

However, they didn’t need to bother (except to tell us about the murdered wife), because Neal’s plot to use the music box to catch Fowler works, too. The Russians display the box, and Peter’s team begins planning to apprehend Fowler there.

First, though, Peter tells Neal about the explosives. Not surprisingly, Neal goes a little crazy, now knowing for sure that Fowler is the one who killed Kate. He snatches a gun (conveniently left in the open by Mozzie’s code guy) and uses the key (snatched in a previous episode) to get out of his tracking anklet.

In a dramatic game of cat and mouse (and mouse and cat and…how many people were chasing each other?), Peter, Diana, Neal and Fowler finally come face to face at the art exhibit.

Neal has the gun on Fowler and it’s clear that he’s barely hanging on. Thankfully, Peter talks him down. “Don’t do this . . . This isn’t who you are, Neal.”

But wait! There’s more. Fowler claims he didn’t kill Kate, but that he’s been blackmailed this whole time. After getting an anonymous tip about who murdered his wife – and then killing the murderer – he’s had a video of his crime held over his head in exchange for the music box. Fowler says it was Kate’s idea to blow up the plane – after she and Neal escaped safely, to make it appear that they were dead, so they could truly escape.

In the middle of this confession, the Marshals show up to take Neal home – and Peter makes him do it. That’s when Neal really goes crazy, somehow even ending up with messy hair and charcoal on his face.

You know this man is upset if he’s not well-groomed.

While Neal is losing it, Peter’s team – along with Fowler – are figuring out who the mystery man from the botched meeting/surveillance was earlier in the season. And then, after being alerted to the murder of Mozzie’s code guy, they realize he’s going to kill Neal, too.

Before Peter and Diana can get to Neal’s apartment, we see him open his door to Alex. She acts weird, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t the bad guy. (Okay, I was mostly sure and completely hoping.) The FBI isn’t so sure, so they bust in with guns blazing.

Alex leaves (because she wasn’t the bad guy. Of course!), and Neal points out that he wasn’t the only one in the store with the code guy.

And then . . . Mozzie gets shot!

WHAT?! Right in the chest? AND the bad guy steals something out of his pocket? AND his eyes flutter closed? WHAT?!

Questions. Lots of questions.

* First things first: Do you think Mozzie will make it?
* How long do you think we’ll have to wait until we learn what was on the paper the shooter took from Mozzie’s pocket?
* Why did we need a scene trying to make Alex look like a killer? That didn’t even make sense.
* How on earth did Jones end up humming the theme from Batman?

Seriously, White Collar fans, this was the longest hour of White Collar yet. Even without a “real” case of the week, I felt like we had more twists and turns and misdirects and reveals than a whole season of, I don’t know, some other, lesser show.

* Were you surprised that Neal could handle a gun so well (and how cool was the trick with the metal detector)?
* Are you enjoying the development of the Peter/Neal relationship as much as I am?
* What kind of role do you want to see Alex play in the second half of the season? And where did Sara go?
* Do you feel sorry for Fowler now? Or should we still hate him, even though he’s not the Big Bad?
* How sad was Neal in the scene after he was sent home with the Marshals?
* What was your favorite part of the season?
* And how are we possibly going to make it to January for new episodes?

Thank you so much for watching this season with me. I have loved recapping the episodes and getting your insight to them as well. See you in January!

Mary can’t decide what she’s looking forward to the most this fall: season premieres of her favorite shows or quitting her day job to freelance. If only “freelance” meant “get paid to watch TV;” then she wouldn’t have to choose. Mary blogs about her imperfect life at Giving Up on Perfect, writing about family, faith, books, food, celebrity look-alikes and chick flicks. You know, the important stuff.