Havasimy

If you're reading this and haven't been following the tv show White Collar, I suggest waiting til you see all the episodes. This entry is about the twist thrown in at the end of the latest episode.

First, a brief summary of the show. It centers around Neal Caffrey, one of the world's best thieves, and Peter Burke, the FBI agent who is the only man to ever catch him. Neal escapes from jail not too long before the end of his sentence because he believes his ex-girlfriend, Kate, is in danger. But he doesn't find her. Instead he gets caught by Peter again and a deal is worked out. He can finish his now-extended sentence if he helps solves the type of crimes he's great at. When he's not with a FBI agent, he's stuck wearing a home-arrest anklet keeping him in a short radius in NYC.

Individually, each episode follows a formula that alot of shows follows. There's a crime that gets solved in a standard fashion and a step or two forward taken in the season-long mystery. Neal believes Kate is being held captive by a man who Neal only knows from a hand wearing a ring on Kate's shoulder in a ATM surveillance camera photo. Kate also left a clue behind. Each week Neal follows one clue to another clue to finally find out that the man with the ring will let Kate go if Neal gives up something he has stolen and hidden in one of his many stashes.

Now this is the part where I start discussing the twist ending. The fact that they talked about the man with the ring without giving any physical descriptions suggested that the man with the ring is someone the viewer knows. The candidates include Peter and a number of other FBI agents and Mozzie, a con artist/thief friend of Neal. Mozzie is played by Willie Garson, who is short bald and wears glasses. He often plays nerdy and/or gay characters. That originally lead me to suspect him to be the man with the ring because he's physically not what you would expect. Then Neal discovered that the man with the ring was a FBI agent, which made me suspect his actual identity. The twist at the end is that the man with the ring holding Kate until Neal gives up his stash is Peter.

This makes sense in some ways. Peter always comes off as aloof. So much so that, Neal often is wonders out "This is the guy who caught me?". It's believable that Peter is smarter and more devious than he seems. And if there's one piece that Neal has stolen that Peter particularly wants back, it's conceivable that he would go through the trouble of using Kate to get Neal to give up the goods. It also explains why, when Neal escapes and is caught again, Peter has little problem having Neal around. He can keep an eye on him.

Now here's the question. Is Peter a good guy or a bad guy? Up to that point, the show as a buddy comedy/detective series. Like 48 hrs or Lethal Weapon, it fit two guys who are operates. One is straight-laced and one sees the rules as flexible. If Peter is a good guy agent who came up with a plan for something that must be the most-prized of Neal's stolen items, then it makes sense because the chemistry between the two is still believable. This only works if Kate isn't kidnapped, but instead working with the FBI.

If Peter is a bad guy, a Keyser Soze of sorts, then it pretty much questions a lot of things seen in the show so far. And in my mind, it ruins not just the chemistry between Peter and Neal, but also Peter and his wife, who is the perfect wife. If she's with a bad guy, it totally ruins it for me. Also, if he's a bad guy, then this show ends when the mystery does, which seems to be only sustainable over one, maybe two seasons. And that would be only by making Neal run and instead of fleeing the country, working to bring Peter down. If he's good guy, he could explain and possibly patch things off with neal.

I'm still processing this whole thing. I welcome anyone's thoughts who have been following the show.