A running commentary on “White Collar”

So me and my friend Kirk Nybakken from the Minot Area Theatrical Society have had this ongoing love-hate relationship with USA’s “White Collar.”

The show features Peter, an FBI agent in New York in charge of high-end art theft and counterfeit. He ropes in Neal Caffrey who is meant to be this multitalented counterfeiter and con artist extraordinaire. To assist in these capers, Neal pulls in Mozzie, a shady underworld type who he’s worked with for years.

Neither of us can believe this show lasted a season, but in that its third season premiered last Tuesday, I felt it was worth a running commentary.

For the sake of context, we are occasionally “joined” in our observations by dialogue from the show, featuring Peter, Neal, Mozzie, various FBI agents and Elizabeth, Peter’s wife. Enjoy!

Mozzie appears at the controls of a single prop airplane:

KN: Is that Mozzie?

TA: Mozzie, get out of there!

KN: Where did Mozzie learn how to fly an airplane?

TA: Oh, he knows all things. Tom Cruise taught him how to fly an airplane.

On Neal Caffrey beating the lie detector:

TA: Sure, all indicators point to its having been Mozzie who stole the art but I don’t know. Anyway, he opened his eyes REALLY WIDE when he said that to the machine so the machine believes him.

This is one of our main complaints concerning this show. While any high-end event or locale, certainly any involving government or international agencies, would have a guest list and bouncers and some level of security, Neal, with nothing more than his perfect hair and charming air, can get into absolutely anywhere. And if he needs to convince someone of something, all he needs to do is open his eyes REALLY WIDE because that totally works.

Peter talks to the redhead:

KN: OK, so here’s the twist. She’s an insurance investigator and she’s working for the great-great-grandchildren who had their art stolen from them by Hitler, and she by rights has to turn it back over to the insurance company.

TA: She has to turn it back over to the insurance company? That’s no fun! Didn’t you see his face when he was in that room full of art? He was so happy!

KN: That’s where the conflict’s going to come in between those two because she’s going to want to take it back.

TA: Is it a problem that she looks exactly like Renee Russo from “The Thomas Crown Affair”?

KN: That’s what insurance investigators look like.

TA: They all look like this?

KN: The female ones, yeah.

TA: OK …

Retracing the caper

Mozzie: I got around (security) with a localized EM burst.

TA: Where did you get the localized EM burst?

KN: It’s Mozzie. He knows what an EM burst is. And he was with the Feds when he stole that art.

TA: He was running around with that large wire thing …

Neal: I just spent five hours being interrogated by Peter. He suspects something.

TA: Of course he does.

Mozzie: All the more reason for haste.

Mozzie tries Neal’s Jedi mind trick

KN: (Mozzie’s) not nearly good looking enough to pull that off.

TA: It’s just that when he opens his eyes REALLY WIDE they’re still behind those glasses

KN: That’s true.

TA: And Kirk, it would have been impossible for that art to have blown up like that in that huge explosion.

KN: Yeah, because of all that dynamite that was there.

TA: That he saw, and it would’ve just been impossible. I think he should interrogate him for five hours longer.

KN: How many questions can he ask him?

TA: In five hours he can ask him a lot.

KN: Yeah, but what?

TA: He can go into quite a lot of detail about how the art was blown up.

Peter quizzes Neal on the caper du jour:

Peter: Regale me.

Neal: He was a smuggler.

Peter: A world class smuggler.

KN: How come everything he does is world-class?

TA: He only associates with people who are world class. We mostly run into North Dakota class, where they break into bars after closing time.

KN: Or people evacuated in a flood go into canoes and try to break into other people’s houses.

TA: Oh my god, that was the dumbest thing I’d heard of, floating up to people’s homes in a canoe?

Talking of the caper:

Mozzie: He’s messing with your head. That’s what suits do!

KN: Oh, that’s a segue into the new show, “Suits.” That guy’s going to walk up and say “Hey, I know a lot of stuff and I’m not really a lawyer.”

TA: Oh, and then it will be a spinoff. But no, not “From the creators of 'White Collar,' it’s ‘Suits.’”

KN: And they’ll go, “That guy was weird.”

TA: And it was like he was a real lawyer, except I have access to the Internet and I was able to see where he doesn’t have a license.

Meanwhile, back at Peter’s apartment

Peter: I know he took the art. I was standing there watching the warehouse go up in flames and this floats down at my feet It’s a piece of the same painting that was in his apartment. If not him, then Mozzie or Alex.

TA: It took you two days to come to that?

Ellie: Well there’s a way to find out. Have a forensic team test this. If it’s from the 1930s, you know it’s not him.

Peter: I don’t want to involve the Bureau, not yet.

TA: What?

KN: Why not?

TA: You ARE the Bureau! It’s a active investigation! Why wouldn’t you?!

Ellie: I could have it tested.

Peter: You have a lab in the basement I don’t know about?

Ellie: No, at the gallery. They go through private galleries to authenticate work.

TA: Yes, authenticate it. Authenticate the crap out of it. “Why, this is FAKE!”

KN: “Fake! It was painted by Neal Caffrey in his upstairs apartment!”

TA: “I told you! NELL!”

Peter pulls Neal’s ankle monitor.

KN: And he’s going, “I’m going to follow him, because he’s going to wander off to the treasure. That’s where he goes when he doesn’t have an anklet is his treasure.”

Neal is meeting the smuggler at the Gramercy Fencing Club

TA: Here we’re going to see some world-class fencing.

KN: Seriously, that is something you do not just step back into.

TA: I’m hiding from any credibility at all by appearing in this episode of “White Collar.”

KN: Yeah, if other casting directors will please just ignore that I’ve taken this job.

Discussing the escape

Mozzie: We will escape par avion, by air.

KN: Because that’s what “Par avion” means.

TA: They have to say that because this is USA and the only people watching this are people who tuned in too early for wrestling.

KN: Right! “Par avion,” what the hell? He’s getting some water? I thought he was going down to the dock!

A hitch in the plan

Neal: If he didn’t take it to the FBI lab who else could test it?

KN: His wife.

Mozzie: Elizabeth! She comes from an art background and she knows about the painting!

Mozzie is outside the gallery where the scrap of painting is being tested. He’s sitting in a bizarre orange vehicle of some sort and looking through binoculars.

TA: Mozzie, what are you in?

KN: You know what I miss? I miss the show “Hustle” on AMC.

TA: I do miss ”Hustle,” they should have that show on.

KN: It was way better than “White Collar.”

TA: That show was fantastic. What is he in?

KN: But now they’ve got “Leverage,” which is similar, and I like “Leverage.”

TA: “Leverage” is good.

KN: They’ve got a Parker on there.

TA: Oh my god. Well, they brought this in to have it analyzed and we stood near a window to look at it.

KN: So Mozzie could see we were analyzing it.

TA: Exactly!

KN: And holding it up toward the window.

TA: We would put our art lab near a window, we would have windows all over our art lab because we would want to work with natural light. We don’t want to completely control the environment of the light we’re working with.

KN: But natural light is bad for art. Oh, we forgot that.

TA: Anyway, what was that vehicle Mozzie was in? It was like a bug screwing another bug or a bug screwing a PT Cruiser.

KN: It’s not inconspicuous.

TA: And whatever it is make sure you paint it orange.

KN: And make it little and ugly and no one will see it.

The “Necessary Roughness” promo came on starring Callie Thorne from "Rescue Me," which led to a comment that “The Protector" was premiering on Lifetime starring Ally Walker. I figure both are worth at least a look.

Caffrey hangs up with Mozzie and tosses his phone

KN: He just threw his phone into the rocks!

TA: I follow Neal Caffrey around because he’s always throwing items.

KN: It still had a bunch of minutes on it!

TA: “This is a disposable cell phone so I must dispose of it!”

KN: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to wait for Mozzie’s next call. That’s weird because if Mozzie has a disposable cell phone and he does, how do they know their numbers?

TA: They could call … aha!

KN: Yeah, "My next number is 638-something!"

TA: They go through a lot of Go phones …

Neal Caffrey loses his FBI tail in a tiny Magritte-themed flash mob

TA: Yes, now we all look exactly the same!

KN: Was this in the Thomas Crown Affair?

TA: Yes it was.

KN: This was on the Thomas Crown Affair!

TA: They did a Thomas Crown Affair flash mob.

KN: They all got their e-mails so they knew to be right there.

Mozzie running a distraction scam with the granddaughter

KN: Oh, it’s the Phoebe Cates.

"Phoebe": I got coffee all over myself.

TA: Oooh, how distracting!

Neal Caffrey enters the gallery

TA: Fortunately he’s not showing up on any of the other cameras because he’s extraordinarily handsome.

KN: Yeah, they just have cameras on the doors but not on the vaults …

TA: Or any sensitive spots you’d want to, y’know, monitor inside the gallery.

KN: Is he just going to draw a picture right there?

TA: He’s just that good.

KN: With just his like one, two, three colors, he can do it!

TA: It’s art deco! This was the paint that Picasso used!

KN: Now he’s gotta throw his phone. .. oh, there’s Mozzie!

Mozzie: Everything is in place at the warehouse. The plane is fueled and ready.

KN: With that $2 billion worth of art. And the island he’s moving to, he’ll be able to sell that to all the island people.

TA: Yes!

KN: They’ve got $2 billion.

TA: This is worth billions! Oh, that’s nice.

KN: I’ll buy it.

TA: Will you take a seashell?

Neal leaves everything behind at his apartment

KN: How’s he going to get through customs without his passport or ID?

TA: Kirk, what are you asking? He’s just going to show up! "Hello! Please, be on our plane! You don’t need to go through our metal detector, it’s fine! All it’s going to do is beep at you, sir, we don’t need that!"

Room at Gramercy Fencing Club explodes in a burst of money.

TA: Fortunately no one saw that.

KN: Yeah. Mozzie saw that scrap of art through the window at the gallery but no one saw this guy make it rain.

TA: Even though that room is all windows …

An interrogation ensues

FBI agent: I followed a hunch.

KN: Yeah, there was a hunch that there might be money coming out of the air conditioning unit.

TA: Yes, even though the smuggler’d been waiting for years.

KN: Yeah, years, but this date would be different. Have you ever had that gut feeling that money would just come flying out of the air vent?

TA: I find myself standing in strange rooms waiting, but it never happens. “Nope, not here; not today.”

We identify a hole in the plan

KN: Who are they going to sell the art to on the island?

TA: They’re going to go online, start a website.

KN: Old French Art dot com. You want a Rembrandt? We’ll sell that for $50,000!

TA: Would you like a Dick Van Dyke?

KN: There’s no such thing as a Dick Van Dyke!

TA: Sure there is! It’s worth billions! And if you give me a billion dollars for it it’ll be worth it.

The plane takes off and they double-cross the smuggler

KN: Mozzie! Don’t lose the money out the door! Oh, Mozzie. No wonder they had that big create sitting right by the door.

TA: And the door open.

The results are back and it seems authentic – or at least, not painted by Neal.

Ellie: Not unless he painted it 75 years ago.

TA: Or 75 minutes ago.

KN: On a different canvas with his one-two-three colors. Right there.

TA: Yeah, totally the same.

KN: Good thing he didn’t need blue.

Back in Neal’s apartment, Peter spies a new copy of the art deco Chrysler Building painting.

TA: How could I have doubted you? Yes, see how it’s not burned up?

Commentary:

TA: So what was the resolution on this?

KN: That that guy is duped. He’s a dumb FBI agent and they’re going to get away with the treasure.

FBI agent: The cleanup crew at the warehouse. They found this.

KN: What is it, Mozzie’s underwear?

Peter: It’s the list of the art. Who else knows about this?

FBI agent: Only a few people.

Peter: Let’s keep it that way.

KN: Oh, so if Caffrey says, “Oh, there was a Monet in there,” he’ll say, “How did you know about the Monet?”

TA: “You didn’t see the Monet!”

FBI agent: You still think Caffrey took the art?

Peter: I don’t know, but whoever stole it, if a single item on this list shows up ... WE'VE GOT 'EM!

You guys have fun with that. As for me, I honestly don’t think I care that much. If you do, however, new episodes of “White Collar” air at 9/8c Tuesdays on USA.