Seemingly everyone talks about how glorious it is when Walter White and Jesse Pinkman cook crystal meth on 'Breaking Bad' -- hell, practically 10 minutes of each episode consists of a montage of those two cooking -- but as incredible as that show is, give me Neal Caffrey and Mozzie up to no good over those two drug kingpins any time.
No, I'm not saying 'White Collar is the better show. Far from it. NOT EVEN CLOSE. But, I don't watch 'Breaking Bad' for the meth-cooking scenes, I watch for the incredible drama and character growth.
'White Collar', on the other hand, I watch because I love seeing Neal and Mozzie doing shady things and getting into trouble. So when season 4 finally returned with those two making counterfeit whiskey, I was pumped -- especially when the first half of the season ended so well.
Unfortunately, I wasn't so pumped about the rest of what happened in "Family Business."
I'm a bit annoyed because I know the rest of this season is going be hung up on a storyline I'm not too sure I care about at this point. It's nice to learn more about Neal's family history and have his father around and all, but the whole crooked cop/framed for something he didn't do storyline is a trope that I wish this show didn't explore. It's not necessarily that it's terrible or anything, I was just hoping for something a bit better and more original.
And I couldn't help but roll my eyes when Peter told Neal he was going to have Jones infiltrate Flynn's counterfeit business. It was the classic TV scenario in cases like these:
--Person 1: "You're benched because you're too close/too emotional/too involved and invested in this case."
--Person 2: "No, no, you have to let me do this! I know this case better than anyone and it has to be me to do this and right this wrong!"
--Person 1: "...Fine! Just be careful and promise you won't let your emotions get in the way of this case. And I'm going to trust you, even though you always go behind my back and do what you want to do instead of what I tell you to do."
--Person 2: "You won't regret this!"
Who could have ever envisioned that something could go wrong here!? Espeically on a show like 'White Collar', where Neal pulls a stunt like this in EVERY EPISODE! Just completely shocked it turned out this way.
Sarcasm aside, this wasn't a terrible return or anything, just not what I was hoping for. Would love to know what you guys thought about the episode and where the season-long arc is heading. Do you guys like this arc or no?
QUOTES OF NOTE:
--NONE (although I enjoyed Mozzie convincing Neal not to squander the opportunity to talk with his father)
RANDOM RAMBLINGS:
--Speaking of 'Breaking Bad', kind of a blatant rip-off with the bad guys recording Neal and Mozzie to learn the process of making the fake whiskey and making those two expendable.
--If you're a cop and going to steal some money from a bust, make sure NO ONE IS AROUND for crying out loud.
--High-stakes Candyland? Make it Stratego and I'm in.
--Whenever people talk about wine tasting or whatnot, it's like a foreign language to me. To me, alcohol either tastes good or it doesn't. Yeah, my pallet isn't very sophisticated.
--I also didn't think Neal getting a hangover was possible.
--So cute, Neal went from calling him "James" throughout the episode to "My father". A real breakthrough!
--Glad it wasn't Mozzie who lost his eyebrows because of that oven.
THE GRADE: C-
