Coupled with last week's absolute clunker, this has quite possibly been the worst two-episode stretch in four years of 'White Collar'. This week's installment wasn't horrifically bad or anything, but for a few moments there I was in danger of falling asleep out of pure boredom.
At least it gave me 40 minutes to catch up on Twitter, so that was a plus.
Wow, a case involving Neal producing a forgery to catch the bad guy!? We've never seen that before! Except for the other five or six times that we have, that is.
Wow, Neal lying and being deceptive to Peter about something on the side!? Who could've seen that coming?
Wow, Neal being caught by his mark, but still figuring out a way to get the evidence they needed to close the case!? Shocking!
Instead of writing all this, I should have just saved some time and picked a random review I wrote a few months back and copied and pasted it. I hardly doubt anyone would have noticed.
As for the new boss, Amanda Calloway, it was abundantly clear from the beginning she was going to be in Senator Pratt's pocket. It was Pratt who got Hughes fired in the first place, OF COURSE he had a hand in who replaced him. How Neal and Peter didn't assume this is beyond me.
Even though it's never been this show's strong-suit, I've somehow always cared about the season-long arcs. I'd get excited when we'd get little bits and pieces of new info each week, but at this point I don't give a crap about his dad or what's in that damn evidence box. Whatever.
The only thing that saved this episode from being another disaster was Mozzie's always delightful presence and the good scenes between Neal and Sam.
Somehow I had NO IDEA that this was the season's penultimate episode until I saw next week's preview. That makes this week's episode even worse.
Please don't suck, season finale.
QUOTES OF NOTE:
--NEAL: "Mozzie has a permit."
--PETER: "I'm sure."
--PETER: "I guess that answers the age-old question of nature vs. nurture."
--NEAL: "Little pinky-swear action?"
--SAM: "Mozzie calls it mint chocolate tracking chip."
--NEAL: "He's been more of a father to me than you ever were."
--NEAL: "You asked me why I don't have original art. I've had three different names and a dozen different aliases because of you. And to be an artist, you have to know who you are."
--SAM: "You're my son, and I'm very proud of that."
RANDOM RAMBLINGS:
--When nude models are around, Neal causes them to smile and Peter trips over furniture. Appropriate.
--If you want to learn more about Chicken-Sexing (and I don't know how you WOULDN'T), check it out on Wikipedia.
THE GRADE: D+
