White Collar, Season 3, Episode 13: “Neighborhood Watch”

Airdate: Tuesdays at 10/9c on USA

Rating: ★★★★★

Code names "Haversham" and "Mrs. Suit."

This week, the focus isn’t on the dynamic duo, but on their cohorts, “Haversham” and “Mrs. Suit.” In a refreshing, savvy, and oftentimes humorous approach, Mozzie (Willie Garson) and Elle (Tiffani Thiessen) come to the forefront of the storytelling when some surveillance equipment left at the Burke home becomes the catalyst for a caper, and for Peter (Tim DeKay) to recognize that his wife is dealing with her kidnapping a bit differently than he expected.

Rife with clever dialogue, “Neighborhood Watch,” is an excellent showcase to re-establish connections between Elle and Mozzie (a friendship I really didn’t want to see ruined by the discovery of the treasure) and an almost symbiotic partnership between Neal (Matt Bomer) and Peter – almost being the key word. There are some tendencies and skill sets Neal is simply not going to be able to leave behind as he contemplates a life both sans anklet and crime-free.

When Elle overhears what she thinks are plans for a burglary – triggered by the words, “Stop thinking prison; start thinking payday” – on surveillance equipment Peter leaves at their house, she alerts her husband who isn’t sure if he should take her seriously or write her worry off to paranoia. After all, she was recently kidnapped; it’s understandable if she’s a bit spooked and hearing crime plots where none are to be found.

Peter and Neal check it out anyway, but come up empty. I loved how they play off each other to take care of Elle’s feelings. But Elle isn’t easily deterred. Even when Peter – via Neal – asks Mozzie to stop in under the guise of visiting (though Elle knows he’s been assigned to basically babysit her), Elle doesn’t give up. She’s convinced there’s mischief afoot and is determined to prove she’s not being paranoid.

Mental note: work out bird-call code signal before you spy on the neighbors.

An interesting dynamic comes into play in “Neighborhood Watch” as each of the Burkes subtly deal with Elizabeth’s kidnapping. Peter seems to be having a harder time of it than Elle. He expects her to be having a rough time and so that’s what he sees. In reality, though, Elle seems almost…invigorated. It’s as if she’s charged up by the fact that she was so helpless against Keller and she’s not going to allow herself to be seen as helpless again. While she and Mozzie play the board game Risk, she hears the same voice on the scanner a second time and in a Rear Window-esque moment, the two of them spy on the Burkes’ new neighbors.

Elle’s scheme to get inside the neighbors’ house for dinner is nothing short of brilliant—and though added by Neal and Mozzie in the execution, the idea (and keeping Peter in the dark) is all her own. Ben and Rebecca Ryan (Joe Manganiello, True Blood, and another ‘Elle’ – from Criminal Minds – Lola Glaudini, respectively) are grudgingly gracious dinner hosts, playing the “so what do you do” game revealing Ben and Rebecca’s professions, while Peter works to evade telling them what he does for a living (because who wants to be on the hook for fixing their neighbors’ parking tickets).

I was impressed with Elle’s inner spy as she decides to use this conversation segue to find some kind of incriminating evidence that would compel Peter to investigate their neighbors. Unfortunately, she instead manages to get herself locked in a bedroom. With Neal and Mozzie are on stakeout duty, Neal is on hand to coach her through picking a lock (after he apparent scales the side of the building Spidey-style to get to the barred, second-floor window). Nicely played, team!

Until Peter finds out, that is; then it’s cardsonthetable time. Once Peter’s in on it, things get interesting as he and Neal work to figure out what Ben and his ex-con cohorts are up to. It’s a race to the finish as Ben’s plan involves an Italian Job-style theft of a hotel safe and a take-counting team in the back room of the strip club where Rebecca “dances.” The investigation involves Neal playing a con struggling with the rules of going straight – according to Peter, a role he was born to play – and some blue eye shadow to make a “rubbing in a strip club” (a line that was dying for a joke, but one they managed to restrain themselves from making).

Happy ending....

The climax of the caper includes Mozzie claiming Elle is a bad influence on him and Elle shaming him into joining her by asking, “Are you going to bow to the will of the establishment?” I have to say Elle impersonating an FBI agent is rather awesome. Mozzie in a trench coat…not so much. But the Feds get their man, Neal once more supports the long arm of the law, and the Burkes? Well, once Peter realizes Elle not only isn’t going to shatter due to her ‘ordeal,’ but has actually come out on the other side stronger for it, they are all over the tech-speak pillow talk.

After all, they don’t call her Mrs. Suit for nothing.

Tune in to White Collar, Tuesdays at 9/8c, only on the USA Network. For more on the show, visit the official website at http://www.usanetwork.com/series/whitecollar/.

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