Assassinating Apples in Aruba. Review: White Collar – “Compromising Positions”

White Collar, S4, E07: “Compromising Positions”

Airdate: Tuesday, August 28, 2012, 9/8c on USA

Rating: ★★★★★

“Tell him you want to meet on neutral ground.” – Peter

Cleverly, “Compromising Positions” sets up the anticipation of Neal  (Matt Bomer) finally finding the elusive Sam (Treat Williams) and discovering more truth about his past so well that when the actual case centering on the conviction of a land developer running an environmental scam begins, it’s almost a surprise. The fact that Neal actually makes tenuous contact with Sam is told with almost B-side importance. But that’s the shrewd thing about the way White Collar is written: every detail means something.

“You knew my father?”

What’s interesting about Mozzie’s (Willie Garson) reaction to the news that this mysterious link to Neal’s past has been found is his caution. His reticence to trust Sam has my Spidey-senses tingling. He actually advises Neal to work with ”the Suit” when engaging with Sam.

Neal: “You do realize that somewhere pigs are flying.”

Meanwhile, there’s only one thing Peter (Tim DeKay) likes better than catching criminals: testifying at their trials. A fact Neal remembers vividly. But when the prosecuting attorney is blackmailed by compromising pictures and nearly blows Peter’s testimony, the case is in jeopardy and Neal is forced to table his search for the truth to work with the White Collar team to salvage the potentially botched trial.

Last season, Neal told Peter the only way a con man would truly change would be if he hit rock bottom, admitting he’d not yet gone there. This season, Peter made the observation that Neal disappeared by completely reinventing himself. Listening to Neal rationalize that testimony is basically a con – the goal of both is simply to convince someone that your narrative is true – exposes his subconscious avoidance of an inevitable plummet to the conman rocks below, and his tacking maneuvers to somehow become someone different. I could almost see Neal’s wheels spilling, reasoning that if he could apply his natural affinity for manipulating the truth within an approved activity, he might be able to hold onto a vestige of his persona and remain in Peter’s good graces.

I don’t know if it was my distraction with wanting to know more about the Sam angle and Neal’s past, or the fact that the case this time around was less about catching the bad guy and more about making sure he stayed caught, but I felt the process by which the team determines how to get the compromising pictures was overall rather predictable – except for one part.

Landon “Don’t Tell Me How To Do My Job” Sheppard shows Peter she’s practically untouchable.

In a rather impressive display of Peter’s bluffing skills (I would not want to play poker with this guy) the team discovers that Landon Sheppard (Entourage’s Perrey Reeves), a ‘fixer’ with connections to the whole city and a talent for making things go away, holds the key for saving the case. Enter Sara Ellis (Hilarie Burton) and the opportunity for one of the funniest scenes in White Collar history.

After purposefully blowing a sting (in order to protect Mozzie), Neal is forced to find a way to save Peter’s case and not have to tell Peter what, specifically, he was protecting Mozzie from. His solution is to “fix the fixer” by putting Sheppard in a position where the other compromising pictures she has of the prosecuting attorney are worthless to her.

The plan is rather simple: create the illusion that Peter cheated on Elle (Tiffani Thiessen) with Sara, one of Sheppard’s “most-valued” clients. The ensuing hilarity of Neal on the balcony shooting pictures of Sara and Peter faking the throes of passion while Elle sips champagne and coaches Peter out of his “state of tasteful undress” is only enhanced by the quick, witty dialogue tossed among the four characters like a hacky-sack.

Neal: “Sara, do that thing with your leg—“

Sara: “I got it, Neal.”

Neal: “That’s a wrap!”

Naturally, the set up works. How could it not after that? However, nothing is that simple and while Neal gets the chance to test his theory that testifying is just another con, Peter gets to witness Mozzie – and a very interesting fake baby with more tools up its sleeves than MacGuyver – in action.

Peter (with an incredulous stare at Mozzie’s mnemonic skills): “Where did you come from?”

Mozzie (Best. Line. Ever.): “Forty-five years ago, an enigma gave a paradox a very special hug.”

Peter is the rock in this group of gypsies, tramps, and thieves. But I find it telling how often he’s willing to bend the rules to get what he wants. A little omission of the truth here, a little plausible deniability there and it’s not too hard to imagine that he would cross the line yet again if it meant protecting the people he’s decided are important to him. I am enjoying how slowly over the course of the past several seasons we’re seeing a smooth, subtle shifting of personas. Neal is working to become more steadfast and dependable, wanting to be trusted and working to turn his back on his natural affinity for altering perception. Peter, on the other hand, is smudging lines and blending his black and white world into many shades of gray.

On the witness stand, Neal uses his skills as an expert forger to prove the developer guilty. I liked watching Neal speak with such confidence on a subject he’s usually condemned for knowing so much about. His self-satisfied grin once the sentence was handed down was well-earned and he easily redeemed himself from throwing the first sting in order to keep the information Sheppard had dug up on Mozzie from being overheard by the FBI agents.

Can Sam be trusted?

I wonder if, in the coming episodes, Peter will reflect on his statement to Sheppard: “sometimes we have to do things we don’t like to protect the people we care about.” Because as “Compromising Positions” draws to a close, we see that the B-side story was always playing in the background for Neal. He finds Sam once more and agrees to work with the ex-cop without FBI support, acquiescing to the suspicion that the corrupt cops who killed his father, and were possibly responsible for Ellen Parker’s (Judith Ivey) death, are higher up in the government than Neal ever suspected.

Peter’s foreshadowing belief of protection may be the strongest thread in the rope that binds these two friends together.

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/.

Follow the show on Twitter @WhiteCollarUSA.

LIKE White Collar on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/whitecollar.

All photos © 2012 USA Network, a Division of NBC Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved.

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amanda

On any given day, and in no particular order, I am a writer, a friend, a sister, a mom, a wife, a lover, a daughter, a survivor, a storyteller.

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