I honestly don't know how to feel about this

[sholio]

Jeff Eastin is trying to revive White Collar. It's far from a done deal, but it sounds like he's trying to reunite the original cast for some kind of reunion/reboot.

I ... I don't know how to feel. I mean, if some kind of sequel or spinoff managed to undo or somehow redeem that total shitshow of a finale, that would be amazing, but the way the last couple seasons of the show went, I have a bad feeling it would be more likely to double down on exactly the aspects of it that made me nope out so hard.

This did make me realize that, going off real-world timelines, the show's babies would be old enough to be in school now, though.

Comments

[sovay]

I mean, if some kind of sequel or spinoff managed to undo or somehow redeem that total shitshow of a finale, that would be amazing, but the way the last couple seasons of the show went, I have a bad feeling it would be more likely to double down on exactly the aspects of it that made me nope out so hard.

How does it compare to the shitshow of the Torchwood second-season finale?

[sholio]

Welllll, at least everyone was alive at the end, which is more than a lot of shows' finales have going for them!

I think it hit me as hard as it did for two reasons - one was that it completely recontextualized everything that came before in a way I hated (that is, it didn't just give me an ending I disliked, it retrospectively colored the characterization for everything that came before, at least for one character), and also because, up until the last season, I really trusted the creator. I think this may be the last time that I was really willing to give that level of trust to a TV series. I'd been burned before, of course, but everything I had seen in both the show itself and in interviews had led me to believe that I would be getting something I really wanted from the end, and then it blew up in my face in a way that retroactively tainted the aspects of it I'd loved the most.

For a rough analogy, imagine the last episode of Iron Fist revealing that Ward's redemption arc was faked and having him remorselessly betray Danny, with the resulting recontextualization of every scene they'd ever had together.

It was definitely something. I hated the ending of season two of Torchwood and felt very blindsided by it - and having rewatched the show, I think there's definitely a tone shift that isn't very well set up by what went before; the show does a sudden left turn from ridiculous team sci-fi show to Prestige TV and it's really jarring. But it didn't hit me as hard, or at least not in the same way.

[sovay]

I'd been burned before, of course, but everything I had seen in both the show itself and in interviews had led me to believe that I would be getting something I really wanted from the end, and then it blew up in my face in a way that retroactively tainted the aspects of it I'd loved the most.

Ergh. Those are very difficult to mentally excise from canon. I'm sorry.

For a rough analogy, imagine the last episode of Iron Fist revealing that Ward's redemption arc was faked and having him remorselessly betray Danny, with the resulting recontextualization of every scene they'd ever had together.

Yeah, that would suck!

But it didn't hit me as hard, or at least not in the same way.

It doesn't sound like Torchwood had the retrospective problem. And there are certain developments a narrative can take with a character that makes it very difficult to revisit them, or at least cognitively dissonant. I think I had my first experience of that with L.M. Montgomery's Emily's Quest (1927), which I read in fifth grade, and it happened to my heretofore favorite character in the trilogy. (PROBLEMATIC AS HELL, but still my favorite character. Also I was in fifth grade and evaluated things differently and jeez.)

[sholio]

See answer to comments below for more specific details.

Yeah, I think there's an "implied contract with the viewer" problem in both cases (Torchwood and White Collar), at least in the sense that I didn't get what I thought I'd signed up for, but the Torchwood one isn't upsetting to me in the same way. It hurts, and I wish they hadn't done it, but it hasn't blown up the show for me in the same way.

.... Which admittedly probably has something to do with Torchwood having just so much else that you could complain about anyway. I've finally gotten back around to watching season one, and I'm currently on an episode which is about an alien (looking like a hot young woman, what else?) who kills people by having sex with them and exploding them at the moment of orgasm. There is not really a lot this show could do that would be THAT outrageous compared to something it's already done.

EDIT: And I'm sorry to hear that about Emily's Quest - I don't know the exact details of the narrative betrayal, but that's really an awful feeling, especially when you encounter it for the first time.

[kore]

one was that it completely recontextualized everything that came before in a way I hated (that is, it didn't just give me an ending I disliked, it retrospectively colored the characterization for everything that came before, at least for one character), and also because, up until the last season, I really trusted the creator. I think this may be the last time that I was really willing to give that level of trust to a TV series. I'd been burned before, of course, but everything I had seen in both the show itself and in interviews had led me to believe that I would be getting something I really wanted from the end, and then it blew up in my face in a way that retroactively tainted the aspects of it I'd loved the most.

Hoo boy, I remember that basically happening with the later seasons of the X-Files, which was one reason why I was REALLY not interested in the sequel/reboot/whatever the "new season" was supposed to be. I adore Gillian Anderson but I didn't even watch it.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Yes, yes, yes! I felt the same way about White Collar! I had been unhappy with the season or two before, but after that finale, I read some more fic briefly, but I just didn't feel the same any more. I dropped the fandom in a big way.

[yhlee]

Oh man, I remember that show...I had to bail mid-S1 because there was something wonky about the audio and I didn't *kof* have access to subtitles...something about the mixing made the dialogue impossible to hear over the soundtrack. (It might have just been me--I'm bad at picking at words and watch everything with subtitles even in English.) Sorry to hear the last seasons went off a cliff.

[sholio]

Yeah, I think it hit me in that particular way because I was really emotionally invested in it, and really trusted the creator, and then I got blindsided. I think now that I have some emotional distance, the ending is actually set up much better than I thought it was at the time, and the show itself is pretty wonky at long-arc plots anyway. It's not objectively bad. It just wasn't what I wanted, to a very profound degree.

[yhlee]

May I ask what the ending did? I'm not going to watch it at this point (as I said, couldn't handle the muddled audio) and I'm curious so I don't mind being spoiled, if you're willing to say.

[sholio]

I want to preface this by pointing out that it's not an necessarily objectively bad ending, it just wasn't the ending I wanted, to a very profound degree.

The show ends with Neal going back to being a career criminal by choice, and doing it in a way that involves faking his death so everyone in his life, including his criminal BFF Mozzie, thinks he's dead. The last scene suggests that Peter's going to take up chasing him and trying to arrest him again.

The entire thing was, I think, a ball of DNW for me on so many levels because a) it completely pushed the reset button on everyone's character development (it had done this before, but not that hard), and b) the show already did a lot of playing around with the conflict between identity and presentation (who are you really vs. who you pretend to be, which I liked) but in the end it came down pretty hard on suggesting that most of Neal's "Neal" personality, including the loyalty/affection aspect of it, was basically a construct that he was conning the people around him with, viewers included.

And it's kind of like ... if I step back and view it objectively, that's a cool twist! On a lot of shows, a twist like that would really have landed. But it wasn't something I even thought it was likely to do because of the kind of show I thought it was, which I was apparently wrong about.

[sheron]

I think it is starting to get setup in the second half of the show because I felt it in S4 and that's why I quit at the end of that season, and only came back to watch S5-6 after the #ragenope of fandom had already happened and I could watch it as popcorn entertainment. But it's not setup in seasons 1-3 for sure!

[lyr]

Huh. I don't know how to feel about that, either. Mostly I just pretend the last season was a fanfic AU that I can ignore, so I can't see wanting to build from where that left us.

[sholio]

Yeah, that's my problem too! If not for that last season, I would have been all over getting more. It's one of those cases where I feel like the show being unexpectedly cancelled and ending on a forever cliffhanger would have been an improvement over what they actually did.

[frith_in_thorns]

Ooooooh. Yeah I very much have the same reservations as you. I mean, that show ending took me practically overnight from this being the fandom of my heart that I'd written 300k+ words in to "yeah, done now", and I'm still annoyed by it. I couldn't even bring myself to read or write fixit fic.

I can't see a reunion episode giving us anything other than Peter and Neal playing cat-and-mouse games around the Louvre, or something like that, rather than the ACTUAL FUCKING REUNION which we deserve.

[sholio]

Yeah I very much have the same reservations as you. I mean, that show ending took me practically overnight from this being the fandom of my heart that I'd written 300k+ words in to "yeah, done now", and I'm still annoyed by it. I couldn't even bring myself to read or write fixit fic.

YES SAME. *clings* I was so much in love with the show and then so betrayed. I'm not sure if a show has ever kicked me in the teeth in quite the same way before.

I have also had the thought that, while the finale is theoretically fixable, they made it really hard, between the timeskip and the Neal characterization and the entire existence of Neal Burke, who I also kind of don't want around. :P I think an actual character death would be easier to write fixits for!

I can't see a reunion episode giving us anything other than Peter and Neal playing cat-and-mouse games around the Louvre, or something like that, rather than the ACTUAL FUCKING REUNION which we deserve.

Yeah, this is the biggest source of my reservations honestly, because that goddamn finale suggests that this is EXACTLY how it would go because the writers can't stand to have them on the same side for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES without one of them betraying the other one.

It's so frustrating because the cast is so incredibly sweet and charming, and I would LOVE to be excited about a reunion show instead of thinking "oh no, here we go again."

[frith_in_thorns]

I HATE THAT THEY NAMED THE BABY NEAL.

I have also had the thought that, while the finale is theoretically fixable, they made it really hard, between the timeskip and the Neal characterization and the entire existence of Neal Burke, who I also kind of don't want around. :P I think an actual character death would be easier to write fixits for!

Hahaha, this is the pain in my current fandom of writing fixits, to the extent that most people set their fixits before the actual ending and just ignore that the last half hour of the show happened at all -- I'm currently writing something actually dealing with the entirety of canon and it's REALLY DIFFICULT, I will definitely not be doing this again!

Yeah, this is the biggest source of my reservations honestly, because that goddamn finale suggests that this is EXACTLY how it would go because the writers can't stand to have them on the same side for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES without one of them betraying the other one.

Yup, THIS. It's so frustrating, because I was watching the show to see Neal and Peter learn to trust each other, and work with one another, and then it turned out that the writers apparently thought the show was about this clever con game where they didn't trust each other and were right not to, and arghhhh. Like you say, I just continue to feel so betrayed by it and I have zero interest in watching them stomp on my heart MORE.

[frith_in_thorns]

*whispers* I didn't not-like the end of Torchwood season 2 :P It made me cryyyyyy and was very dramaticccccc :P

[lunabee34]

If it happens, I hope they do it in a way you like.

[princessofgeeks]

I was really upset by the end of White Collar as well.

The only way I could make it work in my mind was to imagine that as one commenter says, Neal realized that he would never be free from the FBI no matter what he did, and that perhaps he was making Peter bend too much toward the illegal side of things.

Also that he was extremely worried about the last gang that he took on -- didn't they have a history of killing the friends and family of gang members who betrayed them?

So perhaps Neal believed that the only way he could truly protect the Burkes was to abandon them, and the only way that he could sell it to them was by lying to Mozzie too.

It made Neal's character even more complex, for me, because I couldn't imagine that he was conning them and planning this all along. It made more sense to me that his psyche took a turn toward "They will be better off without me" with an undercurrent of "I don't deserve them."

So that made Neal more angsty, true.

I loved the show and have rewatched it, and the ending really freaked me out.

I have mixed feelings about what a new set of episodes could be, honestly. If they do it I would not be able to resist watching it, though.

[leesa_perrie]

This is pretty much how I resolved the issue, that it was Neal thinking it was the only way to protect them, and that they'd be better off without him etc.

I also don't interpret the ending the way I'm supposed to. Neal did not rob the Louvre, he's their security expert! Of course, a new season or couple of reunion eps or whatever will break that illusion. So, no, not all that sure about it either. But would, inevitably, watch them anyway.

[longmagpieroads]

I am actually ridiculously glad that I never finished the series now. That would have destroyed me completely.

I hear ya on Torchwood too - I loved the first season despite the massively problematic issues and the first episode of the 2nd season. After that though...that last episode wrecked me and then season three...yeah.

[sartorias]

Oh how I would love the feel of the early years, and totally undo that craptastic end. But I don't trust a reboot. Once burned . . .

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I ... I don't know how to feel.
This! My first thought was, "Hooray, they'll get the band back together, I love these characters"—and then I remembered that I don't love some of them so much any more.

I don't know if I'd watch.

[gwyn]

I was so fucking passionate about that show, just so so into it, and then the Nazi storyline came up, and it completely shriveled my passion into this dry husk of a thing. And I continued to watch, and hope, that I could get the feeling back, but it never came, but that ending was just so...it was like someone tearing apart a corpse or something. It felt like a desecration.

It might be fantastic, but I have rarely ever seen a show come back later and be good. I know a lot of people loved the last revived series of Due South, but I loathed it, it felt like Paul Gross's ego couldn't let him see what made the show so charming in the first place. And Torchwood...reading up on some of the comments here, it's reminding me of the pain in Torchwood all over again. (A show like Brooklyn Nine-Nine isn't quite the same, because it never went off the air and was being made my NBC/Universal already.) A lot of people are super excited about Leverage and it seems like this might be partly motivated by that...? I don't know. I'm just really suspicious, and dubious.

I miss Tim DeKay a lot, I don't know what he's doing these days. Peter should be running the FBI by now.

[via_ostiense]

Ugh. I loved White Collar's individual episodes, but the season-long B plot arcs were usually disappointing. I would love more episodes of Peter, Neal, and the gang engaging in hijinks and solving clever puzzles, but without the larger plot arcs.

going off real-world timelines, the show's babies would be old enough to be in school now, though.

I'm just going to be sitting over here in the corner muttering wide-eyed about where the time has gone . . .