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White Collar 3x04
Well, leaving aside one or two ... things I don't want to think about, this episode was mostly made of awesome.
WHERE TO BEGIN.
The sheer shallow hotness in this episode, OMG. Neal's pimptastic mafioso outfit! Neal and Peter in sunglasses! And tuxes! And Elizabeth's reaction to the tuxes ... heee.
"This is why we pay you the big bucks." *Neal's flat look* "... if we paid you."
I'm not sure why, but it's taken me a long time to warm up to Mozzie. On the other hand, watching the early episodes has helped, and this episode helped a lot. ("I was twelve. A dentist was the scariest thing I could think of.") Not to mention the bantertastic interaction with the other characters.
I love elaborate stings and cons and characters being super sneaky, and the episode's delicious little nods to famous ones. "So who's Newman and who's Redford?" ROCK ON, SHOW. XD
BEST FAKE (and not-so-fake) FIGHT EVER. I think one of the things that fascinated me about their "fake" fight and its layers of meta-text is that this is all stuff they both already know about each other, and it's true and they know it, and it's all laid out there in the open -- but five seconds later they're giving each other conspiratorial grins, because that's how they roll. I've been drawn more and more to Peter and Neal's friendship because it TOTALLY punches all my "best enemies" buttons, even though they're not really enemies or even on opposite sides, most of the time. But what I love about it is that they both very clearly care about each other a lot, and yet, the people they are and the lives they lead, they can't ever quite trust each other 100%.
And the whole thing with Elizabeth and Mozzie, and Mozzie saving Peter (I was expecting him to go for Neal's sake; that he actually went for Peter's sake boggled me, but in a good way), and the conversation at the end with Mozzie and Neal, and Neal's look at Peter at the very end ... nnnngh. I think I was wrong about this show not being able to do the angst thing and stomp on my heart, because it really can, all the more so because it slips these super-heartwrenching bits into episodes that are otherwise 95% fluff and squee. (Like that thing in "Vital Signs" with drugged!Neal and "You're the only person I trust" and oh, my HEART. ♥)
I know people are having trouble with the rift between Peter and Neal this season, but I'm not. For one thing, watching the earlier episodes is really impressing upon me that the way they're both pursuing their own agendas is hardly new -- it's how the show has operated all along. I love how the show isn't overly sanitizing Neal or turning him into Peter's best buddy and FBI clone. The conflict in Neal is interesting, damn it -- that he's very clearly a good person at heart who loves and wants to trust Peter and Elizabeth, and yet all his learned responses to difficult situations are things like "lie to people" and "con people" and "flee", and Mozzie, his best friend and closest ally, is pushing him in that direction. He's caught between the two, and I love that there is still tension there, and that there's at least some uncertainty about which way Neal is going to jump when the time comes. And for that matter, there's equal uncertainty as to what Peter's going to do, since he has a mixed track record: sometimes he's totally had Neal's back, even to the point of breaking the law for him (stealing the surveillance tape in the clinic), and sometimes he's stuck to the toeing-the-law line (jumping to conclusions about Neal blowing up the sub). I am confident that they aren't going to sever the connection between the two of them permanently; mostly I'm just enjoying the tension and looking forward to seeing how everything comes out into the open.
So, yeah. SHOW. ♥
WHERE TO BEGIN.
The sheer shallow hotness in this episode, OMG. Neal's pimptastic mafioso outfit! Neal and Peter in sunglasses! And tuxes! And Elizabeth's reaction to the tuxes ... heee.
"This is why we pay you the big bucks." *Neal's flat look* "... if we paid you."
I'm not sure why, but it's taken me a long time to warm up to Mozzie. On the other hand, watching the early episodes has helped, and this episode helped a lot. ("I was twelve. A dentist was the scariest thing I could think of.") Not to mention the bantertastic interaction with the other characters.
I love elaborate stings and cons and characters being super sneaky, and the episode's delicious little nods to famous ones. "So who's Newman and who's Redford?" ROCK ON, SHOW. XD
BEST FAKE (and not-so-fake) FIGHT EVER. I think one of the things that fascinated me about their "fake" fight and its layers of meta-text is that this is all stuff they both already know about each other, and it's true and they know it, and it's all laid out there in the open -- but five seconds later they're giving each other conspiratorial grins, because that's how they roll. I've been drawn more and more to Peter and Neal's friendship because it TOTALLY punches all my "best enemies" buttons, even though they're not really enemies or even on opposite sides, most of the time. But what I love about it is that they both very clearly care about each other a lot, and yet, the people they are and the lives they lead, they can't ever quite trust each other 100%.
And the whole thing with Elizabeth and Mozzie, and Mozzie saving Peter (I was expecting him to go for Neal's sake; that he actually went for Peter's sake boggled me, but in a good way), and the conversation at the end with Mozzie and Neal, and Neal's look at Peter at the very end ... nnnngh. I think I was wrong about this show not being able to do the angst thing and stomp on my heart, because it really can, all the more so because it slips these super-heartwrenching bits into episodes that are otherwise 95% fluff and squee. (Like that thing in "Vital Signs" with drugged!Neal and "You're the only person I trust" and oh, my HEART. ♥)
I know people are having trouble with the rift between Peter and Neal this season, but I'm not. For one thing, watching the earlier episodes is really impressing upon me that the way they're both pursuing their own agendas is hardly new -- it's how the show has operated all along. I love how the show isn't overly sanitizing Neal or turning him into Peter's best buddy and FBI clone. The conflict in Neal is interesting, damn it -- that he's very clearly a good person at heart who loves and wants to trust Peter and Elizabeth, and yet all his learned responses to difficult situations are things like "lie to people" and "con people" and "flee", and Mozzie, his best friend and closest ally, is pushing him in that direction. He's caught between the two, and I love that there is still tension there, and that there's at least some uncertainty about which way Neal is going to jump when the time comes. And for that matter, there's equal uncertainty as to what Peter's going to do, since he has a mixed track record: sometimes he's totally had Neal's back, even to the point of breaking the law for him (stealing the surveillance tape in the clinic), and sometimes he's stuck to the toeing-the-law line (jumping to conclusions about Neal blowing up the sub). I am confident that they aren't going to sever the connection between the two of them permanently; mostly I'm just enjoying the tension and looking forward to seeing how everything comes out into the open.
So, yeah. SHOW. ♥