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More White Collar
My consecutive rewatch is up to 2x04.
Now that I've seen more of it in order, I think![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swanpride is right to say that some of the character development can only be fully appreciated watching it in order and seeing how each episode builds on the ones before it. I don't think I'd realized how fragile and tenuous Neal and Peter's relationship was in the beginning, or how long it took Mozzie to start relating to the "feds" as people rather than a faceless opposition ... or, for that matter, that there actually was so much of a building arc to the whole thing, with the characters growing closer season by season.
But it's also fascinating to see how cyclical it is; Neal and Peter are still dealing with a lot of the same issues in season three that they were in season two or season one. They seem to go through this constantly repeating pattern of building up trust and then breaking it down again -- and yet, every time they do it, they seem to wind up a little closer at the end of it, knowing each other a little better.
And I love like anything that this show gives more or less equal weight to the con-artist and FBI sides; it's like two shows (a cop show and a heist show) running simultaneously. THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS! ♥ I really love watching those two aspects of the show running side-by-side, especially in the episodes where Neal and his "gang" get into it -- Neal/Mozzie/Alex in season one/early season two, and Neal/Mozzie/Sara in season three.
Obviously there's not a whole lot in these episodes that's new to me, since I just watched them two months ago, not to mention having rewatched several of them already (more than once, in some cases). And yet I keep hitting things I don't remember, that give me a little squee-high. In 2x01, I remembered Peter and Mozzie meeting in the park out of their shared concern about Neal, but I didn't remember the scene at the end -- "He's my friend too." (And I really think that was the point when Mozzie went from seeing Peter as "the enemy" to seeing him as a person and maybe even a potential ally. He's still reluctant about it, but it's there.) Or Alex kissing Peter at the end of 2x04, and his pleased/startled expression; "Neal said you're the best", that's such an adorable scene ...
There's also a whole lot of character subtext that I'm only catching the second time around, now that I know the characters better -- the first time I watched "Home Invasion", for example, I didn't catch that the entire thing with Peter showing up in his workout clothes and turning on the TV was calculated to chase off Neal so that he could look around the apartment a little bit, which in turn is building on the earlier scene with Alex. Neal's PTSD in the aftermath of Kate's death is so subtle and so well played, the way he'll just zone out for a few seconds and then refocus. And I love his insincere "would this face lie to you?" grin that he does at least once per episode, because there's a noticeable difference between that expression and when he really smiles. Just really impressive, subtle acting on Matt Bomer's part.
... awww man, I need to sit down and write some character meta, because there really is SO MUCH they do with the characters in this show that I love, or just find fascinating and so very shades-of-gray, and I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about the end of season two and the first half of season three from a character-development standpoint; I think I've finally gotten most of my tangled thoughts unsorted and figured out where I stand on the majority of it, and where I think the characters were coming from.
But I keep getting stuck on my "flaily squee" setting instead.
Season Two deleted scenes
(Which can be viewed here on Youtube, incidentally.) I'm glad they included these on the DVDs; I can see why most of them were cut and yet, they add nice little character bits and pieces, so it's great to see them. I'm especially sorry to lose the little subplot with the student's scholarship in 2x03, mostly for the exchange between Peter and Neal about "how hard it is to get a scholarship" at the end, and Neal quietly getting the kid's scholarship reinstated, d'awww.
When I originally watched 2x15, it seemed to me like Peter's burglary went off awfully smoothly, and now I know why -- things were going to go wrong at the end, and they cut it! "I'll Caffrey my way out of this", HEEEEE~! (Also, shirtless Tim DeKay is never bad. ♥) But there's something just a little too over-the-top about the Peter & Neal role reversal in this scene, especially Neal echoing all of Peter's usual lines in the van; I think it might've pushed the running joke to a more difficult-to-swallow level if they'd kept it.
Commentaries
The commentary tracks on the DVDs are so much fun! And I don't normally say that, as I'm not usually one for DVD commentaries. I think what makes them such a kick is that they only did a few of them (which keeps them fresh for everyone), and they had several actors all together, as well as Jeff Eastin, who's a very hands-on creator as far as I can tell, and had lots to say about where he was coming from with the writing choices in the episodes. And you get to hear the actors bantering with each other and playing with each other.
Trying to remember specific stuff that I found interesting ... Jeff Eastin says that the props department accidentally put a Harvard diploma on Peter's wall in one or two episodes, but he's not supposed to have gone to an Ivy League school. Another "oops" from the props department was giving them real champagne for the toast scene at the end of "Free Fall" (normally they're drinking grape juice or other non-alcoholic things), so by the time they'd gone through a few takes, they were getting genuinely drunk!
Talking about the scene with Peter and Kate in the hotel room, Tim DeKay says that he wasn't trying to come off threatening or sinister when he was playing that scene; everyone says that he looks so scary at the end of "Free Fall", and he's not trying to be, he's just playing a guy who's protecting his friend. (Also rather cute, on the "Free Fall" commentary, the actors who were doing most of the commentary -- it was Matt Bomer and Willie Garson on that one, I think, along with Jeff Eastin -- called Tim into the recording booth when that scene came on, because they wanted him to talk about it...)
I know there was more stuff I wanted to mention from the commentaries but now I can't remember most of it. Aargh.
I also watched some of Jeff Eastin's little episode mini-commentaries on IMDB -- not all of them, but a few for episodes that I'd specifically liked, because he talks more about the writing and the origins of the plots and so forth. They have a big white board in the writers' room where they keep ideas for little cons and sleight-of-hand tricks to use in later episodes ... They also have a con artist consultant as well as an FBI consultant, a guy who actually used to be a con artist before going straight. Apparently he taught Matt Bomer to pick locks, so in the scenes where Neal is picking locks from early season two onwards, he's actually picking the lock ... Jeff Eastin also talked about the pickpocketing scenes, how the thing with using two fingers and not letting your thumb touch the mark is apparently how pickpockets actually do it, as is the "training jacket" with bells on it that they use in 2x15.
This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/372975.html with
comments.
Now that I've seen more of it in order, I think
swanpride is right to say that some of the character development can only be fully appreciated watching it in order and seeing how each episode builds on the ones before it. I don't think I'd realized how fragile and tenuous Neal and Peter's relationship was in the beginning, or how long it took Mozzie to start relating to the "feds" as people rather than a faceless opposition ... or, for that matter, that there actually was so much of a building arc to the whole thing, with the characters growing closer season by season.But it's also fascinating to see how cyclical it is; Neal and Peter are still dealing with a lot of the same issues in season three that they were in season two or season one. They seem to go through this constantly repeating pattern of building up trust and then breaking it down again -- and yet, every time they do it, they seem to wind up a little closer at the end of it, knowing each other a little better.
And I love like anything that this show gives more or less equal weight to the con-artist and FBI sides; it's like two shows (a cop show and a heist show) running simultaneously. THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS! ♥ I really love watching those two aspects of the show running side-by-side, especially in the episodes where Neal and his "gang" get into it -- Neal/Mozzie/Alex in season one/early season two, and Neal/Mozzie/Sara in season three.
Obviously there's not a whole lot in these episodes that's new to me, since I just watched them two months ago, not to mention having rewatched several of them already (more than once, in some cases). And yet I keep hitting things I don't remember, that give me a little squee-high. In 2x01, I remembered Peter and Mozzie meeting in the park out of their shared concern about Neal, but I didn't remember the scene at the end -- "He's my friend too." (And I really think that was the point when Mozzie went from seeing Peter as "the enemy" to seeing him as a person and maybe even a potential ally. He's still reluctant about it, but it's there.) Or Alex kissing Peter at the end of 2x04, and his pleased/startled expression; "Neal said you're the best", that's such an adorable scene ...
There's also a whole lot of character subtext that I'm only catching the second time around, now that I know the characters better -- the first time I watched "Home Invasion", for example, I didn't catch that the entire thing with Peter showing up in his workout clothes and turning on the TV was calculated to chase off Neal so that he could look around the apartment a little bit, which in turn is building on the earlier scene with Alex. Neal's PTSD in the aftermath of Kate's death is so subtle and so well played, the way he'll just zone out for a few seconds and then refocus. And I love his insincere "would this face lie to you?" grin that he does at least once per episode, because there's a noticeable difference between that expression and when he really smiles. Just really impressive, subtle acting on Matt Bomer's part.
... awww man, I need to sit down and write some character meta, because there really is SO MUCH they do with the characters in this show that I love, or just find fascinating and so very shades-of-gray, and I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about the end of season two and the first half of season three from a character-development standpoint; I think I've finally gotten most of my tangled thoughts unsorted and figured out where I stand on the majority of it, and where I think the characters were coming from.
But I keep getting stuck on my "flaily squee" setting instead.
Season Two deleted scenes
(Which can be viewed here on Youtube, incidentally.) I'm glad they included these on the DVDs; I can see why most of them were cut and yet, they add nice little character bits and pieces, so it's great to see them. I'm especially sorry to lose the little subplot with the student's scholarship in 2x03, mostly for the exchange between Peter and Neal about "how hard it is to get a scholarship" at the end, and Neal quietly getting the kid's scholarship reinstated, d'awww.
When I originally watched 2x15, it seemed to me like Peter's burglary went off awfully smoothly, and now I know why -- things were going to go wrong at the end, and they cut it! "I'll Caffrey my way out of this", HEEEEE~! (Also, shirtless Tim DeKay is never bad. ♥) But there's something just a little too over-the-top about the Peter & Neal role reversal in this scene, especially Neal echoing all of Peter's usual lines in the van; I think it might've pushed the running joke to a more difficult-to-swallow level if they'd kept it.
Commentaries
The commentary tracks on the DVDs are so much fun! And I don't normally say that, as I'm not usually one for DVD commentaries. I think what makes them such a kick is that they only did a few of them (which keeps them fresh for everyone), and they had several actors all together, as well as Jeff Eastin, who's a very hands-on creator as far as I can tell, and had lots to say about where he was coming from with the writing choices in the episodes. And you get to hear the actors bantering with each other and playing with each other.
Trying to remember specific stuff that I found interesting ... Jeff Eastin says that the props department accidentally put a Harvard diploma on Peter's wall in one or two episodes, but he's not supposed to have gone to an Ivy League school. Another "oops" from the props department was giving them real champagne for the toast scene at the end of "Free Fall" (normally they're drinking grape juice or other non-alcoholic things), so by the time they'd gone through a few takes, they were getting genuinely drunk!
Talking about the scene with Peter and Kate in the hotel room, Tim DeKay says that he wasn't trying to come off threatening or sinister when he was playing that scene; everyone says that he looks so scary at the end of "Free Fall", and he's not trying to be, he's just playing a guy who's protecting his friend. (Also rather cute, on the "Free Fall" commentary, the actors who were doing most of the commentary -- it was Matt Bomer and Willie Garson on that one, I think, along with Jeff Eastin -- called Tim into the recording booth when that scene came on, because they wanted him to talk about it...)
I know there was more stuff I wanted to mention from the commentaries but now I can't remember most of it. Aargh.
I also watched some of Jeff Eastin's little episode mini-commentaries on IMDB -- not all of them, but a few for episodes that I'd specifically liked, because he talks more about the writing and the origins of the plots and so forth. They have a big white board in the writers' room where they keep ideas for little cons and sleight-of-hand tricks to use in later episodes ... They also have a con artist consultant as well as an FBI consultant, a guy who actually used to be a con artist before going straight. Apparently he taught Matt Bomer to pick locks, so in the scenes where Neal is picking locks from early season two onwards, he's actually picking the lock ... Jeff Eastin also talked about the pickpocketing scenes, how the thing with using two fingers and not letting your thumb touch the mark is apparently how pickpockets actually do it, as is the "training jacket" with bells on it that they use in 2x15.
This entry is also posted at http://friendshipper.dreamwidth.org/372975.html with
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But one has to give Peter credit for knowing and finding Neal's weak spot. Nevertheless, I'm sure if Neal really put his heart in it, he would be able to slip Peter's gasp.
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Obviously neither of them are a slouch in the other's area of expertise, either -- they're both hella smart under any circumstances -- but they do have their areas of particular intellectual skill.
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I think it's become pretty clear that I'm pretty protective of the show, and for the reasons you've stated and then some. This show knows how to be consistent without sacrificing character development and also without sacrificing the things we love about the show. Usually season three or there-abouts is when things seem to go downhill for most shows, and though some have complained about it going down hill, as I've talked about before, there's really nothing all that more or less done in season three than was done in previous seasons. There's still friendship warring with trust issues, still going-behind-eachother's-backs, still things coming to head in a way that makes you wonder how it will ever be fixed - it's still the same! Just with a different plot and moral dilemma.
I love that it sticks with its MO while at the same time tries different things with that MO, because it makes it a show I can trust without it becoming formulaic and boring. It's also one of the few shows that doesn't stress me out like crazy.
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I love that it sticks with its MO while at the same time tries different things with that MO, because it makes it a show I can trust without it becoming formulaic and boring.
Yes! White Collar does a better job with that than any show I can think of off the top of my head. It changes things up enough not to get repetitive (there are some shows, like NCIS, that I've stopped watching because they just got so formulaic that I wasn't enjoying them anymore), but I'm reasonably confident that the show is not going to break my heart -- I can get deeply invested in the characters and character relationships without being afraid that they're going to do a major shake-up and leave me unhappy.
I also love that they put so much into all the character relationships on the show. It could easily have been just the Neal and Peter show, but I think it's so much better because it also has the Neal and Mozzie friendship, or Mozzie and Elizabeth, or Peter/El, or Neal and Diana's friendship, or Neal and June ... even the little moments that we get between characters like Peter and Alex, or Sara and June, or Mozzie and Sally! You get the feeling that everybody, the actors and writers and producers and all the people who make the show, are very invested in the characters and love them as much as the viewers do. And that translates into the general feeling of what we're getting onscreen.
... heh, not to mention that for me as a writer, the show has opened up a whole new realm of plots that I haven't explored yet. :D Nearly everything I've written to date has been in sci-fi and fantasy fandoms (or original sci-fi or fantasy novels), but I've always really loved heist and con shows and movies, and I am absolutely brimming over with story ideas! On top of EVERYTHING else, the original novel that I'm currently writing is set in New York (by total coincidence; it predates my infatuation with White Collar), which means that the research I'm doing overlaps really well. It's just working out very well as a complementary fandom to the other stuff I'm writing right now.
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In short: hee!! ♥
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I really did not expect this to become a new fandom when I started watching, let alone my current main fandom. I guess it just goes to show that you never know what will engage the fannish hindbrain ... *g*
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(still think we need a Hustle/WC x-over..."Neal, was that Mickey Bricks on your sofa?" "I have no idea what you're talking about, Peter.")
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... and a Hustle x-over, oh yes! There are quite a few Leverage ones, but I have yet to see a Hustle one anywhere.
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I can't wait to get the DVD - the pilot finally aired in Germany, so I hope I will be able to get season 1 by christmas.
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