Recap – White Collar 2.05, “In The Red”

Last week was possibly the worst week ever for the otherwise outstanding White Collar, so the burning question is how will the show rebound? Simple: give some spotlight to underrated supporting players Marsha Thomason and Sharif Atkins, plus bring in a dependable guest star in John Larroquette, and see what happens.

The FBI surveillance van is on the lookout for a suspected jewel thief, whom Neal is dispatched to collar. For some reason, he starts trying to talk her out of making the deal that would get her arrested, which sets off Peter’s intuition in the van. He quickly sees what’s going on: Neal was being wary because her kid is in the backseat. That’s different, but not altogether unheard of, and it’s about to open a whole other can of worms.

Mozzie has news about the elusive flight recorder. He’s lifted it from Sara’s apartment. Neal is a little bit intimidated about what might be on it, but he doesn’t have the time to dwell, as he has to meet with Peter about the fallout from the jewel theft. Namely, their thief wants to tell them a story about how her son is adopted and she committed the crime because she’s being extorted over him by a lawyer named Donovan (played by Larroquette, a long way from Night Court). Peter and Neal realize they’re on to something a lot larger, so Peter goes to visit Donovan himself. He doesn’t get anything, but bumps into an enforcer for the Chechen mob on the way out.

Unfortunately, this is where Sara walks in. She’s come to see Neal about Mozzie’s break-in, complete with her own lie detector. What’s next, the Petercopter? Surprisingly, Neal agrees to her little experiment, and beats the computer — but not Peter’s instincts. Peter correctly calls BS, much to Neal’s chagrin (‘please, please don’t reduce me to a trailer park’) but before he can press his partner further, Jones tips him off that their mobster is hanging out at an old club with some mobster friends. Neal uses his cell phone to get the password, and gets inide before Peter can tell him to reconsider. Whatever would we do without cell phones? They’re not only good for phone calls, but also for investigating crime. (Remember that Neal pulled a trick with another cell phone to draw out bad guys in the season opener, ‘Withdrawal.’)

Once inside, Neal discovers there’s a whole lot of gambling going on. He uses his Nick Halden persona — which is becoming about as versatile as Sam Axe’s ‘Chuck Finley’on Burn Notice — to get in with the mobsters and try to finagle himself a seat at a very expensive poker game. By which I mean, borrow the FBI’s money to buy his way in. This is the same game Donovan is in, because he owes a hundred grand to these same mobsters. Peter has a quirky idea: send Diana and Jones undercover as desperate adoptees, or the perfect marks to clear up Donovan’s debt. Mozzie, a foster kid himself, is particularly in support of this plan.

In the middle of all this, Sara decides to bring the cops to search Neal’s apartment, because she only has a one-track mind and a negative attitude to match. However, somebody left the envelope from the FAA in plain sight, and that gets him arrested. Peter explains to Sara why now is a bad time for her to grind an axe, and convinces her to drop the charges so Neal can play in the poker game. It goes without saying that Peter and Neal will be having a long talk later.

As an amateur poker player and poker analyst in my other job, it’s interesting to see how the game is portrayed on TV. In this instance, there are an awful lot of good-looking people crammed into one small room, complete with too-good-to-be-realistic mood lighting (and Neal actually utters the infamous phrase ‘shuffle up and deal’). I’ve never seen that many attractive people in a poker room, but it is television. The show wisely speeds up the action into a montage, because poker can go on for hours if not days, and that way nobody can critique the authenticity of the action. Obviously the game comes down to Neal and Donovan, and Neal beats him, which of course means Peter is convinced that he cheated somewhere along the way. Neal admits that he only won because of the tell that Peter picked up from Donovan during his interview. However he did it, the FBI pockets $900,000 and makes Donovan even more desperate to extort Diana and Jones.

Tiffani Thiessen makes another phone-in this week from San Francisco, so she and Peter can debate if Sara and Neal’s arguig means that they have something between them (really?!). Thankfully, this is interrupted by Diana calling to say Donovan has asked for a meeting. When she and Jones arrive, Donovan pulls the same story about a reneging birth mother that he fed to their jewel thief. Things get dicey when Neal reports that Donovan is fleeing the country instead of actually paying off the mob. Sure enough, when Diana goes to pay off Donovan, she’s confronted by the friendly neighborhood Chechen mob enforcer. Peter makes a deal with the mob boss: turn a blind eye to all their crimes in exchange for Donovan, striking a nerve when he points out the adoption scam involves Chechen kids.

Cut to the warehouse, where the mob boss confronts both Donovan and Neal at the same time. Mob guys pretend to beat up Neal, while Neal enjoys horribly overacting. It’s enough to make Donovan squirm and squeal about his scam. The mob boss is wearing a wire. Thus caught on tape, Donovan has been had. Also, FBI coffee is still horrible, even if it’s Neal at the coffeemaker.

Our last scene of the night is the almost-obligatory half-naked Bomer scene as Sara turns up unannounced to ask about Kate. She’s gone from wanting to tear him apart to wanting to help him, as she’s listened to the tape, and says he needs to hear what’s on it. Neal and Mozzie discover that Kate’s last words were a phone call telling someone Peter followed him to the airport. Fowler, perhaps? That would be too obvious, though, wouldn’t it? Who else could it be?

Unsurprisingly and thankfully, this episode is much better than the previous week’s. While I do have some qualms about it — I know Tiffani Thiessen is relegated to phone calls, but could they be a little more meaty or plot relevant at least? — it holds together pretty well. It’s great to see Marsha Thomason and Sharif Atkins get more screen time, for one, and interesting to see the FBI working with one group of bad guys to bust another bad guy. I wonder if Peter would have been willing to cut the same deal with the mob pre-canon? I think his association with Neal has him understanding grey areas a little bit more. Most importantly, while she started out on that shrill rampage track again, by the end of the episode, I came to tolerate Sara. That last scene sort of sold her for me. She had a moment where she wasn’t aggressive, wasn’t passing judgment, and understood what Neal was going through. It shows that her character has more than one note and is capable of change. If we can see that side of her, the one with more maturity and depth, having her around for another four episodes might not be so bad.

Speaking of next episodes, I am beyond thrilled for next week. Not only do we get the plot of Peter going undercover, but we get to see more interesting chemistry between Tim DeKay and Willie Garson. If the scenes from ‘Withdrawal’and ‘Need To Know’are any indication, next week is going to be an incredibly fun ride. I don’t know about you, but I’m excited already.