The ties of friendship truly do bind in this episode of White Collar. Agent Jones receives a postcard from his friend Jimmy Wilson, who he knows from his days at Annapolis. He then fends off a masked attacker, who is trained in Kali, a type of martial art used in the Philippines. The attacker had come into his home to go after the postcard. Enter the rest of Team Burke as they try to get to the bottom of this mystery. After some testing later, it is found that there is a microdot embedded onto the postcard that Jimmy sent to Agent Jones, which contains a schematic of a palladium mine in South Africa that’s different from the one that was filed with the Department of Mineral Resources six days ago. It’s looking like Barrett-Dunne, the security company that Jimmy works for, is trying to hide something. The question is what and why?
Later, the team discovers that a man named Striker might be the mastermind behind a murder of a female manager of the palladium mine who wanted to blow the whistle on some illegal activities. Peter is starting to think that maybe Jimmy is involved in the manager’s death somehow, but Agent Jones thinks otherwise, saying that Jimmy wouldn’t have sent him an encrypted postcard to expose the truth if he wanted to cover it up. So, by process of elimination, that leaves the elusive Striker as the main suspect in this case, and Agent Jones is asked to attend a reception held by Barrett-Dunne to lure out Striker with Jimmy’s wife Isabelle, who happens to be Agent Jones’s ex-fiancee. Sounds like our Agent Jones is about to get a blast from the past. (Though we already met the said blast from said past when Isabelle came into the FBI to give her statement with regards to Jimmy’s whereabouts).
While at the reception, Agent Jones then learns that Striker, aka Henry van Horn, the C.O.O of Barrett-Dunne Security, was the masked man that attacked him after the man grimaced when Agent Jones squeezes his upper arm near the shoulder. Agent Jones then asks him where Jimmy is, but van Horn doesn’t give him a straight answer and instead tells Agent Jones that Jimmy tends to have a habit of getting in way over his head. Then the man turns and leaves the party. Peter, meanwhile, is on the other side of the marina where the reception is being held and spots Jimmy standing nearby. He tries to get Jimmy to cooperate with the FBI, but Jimmy isn’t having it, saying that no one, not even the FBI, can protect him. He then throws a bullet onto the ground and takes off like a bullet (sorry, had to say it).
I liked the scene where Peter and Neal were working out the factors of the case. It’s like how Castle and Beckett or even Sherlock and Watson would work out their own theories about the suspect, leading to them solving the case. Like Peter said, they’re good at this, and I agree 110%. I also felt sorry for Neal when Sara decided to end their relationship after she found out about the treasure. Neal tried to convince her to stay in the relationship, but Sara just couldn’t bring herself to do it, explaining that she and Neal are two very different people: he lives in the clouds and her in an apartment on West 69th. She wants to be grounded and not live life on the run like Neal’s planning to do.
I was also biting my nails when van Horn found out that Neal, dressed as a naval Commander from the State Department, was snooping around the ninth floor of the Barrett-Dunne building where Jimmy was presumably being held. van Horn decides to hunt Neal down with a high-tech bow and arrow. Relief washed over me when Agent Jones, Peter, and the rest of the team arrived just in time to stop van Horn from firing the kill shot arrow.
In the end, van Horn is arrested, Jimmy’s name is cleared, and Team Burke wins again! We also see that Neal and Mozzie aren’t about to forget about the U-boat manifest anytime soon after discovering that Peter stored it in his safe at home. Mozzie then comes to take Elizabeth out for dinner and an art exhibit, leaving the back door unlocked so that Neal can sneak in. What confused me about the scene was how Neal was able to disable to alarm when he came in. Did Mozzie text him the code after seeing Elizabeth punch it in? If he did, there was no cut scene to show that. Another point of confusion was when Neal introduced himself to Isabelle back at the beginning of the episode. He said “Agent Burke, C.I” and not “Neal Caffrey, C.I.,” which made me think that there might have been a mistake in the script but perhaps he was just saying that he’s working for Peter as his C.I (Criminal Informant).
I also applaud Neal for telling Mozzie that he didn’t find the manifest in Peter’s safe. Perhaps he wanted to preserve his friendship with Peter and didn’t want something like the treasure or manifest getting in the way? Especially after Peter called him and said that if Neal wanted to talk about his break-up with Sara or to just have a conversation between friends, he’s always there for him. Peter and Neal, best friends forever!
[Photo via USA Network]
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