Post Ep Dish - S4.10 - Vested Interest

[elrhiarhodan]

Sigh … seems like Season 4 just started, and now it's on break until some time in January. If it starts up again in the second week of the new year, we're looking at about 120 days without White Collar. At least it's better than the 200-plus days that we were left hanging about El last year.

Thank you all to your contributions to the Dish-less Dish last week. I've read them all, and time permitting, I'll respond to them soon-ish.

Because last week was so crazy, I've gone into this episode pretty unspoiled, but with high-ish hopes. Not only for a resolution of Neal's anger with Peter, but at being Kripked. One of the very first fics I wrote involved the industry that Peter and Neal are investigating. Of course, Peter and Neal and Elizabeth aren't involved in a polyamorous relationship and it wasn't Peter's twin sister who brought the case to their attention, but it does involve (okay - won't say, since it's above the cut).

And now - the DISH!

Of the four mid-season finales, I'm going to rate this one ...

As meh. It falls somewhere around the level of (possibly) Evil Peter saying "Hello, Kate."

But I come here not to trash Vested Interest, but to praise it.

My overall thought is this - the first half of the season should have ended with last week's episode. It had the dramatic ending filled with questions on where the primary relationship was going. This episode felt more like it should have started out the back half of the season. Which is why it rates just a meh for me.

And yet, there were a lot of things to adore here, a lot of small emotional moments that could have made this such a stand-out episode, if it wasn't the mid-season finale.

1 - Peter used the word "love." Yes, the context was sarcastic, even a touch bitter - but maybe that context added depth and poignancy to the moment when Neal, still bitterly angry at Peter, flashes the perfect con man's grin, selling it for all the world. "There's the Neal Caffrey I know and love." (Okay, I'm not sure if Peter said "I" or "we" but I'm still struggling with the new DVR so I don't want to waste time and go back to it yet - I'll pick it up on the rewatch).

2 - Peter trying to reconcile with Neal over coffee. Office coffee. But on the other hand, am I the only one who found the segue between Angry Neal and The Ink Spots singing "The Java Jive" a little jarring? Look, I know this is White Collar, and even when the girl gets blown up, everyone's all smiles in the next episode, but a few bits of emotional anguish wouldn't have gone amiss.

And on the OTHER hand, Neal's rebuff hurt, and hurt hard. So maybe this was about the quiet moments, the understated plays.

3 - The no-drama reconciliation. As jrosemary has pointed out in White Collar Fixation (in tonight's First Thoughts and in comments back to Season One), the rocky patches in Peter and Neal's relationship have handled without a long, drawn-out story arc. Jeff Eastin very wisely leaves the long narrative to the show's mythology, not to the relationships within the show. Season One, Hard Sell - need I say more?

This episode was as much about the reconciliation between Peter and Neal as it was about the caper of the week (ho-hum) and Sam's real identity (ho-hum to the infinite power). And that's what redeemed it.

There was the moment in the hallway at the Bureau, when Peter flat out tells Neal that he took him up on his offer because he liked him. I'm not 100% sure that Peter wasn't indulging in a little social engineering there (shades of Neal admitting that he didn't want to run anymore in Withdrawal). But what he told Neal was the utter truth - and he's also not more than a little embarrassed by that confession.

And then the information he imparts to Neal at the water's edge (am I the only one who found that symbolic?) about Sam not being Sam. At first thought, I was shocked that Peter just gave him the information and then walked away. But in retrospect, it was another perfect moment of healing between them. Neal had accused Peter of trying to run his life - and to a great extent, that's true. But in doing this and walking away - he's giving Neal back the power of choice. He's not treating Neal like he's an irresponsible child, but as an adult that can and should make his own decisions.

And from there, Neal does make a choice - the right one.

Of course, the shining moment of the episode is when Peter and Neal complete their panel interview, talking about - what else - the moments in Avery Philips' comic book vault (from Hard Sell) and the trust they have in each other. And even when there isn't trust, there is always faith between them.

If that's not a declaration of love, I don't know what is.

And now for the 600 pound gorilla in the room. Sam Phelps.

Or as we now know him to be, James Bennett.

Sigh. We all saw it coming, we all hoped it wasn't to be. But it was. Sam leaves me cold, I don't care about him. He's totally uninteresting and uninspiring as a character and that he's revealed to be Neal's father is really rather pointless.

You know what, I don't even want to talk about it. The promos said that the finale would change everything for Neal, and in our pre-episode chat, jrosemary and I came up with a few possibilities that were (in retrospect, far more exciting). Here are a few, and please feel free to add your own:

Jro: Neal runs off with Elizabeth

Elr: Sam is Peter's long lost uncle/cousin/brother

Jro: Sam is Mozzie's father

Elr: Sam killed Neal's father

Jro: Peter wants to adopt Neal

Elr: Sam is Byron's half-brother (Elr gets into the cracky ideas)

Jro: El could be preggers

Elr: Sam is Vincent Adler's half-brother (do we detect a theme here?)

Jro: Neal is preggers with Michael Weston's baby

Elr: Peter is preggers, and the daddy is Jones

Jro: That would really devastate the Neal/Jones shippers, unless Peter was their surrogate.

Elr: Sam is really Kate in disguise

Jro: Neal is pregnant, and Jack Harkness is the baby-daddy (for the WIN, you've got to admit).

'kay - this is perhaps the strangest Dish I've done. I just find myself with not a lot to say at the moment. Maybe I need to rewatch and revisit. Besides, I’m exhausted. Not from the moving and unpacking, but I went back to work today and had to take an unexpected trip to another state that included six hours on four different trains.

Hard to believe, but this is it until January, 2013. Let's get the conversation started. You know the drill. Thinky thoughts, not-so-thinky thoughts. Squee and not-squee away.

Comments

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

(In response to some comments here and elsewhere:) Neal did have a Big Leap scene - over all those cars. Why he did it, however, wasn't really clear to me on first watch.

Sam/James is sooooo BORING, both the reveal and the character. Who would have guessed Treat Williams would turn out to be so uncharismatic? I'm pretty sure he'll turn out to be a bad guy, but save Neal's life at the end of this season by sacrificing himself in a hail of bullets. My show is nothing if not predictable.

BUT WHO CARES? The scene with Peter's confession of why he wanted to work with Neal makes up for everything.

[elrhiarhodan]

I do hope that Sam/James turns out to be a bad guy, too.

I don't know which I liked more - Peter's confession or when he said "There's the Neal Caffrey I know and love."