Post Ep Dish - S4.12 - Brass Tacks

[elrhiarhodan]

Hiya folks and welcome to the 2013 Edition of the White Collar Post Ep Dish.

Due to circumstances beyond my control (and a week-long hospital stay), I wasn’t able to do the Dish for last week’s mid-season premier, Family Business, but I do have to say I loved it. Even the week caper had its undeniable charms. Both jrosemary and rabidchild67 did excellent reviews (First Thoughts and Rabid Squee, respectively). I suggest you head on over to White Collar Fixation and check out their reviews.

I have to admit, I am exhausted, so this Dish this week is a short collection of mostly random thoughts. I have high hopes for the episode, particularly since we’ve got ...



Peter whump on tap!!!! Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the first possibility of serious injury to Peter since Company Man (I am not counting Payback, since whatshisname couldn’t hit a man standing three feet in front of him with a full magazine).

So, here we go my friends … It’s Brass Tacks!

Well, I find myself rather divided about this episode. It had a lot of potential, but failed to deliver on most of it.

The villain - Terrence Pratt - started out as meh as meh could be. But by the end, he's giving me the sick chills. Maybe it's the name. Anyone called Terrence has to be evil, right?

The Peter!whump was definitely unsatisfying - where was Neal's angst? He seemed way too calm, cool and collected while Peter was in a coma. He should have been glued to Peter's bedside (yeah, and I have ideas on what he'd be doing, too).

This whole thing with El - her ordering Neal to lie to Peter about the key. That just doesn't work after Peter realizes that Neal lied. Why doesn't she come clean? Since El knows that Peter knows that Neal and Moz are working independently, that they have the real key and he and Jones have a copy, then why not tell Peter that she asked Neal to lie?

Am I the only one who caught the Ghostbuster reference?

And the rather obvious Gollum reference?

For the record, I love the Moz and Jones pairing. There's something so deliciously wrong about the two of them working together. Of course, in my head canon, they have another relationship entirely (pimping the fic here - No Good Deed and Unexpectedly Perfect).

Neal as Architect. Not really a lot of thought about that - just another role to play. Fascinating how he built a maquette of a skyscraper within just a few hours. Just read an article about a maquette builder - those things take weeks, if not months. Like Neal and Moz forging whiskey overnight - the writers are really pushing the Marty Stu envelope this season.

Loved Peter playing with the fake arm in a sling - that was really kind of funny - and a particularly Peter thing to do (don't know why, but it just seems that way).

Reese is gone - this really, really upsets me because it's clear that he's not going to be back, ever. He's my favorite minor character and his leaving like this (and not putting Peter in charge) pisses me off (and josses a few hundred thousand words of fic). I understand that Emily Proctor (who played Ainsley Hayes on The West Wing) will be taking over as head of the WC division for most of the back half. NOT HAPPY. I don't particularly like her, but you know what? I'll give her a chance because she's a Woman In Charge and there aren't enough Women in Charge.

I am sure I have other thoughts, but I can't remember them. Still have hospital brain and I'm seriously, seriously tired.

So, in the best tradition of all Post Ep Dishes, let's get the conversation started. You know the drill. Thinky thoughts, not-so-thinky thoughts. Squee and not-squee away. Share your ideas, your concepts, what you think is going to happen, what you liked, loved, hated and wanted more (or less of).

It's White Collar Night...make it a good one.

Comments

[doctor-fangeek.livejournal.com]

I don't have much in the way of thinky thoughts on this one. It was okay - not one of my favorites, but with some good stuff. And it kind of felt like a...filler is the wrong word...like a bridge of sorts, an episode that was there to get us from here to there (like the middle movie or book in a series). Not sure that will make sense to anyone but me.

There were bits I really liked:
The whole exchange/negotiation between Neal, Peter, Jones and Mozzie.

The bit where Mozzie calls Neal's phone after they've switched out for Pratt's - Mozzie's improv was genuinely, LOL funny.

The return of the Swiss army knife baby! Still creepy, btw.

The scene where Neal calls Pratt out - I can't put my finger on exactly why, but that scene really worked for me.

"Keys don't have existential crises."


The main thing I was not so enthused about was the Elizabeth sub-plot. At first it seemed out of character to me that she would tell Neal to lie to Peter. Then I wondered if I maybe have a too-idealized view of El, and if that might be coloring my reaction to the episode. But honestly, it felt kind of contrived to me. Pratt ended up on Peter's radar because of the situation with Neal and his father, but once there was evidence that Pratt was corrupt, Peter was, well, doing his job to investigate him. And I guess I'm not so convinced that looking into the key was going to put Peter in more danger than just going after Pratt in general. And Elr's point is a good one. Peter knows Neal lied, and he (Peter) is clearly still looking into the key, so why doesn't Elizabeth tell him what happened at that point?

Re: the Peter!whump - I think the way that was played may have had something to do with my problem with the El thing as well. *She* was clearly really upset and worried, and her level of worry is supposed to be the motivation for her essentially ordering Neal to lie to Peter. And okay, her husband's just been in a car crash and it's pretty obvious that it was due to foul play. But the filming of the accident itself, and then everyone else's reactions, seemed to downplay the whole thing. I mean, Peter is unconscious, but the diagnosis is concussion and whatever they said was wrong with his arm, it doesn't seem that either Diana or Neal is extremely worried about his condition, and while his car was t-boned (poor, poor Taurus), the staging/filming of the crash was kind of underwhelming. Maybe if I had felt the danger to Peter more, Elizabeth's concern (and what she does about it) would have felt more real to me? It was kind of like, intellectually, I understood why she would do what she did, but as I was watching I didn't quite believe it. And IDK if *that* makes sense to anyone but me either. :-)


On the other hand, as much as I felt less than convinced about what got us there, the idea that Neal and Peter are both solving the puzzle of the key at the same time (it's a race?) is cool. And I really liked that last sequence where they cut back and forth between the two of them working it out. Oh, boys!

[meeni (from livejournal.com)]

believe it. And IDK if *that* makes sense to anyone but me either. :-)
yes i agree while understanding El's reaction, we are not able to digest it because of the reason you stated..