Post Ep Dish - S4.13 - Empire City
Feb. 6th, 2013 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elrhiarhodanAnd it's time for another episode of the White Collar Post-Ep Dish. This week, we've got Empire City, directed by our very own Tim DeKay, who hit it out of the park with last year's Stealing Home (sorry about the pun).
There's supposed to be a lot to love about this episode, but for the spoiler-phobes out there, you'll have to click through...
Our story this week opens with the discovery that Mozzie's actually got a job. He drives a NYC taxi cab, which he calls (and this is apparently legit cabbie lingo) his "yellow girlfriend." He apparently is "bleeding fares for info." One guesses for future felonious activities. I was ready to take a drink and consign my liver to doom every time "copper pipe" was mentioned.
There was a cute moment - which was spoiled for those who watch the official clips - when Moz takes Neal on a wild ride through Brooklyn (and charges him full fare), to find the right vantage point for the skyline in the key. Moz goes a little crazy when he oh-so-coincidentally sees another yellow cab with the same medallion number and Peter gets called in. To be honest, at first I found it an incredible stretch that the FBI would claim jurisdiction on this, but then I remembered that the Feds (Rudy Guiliani was the US Attorney who did the prosecuting) were the ones who prosecuted all of the corrupt NYC Parking officials during the late Ed Koch's third term (conveniently timed research, I'd say).
To be honest, I found the caper plot for this episode completely incomprehensible. Something with a taxi company selling bogus medallions??? Not sure how they got to the taxi company owner, then to the Cotton Club. But are we really supposed to care?
But rather than focus on what I didn't like about this episode (and there was a lot), let's just take a look at what I loved:
Well, hello casually clothed Agent Clinton Jones. Could you be any yummier? And what's with the incidental touching of Mrs. Burke's boobs? I do like that the writers have given Jones the role of confidante to Peter for this part of the mythology - that's usually Diana's role.
Hal Hoover! Where does Mozzie come up with these names? Apparently he's legitimately the owner of a NYC taxi medallion, and those things aren't cheap. Moz claims to have paid "a rock," which, according to Peter-as-exposition-monkey, means one million dollars. I always suspected that Moz had gelt. Or maybe he used some of the cash he got from selling the Degas to fund the failed hit on Keller (six million, if I recall correctly).
Peter really getting into his undercover roles. It was cute how Neal tried to school him about the limitations of his TLC authority, but he was definitely digging it. Peter clearly needs to get out of the office more!
And even better than his sting at the taxi garage was how well he rolled with Neal at The Cotton Club. They were in good form - perfectly in sync - as record label execs (though I might think that Peter, in his off-the-rack Brooks Brother suit, might raise some eyebrows in the music industry). And as an aside, I wonder how the White Collar production team got the rights to use the iconic Cotton Club name for this story. And the logo is right out of the Martin Scorsese movie… Which is the logo for the current iteration of the club. And let's handwave the fact that the original Cotton Club shut down in the the 1940s (El waxes nostalgic about going there in her early days in New York, and so does the club owner - for when he was a small boy) and its current iteration is more about gospel than jazz.
And the cigar smoking? Come on … it's been almost a decade since Mayor Bloomberg got smoking banned in bars and restaurants. And it's pretty unlikely that a putative jazz club got a "cigar bar" designation. (Tip of the hat to my friend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jrosemary for bringing this to my attention). Not to mention that the owner is a recently released felon, which would automatically disqualify him from getting a liquor license, too.
(Sorry - let's just continue with the handwaving).
Anyway, having the caper mostly set in a jazz club gives us the opportunity for some lovely set pieces.
El as Grand Master Event Planner gets to decipher the old-fashioned ledger entries. (Who uses a paper account ledger anymore?)
Which brings me to June. Really, this whole episode was just an excuse to have the utterly wonderful, extraordinarily talented Miss Diahann Carroll sing, and sing and sing some more. You know, for many of her appearances in S3, I wondered if she was unwell. Her brief appearance in the second worst episode of the entire WC canon, Pulling Strings, made me wonder if she was downright ill, she looked so frail. But the actress who all but stole Pilot was back tonight, in full force. She looked magnificent and sounded even better.
An aside about the recording session - will someone confirm that they set up the recording studio in Neal's apartment? Mozzie welds in there, Neal uses a blow torch to char the inside of an oak barrel, and now it's a recording studio? Apparently the fourth floor of the Ellington Mansion is really a Requirements Room.
And then there's Diana as Cigar Girl. Who wouldn't appreciate her in the blonde wig, corset, fishnet stocking and high heels? And she smokes cigars? I did love her scene with the club owner and how they wax rhapsodic over music. It was good enough to quell my minor outrage over Diana once again being put into a sexualized role (she's been a prostitute and a runway model).
I suppose I should count Mozzie's shenanigans as some of the better moments of this ep - like how he just walks right into Chez Burke, his motor-mouth stunt in the taxi garage, the convenient way he gives a ride to the villain of the week. But honestly, he just annoyed me this week, and that's a shame.
A few words about the less-than-stellar moments of Empire City.
Elizabeth failed to come clean about getting Neal to lie to Peter. She sees how hurt her husband is, why isn't she making things right? She's got to know that Peter's not going to give up on this - not now. And Peter, someone needs to hit that man with a clue-by-four. El says she's happy that Neal lied to him - don't you at least ask her why?
And the last scene, where Neal discovers where the key leads to. Mozzie takes him to Queens. Which is miles and miles beyond Neal's two-mile radius. I guess, by this point, the tracker is just to track his movements? And doesn't Neal realize this? Guys - come on - there's so much handwaving going on with this ep that I'm going to need an MRI on both wrists.
Okay, Collars - what are your thoughts on tonight's episode? The thinky ones, the not-so-thinky ones, too. Do you find this episode as enjoyable as Tim's outing last year, or were you just meh about it?
There's supposed to be a lot to love about this episode, but for the spoiler-phobes out there, you'll have to click through...
Our story this week opens with the discovery that Mozzie's actually got a job. He drives a NYC taxi cab, which he calls (and this is apparently legit cabbie lingo) his "yellow girlfriend." He apparently is "bleeding fares for info." One guesses for future felonious activities. I was ready to take a drink and consign my liver to doom every time "copper pipe" was mentioned.
There was a cute moment - which was spoiled for those who watch the official clips - when Moz takes Neal on a wild ride through Brooklyn (and charges him full fare), to find the right vantage point for the skyline in the key. Moz goes a little crazy when he oh-so-coincidentally sees another yellow cab with the same medallion number and Peter gets called in. To be honest, at first I found it an incredible stretch that the FBI would claim jurisdiction on this, but then I remembered that the Feds (Rudy Guiliani was the US Attorney who did the prosecuting) were the ones who prosecuted all of the corrupt NYC Parking officials during the late Ed Koch's third term (conveniently timed research, I'd say).
To be honest, I found the caper plot for this episode completely incomprehensible. Something with a taxi company selling bogus medallions??? Not sure how they got to the taxi company owner, then to the Cotton Club. But are we really supposed to care?
But rather than focus on what I didn't like about this episode (and there was a lot), let's just take a look at what I loved:
Well, hello casually clothed Agent Clinton Jones. Could you be any yummier? And what's with the incidental touching of Mrs. Burke's boobs? I do like that the writers have given Jones the role of confidante to Peter for this part of the mythology - that's usually Diana's role.
Hal Hoover! Where does Mozzie come up with these names? Apparently he's legitimately the owner of a NYC taxi medallion, and those things aren't cheap. Moz claims to have paid "a rock," which, according to Peter-as-exposition-monkey, means one million dollars. I always suspected that Moz had gelt. Or maybe he used some of the cash he got from selling the Degas to fund the failed hit on Keller (six million, if I recall correctly).
Peter really getting into his undercover roles. It was cute how Neal tried to school him about the limitations of his TLC authority, but he was definitely digging it. Peter clearly needs to get out of the office more!
And even better than his sting at the taxi garage was how well he rolled with Neal at The Cotton Club. They were in good form - perfectly in sync - as record label execs (though I might think that Peter, in his off-the-rack Brooks Brother suit, might raise some eyebrows in the music industry). And as an aside, I wonder how the White Collar production team got the rights to use the iconic Cotton Club name for this story. And the logo is right out of the Martin Scorsese movie… Which is the logo for the current iteration of the club. And let's handwave the fact that the original Cotton Club shut down in the the 1940s (El waxes nostalgic about going there in her early days in New York, and so does the club owner - for when he was a small boy) and its current iteration is more about gospel than jazz.
And the cigar smoking? Come on … it's been almost a decade since Mayor Bloomberg got smoking banned in bars and restaurants. And it's pretty unlikely that a putative jazz club got a "cigar bar" designation. (Tip of the hat to my friend
jrosemary for bringing this to my attention). Not to mention that the owner is a recently released felon, which would automatically disqualify him from getting a liquor license, too.(Sorry - let's just continue with the handwaving).
Anyway, having the caper mostly set in a jazz club gives us the opportunity for some lovely set pieces.
El as Grand Master Event Planner gets to decipher the old-fashioned ledger entries. (Who uses a paper account ledger anymore?)
Which brings me to June. Really, this whole episode was just an excuse to have the utterly wonderful, extraordinarily talented Miss Diahann Carroll sing, and sing and sing some more. You know, for many of her appearances in S3, I wondered if she was unwell. Her brief appearance in the second worst episode of the entire WC canon, Pulling Strings, made me wonder if she was downright ill, she looked so frail. But the actress who all but stole Pilot was back tonight, in full force. She looked magnificent and sounded even better.
An aside about the recording session - will someone confirm that they set up the recording studio in Neal's apartment? Mozzie welds in there, Neal uses a blow torch to char the inside of an oak barrel, and now it's a recording studio? Apparently the fourth floor of the Ellington Mansion is really a Requirements Room.
And then there's Diana as Cigar Girl. Who wouldn't appreciate her in the blonde wig, corset, fishnet stocking and high heels? And she smokes cigars? I did love her scene with the club owner and how they wax rhapsodic over music. It was good enough to quell my minor outrage over Diana once again being put into a sexualized role (she's been a prostitute and a runway model).
I suppose I should count Mozzie's shenanigans as some of the better moments of this ep - like how he just walks right into Chez Burke, his motor-mouth stunt in the taxi garage, the convenient way he gives a ride to the villain of the week. But honestly, he just annoyed me this week, and that's a shame.
A few words about the less-than-stellar moments of Empire City.
Elizabeth failed to come clean about getting Neal to lie to Peter. She sees how hurt her husband is, why isn't she making things right? She's got to know that Peter's not going to give up on this - not now. And Peter, someone needs to hit that man with a clue-by-four. El says she's happy that Neal lied to him - don't you at least ask her why?
And the last scene, where Neal discovers where the key leads to. Mozzie takes him to Queens. Which is miles and miles beyond Neal's two-mile radius. I guess, by this point, the tracker is just to track his movements? And doesn't Neal realize this? Guys - come on - there's so much handwaving going on with this ep that I'm going to need an MRI on both wrists.
Okay, Collars - what are your thoughts on tonight's episode? The thinky ones, the not-so-thinky ones, too. Do you find this episode as enjoyable as Tim's outing last year, or were you just meh about it?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 02:42 pm (UTC)I'm not so sure what to make of Elizabeth's strategy/behavior at this point, but I've got a few thoughts. Maybe she thinks that Peter will be more likely to take the danger to himself seriously if it's Neal trying to protect him than if it's her worries? And maybe she's let it go this far and just doesn't know how to tell Peter at this point. Perhaps, as someone suggested after the last episode, Elizabeth didn't really think of Neal lying to Peter as being such a big deal, since she wasn't aware of the line the two of them seem to have regarding Neal telling a "direct" lie? And that makes it harder to come clean?
In any case, I do like that Peter knows that something is up, and that he's concerned about it but has concluded that Neal must have some reason/logic behind what he's doing. And that they have acknowledged that Neal lying to Peter directly is significant. Tim said in a recent interview that this plot point will play out over the rest of the season, so we'll have to wait and see how that goes, I guess.
The one plot hole that actually is now bothering me is the radius thing, which I'm surprised I didn't notice during the show. I've been less bothered than some when they've been a little fuzzy about just what is in Neal's radius and what isn't, but this seems like a pretty big breach - as another commenter mentioned, we learned in an earlier episode that Ellen's place on Roosevelt Island is outside his radius, and in this episode he goes to Brooklyn *and* Queens looking for the skyline from the key. If he and Peter were still on the same page re: the key investigation, I could see Peter telling the Marshals that Neal was working a case and just to monitor, but they're not. If it's during regular work hours, I think they just monitor, but both times Neal is jaunting around town Peter and Jones are at the Burke's in casual clothes, so I presume it's the weekend. I could see Peter agreeing to let Neal out of his radius with the ulterior motive of following his movements because he knows Neal is investigating the key, but where's the part where Neal a) has a convincing story for Peter to sell the idea, and b) Peter sells agreeing reluctantly so that Neal isn't suspicious of *him*? Okay, my brain hurts now. :-)
So...final verdict...fun, mostly light episode with a lot of good ensemble work and what actually turned out to be some possibly good follow-up on the El tells Neal to lie to Peter sub-plot, but also with a plot hole that is now really bugging me.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 03:54 pm (UTC)I did a little research on Google Maps and got some interesting information.
We're now expected to believe that June's place is somewhere in Midtown, near Tudor City (and the Chrysler Building, natch). If that is true, then Neal's trip to the Queens Ferry terminal is actually just within his radius (it's 1.9 miles). If June's mansion is on Riverside Drive, it's five miles, and he's busted.
But that being said - why doesn't he think that Peter's not tracking him?
Sigh. Show, you have more plotholes than Blackburn, Lancastershire (pardon the overused Beatles reference)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 05:40 pm (UTC)Or maybe he just doesn't care. He's probably hoping the faster he can solve things, the faster he can be on the same page as Peter again. I don't think he's enjoying hiding things from Peter this time around.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-07 01:58 pm (UTC)