White Collar is one of those “of the moment” shows that still feels good to watch fourteen years later. Which is saying something since it’s a procedural at its core.

The Pitch: Neal Caffery, art thief and con man, negotiates his way to a work release after breaking himself out of prison to go find his ex-girlfriend. Oh, and said work release is with the FBI white collar crimes division under the agent that put him in prison. 

The thing that needs to be understood the most is when this show is fun, and not getting bogged down in the seemingly endless cat and mouse game between Agent Peter Burke and Neal Caffery, they get a lot of mileage out of “charming, sticky fingered con man helps FBI solve crimes committed by the 1%.” Are you kidding? That’s an incredible premise, especially in 2009 where half of the suspects’ profiles open with how much money they lost in the crash of 2008 and how all their illegal activities are basically them trying to speed up the process of making that money back. That’s good, that’s inventive, there is very rarely a dead body involved but the crime solving portions never feel like a drag in spite of it. Never mind the fact that half the time solving said crimes involves a mildly to severely illegal counter heist/con to get a confession. Incredible stuff, definitely in the upper echelon of “heist of the week” shows (along with Leverage).

Add a supporting cast of one of the first prominent lesbians in a mainstream show (though she is a cop basically and even if she isn’t the first, she feels like it), one of the best spouses in all of television (seriously, the Burke’s marriage should be required viewing for TV married couples and Elizabeth is great on her own merits, she should’ve been allowed to commit more crime), current criminals and former (June and Mozzie never stop being entertaining to watch no matter what part in the scheme and con they’re playing) just…

Well, okay, to make our central conflict work (a cat and mouse game of continually escalating crimes under the nose of the government), a few things need to happen:

1. Neal’s gotta believe that Peter isn’t an option to get help on whatever problem/score he’s dealing with
2. Peter has to believe Neal is up to something other than whatever the episode’s sanctioned con is.
3. They both have to be right, wrong, and come together to deal with a bigger problem.

For the first three seasons, this isn’t so bad, a fairly stable ripple effect of “there’s always a bigger fish” story, growing from just an internal FBI problem to having pasts coming back to haunt them to some genuine tension of who to trust. Where it gets messy is the end of season three and into season four. The fourth season where, even after a mess involving a treasure and a failure to commute Neal’s four year sentence because higher ups at the FBI don’t or won’t believe that Neal being free would A) continue working for them and keep their closure rate high which… lol and lmao or b) will go back to a life of crime and thus go back to being a thorn in their side, Neal is… forced to flee the country.

He’s brought back and the status quo is sort of reestablished for about… an episode and a half. But then the writers and the show runners got it into their head that “hey, bigger is better, right?” and thus we have a “the conspiracy goes all the way to the top.” plot.

(Note: if I had a nickel for every time a procedural had a plot involving a conspiracy about the death of one of the main characters’ parents ended up being orchestrated by a now in- universe US Congress Member and the show took place in New York, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice, right?)

The final “season” if you could call it that, thankfully breaks the pattern so we can deal with a slightly tighter heist story than usual. Which highlights one of the shows strengths, primarily the ability to craft a creative and interesting heist on a week to week basis, but in doing so it loses the thing that made the show special. That being the interplay between Peter and Neal, whether they’re on the same side or not.

None of this constant escalation to nowhere would bother me so much if I didn’t deeply love the dynamic between Peter and Neal. Their bond through thick and thin, with Neal showing signs of actually liking the work he’s doing with the FBI and with Peter (because, y’know Neal’s ultimately a good man, just bored and clever. Like a border collie) makes it so every time they’re on the outs or not fully communicating your were half tempted to crawl the television screen and start shaking them and saying “Oh my god you idiots!” Which can only be so entertaining before you’re contemplating inventing time travel to the writer’s room and threatening to throw shoes at them because “try something different!” isn’t an option on the table. 

… or maybe that’s just me.

Regardless, the biggest flaw with White Collar is the writer’s inability to let characters break cycles for one reason or another, letting them end up in a purgatorial loop they can never escape from. That, combined with a 13-16 episode count a season before it was truly infuriating with streaming services means that no matter how much I want Neal Caffery and Peter Burke to grow, they’ll be stuck on their parallel treadmills.

Also Neal Caffery should’ve been at least bi and the only reason he wasn’t was because this show premiered in 2009.