last night's White Collar
Jan. 26th, 2011 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelThings I loved, in no particular order: young Neal, puppy Satchmo, Alex, the way Neal kisses Kate, Neal /walking up to/ Peter while Peter's investigating him, the sucker, the wine Peter brought (corkless *snicker*), the haaat, naked Neal with the hat, Neal's naked dance, Neal and Kate in cop uniforms (which makes me want porn with handcuffs), Diana saying "my girlfriend" (even if everyone in the room went on to interpret the 'my' as 'if-I-were-Neal' because she probably wasn't out yet, unless she was, but I don't care because Diana is awesome), Neal bartering story-for-story with Peter.
However, overall I wasn't really happy with the episode. For one thing, it crammed /way too much/ backstory into way too little time. Both in terms of storytelling (why, for example, did we need to know how Mozzie and Neal got together, when it could have just been "So Moz and I pulled this con"?) and in terms of consistency (even though Neal was obviously a con on some level when he met Mozzie, what with the cardswitch and all, he was still sort of baby Neal, and there wasn't enough time for him to have done all the stuff he was supposed to have done). And in terms of plausibility, to some extent -- Mozzie and Kate and Alex and the music box and, on the FBI side, Jones and Diana, all showing up at around the same time?
(and okay, a tiny bit of crankiness is about the fact that my White Collar drabbleverse [of all of two drabbles] is pretty much jossed because it relies on Neal being able to approach Peter without Peter recognizing him, and the window between Neal talking to Peter and Peter getting surveillance tapes from the bank is seriously not long. but then again, it was only two drabbles, so whatever)
...but I think the thing that bugged me the most was Kate. Now, don't get me wrong: I like Kate, I always have liked Kate, and this ep did nothing but make me love her a bit more.
But.
There was no real foundation for Neal to fall for Kate as hard as he did, nor for her to fall for him. I'm sure something was there (the episode was focused aroundIrene Vincent Adler, not Kate, so there was a lot of storytelling to be done that didn't involve Kate), but on the other hand, Neal was the reason that Kate didn't go to Chicago and Kate was the reason that Neal hesitated on finishing the con, so it was relevant, except it wasn't there.
It was kind of like being told "and then they fell into deep obsessive love the end" without being shown why or how. And it wasn't clear why Kate fell so easily into a life of crime -- nor why she was hiding from Neal after Copenhagen, nor why she visited him for however many years at the prison, nor why her leaving was enough for Neal to risk what he did.
And thing is, the interaction between Neal and Alex felt true, because (as she pointed out) they were both grifters, and because it was sex more than it was love. Buy me a drink became post-sex naked and that was okay. (Mmm, naked Neal in the hat. Dancing for the neighbors.)
But the Kate stuff felt ... I don't know. Like it had to be crammed in there but they didn't have time or space to show them falling for each other, to show the foundation of the depths of their love, and I know that Love At First Sight is a common storytelling technique and maybe part of why Neal fell in love with Kate was because his charm didn't really initially work on her or something, a "want what you cant' have" sort of thing, but ... no.
I don't know. It just ... really didn't resonate.
Mrrrr.
...I kinda want an icon of shirtless Neal with a hat. Also of Neal in the police uniform.
However, overall I wasn't really happy with the episode. For one thing, it crammed /way too much/ backstory into way too little time. Both in terms of storytelling (why, for example, did we need to know how Mozzie and Neal got together, when it could have just been "So Moz and I pulled this con"?) and in terms of consistency (even though Neal was obviously a con on some level when he met Mozzie, what with the cardswitch and all, he was still sort of baby Neal, and there wasn't enough time for him to have done all the stuff he was supposed to have done). And in terms of plausibility, to some extent -- Mozzie and Kate and Alex and the music box and, on the FBI side, Jones and Diana, all showing up at around the same time?
(and okay, a tiny bit of crankiness is about the fact that my White Collar drabbleverse [of all of two drabbles] is pretty much jossed because it relies on Neal being able to approach Peter without Peter recognizing him, and the window between Neal talking to Peter and Peter getting surveillance tapes from the bank is seriously not long. but then again, it was only two drabbles, so whatever)
...but I think the thing that bugged me the most was Kate. Now, don't get me wrong: I like Kate, I always have liked Kate, and this ep did nothing but make me love her a bit more.
But.
There was no real foundation for Neal to fall for Kate as hard as he did, nor for her to fall for him. I'm sure something was there (the episode was focused around
It was kind of like being told "and then they fell into deep obsessive love the end" without being shown why or how. And it wasn't clear why Kate fell so easily into a life of crime -- nor why she was hiding from Neal after Copenhagen, nor why she visited him for however many years at the prison, nor why her leaving was enough for Neal to risk what he did.
And thing is, the interaction between Neal and Alex felt true, because (as she pointed out) they were both grifters, and because it was sex more than it was love. Buy me a drink became post-sex naked and that was okay. (Mmm, naked Neal in the hat. Dancing for the neighbors.)
But the Kate stuff felt ... I don't know. Like it had to be crammed in there but they didn't have time or space to show them falling for each other, to show the foundation of the depths of their love, and I know that Love At First Sight is a common storytelling technique and maybe part of why Neal fell in love with Kate was because his charm didn't really initially work on her or something, a "want what you cant' have" sort of thing, but ... no.
I don't know. It just ... really didn't resonate.
Mrrrr.
...I kinda want an icon of shirtless Neal with a hat. Also of Neal in the police uniform.