White Collar – Mozzie gets the girl

It was bad enough when Sara began to inexplicably catch Neal’s eye — something not even Alex managed to do — after he finally got over his undying love for Kate. But to have her become a part of the team? I’m beginning to see a frightening resemblance to last season’s Burn Notice, when Jesse was thrust on our gang of three (speaking of, why is Madeline more and more becoming the fourth wheel?) If Sara has to be present — and I’m willing to continue arguing against that — at least keep her out of your work, Neal!

Because she was the only thing that mitigated my enjoyment of last night’s episode. I loved the chase for the man named Dupont who stole $125 million from Manhattan Mutual Bank. I enjoyed it so much that I was willing to overlook Jonesy’s — and Mozzie’s — sudden technological prowess, which, if we’ve seen it before, wasn’t made significant enough to have stuck in my memory.

And who could have not loved Mozzie and The Vulture, AKA Sally (Lena Headey)? I think Diana said it best when, after hearing Mozzie and Sally collect themselves on the phone she muttered, “I will never unhear that.” Wouldn’t it be awesome for Mozzie’s character to develop a personal life unrelated to Neal and what he’s got going on? Can you imagine the possibilities?

The little that we do know about him — like that he and Elizabeth are pals and “chat,” he has a different home for different nights of the week, he can work heavy machinery — makes every crumb that we’re given here and there so tantalizing. The Dentist of Detroit story was not worthy of him, but Mozzie-isms are generally more hit than miss. Maybe as long as he’s still in town he could continue seeing Sally (even if her texting addiction is pathetic) … that would be infinitely preferable to spending time on Neal and Sara.

I’ve always said that White Collar does cases-of-the-week better than it does personal stories — read: Neal’s personal stuff not related to Mozzie or Peter — and it’s interesting how that remains true even as the focus has shifted from Kate and the music box to Sara and the U-boat treasure. Who cares? Please just put a stop to it already. She knows, she doesn’t know, she wants to come, she doesn’t, he wants to run, he doesn’t … whatever! No one cares.

On the other hand, the scheming to find the hacker/thief was as exciting as all that other stuff was boring. Hijacking the personal data for Dupont’s Swiss bank account was awesome, and while I wasn’t quite sure why Mozzie didn’t get tossed almost immediately, I loved how he walked out with two handfuls of sucking candies. The heavy spending was less creative … even if you and I wouldn’t have thought of it, that’s not because we don’t have as active imaginations as Neal; it’s because of how outrageously over-the-line it was. But if you’re going to do it, do it. The jets (helicopters?) alone cost $80 million, which means everything else that Neal and Sara bought cost only $10 million. How hard is it to spend that kind of money in New York City?

Sally and Mozzie hacking the terminal was awesome, and it led me to wonder: is it really possible to send out a cell phone message to a group of people within a specific geographic zone (assuming that not everyone in the world got that alert)? Because if that’s real, imagine the practical uses: traffic alerts to people heading in a clogged direction, weather alerts for people in a danger zone, etc.

There’s your million dollar tech company idea … or a one-way ticket to prison. You’re welcome!

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jul 20, 2011 @ 14:00 EST5EDT