By: Greg Payne
Poor Neal Caffrey. Six weeks after being forced to flee New York City due to the begrudging Dick of the Year, Agent Kramer, he was forced to flee his new island home, Cape Verde.
Unfortunately, his dash from Cape Verde wasn't quite as smooth as his escape from New York. The first episode of Season 4 of White Collar, 'Wanted,' ended with a gun pointed at Neal's face, by the agent sent by the FBI to hunt him down. Neal doesn't like guns, so I'm guessing Neal isn't very comfortable with his current predicament.
But who are we kidding, I'm getting waaaaaay too far head of myself. How did we get there?
The FBI wasn't willing to just let Neal go. And they weren't about to let Peter Burke be the one to try and find him again, due to his very close, personal friendship with Neal. So they brought in agent Kyle Collins, a brash, motivated, and apparently heartless member of the suit brigade.
Peter, though, feels some serious remorse for Neal's predicament, since he's the one who signaled to him to run in the first place. He decides he needs to locate Neal before Collins does. What the plan is once he finds Neal is anybody's guess. One of my biggest questions about Season 4 is how these two will be able to work together again. We didn't get an answer in the first episode, nor did we get any clues.
So the race is on to find Neal, who's lounging on his new island paradise under the alias James Maine, along with Mozzie, presenting himself as Barry Sitoro. Neal's romancing a beautiful cafe worker named Maya, while Mozzie's cozy-ing up to the island kingpin, Dobbs. Neal and Mozzie set up a deal with Dobbs, who will protect them from the local authorities and help to resolve any other conflicts they might become involved in.
Maya, skeptical of James Maine and his New York background, is eventually wooed when she's treated to a late night picnic and a very elegant sandcastle display of NYC, coupled with a game of 20 questions in which she can ask anything about Neal's life in New York, and alleviate some key suspicions in the process.
Peter, meanwhile, is trying to track down Ellen Parker, last seen at the tail end of Season 3. Collins approaches her first and is shut down hard, but thanks to some help from Elizabeth, Peter eventually earns her trust and she gives him a beeper number that's supposed to be used only for emergencies. Neal gets the message, calls the phone that's supposed to lead him to Ellen, and finds himself talking to Peter.
Peter's calling to warn Neal about Collins, but he's also recording the conversation, determined to locate Neal's position. He brings in Diana and Jones, and by analyzing the sound of church bells and a storm in the background of the call, they're able to zero in on Cape Verde.
Collins then raids Peter's house, throwing a warrant in Elizabeth's face, and his team uncovers the map Peter had been using to track Neal. Seeing Cape Verde circled, he knows where he must go, and that starts a mad dash to the archipelago.
Neal and Mozzie are tipped off to Collins' arrival on the island by a young boy named Hector, who they've befriended, but they're unaware that Peter's hot on his coattail. That is, until they see the pair in Maya's cafe. Collins turns the locals on Neal by putting a $500,000 bounty on his head (bigger dick move than anything Kramer tried), but Neal and Mozzie use Hector to lure Peter to them, where they plot their escape.
The trio get separated as the people of the street smell a payday and try to capture Neal, but he's eventually rescued by Maya on her handy dandy scooter and brought to Dobbs' mansion. Remember, Dobbs? The guy who's supposed to help Neal with his problems? Well, claiming bringing outside authorities to the island is a big no-no, Dobbs turns on Neal and calls Collins into the room, gun in hand.
We've seen in some of the other promos for Season 4 Neal being handcuffed in some sort of prison cell, and it certainly looks like he's trying to make an escape. It's tough to predict when/how Neal will elude Collins (but we can pretty much be sure it's going to happen), and it's even tougher to predict how Peter will get Neal out of this mess when they reconvene, but Season 4 of White Collar got off to a promising start, largely by breaking the case-by-case formula that the show was originally built upon, giving Neal some lighter, brighter threads, and by giving us a more exotic location for our eyes to feast upon.
Season 4 of White Collar airs at 9:00pm (EST) on USA Network.
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