White Collar: High Stakes and Poker Faces

How do you catch a thief? You call in a bigger thief to beat him at his own game. At least that’s what Peter Burke did this week when one of his fellow agents went missing. Faced with the mysterious disappearance of undercover FBI man Mark Costa, who recently infiltrated the organization of notorious money launderer Lao Shen, the Feds decided it takes one to know one and called in Neal Caffrey.

Actually, my bad, they called in one of Caffrey’s former aliases, Nicholas Halden, after Neal requested immunity. The FBI found out Shen would be in Chinatown for only 72 hours, and the only way to get to him and find out what happened to their missing agent was by sending in one of their own, in this case a multimillionaire with a penchant for high stakes gambling (otherwise known as Nicholas Halden). Caffrey was given an ankle bracelet upgrade in the form of a gold watch transmitter that also records sound and told to buy his way into Shen’s underground game of Pai Gow – but not before Mozzie could give him a tutorial in the game. Peter and his agents were stationed in a nearby Chinatown apartment and all was set to go off as planned, until the NYPD unexpectedly raided Shen’s game. Fearing his identity would be compromised, Neal fled the scene until he was found and brought to a hotel room by Meilin, a stunningly beautiful undercover Interpol agent that was also in on Shen’s game.

I know he had to go to jail first, but how sweet is Neal Caffrey’s life? Beautiful women are literally thrown at him every week. If you’re going to be a criminal, apparently white collar is the way to go. Caffrey really is a one-woman man though, as he is yet to let any of his seductresses steer him off course from finding Kate.

Before exposing her identity to Neal, Meilin smashed his watch, leaving Peter and the Feds to hope that he didn’t try and flee the scene. As agent Cruz pointed out – fat chance, Caffrey knows when he has a good thing going. Meilin told Neal that she could find Kate and the man who kidnapped her as long as he purposely botched the Shen operation – Interpol was there first and were using Lao to get to his boss. She also reveals that she was the whistle blower to the NYPD in an attempt to save her own operation. Neal returns to Burke in the morning like a good little criminal, but he purposely avoids telling Burke about Meilin’s offer.

Burke and Caffrey then find their way into more trouble, as they find the missing agent’s body in one of Shen’s warehouses while they have no back-up present to help them. It’s sweet that Burke considers Neal his partner and all, but does he really think Neal will be helpful to him in a tight spot? Caffrey doesn’t strike me as being a sharpshooter, he’d probably do better just throwing a weapon at the crooks – that is, if the FBI would ever give him one.

Neal eventually finds a way to satisfy everyone’s needs and his own (good thing, since Peter revealed to him that he knew about Meilin) by setting up the illegal wire transfer that Interpol needed despite the fact that Meilin pulled a fast one on Neal. Instead of giving him a flash drive with information about Kate’s captor, the drive was blank. So, Neal didn’t feel badly about giving the FBI what they needed to take Shen down after he challenged him to another game of Pai Gow and let Lao “win” Neal’s recording device watch. Looks like the tiles fell in Neal’s favor this time as Lao admitted on tape that he was behind Costa’s murder. All would have returned to normal would it not have been for Meilin’s parting information for Neal – the person holding Kate was actually in the FBI. The closing scene shows Neal scanning the FBI office with suspicion as he tries to deduce if his co-workers are really on his team. Looks like things could get interesting next week if Neal decides he’d rather be a free agent.

This episode was a breath of fresh air for several reasons: first of all, the story line finally deviated a little to include the Asian version of Texas Hold ‘Em. At least the writers got the message to change it up a bit from past episodes. Secondly, June returned! Diahann Carroll most likely won’t see a lot of screen time, but seeing her return was a welcome change. Plus, she’s like a rich Obi Wan, her instincts are always spot on about people. Also, the comedic relief was adorable this week – Burke’s scenes with the little girl were even funnier than his novelty socks, where can I get a pair of those?  Finally, the tension between Burke and Caffrey as to whether Caffrey could finally be trusted was just starting to wane, which was definitely the show’s cue to throw a monkey wrench in the works. I do think they should develop Kate’s story line a little more, but the realization that Neal could be sleeping with the enemy is going to play out well in next week’s fall finale episode. One thing’s for sure – hell hath no fury like a Neal Caffrey scorned, if he switches sides I have a feeling the FBI is in for much more than they bargained for.

For another take on this week’s episode, check out High Stakes by Allison Toner

Season 1, Episode 6: All In (originally aired November 27, 2009)

For more on White Collar, click here.

Fridays at 10/9c on USA Network

Photographs courtesy of USA, Electric Artists, and David Giesbrecht