45 Minutes Week 30 - White Collar

For the better part of three weeks, the majority of my energy has been going to the pre-press work on my upcoming Warrior27: The Collection.  Coupled along with my day job, it's meant a lot of sleepless nights and all too focused attention on tiny details.  Have you ever made sure 250 pages are all at 5" x 7.5", RGB color with the correct compression?  It's mundane as hell, and sadly, takes a ton of time.

Luckily, all the recent DVD releases of some great shows have been keeping me company, making the hours seem not so endless.  Just this past week I've knocked off Season 5 of The Closer and yesterday alone, I killed the entire Season One of White Collar.  While most of my contemporaries were outside, frolicking at the beach and drinking cheap beer, I was in my living room, fan blowing on my face, fingers glued to the keyboard, while my eyes watched the con games of grifter extraordinairre Neal Caffrey.

I'm always a fan of the con, so I expected to like White Collar.  I was surprised to love it.  All the pieces fit just right, and the show delievers, with solid acting and great stories for each episode.  But first, the players.

Tim Dekay is a fine actor, perhaps the best part of the excellent Carnivale, and he is completely believable as the straight-laced, but very smart FBI Agent Burke that manages to capture Caffrey, twice.  And Willie Garson was always entertaining on Sex and the City.  (Should I admit to watching every episode, but not the films, of that?)  Okay, I've always heard Garson was good on that show.  But on White Collar, he's very good, playing against type in the role that usually would go to some grizzled actor like Chris Christopherson.  He's the man that can get you anything, and the best friend of the series star, Matt Bomer.

Bomer is perfect as Caffrey.  He's unbelievably pretty, which for a con man, is a great quality to have.  Unlike most "faces," he's not a womanizer.  In fact, it was his love for his girlfriend that landed him in this predicament.  Three months away from the end of his sentence, she left him.  Unable to deal, he escaped and went looking for her.  Unfortunately, Burke catches up with him again.  In a twist that is probably far too common in the real world, the Agency offers Caffrey a job in exchange for his freedom.  Help catch other bad guys, and you will have some freedom on the outside world, mostly confined to two square miles thanks to his monitoring bracelet.

But he's got plans of his own. 

Besides the usual "case of the week," there are plenty of subplots, which I won't give away here, but they add plenty of extra motivation for our smooth criminal.  And I really didn't see the season finale coming.  It left the show in a great place for the start of Season Two, which luckily, just started.

I'm tempted to find time to watch it weekly, and not just catch the random episode during the summer.