Au Revoir, White Collar

Took me a while, since the final six episodes were not available for free on Hulu and I needed to wait for them to come to Netflix. But I just finished up White Collar.

Have to say, the show was ending at the right moment. There was a feeling for most of these episodes that things were just going in circles. That the string had been played out with one too many romances and one too many cons for Neal. But the last two episodes delivered the goods, and gave us a surprisingly emotional ending. It didn't entirely work. But it was good enough.

I watched this one from early on. The big arcs never, ever rang true for me. But the individual episodes and the development of Peter and Neal's friendship and of Neal's struggle with his conscience and his south-point moral compass worked often. As did the strength of Peter's determination to be the hero. As did Mozzie being Mozzie. At worst, this show was fun. Never remotely realistic, and taking place in some strange, overly sunny NYC that isn't the NYC I live in. (You want my NYC on a TV show? Try Elementary, where it has a tendency to snow and rain as often as it does in the real world). But fun. And often witty and clever and just a little subversive.

I don't root for the bad guys. Even ones as charming and likeable as Neal Caffrey. But I can enjoy what they do just a little when it's not about the crime but the caper. At the end of the day, White Collar was the last word in caper shows, with one foot firmly planted in those stylish films of the 60s where the crooks were the good guys, the victims were the bad guys who deserved to be robbed, and no one used a gun when they could use a grin.

Thanks to all who brought us this charming if slight flight of fancy for six years.

Now if I could only figure out a way to make an Elementary-White Collar crossover fic work.