White Collar, Season Three Episode Three

White Collar Season Three, Deadline

The Devil Wears Prada meets White Collar. This week, Diana goes undercover as an assistant for an overbearing Miranda Priestly type journalist to make sure she isn’t killed from an unknown threat about a story she is writing. The episode was fun, though the main case of the weak felt bogged down, lacking a sense of feeling from the journalist boss that is so present in the episode. Unlike The Devil Wears Prada, there is nothing really redeeming about this character, who is forcing Diana to do the impossible at every turn.  This story wasn’t bad; it gave a chance for Diana to be more a part of the episode than in previous episodes.

Diana’s personal is highlighted nicely through the show’s main season story, with Neal trying to get the manifest that Diana is working on decoding. This starts with Neal and Mozzie trying to do a bait and switch with the briefcase Diana has with her, but has to call it off when Diana’s girlfriend shows up. Being classic Neal, works his way into a scenario in which he will get into Diana’s apartment; cooking an elegant dinner for a double date, with Sara being his distraction.

The main story works alight for the first half, but almost falls apart in the second with the introduction of the mysterious informant, who turns out [spoiler] trying to kill the journalist in the end, since the real informant has been killed. Diana gets to be the hero and when offered to work full time for the journalist, says that she has found her place working at the FBI and couldn’t picture herself anywhere else. Not much of a shocker of an ending to an otherwise average case of the week story. But the main saving grace of the episode was the humor that was sprinkled throughout.

This show has some of the best’ procedural show’ humor that I’ve seen in a while, which makes every episode rise to another level. This week started with Mozzie poorly hiding behind a bush as he aborted the bait and switch at the start of the episode. Jones’ remark about when Neal was going to cook for him was well placed, so was Peter’s quick jab about Neal and Sara playing doubles tennis with Diana and her girlfriend. But the best laugh of the episode was getting Elizabeth to be the party planner for the kids’ party, since this event was too over their heads to handle. When Peter gave the task to Jones to put the party together and Neal constantly shook his head in disapproval really helped to sell the idea that the FBI needed a ringer to elevate this party.

There was so much more in this episode, Neal and Sara trying to get it on only to be interrupted by Mozzie, Neal being shirtless one and a half times in this episode (are they trying to get more of a female audience?), the manifest got to DC yet Neal wasn’t overly upset about it, and Peter knows that Neal knows, but Neal didn’t know until now, or does he (it gets very confusing who knows what about who between Neal and Peter).

Not the best case of the week story, but the characters and their interactions with one another help make this episode worthwhile.

Rating: Watch