What I’m Watching: White Collar (Season Premiere)

White Collar: Season 4, Episode 1 “Wanted” (B+)

Shows tend to default to a sense of urgency when its main characters are on the run, yet this premiere managed to handle it rather smoothly. The sight of Neal and Mozzie, better known as James and Barry, living it up in Cape Verde, was quite serene, and they seemed to be having a blast. In fact, they might have been perfectly safe had Peter not gone to such lengths to locate Neal to warn him that a determined FBI agent was after him. Gregg Henry never plays trustworthy characters, and therefore it wasn’t much of a surprise when the man who makes things happen sold out Neal for a $500,000 reward to Mekhi Phifer’s determined Agent Collins. Peter, Diana, and Jones worked hard to pinpoint Neal’s location after getting the call from Neal in response to the beeper, but they could have a bit subtler than circling it on a map. It’s good, at least, that Mozzie is determined to stick by Neal’s side (“You run, I run, that’s the deal”) despite not having the same charges leveled against him. Before everything fell apart, this hour was full of amusing snapshots of the boys’ new life, highlighted by Neal making a New York City landscape sand castle to impress Maya and Mozzie unionizing her café workers. Peter working to help his good friend Neal out will only go so far since Collins is clearly willing to go above and beyond to get what he wants, and I’m not quite sure how this is all going to pan out so that everything can get back to some sense of normal.