Power Play – White Collar Episode Summary 2.15

Synopsis: New York reached record high temperatures causing blackouts around the city.  Elizabeth soon learns that her client has been causing the blackouts as part of his energy collusion to defraud the city millions of dollars in energy costs.  Through a series of events, Agent Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey end up having reversed roles in order to catch the white collar criminal.  Meanwhile, Sara Ellis returns from Argentina with news about Vincent Adler’s obsession with a German soldier named Gerhard Wagner.

Episode Summaries: Elizabeth Burke learns that her client, Andrew Stanzler, an energy trader, may be involved in the blackouts that claimed three lives and cost the city millions of dollars.  Elizabeth learned this through Stanzler’s assistant, Brooke Argyle, who conducted an investigation after overhearing Stanzler speak about withholding supply during peak hours that he may sell energy to the city at triple the rate.  Peter Burke agrees to look into the serious allegations from Brooke.Continue reading...

Neal Caffrey arrives at the museum to speak with Brooke, but Agent Burke is running late.  Brooke learns that Stanzler’s meeting in Connecticut was canceled, and that the man is already on his way to the museum.  The terrified assistant has changed her mind about speaking with the FBI.  Seeing that the woman would no longer cooperate, Neal assumes the identity of Agent Burke and manages to get Brooke’s assistance.  Peter is furious at what Neal had done, but Elizabeth convinced him that it was the right thing to do at that time.  Informing Brooke of their lie would only make the woman distrust the FBI.  Agent Burke briefs the entire department of the role reversal that is critical in getting Brooke’s collaboration.  Elizabeth arrives with Brooke at the FBI headquarters and meets with Agent Burke and Neal.  They learn that Stanzler’s company is a broker of energy for New York that could buy enough energy and artificially create a shortage.  Brooke also has vital information that she only shares with the supposed Agent Burke.  She believes that Stanzler is in contact with a burglar named Bill Roscoe.  Agent Burke decides to continue with the role reversal, and has Neal convince Brooke to get Stanzler to hire a burglar named Neal Caffrey with Peter posing as Neal.

Sara Ellis returns from Argentina with news about the smuggled crates they uncovered a few months ago.  She was able to trace the crates to an estate in Argentina, and was able to confirm that Vincent Adler had fled there after his fraudulent scheme was uncovered.  Sara learned from one of the workers in Adler’s estate that the man was obsessed with finding a German soldier named Gerhard Wagner.  After some digging, Agent Diana Barrigan uncovered that the Department of Defense classified his information when he emigrated to the U.S. after World War II.  Agent Burke manages to declassify Gerhard Wagner’s file, and discovers that the man worked as a radio operator in the U-boat Headquarters.  Wagner sought asylum in the U.S. with claims of having top-secret information he is willing to share with the U.S.  The man was sent to a detention center in Ellis Island where he escaped a few weeks later.  Agent Burke theorizes that the man must have managed to get himself naturalized at Ellis Island, and plans to find the man’s assumed identity.  Peter, Mozzie, Sara, and Neal leave Neal’s apartment shortly after their discussion.  Sara and Neal, however, notice that a man is following them, and confirms this when a car rushes to fetch the man after sensing that the two has discerned his presence.

Agent Burke posing as Neal meets with Stanzler and offers him his services with a claim of robbing the museum of Stanzler’s private collection in less than twenty minutes.  Agent Burke gets the job, and receives instructions to steal a flash drive from another trader named Francis Luntz.  He speculates that Stanzler and Luntz are working together to create temporary shortages.  Luntz, however, distrusts Stanzler so much so that he secretly videotaped one of their meetings.  Stanzler learned of this, and now wants Neal to steal it for him.  Agent Burke reaches out to Neal to train him on his task.  Neal enlists Mozzie as Agent Burke’s mentor.  Moreover, June provides assistance lending them her late husband’s training jacket to help Agent Burke learn the scratch on a dip.  Mozzie starts with instructions for Agent Burke to drop a bug into Stanzler’s jacket to ensure that the FBI has ears on him.  This, however, means that Agent Burke must also retrieve it to ensure that the man will not become aware of its presence.  Agent Burke struggles to retrieve the bug from the training jacket rigged with bells.  Mozzie shows him that it can be done, and June advises that Agent Burke must use his fingers like tweezers so that the thumb will never touch the mark.  After hours of training, Peter has learned all Mozzie had to teach him, and is now prepared to take on the task Stanzler had assigned him.

Neal meets with Sara at the archives in the hope of uncovering Wagner’s new identity after his escape from Ellis Island in 1946.  The woman on the phone, however, informed Sara that getting permission to access the files they need might take four weeks.  Neal, however, using a fake FBI badge manages to get the woman to allow them access to the files.  Much to their surprise, the files fill an entire room of the archives.  The two scour through documents in search of a photograph of a man that bears the likeness of Wagner.  Neal wonders why Sara has gone out of her way to help with the case, and learns that the woman had an older sister who ran away and never heard from again.  Sara knows exactly how it feels not to have closure, and she believes that helping Neal track down Adler would give him that.

Peter posing as Neal meets with Stanzler.  The crook is unaware that Peter had slipped a bug in his jacket.  Neal, Agent Clinton Jones, and Agent Diana Barrigan anxiously listen to Stanzler’s instructions for Peter to go to the master bedroom and find anything in reference to Project Edison.  Stanzler’s meeting with Luntz in his house will only last twenty minutes, and so Peter must complete the task within that timeframe.  Stanzler enters Luntz’s gated mansion and signals Peter who is hiding in the trunk of his Bentley that they have arrived.  Peter informs his team that he has successfully entered the mansion through the basement door.  He makes his way up the master bedroom without being noticed, and finds in one of the drawers a Centurion safe key.  Neal recognizes the brand as an in-wall safe.  Peter finds the safe behind a portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Luntz, and inside it he finds the flash drive.  He makes copies of its contents, one for Stanzler and another for the FBI.  Meanwhile, Agent Barrigan has been listening in Stanzler’s conversation with Luntz.  She informs the team that the discussion has just gotten interesting.  Stanzler and Luntz are speaking of getting Chip Wheelock, an executive at East Coast Hydroelectric, on board with the energy collusion.  Luntz is apprehensive about getting another person involved in the fraud, but Stanzler talks him into meeting with Wheelock in the party Stanzler is holding on Saturday.  With this new development, Peter instructs his team to hold off apprehending Stanzler and Luntz that they may arrest Wheelock too.  Peter returns to the trunk of the Bentley without being noticed and hands Stanzler the flash drive soon after.  Stanzler is impressed with his job that he offers Peter another job with twice the pay.  He is to be at the Geller Museum on Saturday at five in the afternoon.

Agent Burke and his team return to the FBI headquarters and watch the video of Stanzler recruiting him in his scheme.  The FBI believes that Luntz went on to participate with the collusion, and now has information that Stanzler is trying to involve Wheelock, a senior manager at East Coast Hydroelectric, with the fraud.  Wheelock will be the man flipping the switch, giving them more control over the blackouts.  The FBI with the help of Brooke manages to attach a video camera in Stanzler’s suit for the party on Saturday; they will be able to get a video feed of Stanzler.

Stanzler introduces Peter posing as Neal to Elizabeth and Neal who is posing as Peter, which made for awkward introductions.  However, soon after Luntz arrived with his wife, Stanzler leads Peter into the Stanzler Gallery where Luntz is.  Stanzler instructs Peter to keep an eye on Luntz.  Peter approaches Luntz and the man informs him that he no longer wants to be part of the energy fraud.  Moreover, Peter learns that Luntz thought that he is Wheelock.  Peter now knows that Stanzler had planned to double cross Luntz and finds that the man had locked them both inside the room.  Luntz’s only advantage against Stanzler is the video he had of their meeting that Stanzler now has in his possession.  Peter informs his team of being locked inside the Stanzler Gallery, and learns from them that another blackout is about to roll.  With the security cameras compromised during the blackout, Stanzler plans on killing both Luntz and Peter.  True enough a blackout ensues, the video feed from Stanzler’s suit shows that he is out of the atrium, but his exact location is unknown.  Neal uses his fake FBI badge to get access to restricted areas, but Stanzler is already inside the gallery where Peter and Luntz are.  Stanzler begins shooting at them, but Peter manages to dodge the bullets.  Neal arrives just in time preventing Stanzler from shooting Peter.  Stanzler turns on him, but the generator kicks in allowing Peter to disarm Stanzler.

Neal returns to the archives and finds Sara in one of the halls.  Soon, another blackout ensues.  The allure of the blackout and being in close quarters released the sexual tension the two have been ignoring.  Sara and Neal begin to make love in the hall.  Mozzie uncovers Wagner’s new identity and goes in search of Sara only to find her and Neal in a compromising position, but the gravity of what he has discovered outweighs the awkward encounter that he goes on to present to them what he had found.  Based on the records Mozzie found, Gerhard Wagner has changed his name to Michael Hunter.  However, the man already passed away.  He is survived by one family member, his granddaughter, Alex Hunter.  Alex speaks with someone on her cell phone unaware that she is being followed.

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Payback – White Collar Episode Summary 2.14

Synopsis: Matthew Keller is sentenced to twenty years in prison at Barksdale where Russian mobs whom he swindled are incarcerated.  Soon after his sentencing, Keller contacts the FBI with information about an expert passport forger whom he claims terrorists and smugglers use.  Because it is the FBI’s duty to arrest a forger, Agent Burke and Neal Caffrey look into it with Agent Burke walking right into a trap.  Agent Burke is abducted, and it is up to Neal Caffrey to ensure his safety.

Episode Summary: After being sentenced to twenty years at Barksdale, Matthew Keller contacts the Department of Justice claiming to have information critical to national security.  He, however, refuses to speak with Homeland Security, and insists on divulging the information only to Agent Peter Burke.  Both Agent Burke and Neal Caffrey are doubtful that Keller has actual information pertinent to national security, but FBI Director Reese Hughes urges Agent Burke to look into it.Continue reading...

Agent Burke and Caffrey pays Keller a visit only to find him to be afforded some luxuries no other regular inmate at Hawthorne Fed would have received.  Keller, reluctant to be transferred to a less appealing prison filled with the Russian mobsters he had swindled, wants to strike a deal with the government.  He claims to have information about a maker of forged passports whose work is of interest to terrorists and smugglers.  In exchange for this information, Keller would like to have his transfer to Barksdale revoked.

Agent Burke and Caffrey look into Jason Lang, the photographer whom Keller identified as a forger terrorists contact for fake passports.  Burke was able to uncover a connection between Lang and Keller for the two were suspected to have worked together on the Belmont bond forgeries where Keller ended up shot twice supposedly by Lang.  Agent Burke and Caffrey conclude that Keller’s agenda is to have his request to remain at Hawthorne Fed, and to get back at an old partner who had shot him.  Although convinced that this is Keller’s plan, Burke and Caffrey still pay a visit to Lang as a courtesy to Hughes who expects them to catch a forger.  They find Lang in his luxurious studio; he had obviously transformed himself from a shoddy forger into a successful photographer.  However, Caffrey finds the equipment in his studio perfect for creating phony passports, which according to Agent Burke is enough evidence for a judge to issue them a warrant.  Agent Burke confronts Lang, but the man flees forcing Agent Burke to run after him.  Caffrey disobeys Burke’s order for him to stay at the studio, and becomes witness to Burke’s abduction.

As per Lang’s instructions, Burke drops his cellphone for Caffrey to retrieve later when Keller calls to inform him that he is to play his game, and refusing to do so will cost Agent Burke’s life.  Caffrey rushes to the prison to confront Keller, and learns of the inmate’s demands.  He wants Caffrey to procure two and a half million dollars for him to allow him to pay off his debt to the Russians before his transfer to Barksdale.  Caffrey claims not to have that kind of money, but Keller is aware of something Caffrey had stolen in Scotland that would amount to what Keller requires.  Regrettably, Caffrey had already disposed of this.

Neal informs the FBI of Peter’s abduction including the demand Keller had requested.  Unfortunately, FBI Director Hughes makes it clear that the FBI does not negotiate especially with criminals already locked up in prison fearing for their lives.  His plan is for the FBI to track Lang, and rescue Peter.  Moreover, he already strayed away from procedure, and ordered the transfer of Keller to Barksdale instead of keeping him in Hawthorne as per the protocol.  Elizabeth gets word of her husband’s abduction, and arrives at the FBI headquarters.  Learning that the FBI has put in motion, the biggest manhunt in a decade brings little comfort to Elizabeth, since Keller would have foreseen this plan of action from the FBI.  Caffrey devices a plan of his own afraid that the FBI will not accede to Keller’s demands.  In fact, Mozz had already received a strange call from an unidentifiable caller, and Neal has instructed him to meet him at Madison Square Park with a hammer.  Agent Diana Barrigan escorts Caffrey home to ensure that he does not interfere with the FBI’s plan.  However, hearing what Keller is capable of doing having been witness to the man’s unremorseful will to commit murder, Diana allows Neal to push through with his plan to engage Keller in order to keep Peter alive.

Neal meets with Mozzie at Madison Square Park at the place where Neal had once planned to propose to Kate, and where he envisioned his kids running around in the playground.  Neal takes the hammer and removes the McNally solitaire he had hidden in a sculpture at the park; it was the last of his loot.  He was to give the ring worth two and a half million dollars to Kate, but accepting that she is gone, and that Peter’s life depends on it; Neal is willing to part with it to pay for Peter’s ransom.

Peter has tried to strike a deal with his captor to no avail leaving him to figure out a way to escape.  He finds the ticket from the dry cleaner still pinned in his suit.  The suit that was the cause of his argument with his wife earlier that day may end up saving his life.  The goons return with information to Lang about Neal heading to the meeting point for the exchange.  Moreover, Peter hears Lang ask about Ridgefield, which he knows to be the private security firm the government uses to transfer prisoners.  Peter concludes that the money Keller will receive from Neal will be used to pay off Ridgefield whom they paid off to let Keller escape.  In addition, hearing the conversation within his earshot verifies his conclusion that Keller plans to kill him himself.

Mozz arrives at the Burkes house to provide comfort to Elizabeth who has been kept out of the loop regarding her husband’s rescue.  He informs her that Neal is on his way to make the exchange to ensure Peter’s safety.  Moreover, he drops a bug in the house to allow Elizabeth to listen into calls the FBI agents in her house receive.  Meanwhile, Neal meets with Lang at a park, and demands that he receive proof that Peter is alive.  After some urging, Lang agrees to provide him proof of life in the form of a question that Peter only knows the answer to.  Reluctant to have Neal speak with Peter, Lang is to text the question to his goon, and the goon is to text Peter’s answer back.  Neal asked what cell phone number he used the first time Peter caught him, and he replies with a message hidden in the phone number.  Peter’s message is “No Transfer”.

Agent Barrigan calls Agent Jones who is supervising Keller’s transfer to relay to him Peter’s message.  Unfortunately, the transfer is already in progress such that the guards who were paid off to allow Keller escape have ignored Agent Jones’ call.  Moreover, they decided to put in motion Keller’s escape.  Agent Jones calls Agent Barrigan to inform her of Keller’s escape made possible by Caffrey’s ransom.  With his rescuers still not in sight, Peter makes one last attempt to negotiate with Lang to no avail, and so he moves on with his other plan now that he has successfully picked the lock of his handcuffs.  Peter provokes Lang who is not a good shot into shooting him forcing the man to put his arm inside the cell that he may have the gun aimed only a few feet away from Peter.  This allowed Peter to attack the man leaving him unconscious on the ground after Lang hit his head hard on the bars.  Peter uses Lang’s cellphone to call the FBI, and to ask Neal to talk him through a jailbreak.  Peter informs Neal that the cell door has a Fossbender ES320 electronic keypad, which according to Neal requires shorting the backup before cutting the electricity because not doing so will only activate the lock’s redundancy mechanism.  Neal receives specifications of the electronic lock from Diana.  Neal instructs Peter to open the inside panel of the fuse box, and to strip the neutral wire.  Next, he is to use a light bulb’s filament and attach it to the battery of his cellphone allowing it to create a surge, shorting the power, and releasing the locking mechanism.  Unfortunately, because this requires the cell phone’s battery, Peter needs to hang up.  The FBI manages to trace Peter’s location, but Lang has regained consciousness, and is struggling to reach for his gun.  Peter hangs up leaving the FBI in the dark about his fate.  A minute later, they receive a call from Peter informing him that he has escaped, and that he has Lang at gunpoint.  The FBI finally arrive arresting Lang.  Keller is nowhere in sight; the man never showed up, and must not have planned on coming.  Peter returns the ring to Neal, and informs him that the FBI has no hold on it if the ring is legitimately his.  Although the ring was never reported stolen, Neal refuses to reclaim it, and suggests that it be sent to the Scotland Royal Museum.  Soon after, Elizabeth arrives with the FBI team stationed at her house relieved to see that her husband is safe and unscathed.  Meanwhile, Neal receives a call from Keller gloating of his escape that Neal inadvertently helped succeed.

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Forging Bonds – White Collar Episode Summary 2.11

Synopsis: Peter Burke uncovers that Neal Caffrey knew Vincent Adler, the infamous financial investor who notoriously swindled his clients of their life savings.  It was around the same time he met Mozzie who had enlisted him into stealing from Adler, and Kate Moreau who was Adler’s assistant.  As Neal worked closely with Adler, he soon became loyal to the man, and he had become comfortable with his life that he shared with Kate.  Regrettably, it was already too late when he learned the truth about Adler.

Episode Summary: Agent Peter Burke looks into Vincent Adler, a man who seven years ago ran a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, and one who groomed Neal Caffrey into a white collar criminal.  Peter beseeches Neal into telling him all that he knows about Adler, and offers him full immunity in return.  Neal begins with showing Peter the fractal that Mozzie decoded from the music box.Continue reading...

Neal came to New York City eight years ago, and has made a career of playing short cons including swindling other cons starting with Mozzie who at that time was a shill for the dealer of a Three-card Monte.  Neal comes up to the dealer betting five hundred dollars to follow the queen, and successfully does so much to the dealer and Mozzie’s disbelief.  Mozzie and his partner soon finds out that Neal had conned them after the young man shows them the queen only to learn that he had swapped the card with one of his own.  Mozzie saw talent and potential in Neal so instead of harassing the young man into giving him back his money Mozzie enlists him as his cohort.  Seeing the impeccable bond forgeries Neal has done, Mozzie becomes even more convinced that he has met the perfect person to help him defraud Vincent Adler.

Peter reveals that it was the forged bonds that led him to Neal, and as early as then Peter found admiration for the young man.  Neal’s immaculate Atlantic incorporate bonds forgery, one that has not been counterfeited before, earned him the nickname of James Bonds.  However, having met Mozzie, Neal becomes part of a bigger con where Adler is their mark.  At that time, Vincent Adler was the CEO of Adler Financial Management running the firm’s top hedge fund.  Mozzie’s plan is to reroute the wire transfer Adler sends to his account in the Cayman Islands.  This requires knowing the man’s account number and password, a role that falls on Neal, which involves befriending Adler.  With only five months to fulfill their con, Mozzie suggests that Neal introduce himself to Adler at the Antiquities Recovery Project’s charity dinner.  The dinner, however, requires a five thousand dollar charitable donation.  The large amount of cash necessitated the cashing of one of Neal’s forged bonds, an act that caught the FBI’s attention.

The day Neal cashed in one of his bonds was also the day Agent Burke dropped by the bank to speak to the bank manager.  Unlucky for Peter, Mozzie and Neal were within earshot of his conversation with the bank manager, which alerted both cons that a certain Special Agent Peter Burke is on to Neal’s forged bonds.  With Neal already in possession of the money to pay for the fundraiser, Neal pushes through with the long con.  He arrives at the benefit, and introduces himself as Nick Halden.  Neal quickly charms the man with his knowledge of commodities and art, while Adler’s assistant swiftly allures Neal for she was no other than Kate Moreau.  Sensing Neal’s intent to ingratiate himself to Adler, Kate hints of him finding a way to secure a seat next to Adler.  Neal, unfortunately, swaps his seat with Adler’s date making his appearance at his table evidently false.  Adler allows him a few minutes to present his intention, and Neal reveals wanting to be part of the acquisitions team at Adler’s firm.  Adler shows no interest in hiring him, but Neal may have convinced him with his advice to look into Cameron Singer whom Neal believes to be planning on backing out the deal he made with Adler who was set on buying his firm.  Neal explains that Singer has been avoiding Hannah Fields knowing that the woman will be buying out Singer the following week.  This turn of events, if they materialize, will not bode well for Adler’s firm.  Neal and Mozzie’s research paid off for Adler was able to verify Neal’s claims.  A month later, Neal lands a job at Adler’s firm finding for the man things for him to buy.

Working for Adler, Neal learns that the man is obsessed with the mathematical concept having seen the fractals in his office.  However, the fractal that Mozzie decoded is one he has not seen.  At about the same time he learned of Adler’s fractal obsession, Neal was assigned the job of looking into the person snooping at Adler’s recent art acquisitions, the ones from South America in particular.  The culprit turned out to be Alex Hunter whom Neal misled into coming in for a job interview with Adler.  It was the first time Neal saw Adler deviate from his usual calm and composed façade as the man forcefully confronts Alex after learning that the young woman had accessed his private database and made copies of his records.  He, however, lets Alex go.  Moreover, he gives Neal a bonus as a reward for his hard work.  Neal, in turn, invests all of his money in Adler’s fund very much aware of the profits it purportedly generates ignorant of the fact that it was a fraud.

Learning that Kate is moving to Chicago with her boyfriend, Neal sets his eyes on Alex after the woman surprising flirts with him in spite of him foiling her plans.  The two ends up in bed where Alex reveals that she knows Neal to be a grifter.  Moreover, she makes it known the reason for her looking into Adler’s art acquisitions.  Alex was in search of a music box, one Adler is not in possession of, but whom she heard has information about.  Alex believed that the much-coveted music box was at the Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen, and that she would send Neal a message in a form of an origami flower if she ever needed help.  It was a long time after before Neal saw Alex again, which proved to be providential for Kate had decided to stay in New York to be with Neal.  Neal was on top of the world; he had Kate, and he was living a good life working for Adler who had taken him under his wing.  Regrettably, Neal was still working the long con with Mozzie, and fulfilling it meant losing what he already has.  Unlucky for Neal, the FBI was closing into him as well, and they have released a sketch to the public.  Neal had no other choice but to push through with the con, which he brings into fruition with news he shared with Adler about some irregularities he found on his account in the Caymans.  This development seemed to have rattled Adler enough to share with him his password that he may further investigate.  Being with Kate, and confirming that he had won the trust of Adler, Neal foregoes with the con and lies to Mozzie in the process.

News of Vincent Adler disappearing with hundreds of millions of dollars of his clients’ money erupts, shocking everyone including Neal and Kate.  As it turned out, Adler’s investment firm never traded any shares from his clients’ accounts, and that the prominent financial investor Vincent Adler had just committed one of the greatest financial frauds of the era.  By this time, Agent Burke has climbed up the ranks, and has been in the process of putting together a special white collar task force.  Agent Clinton Jones shows interest in being part of his team, and his work on getting the Dutchman in the FBI’s radar and his insight at Agent Burke’s holding on to the sucker Neal gave him the first time they met helped Agent Burke’s decision in hiring him.

Neal learned that the password Adler gave him was an anagram for “Nice try Neal”, and that the account that it unlocked only had a dollar in it.  Neal’s perfect world crumbled soon after Adler’s disappearance.  However, he still had Kate who is all that matters to him.  Neal finds himself revealing to the woman he loves his identity, and learns that the woman loves her too for she stayed with him despite knowing the truth.  Jobless and penniless, Kate joined Neal and Mozzie in their cons, one of which involved impersonating a police officer and pretending to arrest Mozzie and supposedly taking into evidence the Falcon manuscript from the 16th century that he snatched from a deliveryman.  Neal, unfortunately, wants a better life, and he regrettably tried to con Kate into joining him in Copenhagen to help Alex steal the music box that could afford them the luxury he had always dreamed of having.  Kate becomes upset with Neal leaving him to fly to Copenhagen without her.  True enough, the music box was in the Amalienborg Palace.  However, stealing it required three people, and with only two people to do the job, their plan fell apart.  Neal barely escaped, and Alex ended up in a French hospital.  Everybody thought Neal had the music box, which earned him street credit, but when he came back to New York Kate had disappeared.

Neal ran bigger cons to get her attention, but the only attention he got was from the FBI particularly Agent Burke’s white collar division, a team Agent Jones was already part of, and Agent Barrigan had just joined.  In fact, Agent Barrigan was the one who introduced the idea of staking out Neal’s girlfriend to lure him out.  The FBI has been following her, and learned that she herself has been moving from one place to the other making Agent Burke believe that Kate is hiding from Neal.  The FBI then sends word out on the street of Kate’s whereabouts that Mozzie relays to Neal with a warning that it may be a trap.  Neal finds Kate in a storage facility making forgeries of Raphael after learning the theft of the authentic painting.  The two reunites thanks to Mozz who heard her fencing Mauritian penny stamps, information that alarmed her and Neal after she revealed that she had stopped dealing stamps.  Soon after, the FBI arrives and Agent Burke arrests Neal.

Having learned all that Neal knows about Adler, Peter becomes convinced that Adler is the key to the whole case about the music box.  Having caught Neal after going after the person he wanted most, Peter believes that they can catch Adler using the same method.  Knowing that Adler is most interested in the fractal, they must figure out what it is in order to find him.  Seeing an origami at Neal’s apartment, Peter becomes aware that Alex had been there.  Neal divulges that what Mozzie had decoded is a fractal antenna that corresponds to a specific frequency for an emergency beacon, which means that building a real antenna based on the one Mozzie uncovered would lead them to a vessel that disappeared in the 1940s.

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Burke’s Seven – White Collar Episode Summary 2.10

Synopsis: Having been shot, Mozzie is rushed to the hospital.  Neal and Peter work to catch his shooter, but their plan works against them as the assassin implicates Peter in evidence tampering causing the FBI to suspend him.  Without a badge and a gun, but with trusted friends willing to help clear his name, Peter forms Burke’s Seven with the main goal of luring Mozzie’s shooter out of hiding, and catching him in the act of criminal activity.  Mozzie makes a miraculous recovery, and vows to decrypt the code that almost cost him his life.  Doing so, he inadvertently reveals the identity of the man behind it all.

Episode Summary: Mozzie is rushed to the hospital, and is now in a medically induced coma.  There is nothing Neal can do to improve Mozzie’s condition, but he can very well help find the man who shot him.  Peter learned from Fowler the identity of Mozzie’s assassin as Julian Larssen, the right hand man of the person causing Neal grief.  Larssen had gone underground soon after the shooting, and Peter believes that he will soon leave the country unless they catch him.  Peter’s plan is to burn all of Larssen’s aliases forcing him to create a new one complete with a forged passport.  Moreover, he plans to lure Larssen into buying a forged passport from their chosen forger.  As Peter uncovers Larssen’s known aliases, Neal gathers the forging community to inform them that Larssen will be knocking on their doors soon, and instructs them that they must use the name Justin Springer as his new identity.  The forgers are reluctant about the request, but become more than willing to help when they hear that Larssen is the man who shot Mozzie. Continue reading...

Mozzie comes out of his coma, but is too traumatized to identify his shooter.  Neal informs Peter of the good and the bad news, and soon finds himself assaulted by Larssen.  The man having learned that his aliases have been burned seeks Caffrey’s help.  In exchange for his escape, Larssen offers the identity of the man who ordered to kill Mozzie and Kate.  However, instead of making a deal with Larssen, Neal surprisingly runs to Peter to inform him of his encounter.  The next morning, the FBI gets word that a certain Justin Springer has bought a one-way ticket to Samoa, and the bureau has tracked his address to an apartment in Queens.  Soon after, Larssen is taken into custody, and the FBI is engaged in the search of his apartment.  They find the murder weapon hidden in a potted plant.

Mozzie’s condition has gotten better, and is now bent on decrypting the code from the music box.  He is convinced that the code is an equation that builds something, and the formula is now in the hands of the person who ordered to kill him.  Mozzie vows that this will be the last case he will be working on, and he will be retiring as soon as it is solved.  However, the reason for his decision to retire is out of guilt.  Mozzie went beyond his principles, and snitched on Neal by telling Peter that he was going after Fowler.  To his surprise, Neal thanks him instead of being angry with him for what he did, because if not for Mozzie, Neal would have killed Fowler who turned out not to be the person responsible for Kate’s death.

FBI Director Hughes interrupts Agent Burke’s interrogation of Larssen to inform him that the man had made it impossible for them to match the bullet with his gun.  Agent Burke is surprised to find Agent Roe from the Department of Justice at their offices, and is even more startled to learn that ballistics was able to find a single print inside the gun, and that the fingerprint matched Agent Burke’s.  Given this new development, Agent Burke is put on leave with charges on evidence tampering, and Julian Larssen is set free.  Peter is sent home without a gun and a badge, and soon learns that all the cases he has closed are now under close scrutiny.  Peter expected this given the charge made against him, but is baffled as to how Larssen got his fingerprint.  He surmises that the man got his prints from his coffee mug that had gone missing at the office.  He believes that Larssen sneaked inside the FBI building and took his mug, and if this were true then the security cameras would have his presence recorded. Agent Barrigan and Agent Jones finds a man dressed as Caffrey enter Agent Burke’s office, and leaves with the mug in his hand.  Moreover, the man had accessed Agent Burke’s computer. Peter shows Neal a picture of Larssen posing as him inside the FBI building, and informs him that the man logged in Peter’s computer to erase the name Frederick Bilal from his own file.  Bilal is a Nigerian prince who likes to race horses internationally, owns a number of shipping companies, and handles a lot of import and export out of New York Harbor.  Knowing that the prince likes to spend his time at the Rogers Yacht Club, Peter and Neal plan to meet him there.

Because the Rogers Yacht Club is open only to a privileged few, Peter calls in a favor to get them access.  Sara Ellis pulls through with the favor, since Sterling Bosch insures a couple of the club’s yachts.  Sure enough Prince Bilal is at the club, and Peter knowing the man’s interest in horse racing manages to charm the prince.  Meanwhile, Neal pretends to be Frank Wellington, the owner of the club, and Sara his wife.  The two of them manages to get the captain to have Neal review her logbook.  He soon learns that every time Larssen is in New York, one of Prince Bilal’s yachts is rented by one of Larssen’s aliases, Brian Blitek.  Peter is convinced that Larssen and Bilal are smuggling something, but with his suspension he cannot order a search warrant for the docks and do a wire tap and surveillance on the two men.  Neal, however, has another idea, and manages to convince Peter to take part in a con.  Peter and Neal begin to organize Peter’s crew.

Jones catching wind of a case Diana and Peter have been secretly working on insists on being part of it, and learns that Peter had kept him out of it to protect him.  However, he soon gets his wish, and becomes part of Burke’s Seven.  Meanwhile, Neal recruits Sara, and tells her all about the music box that belonged to Catherine the Great.  Both Jones and Sara learn that the music box contains a code that they need to decrypt before Larssen’s boss, a man they know to be very powerful and connected does so.  Sara’s role is to provide the equipment necessary to take down a murderer and save Peter’s career, since they currently do not have access to FBI resources.  All are willing to be part of Burke’s Seven except for Mozzie, but the man is surprised to hear that Elizabeth has paid him a visit only to bring his care package, which includes the bendy straws he requested.  Before you know it, Mozzie has a change of heart, and decides to join Burke’s Seven.  Elizabeth managed to con a con.

Peter briefs his team, and informs them that Larssen is using Prince Bilal as a smuggler.  Their plan is to spook Bilal into calling Larssen causing the man to make the delivery to Burke’s Seven.  Having observed Bilal’s routine, Diana is to apprehend him in front of a specific phone booth, frightening the man with the idea that the FBI is on to him.  This will cause him to make a call to Larssen, a call he needs to make using the phone booth that Jones would have installed a transmitter to that will reroute any call to Neal who with the help of Sara’s voice modulation software will sound exactly like Larssen.  Mozzie is to pose as a panhandler on a motorized wheelchair that hides a cell phone scrambler in order to force Bilal to make the call through the payphone instead of his cell phone.  If all goes well, Peter believes that they can flip Bilal into implicating Larssen.

The con is on, and they encounter a hiccup early on with the phone scrambler working on a passerby’s cell phone forcing the man to use the rigged payphone.  The man makes his call twice, and receives either Neal or Peter, but unfortunately the man was in conversation with a woman before it was cut.  Elizabeth steps in, takes charge of the situation, and manages to get the man off the payphone in no time.  Diana’s threats worked as Bilal wastes no time to give Larssen a call, but finds his cell phone not to be in service.  Using the nearest payphone, he dials Larssen’s number unaware that Neal is the one on the other line.  Bilal informs him that the FBI is looking into his shipment, and that he plans to get rid of it.  Neal manages to talk him out of it, and to meet with him for the exchange instead.

Bilal arrives at the designated meeting place with the shipment and finds Neal instead of Larssen.  Moreover, he is not alone.  Diana rounds up Bilal’s men, and Peter opens the shipment only to find Nazi dinnerware.  Under Peter and Neal’s supervision, Bilal makes a phone call to Larssen, and informs him that he has moved his crate since Agent Burke has been looking for it.  Bilal gives Larssen half an hour to get it, and threatens him with cutting a deal with the FBI.  Larssen takes the bait.  Meanwhile, Sara drops by the FBI and speaks with Agent Roe about a harassment complaint against Agent Burke she received from a client.  Agent Roe convinced of Agent Burke’s guilt wastes no time to accompany Sara to the place where Agent Burke is.  Hughes is in disbelief of the complaint, and learns from Agent Jones that it is a plot to get Peter off the hook.

Larssen meets with Bilal, and replaces the contents of the shipment with guns tampered with Agent Burke’s fingerprints.  Unfortunately for him, the FBI arrives just as he is putting the guns inside the crate.  Moreover, Larssen is caught with the latex fingerprints on his hands.  Peter’s team watch from a distance as Agent Roe brings out a cuffed Larssen, and watches in horror as Larssen manages to get out of his handcuffs and assault Agent Roe.  Peter borrows a mounted policeman’s horse, and goes in pursuit of Larssen who has made his escape through the park.  Peter single-handedly catches Larssen.  Neal calls Mozzie to give him the good news, and gets better news in return.  Mozzie has built the equation using bendy straws, because the equation is a fractal design.  At seeing it, Neal immediately knows the identity of the man they are dealing with for he has seen it before.

The FBI is still unsure as to why Larssen is smuggling Nazi dinnerware to Argentina, which is a shame since Argentina is outside of FBI’s jurisdiction.  Lucky for Peter, it is within Sara’s for Sterling Bosch has clients in South America, and she offers to look into it.  With his name cleared, Agent Burke returns to his office in time to lead Larssen’s interrogation.  Larssen is ready to cut a deal, but Agent Burke has changed his mind for the only deal he is willing to make is one that will protect Larssen from the mastermind.  Nonetheless, Larssen reveals the identity of the man as that of Vincent Adler.  Adler is the man who made Neal who he is today.

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Point Blank – White Collar Episode Summary 2.9

Synopsis: Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey enlist Mozzie’s help in deciphering the code encrypted within the music box.  Realizing that Alex who had the key with her all along, Neal and Mozzie believes that the young woman must have already heard the code, and must be keeping information from them.  Neal strikes a deal with Alex, and asks her to steal the music box from Diana’s apartment.  Meanwhile, Agent Burke tries to lure Fowler out from hiding after getting wind that he is in the neighborhood, but Neal has other plans in mind.

Episode Summary: Now that they have opened the music box, Peter Burke and Neal Caffrey enlist the help of Mozzie to decrypt the code hidden in its music.  Mozzie looks into the history of the music box, and learns that the box disappeared from Königsberg Castle in 1945.  He assumes the cherub key and the box were together when it was stolen, which Neal confirms since the key was on the box when they stole it.  This means that Alex had figured out the key long before they did.  Moreover, she has seen the second comb with the code Mozzie is trying to decrypt.  Why Alex gave the key back to Neal is a mystery to them, and the only way to find out is to talk to her. Continue reading...

Peter and Diana worry about Neal.  Peter thinks that Neal is more interested in finding Fowler than unraveling the mystery of the music box.  Diana believes that Fowler has accessed his old bank account, the one that only had two hundred dollars in it.  Peter supposes that the man is desperate for cash knowing that he was not able to get much before he went underground.  This gives Peter an idea of how to lure Fowler from his hole.  Fowler’s wife was killed in a robbery years ago, but because suspicious circumstances surrounded her murder, the insurance company has not finalized their claim.  Peter plans on making it look like the insurance company finally paid off the claim, and will be closely monitoring the account to track any withdrawals made on it.

Meanwhile, Neal tries to lure Alex out from hiding.  Hale, an old friend of Neal’s believes that the Almiranta shipwreck silver pieces he’s been getting lately are the ones Alex fenced years ago.  They worry that the NYPD is closing in on Alex who appears to be desperately stealing back the goods she fenced that she may fence them again.  It is up to Neal and Mozzie to get to her before the police do.  This, however, requires FBI resources.  Neal plans on creating a case interesting enough for Peter to take notice, one that is linked to the silver thefts.  Neal has turned Alex into the Silver Burglar, and creates a case file complete with a police report of the stolen items and FBI research tying the thefts to the Almiranta collection.  To make the case file look less like a forgery, Neal and Mozz go through the process by which a case file travels through the FBI, and when they are done the now worn out case file looks unmistakably genuine.  Neal slips it in with the other files Peter have to review, and just as he foresaw, the burglary file catches Peter’s eye.

Agent Burke briefs his team about their new case.  He informs the team that the NYPD has been investigating a series of silver heists, but failed to connect the thefts with the Almiranta shipwreck.  With information from insurance policies, the FBI has identified three potential targets.  Neal notices a couple that is going on vacation making them the perfect target for the heist.

Unable to crack the code, Mozzie becomes frustrated at the task at hand.  Neal suggests that he get some help.  Mozz knows of a man who set up shop at an antique store.  The man actually works as a code maker for a foreign government, and is notorious for hiding codes in gadgets.  He plans on playing him a partial piece without giving any more details of the cipher that has left him baffled.  If things do not work out with the code maker, Neal is hopeful that Alex could shed some light to the mystery, but Mozzie highly doubts this.

Meanwhile, Peter’s other project has been set in motion.  He was right; Fowler is desperate for money.  Diana informs Peter that somebody made a withdrawal only forty minutes after sums of money were deposited in Fowler’s account.  Photos from security cameras near the ATM where he withdrew the money confirm Garrett Fowler’s identity.  Moreover, they learn that he was staying in short-term housing near the ATM where he withdrew the money under the name of Aaron Burgess.  Unfortunately, Diana was two days late by the time they found his new place of residence.  Fowler has once again disappeared.  Running a check on Fowler’s alias, they find that explosives were purchased under that name.  Peter has yet to decide whether or not to inform Neal of the new information they uncovered.

Neal knows Alex’ modus operandi too well.  Just as he expected, he finds her on a rooftop a block away from the penthouse that has the Almiranta silver.  Before she makes a terrible mistake, Neal makes her aware that the penthouse is under surveillance.  Moreover, he makes it clear that the NYPD is on her trail, but Neal used the FBI to get to her first.  Neal reveals his real purpose for finding her, and as he suspected Alex is aware of the code.  However, as Mozzie supposed, Alex has not cracked it.  Her desperate heists should be evidence enough that she has not decrypted the code.  Neal, however, offers her a deal, one that will get the target off her back.  In return, Neal wants Alex to steal the music box from Diana’s apartment, and give it to the Russian Museum.  He believes that the person who is out to get it will then have his eye on the museum instead of Alex.  Tonight is the perfect opportunity to steal it too, since Diana will be in the van staking out the penthouse, while her girlfriend is working the night shift.  Imagine his surprise when he learns that Diana is heading home.  He had just sent Alex straight into a trap.

Neal learns soon enough why Diana is scurrying home.  Peter shows him the receipt for parts used in making the bomb on Kate’s plane, and informs him that the person who made the purchases is none other than Garret Fowler.  Peter has sent Diana home so she could look into everything Fowler did using his alias Aaron Burgess, but he needs her to do this away from the office and off the normal channels.  Diana arrives home, and finds that her apartment has been broken into.  She finds that the music box is gone.  Diana and Peter are convinced that Neal is behind the theft of the music box, and seeing the article on the newspaper provided evidence to their belief.

The Russian Heritage Museum is now in possession of the music box.  According to the article, the antique music box was simply left in their delivery drop.  The museum has decided to hold an invitation only public showing of the music box before they ship it back to St. Petersburg.  Peter fully aware of Neal’s intention to lure Fowler out labels him as a liability, and pulls him off the case.  With some free time on his hands, Neal decides to join Mozzie at the antique shop where he has asked Akihiro, the Japanese code maker, to create a copy of the recording.  While waiting for the code maker, Neal updates Mozzie of the events from the previous night and that morning.  A few minutes later, Akihiro returns with news that what he has is a two-part code.  Mozzie and Akihiro go to the back of the shop to discuss the code leaving Neal on his own.  Learning that Neal has confirmed that Fowler was the one who put the bomb on the plane, Mozzie could not help but worry about his friend, but Neal puts on a smile and assures him that he is fine.  Little did Mozzie know, Neal has stolen a gun from the shop.  Mozzie returns to Neal’s apartment with news of having broken the code, but finds him nowhere in sight.  He finds his tracking anklet around Bugsy, the pug June has asked Neal to look after while she is out of town.

With Neal benched, Agent Burke brings Agent Barrigan with him to stake out the Russian Heritage Museum.  Convinced that Neal is out to get Fowler, he asks Agent Barrigan to closely monitor the young man’s tracking anklet.  Unaware that Neal still has in his possession the key he stole from U.S. Marshal Deckard, Agent Burke and Barrigan are relieved to find him stationed at his house, while they are out by the Russian Heritage Museum waiting for Fowler to arrive.  Just as they expected, Garret Fowler arrives at the museum, and by simply bribing the usherette he gets access to the public showing.  Agent Burke uses his badge to get in, and follows Fowler inside but the man spots him.  Garret Fowler runs upstairs to the modernist gallery that is currently closed for renovation.  Fowler secures himself inside a room, while he figures out an escape plan.

While the security guard tries to unlock the room, Agent Burke receives a call from Mozzie informing him that Neal is out of his anklet, and that he brought with him a gun.  Sure that Neal will be making his way to the Russian Heritage Museum, Agent Burke instructs Agent Barrigan to pursue the armed Neal Caffrey as soon as she gets sight of him.  Unfortunately, Neal was to quick for Agent Barrigan that he is already inside the museum before she could do anything about it.  Neal walks into an atrium, and immediately sees Fowler by the window of one of the rooms on the top floor.  Seeing Peter by the door, Neal finds another way to get to Fowler.  He goes to a balcony perpendicular to the room where Fowler is in, but by the time Diana gets close to him, Neal is already zipping through from the balcony to Fowler’s room.  Neal shoots his gun as a warning to Fowler, and demands that he tell him why he killed Kate Moreau.  Despite a gun pointed at his head, Fowler denies killing Kate.  Moreover, with his career and wife gone, he seems to even welcome his demise.  Agent Burke barges in the door, and tries to convince Neal not to make a mistake he will regret the rest of his life.  Neal puts his gun down, and Agent Burke orders Agent Barrigan to cuff him, while he arrests Fowler.

Agent Burke brings Caffrey and Fowler in his office.  Fowler was on his way up the FBI ladder when his wife was murdered.  His life went spiraling down from then, desiring nothing else but revenge, and he got his through an anonymous phone call that led him right to his wife’s murderer.  A few days after exacting his revenge, he gets a video of him killing his wife’s murderer.  He then gets another phone call from a man informing him that he can arrange his transfer to OPR, and when that is done, the man orders him to get the music box and in return the damning evidence of his crime will vanish.  Bent on getting his life back, Fowler went on the hunt for the music box convinced that Neal has it, but because he was in prison, he went after Kate instead believing that the young woman would know where it is.  Fowler then confesses to using Mentor as a getaway, surprising Agent Burke that Mentor is genuine.  Even more surprising is his claim that it was Kate’s idea to put explosives on the plane.  According to Fowler, Kate believed that no matter how far away she and Neal got, they would never be safe.  Her idea is that the two of them will bail out over the water just before the plane explodes making everybody believe that they are dead.  Fowler has no idea why the bomb exploded early, and argues that he wasn’t the one whom Kate phoned before she died.  In hindsight, the ease of tracing the phone call to Fowler was too easy to be true.  The identity of Kate’s murderer remains unknown, and Agent Burke sends Neal home, while he decides what he is going to do with Fowler.

Agent Burke asks Fowler the identity of the person he was going to meet, but Fowler is unaware of it as well.  All he knows is that the man is an intermediary between him and the man pulling the strings.  Agent Burke shows Fowler the photo they pieced together from several security cameras, and immediately identifies the man as Julian Larssen.  In fact, he knew the man for they trained together in Special Forces, but had no idea that he is involved in the hunt for the music box.  Agent Barrigan interrupts their research after getting word that a man was found dead in the antique shop where Neal got his gun.  Agent Burke and Agent Barrigan find Akihiro on the floor with two bullets in his chest, and the song from the music box playing in the background.  They find the man’s notebook with the word Eureka written on a page.  The man who killed Akihiro knew how to avoid the security camera, but the NYPD found it interesting that the surveillance tape was frozen on an earlier recording of a shot of Neal Caffrey’s face.  Agent Burke and Barrigan rush to Neal’s apartment convinced that he is the next target.  He calls him on their way, but he does not pick up.  They barge in his apartment and finds Alex with him reaching in her bag only to learn that she was merely leaving him her number.

Alex leaves, and the agents explain to Neal the reason for their barging in.  As soon as he hears how the two figured him to be the next target, Neal knows that Mozzie is in danger.  Mozzie sits on a bench by Central Park sipping his coffee when Julian Larssen puts a bullet through his chest.  Larssen then sits beside him pretending to help him, but with the real intention of getting his notebook.  The man leaves, and Mozzie is left on the bench unconscious.

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Company Man – White Collar Episode Summary 2.8

Synopsis: Agent Burke goes undercover as a CPA in order to unravel the murder of a tech firm employee that is linked to a corporate espionage.  He brings in Neal Caffrey in the company to be his eyes and ears, and together they learn that there is more to their case than meets the eyes.  Meanwhile, Diana and Mozzie are paired to work together in investigating the jet explosion with the main goal of finding Fowler, but Mozzie stumbles upon a secret that Peter is keeping from Neal.

Episode Summary: The White Collar division of the FBI gets involved in the murder investigation of Joseph Hayes, a lead R&D specialist in a tech firm that manufactures everything from cell phones to supercomputers.  The FBI suspects that the death of the man is part of a corporate espionage.  The company Hayes was working for was vying for a defense contract, and the victim had with him a functioning prototype for a next generation quantum microprocessor the night he dropped dead of a heart attack.  Moreover, a toxicology report revealed that the man had digitalis in his bloodstream that caused his heart failure.  The FBI suspects Wesley Kent, the founder and CEO of Novice Systems, as the person who murdered Hayes and stole the prototype.  Agent Peter Burke goes undercover as an accountant from Bainfield Financial whom Kent expects to arrive at Novice Systems for his company’s annual audit.  Agent Peter Burke has an accounting degree and was recruited by several Fortune 500 companies before joining the FBI, which makes him the perfect man for the job.  Agent Burke arrives at Novice Systems and presents himself as Peter Lassen, the CPA from Bainfield Financial.  The firm gives him special treatment from setting him up at a suite in a four star hotel to providing him a spacious corner office.Continue reading...

As per his agreement with Peter after the man found out from Sara that he has possession of the FAA flight recording, Neal arranges a meeting with Mozzie and Diana so the two can work together in investigating the jet explosion that claimed the life of Kate Moreau.  Their main goal is to find Agent Fowler whom Mozzie identified as the person Kate called after Peter showed up at the hangar.  Neal believes that Fowler is the key in unraveling this mystery.

Although Novice Systems sequestered Peter’s laptop and cell phone as soon as he entered its offices, Peter manages to sneak in a USB drive hidden in his cufflink that will allow Agent Jones to access Novice’s entire database.  Agent Jones discovered that someone tried to access Hayes office desktop, but failed.  Based on the password variations the person used, it appears that the person had a close relationship with Hayes.  Agent Burke rules out upper management for they would not need to crack his password to look into their employee’s office computer, which means the mole would be some junior executive.  Agent Peter Burke brings in Neal Caffrey to be his eyes and ears.  Knowing that Wesley Kent is doing everything he can to get a clean audit, Peter uses it as leverage to get Neal a marketing job at the firm.

Neal arrives at Novice Systems as George Danbury, and quickly makes friends and enemies.  Moreover, he manages to get invited to dinner with his colleagues.  Learning of this, Peter instructs Neal to tell everyone that he noticed that the auditor was looking into Hayes’ files making the employees believe that Peter found something on the victim.  This they believe will cause the mole to inadvertently reveal himself.  Neal goes to work immediately with his new task, and informs his colleagues at dinner that he found Joseph Hayes’ files along with everyone else’s on the auditor’s desk.  This seems to have drawn out some fear from his colleagues, and they have every reason to be afraid of an audit.  The junior executives as Novice Systems have a habit of having expensive dinners all paid for by their corporate credit cards.  In fact, the dinner they just had caused them two thousand dollars, and in true Novice Systems tradition the person who will foot the bill will be determined through a credit card roulette.  Everybody throws their credit cards in Neal’s hat before they ask the waitress to pick the card that will be used to pay the bill.  Neal having been hassled by Trent the moment he got the marketing job does one of his hat tricks that made Trent’s credit card stick out of the pile.  Trent ends up footing the two thousand dollar bill.

Neal insinuating that the auditor has been looking into the junior executives worked like a charm.  Later that night, he finds Jessica looking through files in the auditor’s office.  Neal immediately goes to Peter’s suite to inform him that Jessica Breslin took the bait.  Jessica started working at Novice Systems four months after the firm put in its bid for the defense contract.  Moreover, Neal discovered that the woman has been sending out a lot more mail to a P.O. box in White Plains after Hayes died, which is curious since the firm doesn’t do any business in White Plains.

Diana and Mozzie get to work on the jet explosion investigation.  Diana shares with him Fowler’s resignation from the FBI.  According to her, OPR let him go, but kept his dismissal secret.  June interrupts their conversation to ask Diana’s help in figuring out the forms Agent Burke has sent about Neal’s living arrangements; this gave Mozzie an opportunity to take a peek at Diana’s bag where he curiously finds a music sheet for Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in F.  He quickly meets Neal to inform him of this discovery especially after learning that the sonata was composed on the same year the music box was made.  The more damning information he uncovered is that there is no historical record of what the song the music box is playing, and the only way Diana could have found out is if she heard it.

Meanwhile, Neal is at Novice Systems spying on Jessica’s mail, and learns that the woman is digging into Kent’s travel arrangements.  Unfortunately for him, the woman has become suspicious of him after the previous night’s incident, and her noticing that her mail tray is left askew after she returned from lunch prompted her to follow Neal when he went out to meet Mozzie.  Having noticed it he accosts the woman who points a gun at him.  Neal is forced to reveal that he is working with the FBI in uncovering the person who murdered Hayes, and learns that the woman is doing the same thing.  Neal and Agent Burke return to the FBI headquarters to interrogate Jessica whom they learn to be the person Hayes had a relationship with.  The woman informs them that Hayes was only close to getting a functioning prototype as opposed to Kent’s claim of the victim already having a working prototype.  She confesses to be the one who attempted to hack into Hayes’ office computer, but only after she noticed a change in his behavior.  She adds that Kent has been traveling to Eastern Europe and China by himself under the guise of business.  Moreover, she accuses Kent of destroying documents.

Agent Burke plans on attaching a remote scanner on Kent’s shredding machine to allow them to make a copy of a document before it gets shred.  Unfortunately, Kent’s office is closely guarded, and uses a voice-activated system that responds only to his voice to unlock its doors.  Getting a hold of the password from Jessica, Agent Peter Burke plans to secretly record Kent saying his password “Faber est suae quisque fortunae” during their business dinner.  Much to his surprise, Kent offers Peter a job at his company, and tells him that working for Novice Systems is more than a job for it is an achievement.  This gave Peter the opportunity to insert Latin in their conversation using the etymology of the company’s name as a starting point.  Before he knows it, Kent has given Peter his password.  Moreover, he informs Peter that the project he is working on will set up the company and everyone in it for life.

With Kent’s password on tape, all they need to do now is have Neal filch Kent’s assistant’s swipe card so he can break into the man’s office and install the scanner on the shredding machine.  Neal does his task without a hitch.  Soon, the FBI gets a hold of the documents Kent has been shredding, and learns that Kent has been destroying the documents of Hayes’ failed prototype.  The prototype was never stolen for Kent only made Hayes death look like corporate espionage to cover the embarrassing truth that Novice Systems has yet to have a breakthrough tool for binary code breaking.  Moreover, another document in the shredder implicates Kent in treason for profit.  With the prototype still in the works, Novice Systems cannot win the U.S. defense contract in time.  This leads Kent to sell the tool to a foreign intelligence agency, one that will provide him enough time to finish building the prototype.  Hayes unwilling to take part on the treasonous act paid the price with his life, giving Kent the perfect cover to hide the truth about Novice Systems not having a product to show the defense department and avoiding suspicion after a foreign government gets a hold of the working prototype.

Although they cannot charge Kent with treason, the FBI sure can get him for murder.  They, however, need to use Jessica as bait.  Agent Burke plans on hinting to Kent that Hayes has divulged his plans to Jessica before he died, which should prompt the man to go after her.  Jessica bent on nailing Kent agrees to the dangerous task.  Unfortunately, she is out for revenge instead of justice.  Neal notices the pen with Kent’s recorded password in Jessica’s bag, and draws out from the woman that she had put digitalis in Kent’s Armagnac.  Unfortunately, Peter and Kent have been drinking the poisoned Armagnac in celebration of Novice System’s clean audit.  Peter and Kent have started to feel the effects of digitalis.  Peter asks Kent for an antidote knowing that he used the same poison to kill Hayes, but the man could offer none.  He did, however, inadvertently confess to Peter of murdering Hayes.  Both of them pass out before they could call for help.  Fortunately, Neal arrives in time for the EMT to revive the two.  Agent Burke now conscious makes an arrest as the EMT pulls him up to an ambulance.  Unfortunately, another arrest needs to be made for in spite of not knowing that Peter will be drinking the Armagnac with Kent, Jessica did poison the two men.  She is charged with attempted murder.

Agent Burke is back at the FBI headquarters, and Neal teases him of missing out on the good life.  Agent Burke humors Neal and imagines what his life could have been if he became a hotshot CPA instead of an FBI agent.  The alternate life sounded good until he goes to the part where he wasn’t assigned to work on an art gallery scam, which would have meant that he would never have met Elizabeth.  This only reaffirmed to him that there are more important things in life than living in luxury like Elizabeth and believe it or not, Neal as well.  This prompts Neal to confront Peter about his knowledge that he has the music box in his possession.  It seems that Peter has gotten to him for the young man confronts him without any anger.  In fact, Neal learned of this secret right before he realized that Peter has been poisoned, and still he saved the man’s life.  With the cat out of the bag, Peter shows the music box to Neal.  He tells him that he kept the box from him for he is afraid of what having it will do to him.  Peter wants to steer Neal away from taking revenge on the people who killed the love of his life.  The two agree not to keep secrets from each other.  Peter informs Neal that the music box is missing a key, which Neal instantly recognizes as the one Alex gave him.  Neal puts the key in the hole, and opens the music box.

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Prisoner’s Dilemma – White Collar Episode Summary 2.7

Synopsis: An FBI agent who used to work for the White Collar division has become a fugitive after being found selling witness information to a defense attorney.  Agent Burke soon learns that the FBI agent is innocent of the crime he is accused of, and that the U.S. Marshal leading the hunt is actually the culprit. Agent Burke helps the fugitive escape, and he himself becomes a fugitive.  Meanwhile, Mozzie unravels the identity of the person Kate spoke with on the plane before it exploded.

Episode Summary: Peter Burke finds it ridiculous that he and his wife both have to spend their weekend at work especially since Elizabeth just got back from her business trip in San Francisco.  Intent on making up for lost time, Peter promises to spend a quiet, peaceful night with his wife that night, and even plans to cook the pot roast he has been bragging about.  The reason for the early Saturday morning call the agents of the White Collar division including Neal Caffrey received was due to FBI agent turned fugitive Jack Franklin.  The FBI agent who once worked in the White Collar division was demoted to the Internal Bank Fraud department before the U.S. Marshals caught him attempting to access their witness database.  The U.S. Marshals informs the White Collar division about the case upon the Justice Department’s request, but shows no intention of working with the FBI.  Agent Burke, however, would very much like the FBI to catch the fugitive agent.Continue reading...

Neal Caffrey having read Franklin’s file is curious to know how a top FBI agent who received the Medal of Valor drop down in the ranks, and learns that the man had an inappropriate relationship with a CI.  Neal suspects that Franklin’s lover, Rebecca Vidal, a CI with three known aliases, must be the one hiding him.  They find Rebecca, a former car thief, in a high-end car dealership selling sports cars.  Agent Burke has the enviable task of posing as a prospective buyer, while Neal pretends to be his consultant.  While Agent Burke is out on a test drive with Rebecca, Neal assumes the identity of a car salesman and uses his Nick Halden alias.  He sees an unlikely buyer ogling over one of the sports cars, and just as he thought, the man who has been at the dealership numerous times has never been attended to.  After a quick test drive, the other sales men are in disbelief at learning that the man they have been ignoring is actually buying one of the sports cars.  Neal asks one of the sales men to help him log in on Rebecca’s computer making an excuse that he promised to split the commission with her; it being his very first sale since it is his first day on the job.

Agent Burke reveals his true identity to Rebecca who swears to not know the whereabouts of Franklin for she hasn’t seen her lover since the man ended their relationship, but she has faith that the agent is not guilty of what he has been accused of.  Knowing that Franklin is better off in the hands of the FBI than the trigger-happy U.S. Marshals, he makes one last appeal to Rebecca, but the woman insists that she hasn’t been in contact with Franklin.  The two returns to the dealership, and Agent Burke is surprised to see Neal at the woman’s desk, but fails to prevent her from seeing Neal walking away from her desk.  Handing off the man who just bought the yellow Gallardo to her, Rebecca did not seem to mind Neal using her computer unaware that he printed her drive log from the previous day.  Neal discovered that she took out an hour and a half spin in a Porsche with a woman named, Claudia Weaver, which as he and Agent Burke knows is one of Rebecca’s aliases.

Agent Barrigan finds a file from the locked desk in Franklin’s office, and learns that the man was working on the Sullivan anti-trust case just before he was transferred from the White Collar division.  In the file that he kept hidden, they found the picture of U.S. Marshal Deckard.  The same man who had just returned to the FBI headquarters demanding to know the information they received from Rebecca to which Agent Burke obliged.  He, however, kept the Franklin’s secret file away from Deckard wanting to know what the agent found before sharing the information.  Agent Burke returns home to review the file, and finds Franklin at his house.  The man tells Agent Burke that the witness he found willing to testify on the Sullivan anti-trust case was killed in a hit-and-run a week before his testimony.  The incident prompted Franklin to look into the U.S. Marshals office knowing that they are the only ones who knew the whereabouts of the witness, and soon after OPR uncovers his relationship with Rebecca and he is transferred to Bank Fraud.  Months have passed since his transfer, but Franklin continued his investigation and finally makes a breakthrough.  However, before he could make his case, he has already been made a fugitive.  Franklin claims to have found a reference in an e-mail to a hardcopy ledger that documents every transaction Volker did with Deckard.  It has the list of witness names, and the payoff Deckard received, which Volker keeps in his office as a form of insurance in the event Deckard turns on him.  This explains the stop Rebecca made in the supposed test drive she took with Claudia Weaver; Franklin and Rebecca went to Volker’s office hoping to find the ledger, but came up empty handed.  Unfortunately, the FBI shared the information they got from the test drive with the Marshals Office, making Franklin certain that Deckard would go to Volker’s office to destroy the ledger.

True enough, Agent Jones and Neal Caffrey return to the conference room only to learn that Deckard left to chase down a lead.  They call Agent Burke to inform him of Deckard’s departure, and learn that their boss is with the fugitive agent at Volker’s office.  The man relays to them what Franklin discovered, that Deckard was selling witness information, and evidence of this crime is in Volker’s office.  Franklin breaks into the law offices of Stanley Volker against Agent Burke’s order, and before Agent Burke ends his conversation with Neal and Agent Jones, gunshots are fired inside the office.  Deckard shreds the files, and fires at the unarmed Franklin.  Deckard continues to aim his weapon despite Agent Burke’s appeal, but Franklin manages to escape thanks to Agent Burke blocking Deckard’s view of a clear shot.  The two run to the garage, and finds two sports cars parked there.  Agent Burke calls Neal to get instructions on how to hotwire a Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster; much to Neal’s surprise, but Agent Burke is even more surprised to learn that Neal could not help him.  Luckily, Franklin is already on the phone with Rebecca, who was able to route the key code through the phone with just the VIN.  Although Rebecca found the code, it will take a few minutes to see if it will work.  Hearing that Franklin is on the phone with his CI, Neal takes the challenge, and informs Peter that he might be able to find a key in a small recess inside the rear bumper.  He is right.  The two escape Deckard in a stolen Lamborghini.

Agent Burke and Franklin meet with Neal Caffrey and Agent Jones who are in disbelief at hearing their boss’ request.  Agent Burke is not coming in with the fugitive, and had just asked Neal to disable the Lamborghini’s tracking device, which makes him a fugitive too.  As per Agent Burke’s orders, Agent Jones and Neal return to the FBI headquarters where Peter’s boss’ boss anxiously waits for Neal.  Bancroft has spoken with Deckard who claimed that Franklin was destroying evidence, and that Agent Burke helped the fugitive escape.  Neal informs Bancroft that Agent Burke is still with Franklin who claims that Deckard is selling witness information, and it was the marshal who destroyed the evidence.  With Agent Burke on the run with a fugitive, Bancroft finds this hard to believe, but Neal argues that Peter fled because he knew that Franklin’s life is in danger, and he wanted to find proof of Deckard’s crime.  Neal asks Bancroft to give Agent Burke’s team authorization to mislead the U.S. Marshals in order to buy Peter time.

Mozzie has spent his Saturday at Neal’s apartment deciphering the number Kate dialed from the plane, and learns that the person on the other line used a burner phone, which prevents them from knowing whom it belongs to, but he is confident that he’ll be able to unravel the person’s identity.  Little did he know that he will soon be harboring two FBI agents turned fugitives.  Needing a place to hide while he and Franklin find evidence against Deckard, Agent Burke finds sanctuary in one of Mozzie’s spectacular safe houses that he calls Tuesday, because he’s normally there on Wednesdays.

Agent Barrigan looks into Stanley Volker and learns that the defense attorney has one of the highest acquittal rates in New York City winning his last three cases after key witnesses disappeared or died.  Neal informs her that he and Agent Jones are going to keep Deckard occupied so Agent Burke could contact her that is if Bancroft pulls through with his earlier request.  Deckard’s arrival ordering Neal and Agent Jones to go with him on a stake out at Peter’s house shows that Bancroft has approved his request.

Overhearing Peter discussing Volker with Franklin, Mozzie joins in the conversation having recognized the man as the defense attorney who sold out a friend of his who was arrested with one of his clients.  Agent Burke is struck with an idea.  He enlists Mozzie in what he calls as a government-sanctioned con involving a dirty marshal, a scumbag lawyer and one of his prized Lamborghinis to which the man happily joins.

Elizabeth returns home and finds it filled with smoke, since Peter forgot to take out the pot roast from the oven when he left with Franklin.  She is unaware that her husband is on the run, and that her house is in fact being watched.  Agent Jones and Neal are in the van watching Agent Burke’s house with Deckard.  The marshal is surprised to hear Agent Jones hint of being ready to throw his boss under the bus if things get out of hand, but Deckard is not buying it.  He believes that Peter will be contacting either one of them or his wife soon.  Luckily, Bancroft has introduced Agent Barrigan to him as a new transfer from D.C. making him not suspect her.  The arrival of Mozzie at Agent Burke’s house interrupts their conversation.

Mozzie fills Elizabeth in on the case telling her that U.S. Marshal John Deckard has been selling witness location information to Defense Attorney Stan Volker who uses the information to intimidate and kill witnesses.  Peter’s faith in the fugitive FBI agent who uncovered the crime made a fugitive of himself.  He assures the worried wife that her husband is fine.  Moreover, he tells her that Peter has come up with a plan.  They are going to use prisoner’s dilemma, wherein two suspects will be separated in order to get them to turn on each other.  One of the challenges in Peter’s plan is that Neal is involved in it, but the man is still unaware of it.  Moreover, the plan has been set in motion with Stanley Volker walking in the FBI headquarters looking for Agent Barrigan having received a call from her.  She informs him that she has some bad news about one of his cars that requires him to see it with his own eyes to assess the extent of the damage.

Agent Jones informs Deckard that Mozzie is another CI whom Peter uses when Neal is not around.  Deckard decides to follow Mozzie with Agent Jones and Neal, but asks the other marshals to stay and monitor Agent Burke’s house.  They find Mozzie entering the dealership where Rebecca works.  Mozzie has asked the woman to pretend that she knows him, and informs her that he has been harboring Franklin.  Deckard, Agent Jones and Neal are watching the two chat in one of the conference rooms when Neal receives a call from Peter who also is on the line with Bancroft.  Deckard annoyed and suspicious at finding Neal on the phone demands to speak with the person he is on the phone with, and is satisfied at confirming that Bancroft is on the other line.  As Peter just informed him, Agent Barrigan arrives at the dealership with Volker.  Peter also tells him that Neal has to run a prisoner’s dilemma on Deckard.

Agent Barrigan and Rebecca inform Volker that one of his Lamborghinis was stolen earlier that day and was taken on a joyride.  They show him pictures of his wrecked beloved car.  Rebecca tells him that the people who stole his car brought it to the dealership for parts.  Volker is furious, and wants justice for what was done to his sports car.  Agent Barrigan asks him to sign a piece of paper in order to prosecute the people who stole his car.  Deckard watches in horror as Volker signs a paper the FBI agent handed him.  Neal tells him that Volker is cutting a deal with the FBI, and that he is selling him out by signing a confession.  He tells him that Volker knew that it was only a matter of time before Deckard turned on him after his stunt at his office, which is why the man decided to cut a deal with the FBI.  Deckard pulls his gun and points it at Agent Jones who also has his gun drawn.  Volker sees the scene being played right outside the dealership.  Agent Barrigan informs him that Deckard has accused him of paying off an FBI agent to intimidate and kill witnesses.  Not a minute had passed when Volker throws Deckard under the bus claiming that the marshal came up with the whole thing, and is willing to cooperate in bringing the marshal down.  Deckard tries to walk away, but Agent Burke arrives with a gun pointed at him.  Other FBI agents arrive and arrest U.S. Marshall John Deckard, and Defense Attorney Stan Volker.  With the real culprits arrested, Franklin has been cleared of the charges against him, and has been reinstated in the White Collar division.

With the case closed, Agent Burke’s team plan on making up for their lost weekend, and not one of them plans on spending it with Neal at the Powell, which is outside his radius.  With no one to escort him at the White Bored exhibit, Neal Caffrey contemplates on using the key he stole from Deckard to unlock his tracking anklet.  He, however, finds an unlikely escort in Bancroft who informs him that he wanted to see the exhibit since it opened.  It appears that Bancroft just gave him a reason not to commit a crime, but Neal might need to use the key in the near future.  Mozzie called him with news of unraveling the identity of the man Kate spoke with before she died.  It was none other than FBI Agent Garrett Fowler.

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In the Red – White Collar Episode Summary 2.6

Synopsis: The FBI arrests an unlikely jewel thief, and stumbles upon an extortion scam.  Luke Donovan, an adoption lawyer, addicted to gambling has been shaking down his clients in order to pay his gambling debts with the Chechen mob.  Meanwhile, Sara Ellis is out to prove that Neal Caffrey stole the unopened FAA package from her house, and learns the reason for Neal’s desire to get a hold of the package.

Episode Summary: Agent Burke and his team inconspicuously await the jewel thief that stole a hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry from Bloustein’s.  Essential to the handoff is Neal Caffrey who was assigned to make the exchange.  Curiously, Caffrey tries to dissuade the apprehensive thief from going through with the handoff.  Having run the license plate on her car, the FBI has no doubt that they found their thief as it belongs to Catherine McMillan, Bloustein’s assistant manager.  Despite his subtle urging for the woman to back off from the deal, Catherine McMillan demands the money in exchange for the stolen jewels.  Caffrey is left with no other choice, but to call it in, and in a few seconds the cavalry arrives with their guns ready to shoot.  Caffrey reaches in for a child’s toy that’s in the front seat of the car, and tells the FBI to drop their weapons for Catherine McMillan has her sleeping son in the backseat of her car.Continue reading...

Neal Caffrey finds Mozzie in his apartment with fantastic news about the cockpit recording on the plane that exploded and ended the life of Kate Moreau.  Mozzie using a thermal scope that showed the residual heat from Sara’s fingers as she punched the code that opens her apartment, the ingenious man was able to enter her home without a hitch.  Thanks to his efforts, Neal is now in possession of the elusive recording that would unravel the fatal event that took the life of the woman he so loved.  Surprisingly, Neal sets aside the recording as he meets with Peter.

Neal is not convinced that Catherine McMillan is a jewel thief, and a request from the woman to speak with Agent Burke could prove him right.  According to McMillan, she had adopted her son, Olly, through Luke Donovan, an international adoption lawyer.  A month after the adoption was finalized, Donovan informs her that Olly’s Chechen birth mother had come forward and demanded her son’s return, but is willing to make a deal.  According to Donovan, the birth mother is demanding fifty thousand dollars in exchange for her son to which McMillan complied.  Later, the woman had demanded more money with a tight deadline.  Although McMillan had reached out to the State Department to verify Donovan’s story, she was left with no choice but to push through with the payoff without getting confirmation.  Catherine McMillan did steal the jewels, but only to assure her adopted son’s safety.

Agent Burke pays Luke Donovan a visit, and the man washes his hands from Catherine McMillan’s actions.  Although he confirms the demands of the birth mother, Donovan was not able to provide proof of any of it.  Agent Burke smells something fishy, and bumping with Clark the Shark Maskhodov on his way to Donovan’s office validated his suspicion for Clark Maskhodov is the enforcer of the Chechen mob boss Kaz Abramov.

Agent Burke receives an unannounced visit from Sara Ellis.  The livid woman accuses Neal Caffrey of breaking in to her house, and demands that Neal undergo a polygraph test so much so that she brought her own equipment with her.  Much to Agent Burke’s surprise, Neal agrees to the test.  Neal with the help of a pushpin passes Sara’s voice stress analyzer with flying colors.  Certain that the package from the FAA has something to do with the jet explosion that claimed Kate’s life, Agent Burke is sure that Neal is guilty of Sara’s accusation.

Agent Jones tails Clark the Shark to the old New York Room, and informs Agent Burke about it.  Learning that Donovan won a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament in Macau the previous year, Agent Burke believes that gambling is the connection between the adoption lawyer and the Chechen mob.  With the establishment guarded by a bouncer that requires a password, Neal hatches up a plan to get inside the Old New York Room.  Seeing Bernie Buryatskiy, the mob boss’ right arm, outside the establishment, Neal asks Peter to call his cell phone, and in a few seconds bumps into Bernie Buryatskiy and drops his phone in the man’s suit pocket.  With the line still open, both Neal and Agent Burke hear the password as Bernie relays it to the bouncer.  Knowing what the password is, Neal Caffrey enters the underground casino without a hitch.

Using his Nick Halden alias, Neal manages to get a seat for Friday night’s game.  He retrieves his cell phone from Buryatskiy before the man even finds it in his pocket, and finds that Peter has been listening in the whole time.  Both of them hasn’t heard anything about Donovan, but Neal manages to take a peek at the account list while the woman checks that the account and routing number he gave her for the buy-in has sufficient funds.  Neal finds that Donovan has a two hundred thousand dollar debt with the Chechen mob’s underground casino.  The woman returns with news that his account doesn’t have sufficient funds, but Neal was able to charm his way into being allowed to bring the money right before the game.

Agent Burke is sure that Donovan is involved with the extortion scam despite his team confirming the legitimacy of his adoption cases including the story about Olly’s birth mother.  Thanks to Neal’s snooping, they know that Donovan owes the mob a ton of money, which they believe was the cause of his resort to scamming McMillan.  Moreover, Neal thinks that Donovan will try to win his money back in Friday night’s game.  Unfortunately for him, Neal will be there to ensure that he doesn’t win in order to force him into extorting another one of his clients.  Meanwhile, Agent Jones and Agent Barrigan are to go undercover as a couple in desperate want to be adoptive parents, making them the perfect patsy for his extortion scam.

Agent Jones and Agent Barrigan assume the identity of Tanya and David Mayburn, a couple who desperately wants to adopt, Samira, a 6-month-old baby from Al-Fashir, Sudan.  After getting a runaround from the adoption agency in Al-Fashir, the couple decided to enlist the services of Luke Donovan following the recommendation of Gilbert Lowenstein of Hemmingson Institute.  Donovan, aware that the FBI is on to him, quizzes the couple about the man who referred them to him.  Agent Jones and Barrigan did well with facts about Lowenstein, but were caught off-guard with Donovan’s questions about the man’s divorce and his requirement for them to give him an answer before he decides taking their case.  Donovan takes the bait, and informs them of his retainer fee.  Agent Barrigan believes that the man took the bait as insurance in the event of him losing the poker game.  The gambler took the risk of an FBI setup knowing the certainty of his demise if he fails to pay the mob the money he owes them.  Meanwhile, Sara Ellis arrives at Neal Caffrey’s apartment with a search warrant for the stolen FAA package, and the recovery team soon finds the package.

With a boy’s life at stake, Neal Caffrey would like to be certain that he has an upper hand on Friday’s poker game, and knowing Donovan’s tell would give him that.  Agent Burke calls in Donovan into his office with the goal of identifying Donovan’s tell.  With a few questions that drew a couple of outright lies from the lawyer, Agent Burke has nailed the man’s tell.  Luke Donovan blinks twice when he is lying.  All is set for that night’s poker game, but Sara’s discovery of the stolen package in Neal’s apartment resulted in his arrest.  Agent Burke arrives supposedly to prevent his arrest, but much to his surprise, the FBI agent lets the detectives take him in.  Agent Burke, however, informs Sara that the package they found in Neal’s possession has something to do with Kate Moreau.  Moreover, he informs her of the case they are working on whose success relies on Neal Caffrey.

With Neal back at the FBI office, Sara appears to have dropped the charges against him.  Neal arrives at the New York Room where Abramov announces the game to be a no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em where they will play until only one is left standing.  Donovan wins a number of games until all who is left is him and Neal.  Donovan bets all his money on his hand, but when Neal asks him if he has the inside flush, the man blinks twice.  Neal calls his bet leaving them with nothing else to do but to reveal their cards.  Despite Donovan’s impeccable hand, Neal beats him with a King of spades, and with that Donovan just dug himself a deeper hole.

Neal returns to the FBI gloating about his win, but Agent Burke is not impressed knowing that Neal must have cheated, leaving nothing to chance.  Just as they expected, Donovan is once again turning to his extortion scam to get him out of the hole.  Agent Barrigan receives word that the man has called the Sudanese adoption contact they provided him; the contact of course is an FBI linguist expert who relayed to Donovan that the hold up with the adoption is nothing more than a paperwork mix-up.  The FBI believes that Donovan will make up a story about the child’s birth mother demanding money in exchange for her child, but until the man makes his move, the FBI is left with nothing to do but wait.  Luckily, Donovan is so desperate that they did not have to wait too long.  Donovan calls who he believes to be the Mayburn’s to inform them that the birth mother of the girl they desperately want to adopt has come forward demanding two hundred thousand dollars for her daughter.  Moreover, they need to have the cash ready by noon the next day.

Agent Barrigan having received a call from Donovan requesting a change in time for their meeting makes her believe that the man is up to something.  Agent Burke believes that the man is spooked and sends Agent Barrigan alone knowing that Donovan will be more at ease with only her around.  Neal Caffrey confirms Agent Barrigan’s hunch having found out that Donovan has purchased tickets to Buenos Aires.  Agent Burke believes that Donovan plans on taking the money and fleeing the country.  He supposes that Abramov knows the time of the meeting, which prompts Donovan to change it at the last minute to buy time for his escape.  Unfortunately, Abramov’s men confront Agent Barrigan as she makes her way to Donovan’s office.  They’ve learned about the man’s plan to escape with the money, and are now demanding that she give them the money.  Agent Barrigan follows Agent Burke’s instructions to stall, but one of Abramov’s men grabs the bag from her leaving her to reveal herself as an armed FBI agent.  The other FBI agents arrive, but Agent Burke instructs them to hold fire.  He appeals to Abramov’s men, assuring them that they are only there to catch Donovan.  He cuts a deal with Abramov in exchange for not interfering with their case.  Agent Burke offers to shut down the mob boss’ underground casino, but promises not to make an arrest.  Abramov confident that his lawyers will get him out of the mess refuses the deal, but Agent Burke appeals to the Chechen man’s heart informing him that Donovan has been using Chechen kids in his scam, and surprisingly the heartless mobster gives in to his appeal.  Moreover, Abramov lends a hand in bringing Donovan down.

Abramov’s men bring him in an abandoned warehouse where he is surprised to see Nick Halden in the same predicament as he is.  Abramov demands his money, but Donovan swears that his men picked him up before he even received it.  They bring Neal in another room, but Donovan clearly hears his groans as Abramov’s men give him a beating.  Little did he know that Neal, Agent Burke, and Abramov’s men were in cahoots in staging a believable torture.  Abramov returns for Donovan, and the man fearing for his life negotiates a deal with the mob boss where he confesses to extorting money from adoptive parents, and offers to cut Abramov a portion of his profits.  Abramov presses on with details of the scam wanting assurance that Donovan can do the job to which Donovan divulges that he has succeeded in extorting money from his clients several times.  Thanks to Abramov who agreed to wear a wire for the FBI, the bureau has Donovan’s confession on tape.  With Donovan’s scam uncovered, Catherine McMillan was able to get a deferred prosecution with minimal punishment.  Moreover, Olly remains in her custody.

Peter confided to his wife who is out of town for business about Neal’s troubles with Sara.  Peter believes that the attention Neal is getting from Sara actually thrills the young man.  Later, Sara having learned the story behind the stolen FAA package reaches out to Neal desiring to know more about Kate Moreau.  Moreover, she hands Neal the recording he desperately wanted.  Neal with Mozz finally gets the courage to listen to Kate’s last words.  In the recording, Kate makes a call informing the person on the other line that Agent Burke is at the hangar, and asks the person whether his presence demands a change of plans.  Neal Caffrey would like nothing more but to know who was on the other line.

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