Bomer plays confidence man Neal Caffrey and Tim DeKay plays FBI Agent Peter Burke, the only man to successfully catch Neal... twice. When Burke finds himself stuck on a particularly tough case, matters get complicated when Neal escapes prison. Naturally, Burke catches him once again as Neal is pining for his girlfriend, Kate (Alexandra Daddario, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief), who has grown tired of him being imprisoned and has left him. Or so it seems.
So Burke springs Neal from prison and the two partner up, with Neal wearing a tracking bracelet on his ankle, but lending his expertise in all things white collar crime. In the meantime, Neal discovers that Kate was merely leaving him a string of cryptic clues to find her, since he discovers that she is being held by a mysterious man, perhaps even an FBI agent, who seeks something that Neal stole since his stash was never recovered, nor did he ever reveal its whereabouts.
As the season progresses, Neal and Peter develop a friendship and even a level of trust as they tackle all manner of crimes, including a boiler room scheme, art theft, forgeries, kidnappings and even a murder. Neal keeps his search for Kate under wraps since Peter wants him to forget her and his previous criminal life and move on, and Neal's constant companion and partner-in-crime, Mozzie (Willie Garson), helps him along the way with whatever he needs. Peter's fellow agents, Cruz (Natalie Morales) and Jones (Sharif Atkins), have a helluva time keeping tabs on Neal as he is slippery as an eel, but they do their best and they all work well as a team. As Peter once said, they'd rather have Neal running with them than from them. Finally, rounding out the cast is Peter's lovely and supportive wife, Elizabeth (Tiffani Thiessen, 90210) and June (Diahann Carroll), a wealthy widow who takes a shine to Neal early on and lets him live in her mansion.
White Collar isn't the type of show that you watch now and again. While you can do that, you will miss important plot points and you may feel lost. Besides, the show is so terrific, why would you want to miss an episode? Bomer and DeKay have terrific chemistry together, as does the entire cast, really. You can't help but love Neal Caffery as he is devilishly handsome, but also sensitive, smart and even vulnerable at times. DeKay plays the perfect straight man to Bomer's charming Neal (or whoever he may be calling himself on that day) and the two play off of each other perfectly. Willie Garson as Mozzie absolutely steals every scene he is in and he is my favorite character in the show. He is funny, clever and surprising, with so many levels to his character and his one-liners will make you laugh out loud.
I also really liked the cinematic style of White Collar with lots of crisp and bold shots of New York used throughout the show and some flashy camera effects between scenes. The show's aesthetic is slick and sexy, just like Neal Caffery, and watching it in Blu-ray just makes it looks all the more sweet. Most TV series don't necessarily benefit from viewing in High Def, but the sets and scenes in White Collar simply "pop" in Blu-ray and deserve to be viewed the way they were intended. As for special features, there's a nice handful here and all are worth watching. The gag reel is fairly amusing, while the deleted scenes were just okay and were smartly deleted from the show, plus there was commentary on certain episodes. However, I really liked all of the featurettes because they were short, but sweet. They include featurettes on the wardrobe (which is fantastic and is practically a character all its own), the dynamic between Burke and Caffery and finally, one on the actual FBI consultant the show uses to give it a high degree of realism.
If you haven't yet seen White Collar and you appreciate action and suspense with a hefty dash of comedy and charm, you need to check out White Collar: The Complete First Season - and do so quickly - because Season Two has just begun. Highly recommended.
