Monsters of Television

“You’re looking very ‘To Catch a Thief’ tonight.”

“Be afraid of my fancy-pants gun!”

I was hoping for some surfing and for Neal and Peter to come out wearing President masks, but then I realized that the title isn’t “Point Break.” And that this isn’t Psych.

You know how when you’re playing with a dog, dangling a rope toy or something? You dangle it in front of him/her and the dog, depending on age and health, will be ready to hunt for it, snapping, champing at the bit (literally) to get a piece of that rope toy. But say you keep it out of reach of the dog, either in hope s/he will go to further lengths to get it or to exert your authority over the animal or both. You never get the response you want, though. Instead of trying harder to get the toy, the dog will generally get tired of the game, lose interest, feel like the s/he’s engaged in something s/he wasn’t meant to be a part of, and then promptly find a corner to lick him/herself quietly.

That’s how I feel about Kate. Her intangibility doesn’t make me want to know more about her. It makes me care not at all. And Neal didn’t help me this season to change my mind. Because he seemed to care even less. That is until the summer finale and then, suddenly, the seasonal arc is far more important than it was all season, Neal becomes the desperate man I had an inkling he might become but to no real emotional reward. In fact, the only person that really matters to me anymore is Mozzie. Poor, sweet Mozzie.

Kate “dies” in the season 1 finale (I still need to see a body) and we see small blips throughout season 2 where Neal appears to care a little bit. There’s never a real mourning period for ol’ Kate, no memorial service, no time where Neal does anything hare-brained or desperate in reaction to the absent love of his life perishing in a green-screened fireball. You can point to the scheme Neal and Mozzie cook up to send Sara the black box on the plane as being “hare-brained” but it’s nothing compared to the stunts Neal pulled in season 1. To me, it felt like the show was setting us up for Neal to fall for one of the other women on the show (well, Alex or Sara — Diane really has no interest) only for not-dead Kate to return.

Kate has been gone for a while. She’s long stopped infecting his every action. Her name is mentioned far less (for the sake of our sanity). Even when Mozzie finds clues that can give Neal closure and/or understanding about the circumstances of his love’s passing, he always seems to have something better to do. Think back to when Mozzie is getting somewhere with the black box recording, quoting Einstein in his glee. Neal doesn’t even have time to discuss it. He’s in and out the door before Mozzie even has a chance to finish his last quote. It seemed like he was a little bit of the dog, too. But instead of just losing interest in the rope toy dangled in front of him, he watched someone throw it somewhere else where he can’t see it. What do you want him to do with that?

The summer finale is almost like the writers are trying to tell us Neal is not a dog and that he has object permanence and a sense of obligation. What seemed to be of casual interest to him throughout this first half of season 2 suddenly makes him a desperate man. The ability to drag Fowler out of hiding flips a switch in his head and a vengeful, scattered, impulsive version of Neal actually picks up a gun to chase him down. A gun. I’ve discussed all season how guns equal bad guys. It’s what separates the intelligent, culturally-learned, appreciative parts of the cast from the morally-questionable villains and feds. Neal and Mozzie (and, to mostly the same extent, Alex) are the centers of reason and the moral center for the series. Sure, they may bend and break the “rules” every once in a while but it’s usually for a good cause or in pursuit of a common good. Federal agents are corruptible. Armed villains are dastardly. Neal to picking up the gun (of course, a classy-looking revolver) obviously underlines his dismissal of reason, something that Peter (in a shade of jacket that can only be described as Miami Vice on Tim Dekay) has to pull him from the brink of. I can rationalize why Neal is upset. But the emotion never lands because at once it’s tired and sudden. Tired because we’ve been hearing about Kate for so long. Sudden because we thought Neal was tired of it, too.

The music box itself got a little more interesting this episode, though. But the music box also demonstrates why it is more interesting than Kate in this episode: the music box doesn’t exist as merely a concept. It’s more than just in the ether. There is a puzzle that characters actually interact with. To sic Mozzie on the puzzle is ingenious for many reasons. Not only is it funny and matches his character completely, but it’s great set-up for the final scene where he’s attacked for knowing what he discovers. I know they wouldn’t let him die, despite him being shot in the chest, but I thought about it for a few seconds after watching him collapse on the park bench. I don’t think I could watch the show anymore. There would be no balance. It would have to become something else. My short-lived panic dissipated when I realized there’s no way they would let that happen. Right?

What they did accomplish successfully is to humanize one villain (Fowler) while creating a new one (the man who shot Mozzie, the “intermediary,” the nameless face Peter pulled from the security cameras). Fowler is the victim of violence with the death of his wife and being overtaken by the same overwhelming feeling Neal had when he put the gun to his head. So he’s cool now because he’s the path Neal could’ve taken but didn’t. They also accomplished to set Alex up for bigger parts in the future as she gave Neal her number that she promises to answer from now on.

What they didn’t accomplish: making me care about Kate. The only way they’re going to do that is to make Neal care about Kate. His sudden explosion of anger and desire for revenge in the last episode before a hiatus is not enough. If we’re supposed to feel like the concept of Kate really has that kind of hold on the usually collected Neal Caffrey, they’re going to have to make Neal suffer her loss.

As it stands, I think I wrote the word “Kate” in this post more times than her name was actually mentioned this season. Granted, my reviews from last season begged for her name to mentioned far less. But that was only because I wanted the whole thing to be swept under the rug. That’s not going to happen. So, if you’re going to continue this storyline, you have to sell it to me through Neal. Otherwise, it feels like his connection to her has waned dramatically and any desperate attempt to find out about her disappearance (until I see a body) lacks motivation. Instead of seeming like you really want Neal to find her, it seems like you just want to wear out the name Kate. And, sorry, Lost already did that for us, Freckles.

Also, can we talk about the out-of-place popular music during the episode? “How you like me now?” Was that Kool Moe Dee or the original James Brown? Either way it was weird. Did you guys understand why it was placed over that scene? I understand that it was leading up to the anticlimactic confrontation between Fowler and Neal but — why that song and was there some sort of significance that I missed? Let me know in the comments as well as any of your other thoughts about the summer finale.